Now in its sixth year, Joshua Ballance’s High Barnet Chamber Music Festival continues to offer some of the finest chamber musicians of their generation

Joshua Ballance at High Barnet Chamber Music Festival

High Barnet Chamber Music Festival has returned for its sixth season with a mix of the well-known and the not so well-known. Things kicked off last weekend with Song & Dance a free family concert for flute and harp from Hannah Gillingham & Lise Vandersmissen providing an introduction to chamber music for families.

Saturday 13 June sees the return of Mad Song, the ensemble founded by the festival’s artistic director Joshua Ballance, with Fire & Water. This features Tristan Murail’s La Barque mystique and Takemitsu’s Rain Tree Sketch II alongside Scriabin’s Vers la flamme and music by Anna Clyne, Oliver Knussen, Richard Causton and Ravel.

The following week features a concert by the Elmore Quartet, a young British group who were winners of the 2026 Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition and are currently Hans Keller Chamber Fellows at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Their concert includes quartets by Ravel and Shostakovich alongside Britten’s early Three Divertimentos, Rebecca Clarke’s Poem and music by contemporary composer Leo Geyer.

The Portrait Players (whom I saw earlier this year performing with Dame Emma Kirkby, see my review) feature music by Barbara Strozzi, Francesca Caccini, and their contemporaries along with music by contemporary composer Clare Elton.

The festival was founded during Covid to provide opportunities for some of the country’s most promising young musicians and it continues to offer some of the finest chamber musicians of their generation.

Full details from the festival website.