Memory Unwrapped: Piatti Quartet - Songs My Mother Taught Me

Experience a richly woven journey through folk-inspired music with Kings Place Resident String Quartet, the Piatti Quartet, as traditional melodies, inherited songs, and communal memories spring to life through the intimate sonority of strings.

William Alwyn’s Seven Irish Tunes opens the evening with vivid colour and lyrical charm, followed by Vaughan Williams’ much-loved Six Studies in English Folk Song. The Piatti’s then unveil a brand-new folk-infused commission from Philip Sheppard, written especially for the quartet and heard tonight for the first time.

The concert continues with Pablo Casals’ poignant Song of the Birds, its Catalan melody a universal cry for peace, and Charlotte Harding’s evocative Iorsa, inspired by the landscapes and folklore of Scotland. Dvořák’s tender Songs my mother taught me, in the Piatti Quartet’s own arrangement, brings personal nostalgia to the fore before the programme culminates in E.J. Moeran’s Quartet No. 2 in E flat—a masterwork steeped in English folk idioms and pastoral lyricism.

This concert celebrates the enduring power of folk music to connect, console, and inspire.

This event will last approximately 1 hour, with no interval.