The Fanfares were excellent, so congratulations go to the arranger, and your central performance was mesmerising.... read more ... >

The Fanfares were excellent, so congratulations go to the arranger, and your central performance was mesmerising....our clients at Jaguar Land Rover were also impressed with the performances and believe along with us that this was one of the best events so far in its nine years of sponsoring our annual event.

Arts and Business, West Midlands

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I can't think of a better way to spend an evening than listening to fine music. read more ... >

I can't think of a better way to spend an evening than listening to fine music. I was transported by the performance, it was absolutley magic.

Mayor Of Stratford Upon Avon, Cllr. Joyce Taylor

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We wanted to write and say a very big thank you for the wonderful contribution Masquerade made to our day. read more ... >

We wanted to write and say a very big thankyou for the wonderful contribution Masquerade made to our day. The music was beautiful and created a lovely atmosphere. So many of our guests remarked on how much they enjoyed listening to you throughout the afternoon.

Thankyou also for being so patient with all our requests and especially for arranging and playing "Local Hero" and "Nimrod". We thought they were both fantastic. The only downside of the beautiful weather was missing some of the music!!

We very much appreciated you travelling all the way to the Lake District and all the hard work that went into such a lovely performance. It certainly is something we will remember for a very long time.

with many many thanks,

Alison and Charles Sheppard

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Anyone who can come up with arrangements as stylish as these deserves to be taken very seriously indeed, read more ... >

Anyone who can come up with arrangements as stylish as these deserves to be taken very seriously indeed, and Mark Chivers, violist with Orchestra of the Swan, has created marvels here.

These jewels of easy listening, whether as background to a social event or as undemanding foreground, cover well-known numbers from stage and screen, as well as a couple of light classics. My particular favourite is the theme from "Moonraker", one of John Barry's many masterpieces for the movies.

Performances from the Masquerade String Quartet are given with infectious, obvious enjoyment, production by David le Page (like the Masquerade players, part of the OOTS complement) is clear and natural, and the insert-booklet is charmingly presented. Certainly a disc for all seasons.

Christopher Morley, Chief Music Critic, Birmingham Post (14th August 2008)

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With the Vienna New Year's Day concert still very much in the recent memory, read more ... >

With the Vienna New Year’s Day concert still very much in the recent memory, thanks to an inspired Barenboim, it was intriguing to watch Swan Unbuttoned going Viennese in front of a full house at the Town Hall.

Flushed with the success of the debut CD, "Everything’s Coming Up Roses", the four contributors to Swan Unbuttoned, plucked from the string section of the Swan Orchestra, took every opportunity to engage their audience – led in the main by Simon Chalk (violin) - in question and answer sessions involving questions about who was the originator of pizzicato playing (Monteverdi 1638, we are told) and which Johann Strauss II waltz begins with a strong march – answer The Emperor Waltz!!

The clever innovative arrangements by Mark Chivers (viola) enabled the quartet to do justice to The Blue Danube Waltz, Pizzicato Polka and the instantly recognisable and Vienna favourite, The Radetzky March, plus a couple of Franz Lehar compositions including The Merry Widow Waltz.

Chalk's confidence as raconteur increased as the evening progressed and during the second half of the programme, advertised as a 'tantalising taste of string arrangements from stage and screen', he paid tribute tothe enormous amount of work by colleagues and their enthusiasm for developing the quartet's widened repertoire.

Chivers has been very busy with his arrangements and has created clever interpretations of Bond film scores, Matt Munro standards and works by Karl Suessdorf (Moonlight in Vermont) and Henry Mancini (It had better be Tonight), originally composed for the 1963 film, The Pink Panther. This evening was an upbeat start to the year by four outstanding representatives of the very special Orchestra of the Swan As Nick Stringfellow (cello) described it…"we have a great passion for this orchestra and the work we do".

Clive Peacock (Music Critic, Leamington Courier)

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Mark Chivers' world premiere arrangement of Suite Espanola was excellently executed... read more ... >

Mark Chivers' world premiere arrangement of Suite Espanola was excellently executed.....what was obvious was that he captured the essence and nuances of each piece.

Sandy Holt (Stratford Herald 15th July 2010)

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Unusual to say the least, to hear a classical quartet playing standard songs from The Great American Songbook in the manner of a Mozart or Haydn chamber group. read more ... >

Unusual to say the least, to hear a classical quartet playing standard songs from The Great American Songbook in the manner of a Mozart or Haydn chamber group.

That though, is precisely what the Masquerade String Quartet did for an enjoyable hour at the Corn Exchange.

Fascinating too, to hear these hardy standards played in a manner that must surely have been intended by the original composers before the likes of Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald got their hands on them.

Those worthy singers put a strong and indeed agreeable personal slant on the material but it did no harm at all to hear the music as it was originally conceived. Fly Me To The Moon was here played in the original Waltz time, something only Matt Monro managed amongst the crooners.

Then there was Autumn Leaves, a sumptuous melody here given the slow, classical treatment. Leader Simon Chalk explained to me that they had taken the earliest possible recordings they could find and arranged them, making this a different recital to the usual music these four normally play together....

Although George Gershwin and Rodgers and Hammerstein have been famous for quality popular music for more than 50 years, it was a surprise to note how little was known about these composers by the audience judging by the lack of response to questions from Simon between selections. The music is all around us, on radio, television and films, so it is no well kept secret who wrote the songs.

Beautifully played by the quartet, Autumn In New York sounded like a Classical recital, with the violins and viola tackling the melody and the cello playing counterpoint.

Better still was September In The Rain and Autumn Leaves where cellist Nick Stringfellow pretended to be a double bass line underneath the melodies.

All good fun, very good music and a fresh new slant on some timeless material that we all know and most of us love.

Derek Ansell (Newbury Weekly News, November 25th 2010)

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