The Newbury String Players was an English string orchestra founded in 1940 by the composer Gerald Finzi, to give concerts at a period, during the Second World War, when there was little live music.
[1] He conducted the orchestra from its founding, returning regularly for rehearsals or concert after he was called up.
[2] Finzi, selecting the music for concerts, included his own music, and neglected compositions of Ivor Gurney and of 18th-century composers William Boyce and Richard Mudge.
[1][2] A notable concert was a performance of Finzi's Dies Natalis with tenor Wilfred Brown.
This led him, during the war, to found the Newbury String Players..." who "have continued ever since to bring good music to the small villages of the neighbourhood which otherwise would have been without any such artistic experience.