How does a concert hall celebrate its birthday during lockdown? Turner Sims turns 46 this month. But this year also marks another birthday for the venue – next week is exactly 60 years since the first-ever recital of Southampton’s University Concert Society, which eventually led to the opening of Turner Sims in 1974. That concert featured a string quartet, and so to mark the occasion, we’ve invited the Piatti Quartet, prizewinners at the 2015 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, for an anniversary concert – one taking place behind closed doors, and which will be filmed and broadcast. The programme will feature music by Beethoven, Mark-Anthony Turnage and Dvořák.

Turner Sim’s history is intertwined with the history of music and passionate audiences across Southampton and the South of England. On July 12, 1960, an informal meeting hosted by Professor Peter Morice, Professor of Civil Engineering, took place at Southampton University which led to the formation of a Concert Society to present a series of subscription concerts on the campus. Professor Morice recalled that when he was appointed to the University in 1957 (before the establishment of a Music Department), he was disappointed to find that there was no live music on the campus, indeed, nothing to compare with the chamber concerts he had attended at Bristol University.

With the approval of the then Vice-Chancellor, Gwilym James, he discussed the idea of forming a Concert Society with several interested and enthusiastic people amongst whom was Richard Strange, an undergraduate in Botany and a keen amateur violinist. Strange suggested that his acquaintance with the Martin String Quartet might enable him to persuade them to initiate the concerts. He obviously succeeded, as the first subscription concert, held in a general purpose room at the University with challenging acoustics, and under difficult performing conditions, was given by this quartet on November 24, 1960. The programme comprised quartets by Beethoven (appropriately, given the occasion, his first official quartet, Op 18 No 1), Schubert, and Dvořák.

Turner Sims takes shape...

Seventeen years on, and the Society marked a century of concerts on November 1, 1977 with a performance in Turner Sims of Schubert's Die Winterreise by baritone Benjamin Luxon, partnered by David Willison: an occasion to celebrate the roll-call of some of the eminent artists and rising stars of the time who the Society had presented, including Alfred Deller, the Amadeus Quartet, Janet Baker, David Munrow and the Early Music Consort, and pianists Annie Fischer, Charles Rosen, and Tamás Vásáry.

The Centenary Concert programme, which also carried details of the University Concert Society's inaugural 1960 event 

Today, Turner Sims Southampton is not just a venue, but a live music producing organisation, provided by the University of Southampton and supported by Arts Council England. Playing a significant role in the creative scene in the South of England, some of its programme is devised and programmed exclusively by Turner Sims with the artists involved. With a strong commitment to music education, as one might expect given its roots at the University, Turner Sims has an ongoing partnership with the Cavatina Chamber Music Trust - thanks to whom 8-25-year-olds can experience selected classical music concerts, among them the upcoming Piatti broadcast, for free.

For more information, tickets, and to register for free Cavatina Scheme tickets, please visit turnersims.co.uk 

Kevin Appleby, Concert Hall Manager, Turner Sims

Gramophone is proud to be a media partner of Turner Sims.