ONE of the world’s most celebrated ensembles, the outstanding Britten Sinfonia, plays Theatre by the Lake on Wednesday, February 25 (7.30pm).

A Keswick Music Society concert - the tenth Keswick concert in the Orchestras Live Cumbria Series - it will be a treat for wind players, as their director will be the virtuoso oboist Nicholas Daniel, said to have ‘the nimblest fingers and the breath control of a Buddhist monk.’

As the name implies the pioneering Sinfonia does specialise in the music of Benjamin Britten, but the programmes are wonderfully varied.

In the first half of the Keswick concert the players will present some of the music written by William Walton for the film Henry V, and a finely balanced selection of works featuring the oboe by three other English composers, which include Vaughan Williams’ Oboe Concerto and Benjamin Britten’s six Metamorphosen for oboe.

The increasingly popular Estonian composer Arvo Pärt never managed to meet Britten but admired him deeply – his elegiac Cantus, which is the programme was written in Britten’s memory.

The concert will end with music that contrasts sharply with the triumphalist message of the first item: the final piece includes some of the most intense and moving of Russian music – an arrangement of Shostakovich’s 8th String Quartet, which expressed the composer’s deepest personal feelings and was officially dedicated "to the victims of fascism and war."

Britten Sinfonia is an associate ensemble at the Barbican in London, and has residencies across the east of England in Norwich, Brighton and Cambridge, where it is the university’s orchestra-in-association). The orchestra also performs a chamber music series at Wigmore Hall and appears regularly at major UK festivals including Aldeburgh and the BBC Proms. The orchestra’s growing international profile includes regular touring to Mexico, South America and Europe. In February 2012, Britten Sinfonia made its North American debut at Lincoln Centre, New York.

Founded in 1992, the orchestra is inspired by the ethos of Benjamin Britten through world class performances, illuminating and distinctive programmes where old meets new, and a deep commitment to bringing outstanding music to both the world’s finest concert halls and the local community.

Britten Sinfonia is a BBC Radio 3 broadcast partner and regularly records for Harmonia Mundi and Hyperion.

There will be a pre-concert talk by John Cooper Green at 6.45pm

Box office 017687-74411.

As a special offer, under-18s and students can attend the three remaining concerts in the Keswick Music Society’s season for free.