What is Wit’s Folly?
The musicians of Wit’s Folly
Once upon a time, a group of musicians came together for what they thought was a one-off concert. They had so much fun, they couldn’t let it be the only one!
Wit’s Folly is a chamber music ensemble made up of two violins, viola, cello, and clarinet, all performing on historical instruments. All of us are specialists in historical performance, which means that we use equipment and techniques that are informed by research into what musicians of the past played and did.
Our aim is always to create engaging, energetic, and high-quality performances of relatively neglected music from the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
But at the heart of what we do is our desire to give modern listeners a unique musical experience that interprets the past, inspires the present, and imagines the future.
The kind of chamber music that we play was written to be heard in intimate settings, and the people who heard it first weren’t expecting to sit quietly and have a transcendent musical experience – they were there to have a good time. Hearing good music played well was important to them, but they also wanted to mingle, chat, flirt, eat and drink, and generally enjoy themselves. Wit’s Folly tries to encourage this kind of environment whenever we can.
And whether we’re providing a traditional concert format or something a little more off the beaten path, we connect with our listeners through informal pre-concert talks, post-concert conversation, and by performing in smaller and non-traditional venues as often as possible to help us create the kind of intimate experiences we know audiences are looking for.
Composers with very recognizable names like Mozart, Haydn, and Brahms all wrote pieces for our group of instruments that are still performed frequently, but hiding in their collective shadow is a huge amount of music we’ve never heard. Wit’s Folly is dedicated to bringing that music to life as a way to learn about the past while building a world of modern performance where we see more than the same handful of names on every concert program. We think that kind of variety makes life so much more interesting, and we hope you’ll agree!