Kosmos Ensemble open Horsham Music Circle season

Horsham Music Circle will be travelling the world when it welcomes the Kosmos Ensemble to launch its new concert series for its 83rd year.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers, lovely as

00:06ever to speak to Meg Hamilton. Now you are heading for your debut with the Horsham Music

00:11Circle this September, first time you've played in Horsham, first time you've played with the

00:14Music Circle with Cosmos. Now Cosmos has been going a while and tell me what you have in mind

00:21for Horsham, what's the programme that you're going to be offering for the Music Circle?

00:25Hi, so great to be here and yes, very excited to be playing in Horsham and opening the 83rd

00:32season for them. We're going to play all kinds of music from across Eastern Europe and from

00:37around the world and very exciting news is that we will be giving our English premiere of the

00:44new tango that's been written for us by an Argentinian composer called Ariel Piedotti,

00:52and he's such a lovely man and he's very excited that we're playing his music in England as well.

00:59Give me a flavour of that piece then, what makes it special?

01:02Well actually I always wish that there were some dancers to dance with us, so perhaps

01:06someone in Horsham will dance to our piece because I feel like it needs dancers, it's very much

01:12inspired by dancing, being a tango, and it's got a lovely flavour with some different moods

01:19throughout. Absolutely, and just a word on the pick-up of Cosmos, in the line-up you have?

01:26We have Harriet McKenzie on violin and I play the viola and Milos Milivojevic

01:34on classical accordion. And what makes that a good combination? Well it's unique to start with,

01:39I don't think I know another combination like that. We do sometimes collaborate with others

01:44but we especially love performing just as the three of us, and we can play classical music

01:50but also we branch out to music from around the world, Eastern Europe to Asia

01:54to Argentina, Latin America, it's just we do whatever we like and make all our own arrangements

02:01and make fun with it. And Eastern Europe has always been massively important for you,

02:06hasn't it, down the years? For me personally, yes, because I've always loved Jewish music and

02:13that's led me to play in the Shekoi Klezmer band and I play a lot of Balkan music with them now,

02:18from Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, Romania, ex-Yugoslavia, so I feel very lucky to have that

02:26as my inspiration and I often bring music from those areas to Cosmos, as does Milos because he's

02:32from Serbia, so we play a few Serbian pieces which we've arranged especially for Cosmos as well.

02:39Fantastic. And also I was born in Japan, so we occasionally play music from Japan and China

02:44across the other side of the world, Korea, these places. You clearly don't acknowledge boundaries,

02:48do you? No, yes, it's all about avoiding, well, crossing boundaries and including everybody.

02:56Fantastic, well it sounds lovely. Really nice to speak to you again, Meg, and I hope the debut at

03:01the Horsham Music Circle goes brilliantly. Thank you. Thanks very much, Phil, thank you.