It’s just a week now until the first of my three concerts with the Orion Quartet at King’s Place. Quartet fans will know that the Orion are, indeed, stars.

Our concerts are part of the ‘Brahms Unwrapped’ series at King’s Place in London. They’re on May 31, June 1 and 2 – all at 7.30pm. In each concert there’s a string quartet by Brahms, plus one of his big pieces for strings and piano in the second half. On Thursday it’s A major piano quartet, on Friday the piano quintet, and on Saturday the C minor piano quartet with the wonderful cello melody in the slow movement.

When I was in King’s Place the other day, I asked the box office how ticket sales were going. The salesperson typed in the dates, looked at the seating plan and said, ‘Not bad’, in a muted tone. ‘How many tickets have you sold?’ I persisted. ‘About half of them’, she said, ‘but did you realise your concerts clash with Jubilee Weekend? It’s going to be hard to fill the hall, with so many people taking the weekend off, and so many street parties going on.’

So I’m mentioning our concerts here in the hope of alerting a few more people to them. The Orion Quartet doesn’t come to London that often, and it’s a real treat to hear them.