The Trust is delighted to be supporting St Paul’s Opera in its production of Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring this summer.

St Paul’s Opera in South London has a mission to offer accessible opera to the local community together with valuable performance opportunities to aspiring professional singers.

Tickets can be booked here

Hans Keller and Milein Cosman were closely associated with Benjamin Britten from the 1940s until Britten’s death, producing a huge volume of writings on and drawings of his works. This image (left) shows Milein Cosman’s drawing of Joan Cross as Lady Billows in the original production of Albert Herring in 1947. Hans Keller’s 1947 guide to Albert Herring can be read here.

As part of its Hans Keller String Quartet Project, the Trust is delighted to announce a new partnership with ChamberStudio : the Hans Keller Forum.

Beginning in September 2022, this will provide extra support and coaching to college-age chamber ensembles through regular specialist residential courses in Cambridge.

Read more here.

Oxford University’s Trinity Term begins today, and the Castalian String Quartet will shortly be heading back to Oxford for the next visit of their Hans Keller String Quartet Residency.

During their previous visits they have worked with eleven student composers.  In their concert on 11 May at the Holywell Music Room they will be giving the premiere of Hive, by postgraduate student Marcello Palazzo, together with Requiem for Gaia, by Oxford alumna Anna Appleby.  Book tickets here.

The Adelphi Quartet (YCAT Hans Keller Artist) won Second Prize and an Esterházy Foundation Prize at the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition yesterday. Their performance of Beethoven’s Op.59/3 in the final round of the competition can be viewed online here (1:43:30).

On 21 June, they will make their debut at the Aldeburgh Festival, where they will give another performance of Busha El-Turk’s Saffron Dusk, commissioned for them by the Trust, together with the premiere of a new work by Busha El-Turk.  Book tickets here.

The Bundestag in Berlin, in the presence of its President, Frau Bärbel Bas, saw the opening today of an important exhibition of Milein Cosman’s portraits.

At the centre of this exhibition are Milein Cosman’s historic drawings of the members of the first postwar government of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949. These portraits have recently been acquired by the German Government Art Collection and this is their first public showing as a collection.

Read more here

It is with great sadness that the Trust has learned of the death last week of another of our Patrons, the composer and conductor Joseph Horovitz.

Joe first met Milein Cosman at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford during the war, and was a close friend of hers and Hans’s for many decades.

Read more here

The Adelphi Quartet (YCAT Hans Keller Artist) will be performing Busha El-Turk’s Saffron Dusk, commissioned for them by the Trust, at the Wigmore Hall on Tuesday 15 February.

Their recital also includes Haydn’s String Quartet in C, Op.20 No.2 and Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in A minor, Op.13.

Book tickets here.

Wednesday 2 February at 7:30 pm
Mathematical Institute

Mozart Quartet in D minor K.421
Fanny Mendelssohn Quartet in E flat major
Felix Mendelssohn Quartet in F minor, Op.80
Book tickets here

Wednesday 9 March at 7:30 pm
SJE Arts at St John the Evangelist Church

Mozart Quartet in F K.590
Elgar Quartet in E minor, Op.83
Sibelius Quartet in D minor Op.56 ‘Voces Intimae’
Book tickets here

Milein Cosman lived in Hampstead for over 70 years. In honour of the centenary of her birth, the Hampstead School of Art is showing a special exhibition of her work in a range of different media. The exhibition features drawings, prints, paintings and sculpture, together with some of her sketchbooks, materials and mementos, including the easel made for her by the American artist Robert Indiana.

The exhibition will continue until 21 February 2022. Further details here.

On Thursday 9 December, the Trust marked the close of Milein Cosman’s centenary year with a memorial concert at the Royal College of Music, in which Sini Simonen, David Waterman and Jean-Sélim Abdelmoula gave a wonderful performance of piano trios by Haydn and Brahms, together with the César Franck violin sonata.

The occasion also marked the arrival in the College’s newly refurbished Museum of the final instalment of Milein Cosman’s drawings of musicians – making this the largest institutional collection of her art anywhere in the world.

View the collection online here.

On 26 October the Castalian String Quartet will arrive in Oxford for the first of 15 stays as the university’s Hans Keller String Quartet in Residence. In their opening recital at the Holywell Music Room they will be playing:

Janácek – String Quartet No.1, ‘Kreutzer Sonata’
Ligeti – String Quartet No.1, ‘Métamorphoses nocturnes’
Schubert – String Quartet No.15 in G, D.887

Book tickets here.

Wednesday 27 October at 4 pm
Holywell Music Room, Oxford
Castalian String Quartet
Hans Keller’s Functional Analysis No.7
Haydn String Quartet in D minor Op.76 No.2

Further details here

Saturday 13 November 2021 at 7:45 pm
All Saints Centre, Lewes, BN7 1LE
Musicians of All Saints
Hans Keller’s Functional Analysis No.13
Bach Brandenburg Concerto No.3 in G

Further details here.

The Düsseldorf Stadtmuseum saw the opening today of a special exhibition celebrating the centenary both of Milein Cosman and her childhood friend and fellow artist Ilde Schrader.

Milein and Ilde went to school together in Düsseldorf from 1927 until the threat of persecution and war separated them in 1937. Milein came to England and Ilde to Italy, but they were reunited after the war and remained close friends throughout their lives.

The exhibition will continue until 29 November. Further details here.

After undergoing extensive redevelopment, the Royal College of Music Museum reopened today — with a new exhibition of Milein Cosman’s work on permanent display in the Lavery Gallery.

The Royal College of Music holds the largest collection of Milein Cosman’s drawings of musicians, containing over 1,300 individual works. The whole collection has been digitised and can be viewed online here.

Viola player Thomas Kettle has been awarded a second year as the RAM’s Hans Keller Scholar for 2021-22.

This year he will be taking the Academy’s Professional Diploma course in Historical Performance.

For more information about Thomas, see his new website here.

The Trust is delighted to announce its support for an exciting new partnership between the Castalian String Quartet and the Faculty of Music at the University of Oxford.

Read more here.

The Trust is deeply saddened to learn of the death last Saturday of composer Hugh Wood.

Hugh was a close friend of both Hans Keller and Milein Cosman and has been a Patron of the Trust since its foundation.

Read more here

The winner of the inaugural Milein Cosman Scholarship for Drawing at the Slade School of Fine Art is Hannah Uzor.

Hannah’s art focusses on portraiture and draws deeply on historical research and her love of storytelling, as she explores the complexities of the Black identity and experience: read more here.

The Trust is delighted to announce that from September 2021 it will be supporting the Chamber Fellowships at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, in memory in Hans Keller, who taught at the Guildhall in the 1980s.

The inaugural Hans Keller Chamber Fellows in 2021 will be the Consone Quartet and the Mithras Trio: read more here.

The string quartet was of particular importance to Hans Keller. In 2021 the Trust is embarking on a three-year project in support of string quartets, working with a variety of expert partners.

As part of this, the Trust is delighted to announce a new partnership with the Young Classical Artists Trust to support the Adelphi Quartet: read more here.