Classic Buskers

(Photo Credit: Eric Richmond)

"Technical virtuosity, combined with musical seriousness, humour and high entertainment are a perfect recipe – the audience were delighted.”
Ian Ritchie, City of London Festival Director

The Classic Buskers (formerly The Cambridge Buskers) have a knack of communicating their passion for classical music in two of the best ways possible – virtuosity and laughter. The audience comes away from a Buskers' concert on a high, having been both entertained and educated. That's the Classic Buskers' secret – an ability to communicate, which is after all what performance is all about.

Michael Copley plays more than 40 woodwind instruments at incredible speeds, ranging from recorders, flutes, panpipes, crumhorns and ocarinas to a Pico Pipe and a rubber trout, accompanied by Ian Moore on a small but perfectly formed accordion, either pink or yellow. Their virtuosity on these instruments is staggering. It's a great show for those who know a little about classical music (listen out for an endless stream of musical jokes) or indeed for anybody who simply appreciates wit and wants to be entertained.

Michael's command of an astonishing number of foreign languages enables him to present the show in the language of whichever country in which the Buskers are performing, an unusual and crucial part of the evening, which helps the audience appreciate the performance even more.

Their repertoire ranges from Baroque classics such as Vivaldi Four Seasons, to opera favourites such as Mozart's Don Giovanni and Catalani's La Wally, Romantic giants in the form of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and folk tunes from Romania.

The Classic Buskers have developed a fantastic repertoire of works to be performed with orchestra, in addition to their usual solo show. Recent orchestras they’ve worked with include the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, BBC Concert Orchestra, the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, La Verdi Milan and L'orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo.

The Classic Buskers have recently expanded their repertoire to include arrangements for bands, and recently combined forces with the Malmö Brass Band at the International Festival of Wind Music. They also performed with great success at the prestigious Dalhalla Festival in Sweden, for their closing fireworks concerts with the Norwegian Royal Air Force Band, who immediately invited the Buskers to perform with them in Norway.

The Buskers have performed in over 20 countries and in 15 languages, from London to Lyons, Paris to Potsdam, Toronto to Tokyo and Vienna to Valencia, and in venues ranging from Seoul's National Arts Centre to Salzburg's Mozarteum, London's Royal Albert Hall to Ljubljana's Cankarejev Dom and Milan's Teatro Manzoni to Malaysia's Petronas Towers.

The Classic Buskers are sponsored by Hohner instruments. www.hohner.eu