CELLOS AT KETTLES YARD

Laura van der Heijden

Laura van der Heijden and Jams Coleman at Kettle’s Yard

 A Musical performance at Kettle’s Yard is always an intimate affair. Like visiting friends, we listen from the sitting room of Jim Ede’s home, some on sofas, some on chairs downstairs and others from the upper floor overlooking the balustrade. Art, music and conversation gently fuse in this house full of paintings, sculpture books, ceramics . The modernist extension a very special venue outstanding as the best of all the additions to Kettles Yard, since the original small core of the Edes’ original cottage

Jams Coleman

Laura van der Heijden and Jams Coleman played a ‘meltingly gorgeous ‘set. Laura is one of the finest cellists of her generation and is recipient of the 2025 Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist Award. She is a member of the Kaleidoscopic Chamber Collective (Wigmore Hall’s Associate Ensemble) . Jams read music at Girton and was a choral scholar there, he graduated with a Masters from the Royal Academy of Music and was awarded an ARAM in 2023. He performs at prestigious festivals as a soloist, chamber musician and vocal accompanist.

Their captivating repertoire was mainly French. It was niche and sublime. The names were unfamiliar Charlotte Sohy, Errollyn Wallen, and Mel Bonis, Lili Boulanger was the only well known name. These are the overlooked women composers Laura and Jams wish to recognize and celebrate. Laura is fascinating  she plays on a late seventeenth-century cello, her gentle smile and sways reveal her pure enjoyment, and Jams brings ease and aplomb to the work.

They finished with an encore of the Swann by Camille Saint-Saens which somehow made me want to cry  -or fall in love, it was so achingly moving; a most enjoyable and transportive evening of music and art.

By Eve Waldron