www.asmf.org

The London-based Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble was created in 1967 from the larger Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Orchestra (formed in 1958) to perform the larger chamber works—from quintets to octets—with players who customarily work together, instead of the usual configuration of string quartet with additional guests. With annual visits to the major musical centers of Europe, and frequent worldwide tours, the Chamber Ensemble tours as a string octet, string sextet and in other configurations.

Sir Neville Marriner says that the small ensemble he founded in 1958  ‘had no intention of giving any concerts or continuing forever’. Happily, whatever the initial intention, 50 years on the Academy is firmly established as one of the world’s leading chamber orchestras and, according to The Times journalist Richard Morrison, ‘As you travel round the globe, the Academy’s name has an aura possessed by no other British orchestra’.