If the name ‘Pavlova’ suggests puddings or ballet to you, the chances are you’re not alone. You might also wonder what they have to do with a wind quintet. Happily, it’s easily explained. “My house is in Anna Pavlova Close,” Simon Payne, founder of the Pavlova Wind Quintet, tells me. “The site where I live used to be a tannery, and it was called the Pavlova Works. No one seems to know why, but it’s either because the manager had a crush on Pavlova, or because she invested in it or had shares in it. We always used to rehearse at my house at the beginning, so that’s where it came from.

“The beauty of it is that it could also be a pudding, and on our logo, the musical notes have got fruits behind them.”

The quintet was launched almost exactly ten years ago with a sell-out concert at the Jacqueline de Pré Music Building and has been enjoying a similar level of success ever since. Its members are semi- or fully professional musicians, who play with a variety of local orchestras, opera companies and chamber groups, both professional and amateur. Three of its players – flautist Chris Britton, oboist Carolyn King and horn player Jenny Morgan – also teach, while clarinettist Barbara Stuart works in the music department at Oxford University Press, and Simon has recently become development manager for the Oxford Philomusica.

Variety has always been key to the quintet, and over the ten years they have covered just about everything, from formal concerts and fundraising events to weddings, college dinners and other private occasions. A large part of their activity has also involved concerts in Oxford’s twin towns of Bonn and Grenoble, and Abingdon’s twin town of Argentan. “At the beginning we had to organise all our own concerts, because no one knew we existed,” says Simon.

“But it didn’t take that long before people got to hear of us. We’ve done a lot of fund-raising concerts for local charities, particularly for See-Saw, the bereaved children’s charity.

“One of the highlights has been the Christmas concerts that we put on in the Unicorn Theatre in Abingdon. We’ve done those almost every year since the beginning. It’s a nice cosy theatre, and our core supporters always turn up, so that’s been really good.”

Fun is very much a part of the Pavlova’s agenda, and their anniversary concert next week, in aid of the Holywell Music Room appeal, has been designed to distil some of their most enjoyable moments into what Simon hopes will be an evening of celebration.

“We’ve tried to choose the pieces that we’ve enjoyed the most over the years. So we’re doing the Poulenc Sextuor, which is probably one of the best pieces for piano and wind, and that’s our centrepiece. Because it’s French we thought we’d put some other French music in, but also some Latin American.

‘We’re doing some Piazzolla – that’s obligatory, I think! – but we wanted to do another major piece to show off the quintet, and there’s another South American composer called D’Rivera who we just love, and his Aires Tropicales is a substantial, original piece for wind quintet, with lots of different styles in it.”

Another highlight will be Julio Medaglia’s Belle Epoque in South America suite, which has been one of the mainstays of the Pavlova’s repertoire for many years – after Simon went to considerable trouble to get hold of the score.

“My heroes are the Berlin Wind Quintet, and they put out a CD of summer music, very near the time we started, and among it were two pieces by Medaglia, a composer in São Paulo. It was wonderful music, and I wanted to get it. So I rang up the Berlin Wind Quintet, and they said ‘No, you can’t have it, it’s ours.’ Then I found a fax number for Julio, and faxed him in São Paulo. He said, ‘Love you to play it’, and faxed me the handwritten part, because none of them had been published. For many years we were playing off his handwritten part. It’s really enjoyable music, so that’s why we’ve included it, because it’s so good.”

The quintet will be joined for their concert by conductor and pianist Ian Brown, best known as pianist of the Nash Ensemble. “He’s such a wonderful musician, and so friendly and willing to come,” says Simon. “That was one of the things that made this concert start to come into shape for me as something special.

“I think it will have a very celebratory feel. We’ve done a lot over the years, and I think it’s quite an achievement to have kept it going. We do this to be inspired at the end of it. So you play as well as you possibly can, but the point is you enjoy it, and at the end of it you’ve got to be on a high. That’s what it’s all about.”

  • The Pavlova Quintet and Ian Brown perform at the Holywell Music Room on Friday, November 20, at 7.30pm. Box office: 01865 305305.