Flutes & Frets: Beth Stone & Daniel Murphy, flute & lute

The Flutes & Frets Duo is a unique ensemble specialising in a wide scope of repertoire ranging from medieval all the way through to contemporary.

After first collaborating at the Royal College of Music, Beth Stone and Daniel Murphy founded the Flutes and Frets Duo in March 2021. They are an upcoming, unique ensemble passionate about showing the versatility of the flute and plucked instruments combination.

As current students enrolled in the historical performance department at the Royal College of Music, they are devoted to keeping primary sources at the core of their historically-informed approach to performance practice. They enjoy exploring a huge spectrum of repertoire including much underrepresented music and also arrangements of more well-known works. Another central part to their objective is expanding the repertoire for flutes and plucked instruments by arranging music that hasn’t yet been published for this combination and by commissioning new works.

Notable concerts include the London International Early Music Festival, Lichfield Young Artists Concert Series and performing at the National Gallery. They were awarded the first prize for the 2021 La Follia Nuova International Chamber Music Competition.

One of the main aims of the duo is to bring awareness to diverse audiences of the wide possibilities that this combination of instruments provides and also the variety of sounds that composers of every era would have intended their audiences to hear. Through this, they produce a completely different sound palette through combining historically-informed performance with modern conventional performance.