The Avison Ensemble

The Avison Ensemble is one of England's foremost exponents of classical music on period instruments. It is named after Charles Avison (1709–1770), the Newcastle-born composer, conductor and organist, ‘the most important English concerto composer of the 18th Century’.

Comprising some of Europe's leading musicians and soloists, the Avison Ensemble is directed by the celebrated period instrument violinist Pavlo Beznosiuk. The Ensemble varies in size depending on the repertoire being performed and is typically of chamber ensemble or concerto grosso size, expanding up to full symphony scale.

The Ensemble was formed in 1985 by Newcastle-born cellist and musical director Gordon Dixon after discovering a collection of 18th century music at the back of a cupboard which was found to be a number of concertos by the long-neglected Avison.

Avison wrote more than eighty concertos, which drew the great musicians of the day to perform in Newcastle. He worked with figures such as the astronomer William Herschel who was leader of Avison’s orchestra, the composer William Shield (his pupil from Whickham and to whom is owed the memory of Auld Lang Syne), the Newcastle glass enameller Ralph Beilby who was a bass player in Avison’s orchestra, and the English wood engraver Thomas Bewick, who as a young lad engraved the concert tickets.

Despite having written over eighty string concertos, Avison’s music had been rarely performed since his death, either on modern or period instruments. The Ensemble was formed with the aim of performing, recording and publicising Avison’s works and to bring to public attention the many other neglected British composers of the baroque period, such as John Garth, Thomas Arne, and William Boyce, as well as performing the traditional repertoire.

As the author of An Essay on Musical Expression (1752), Avison was a pioneer in the field of musical aesthetics, and the dominant force in the musical life of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the surrounding area.

Avison’s two Workbooks are important new sources for the interpretation and performance of his works and these have recently been acquired by the Avison Ensemble. In 2001, with the assistance of the Heritage Lottery Fund, the first Avison workbook was acquired at Sotheby’s, London. Incredibly, less than a year later, a second workbook was discovered and acquired.

Both manuscripts contain many unpublished works by the composer and several of his contemporaries. Avison's second workbook contains autograph concerto transcriptions of Domenico Scarlatti's sonatas, scribal manuscripts of Avison’s 12 Concerti Grossi Op.2, heavily revised and annotated in the composer’s hand, and transcriptions in full score of Francesco Geminiani's Concerti Grossi Op.7 as well as his unpublished arrangements of Geminiani’s Violin Sonatas Opp. 1 and 4.

Both workbooks have been fully restored by a team at Northumbria University and have been placed on loan to the Newcastle City Library, now named the Charles Avison Building, for safe-keeping and preservation. The workbooks are central to the Newcastle Local Collections and feature as part of the Library’s recent Turning the Pages project.