+ Chelsea Opera Group

‘Early in 1950, two young musical enthusiasts, David Cairns (now a leading music critic and biographer of Berlioz) and Stephen Gray (later to become general manager of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra), persuaded a twenty-two year old clarinettist called Colin Davis to put on a concert performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni in the Holywell Music Room, Oxford. Thus the Chelsea Opera Group was born, so called because both its co-founders were then living in Chelsea. Since its foundation COG has led the way in performing concert opera, reviving unjustifiably neglected works and lesser known versions of familiar favourites. Many of the works rediscovered by COG are now in the repertoires of professional opera houses.‘