16 May, 4 July & 5 September 2025
In 2024, violinist Peter Sheppard Skærved presented his first series of performances inspired by the extraordinary environment and art of Tremenheere. These concerts included the complete works for solo violin by Johann Sebastian Bach. In 2025, he plays 12 ‘Fantasies’ by Bach’s great friend Georg Philipp Telemann, each of them, a miniature world, a habitat, evoking everything from the countryside to conversation – view here.
This music of the early 18th century is counterpointed by music of our time: living composers respond to medieval Scandinavian art and architecture, to the art of the late Renaissance, and to the natural world.
Each event consists of two performances: the first is given in the James Turrell Skyspace which has its own unique atmosphere and acoustic. The second, after a break to take in some of the gardens and art, takes place at Tremenheere Gallery, which is a perfect space for an intimate salon performance.
The concerts are performed on historic instruments, ranging from one of Girolamo Amati’s last violins, made in 1629, to instruments from the late 1500s.
The series will take place across three dates (16 May, 4 July & 5 September). At each event: The first concert in the Skyspace will begin at 5pm, lasting approximately 45 minutes. The second concert at Tremenheere Gallery will begin at 6.30pm, lasting just over 1 hour. Tickets are £20 for each performance, or you may purchase one ticket for all three events for £50. Booking essential.
Programme & individual event booking
Fri 16 May
Concert 1 – Skyspace – 5pm
Georg Phillip Telemann – Fantasie 1 (1735)
Rolf Martinsson – Landscape (after Edvard Munch) (2010)
Concert 2 – Gallery – 6.30pm
Georg Phillip Telemann – Fantasies 2-4 (1735)
Helmlich Roman – Assagio (ca. 1730)
‘A Chapel’ new works inspired by medieval wall paintings in Sweden
Composed by: Dafina Zeqiri Nushi , Bent Sørensen, Sadie Harrison, Rolf Martinsson, Staffan Storm, Daniel Hjorth, David Riebe, Robert Saxton, Evis Sammoutis, Michael Alec Rose (2024)
A painted chapel, Krämarekapellet’ at Sankt Petrikyrka in Malmö, in Sweden, offers a stunning glimpse of the medieval imagination. Foliage- and flower-laden walls and vaults offer habitat to dozens of animals and birds, real and fantastic, and figures of myth and the Bible. Composers, from the Baltic, the Balkans, the USA, and the UK, worked together with Peter Sheppard Skærved in response to this world of fantasy. ‘A Chapel’, is a collection of miniatures – each one a composer’s creative response to this extraordinary place, and when performed together, an evocation of it. Peter premiered, and filmed the cycle in situ in the Autumn of 2024, before taking it in the USA and UK – view here.
Fri 4 July
Concert 1 – Skyspace – 5pm
Georg Phillip Telemann – Fantasie 9 (1735)
Diego Ortiz – Clasulas (1560)
Nigel Clarke – Loulan ‘Voices in the Sand’ (2002) Epitaph for Edith Cavell’ (2014)
Concert 2 – Gallery – 6.30pm
Georg Phillip Teleman – Fantasies
10 -12 (1735)
Heinrich Utrecht – Sonata (ca. 1620)
Nigel Clarke – ‘ A Flemish Brush’ miniatures inspired by the Northern Renaissance in the Netherlands and Flanders’ (2025)
Jim Aitchison – Apertures (2024)
Peter has worked with the composer Nigel Clarke since they were students at the Royal Academy of Music. This long collaboration has resulted in three violin concertos, which were written for Peter to play (and record for Naxos)with ensembles as diverse as the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra to the Band of the Royal Marines. Their work together has always involved exploration, evoking the places where they have travelled and worked together, from the Gobi Desert to Transyvlvania. This year, they have been invited to make a major project for the Fine Arts Museum in Brussels, and most particularly for the peerless collection of work by the Breughels that can be seen there (as celebrated in W H Auden’s famous poem, ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’). Nigel has written a cycle of musical tableaux, each one responding to a specific Breughel painting, each of them famous for their storytelling, characters, and evocation of nature. This is the first time that these pieces have been heard in the UK – view here.
Peter first collaborated with composer Jim Aitchison at Tate St Ives, over the other side of the Peninsular. Since then, they have worked on projects inspired by the work of Doris Salcedo, Mark Rothko, Antony Gormley, Albrecht Dürer, and most recently, Tremenheere itself and the Turrell works here. This resulted in the premiere of Aitchison’s Piano Quintet here in 2024. ‘Apertures’ takes the form of a Chaconne, the latest in Jim’s solo pieces responding to the Turrell Skyspace.
Fri 5 Sept
Concert 1 – Skyspace – 5pm
Georg Phillip Telemann – Fantasie 5 (1735)
Johann Paul von Westhoff – Imiatione delle Campane (1694)
David Matthews -Four Australian Birds, Monte Maggio
Concert 2 – Gallery – 6.30pm
Georg Phillip Telemann – Fantasies 6-8 (1735)
John Walsh/Richard Meares – Birds from ‘The Bird-Fancier’s Delight (1705/1717)
David Matthews – Arctic Suite, Fantasies, Chants, Song Thrush, The Tui’s Song, Blackbird Fugue David Matthews is one of the great British composers, acclaimed for his extraordinary orchestral and chamber works. Much of his output is directly inspired by his passion for the natural world, especially for bird life and for the sea. He has collaborated with Peter Sheppard Skærved for three decades – their work together his resulted in an extraordinary body of string quartets, the most recent of which Peter’s Kreutzer Quartet premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival, and which can be heard on, to date, six albums (on Toccata Classics), the most recent of which was ‘Editor’s Choice’ in Gramophone Magazine. Today’s concerts celebrate David’s works for solo violin and viola, most of which result from this work together. Peter has just finished recording his third disc of David’s solo works. There are exquisite collections of European and Australian birdsong, evocations of northern landscapes, Italian mountain ranges: all of it ideally suited for the Tremenheere – view here.