J. S. Bach’s Complete Sonatas for Viola Da Gamba (arr. Viola & Harpsichord)

Tickets £5 - £15, can be bought via the eventbrite website.

An equation of friendship. Having met at the Purcell School for Young Musicians, this concert is the culmination of years of exploring. Hugo Max joins Jack Gonzalez-Harding for a celebration of Johann Sebastian Bach’s love of the viola, considered through the lens of repertoire initially written for the viola’s relative, the viola de gamba.

This concert is the first in a series of Viola Conversations celebrating the distinct dramatic character of this instrument in the music of the past and present. Each ticket will be accompanied by a printed publication featuring writing and visual art by current and alumni Oxford University students.

Hugo Max is a filmmaker, painter and musician.

Premieres of Hugo’s films have been hosted by Modern Art Oxford, the Jacqueline du Pré Concert Hall and the Sheldonian Theatre and have been screened at film festivals in the United Kingdom, Germany and South Korea. He has collaborated on documentaries with the V&A, University of Vienna Archive and Korean Culture Centre UK.

Solo exhibitions of Hugo’s paintings have been held at London’s Phoenix Cinema and Oxford’s Dolphin Gallery. He has co-curated and displayed in group exhibitions at Fusion Arts, the Holywell Music Room and The Ruskin School of Art.

Hugo regularly accompanies silent films with live improvisation on viola and piano at Leicester Square’s Prince Charles Cinema and in collaboration with Picturehouse. He has been a visiting lecturer on silent film improvisation and Expressionist music, painting and film at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and has presented musical improvisation performances and workshops at the Ashmolean Museum, Little Theatre Bath and Magdalen College, Oxford where he was an Instrumental Music Scholar. He has performed with orchestras and chamber ensembles at the Barbican Centre, Royal Festival Hall, St. Martin-in-the-Fields and the Royal Albert Hall’s Elgar Room and was concertmaster of Oxford Baroque Players and Oxford University Philharmonic Orchestra. Hugo graduated from Magdalen College in 2023 with a degree in Fine Art.

Hugo is the author of two books, The Dissonance Book and The Stanley Series.

Praised for his ‘brilliant infectious enthusiasm’ (The Spectator), British conductor Jack Gonzalez-Harding is quickly becoming recognised as one of the most exciting and versatile artists of his generation. He is a Ryedale Festival 2024 Emerging Artist.

Increasingly in demand as an assistant conductor with some of the world's leading conductors and ensembles, Jack has worked with Sir Mark Elder, Hallé Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Jonathan Cohen, Arcangelo and Fondazione Haydn. His debut with the London Mozart Players lead to a swift return. Active also as a keyboardist, Jack has performed at the Wigmore Hall, Southbank Centre, Barbican’s Milton Court and St. John’s Smith Square, where he directed Bach’s B Minor Mass from the harpsichord, which he studied with Carole Cerasi, Pierre Hantaï and David Gordon.

He is a mentee of the the Head of Music at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and studies with John Carewe, who taught Sir Simon Rattle, whom Jack now regularly observes. As of September 2024, Jack will be a répétiteur of Guildhall Opera, having studied for an Artist Masters at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, aided by a full scholarship.