Formed in 2012, BLOCK4 is a London based recorder quartet. BLOCK4 present a dynamic approach to contemporary consort music as well as offering a captivating interpretation of music from the Renaissance and Baroque periods.
The quartet's innovative style has resulted in them being
the 2014 winners of the Royal Overseas League
Ensemble competition - the first recorder consort to
receive this accolade in the competition’s 65 year history
- and has recently propelled them to success at the
Chesapeake Chamber Music Competition, where they
were awarded first prize in 2016. BLOCK4 are Live Music
Now artists as well as the current Ensemble in Residence
for Handel & Hendrix House Museum.
BLOCK4 regularly perform contemporary music and
encourage the creation of new repertoire for the recorder
quartet. In summer 2015 the quartet worked with a number
of composers as part of the London-based new music
series, 840. The project culminated in a concert including five
innovative new works written for BLOCK4, as well as the
UK premier of Christopher Fox's 'The Feeling of Remembering'.
Their enthusiasm for new music inspired them to purchase
a consort of Paetzold instruments which they use to explore
new sonorities and possibilities of the recorder quartet. BLOCK4
would like to thank Brian and Janice Capstick, and the Early
Music Shop for their generous support in the purchase of these
instruments. 2018 saw the group perform 3 new premieres
of new compositions for Recorder quartet across Lithuania,
the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
Alongside their love of contemporary repertoire, BLOCK4 take an inquisitive approach to Renaissance music, frequently performing little-known works and creating their own arrangements for recorder quartet. They use the full range of renaissance recorders, from soprano to contra-bass, in order to capture the vast number of timbral and dynamic possibilities in consort playing. They currently play on a consort made by Adriana Breuknik.
To date, BLOCK4’s performances have included concerts at prestigious venues including the National Gallery, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Wigmore Hall, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the Brighton Early Music Festival, and the Greenwich International Early Music Festival. International appearances have included the Styriarte festival in Graz in 2014 and 2016, and a short concert series in Chesapeake, USA.