Miniatures: Nottingham Contemporary

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Friday, 16 July 2021

Miniatures: Nottingham Contemporary

Nottingham Contemporary

Performance Times: 1:00pm / 2:00pm / 3:00pm

Admission: FREE

The Nottingham Chamber Music Festival partners with Nottingham Contemporary in the city centre for a series of short “Miniatures” featuring solo and duo performances from Festival Director Carmen Flores on viola, and Guest Artist Lisa Nelsen on flute. Visitors to Nottingham Contemporary can watch these musicians in the gallery space. Concerts last approximately 30 minutes and visitors will be free to move throughout the gallery.  

Miniature I: Carmen Flores, solo viola, 2:00pm

Miniature II:    Lisa Nelsen, solo flute, 3:00pm

Miniature III:   Carmen Flores & Lisa Nelsen, 3:30pm

Due to Covid-19 guidelines, these concerts will not be seated and are limited to numbers of visitors allowed in the gallery at one time.

About the Artists 

Carmen Flores, viola, is a musician dedicated to creating new pathways for experiencing and performing classical music. Carmen has performed as soloist, Lead and Guest Principal Violas with orchestras and ensembles including the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, English National Opera, the Canadian Opera Company, Orchestra of the Swan, the English Chamber Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, Sinfonia VIVA, and the European Union Chamber Orchestra.

She is a founding member of the acclaimed Villiers Quartet (VQ), the Quartet-in-Residence at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building at Oxford University. Hailed as one of the most “adventurous” string quartets in the UK (Strad Magazine) and “Champions of British Music” (Guardian), the VQ has made several acclaimed recordings on the Naxos, Somm, and Lyrita record labels.

Carmen is a recipient of the prestigious US Fulbright Award, and she has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Asia, and Europe and she has been featured on several BBC Radio and Television broadcasts, including BBC Radio 3’s In Tune and The Andrew Marr Show. She has participated in Les Jardins Musicaux Festivals (Switzerland), Tanglewood (USA), Pacific Music Festival (Japan), and the Boyne Music Festival (Ireland).

She is Director of the Nottingham Chamber Music Festival (NCMF). She has also served as advisor on programming to Nottingham Trent University’s University Hall and has worked closely with venues and organisations to curate music programmes. She performs on a viola made in 2006 by British luthier William Castle.

Lisa Nelsen, flute, is internationally recognised for her versatility as a flute soloist, chamber and orchestral musician, educator and mentor in performance practices. She’s grateful for the initial support from Yamaha Music UK a year ago, which instigated a series of online features for their artists. These appearances were a precursor to the explosion of artistic ideas that flooded the internet! During this past year, she has also been part of the highly successful online presence of the British Flute Society as Chair. Keeping as much community inclusivity as possible, Lisa led live sessions in flute and performance classes, as well as host events...including the BFS Performers Competition...and “100 Days of Practice” TWICE.

Her performances to live audiences include those with Continuum Ensemble: the Swept Away series in 2015 at London’s King’s Place were wonderfully received, and she was dubbed “...a flautist and a half...” by The Times. Her flute and harp duo with Eleanor Turner, Aquilae, has performed to packed audiences across the UK.

She is a member of The Harborough Collective, a chamber ensemble led by internationally acclaimed violinist David Le Page, and is a founding member of Enigma14 with cellist Julian Metzger and pianist Paul Turner. Lisa gives concerts and masterclasses in venues across the UK, Canada, the United States, and Hong Kong.

In 2019, Lisa was asked to become Chair for the Council of the British Flute Society.  She is a Professor at the Junior Department of the Guildhall School of Music in London, teaching flute and coaching wind chamber groups and the orchestral winds and has been the Specialist Flute Tutor at Wells Cathedral School for more than 15 years.  Lisa is extremely proud to be an artist for Yamaha Classical Division International, playing on her 14k 900Series flute. She grew up on a pig farm in Western Canada, and fed on all kinds of music, from opera to rock to jazz. She makes many venues her stage, and thrives on sharing the energy that performances can generate. 

About Nottingham Contemporary

Nottingham Contemporary is an art gallery in the Lace Market and features exhibitions on contemporary art and culture. Built in 2009, the building features a 19th-century lace pattern by Richard Birkin embedded in the concrete facade, which was found in a time capsule on the building’s site. As of May 2021, the Contemporary re-opened to visitors after being closed during the Covid-19 pandemic.