A French Adventure

Sophia Bartlette and Emre Oztek are playing at St Mary's Church in Kemp Town on Saturday 21 November, with the concert running from 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm. It's a violin and piano programme, so it's just the two of them on stage, and the whole thing is built around French composers. If you've got a soft spot for that particular corner of the classical repertoire, this is exactly the kind of thing that works in a room like this.

Bartlette takes the violin and Oztek the piano, and the French theme is the one thing we know for sure about the set. The programme hasn't been fully confirmed yet, so we don't have a tracklist to lean on, but the French tradition gives them plenty to draw from — from the Impressionism of Debussy and Ravel to the more structured lines of Fauré or the early, romantic sweep of Saint-Saëns. It's a pairing that lets the violin lead and the piano hold the ground, and since it's just the two of them, the whole thing stays intimate rather than orchestral.

The venue is St Mary's Church, also known as St Mary's Kemp Town, at 61 St James' Street, BN2 1PR. It's an Anglican parish church in the heart of Kemp Town, and it's a registered charity (No. 1158922) that keeps its doors open for worship, regular community activities, creative venue hire and outreach projects. It's an inclusive, welcoming space that serves a diverse local community, and it's one of those venues that works just as well for a quiet afternoon as it does for a concert like this.

So, it's Bartlette and Oztek on violin and piano, a programme of French composers, and a Saturday evening in Kemp Town. The concert starts at 6:00 pm and wraps up by 7:30 pm, which is a nice, self-contained window if you're planning your night around it. St Mary's is at 61 St James' Street, BN2 1PR.