English
Music Festival
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RELEASE
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25
March 2008
Britten
premieres and rare works by ‘the Cockney
Wagner’ at the English Music Festival
The BBC Concert
Orchestra, the Carducci Quartet, the
Dufay Collective, David Owen Norris,
Philippe Graffin and James Bowman
are among the artists at the second
English Music Festival (Oxfordshire,
23-27 May 2008)
Premiere
performances of no fewer than four
works by Benjamin Britten, and a rare
chance to hear music by Josef Holbrooke,
‘the Cockney Wagner’, are among the
highlights of this year’s English
Music Festival (EMF), which takes
place in Oxfordshire from Friday 23rd
to Tuesday 27th May.
Leading
musicians from Britain and around
the world will perform some of the
very finest English music, including
many unfairly neglected works from
centuries past, and a ‘Grand Finale’
concert of new commissions, in four
historic locations – Dorchester Abbey,
Dorchester-on-Thames; Keble College,
Oxford; Radley College; and All Saints
Church, Sutton Courtenay.
Opening
with Parry’s much-loved Jerusalem,
the first night of this year’s Festival
provides a rare opportunity to hear
‘hidden gems’ such as Holbrooke’s
Birds of Rhiannon, Rawsthorne’s
deeply nostalgic Practical Cats,
Mackenzie’s gorgeous Benedictus
and Bantock’s Celtic Symphony,
performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra
under the expert direction of Barry
Wordsworth.
Other
concerts in this year’s Festival see
the highly accomplished pianist Panagiotis
Trochopoulos make his EMF debut with
a series of premiere performances
of piano works by Holbrooke, ‘the
Cockney Wagner’, while the internationally
acclaimed violinist Philippe Graffin,
who made such an impact with his performance
of Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto
at the BBC Proms three years ago,
brings to the Festival a selection
of music by Delius, Elgar, Alwyn and
Coleridge Taylor. No fewer than four
Britten premieres are on the programme
for a concert by the world-renowned
counter-tenor James Bowman, who is
joined by the treble Andrew Swait
and pianist Andrew Plant.
Bliss’s
hugely evocative Pastoral and
Vaughan Williams’s Te Deum,
together with works by Holst and Bridge,
and an extremely rare performance
of Norman O’Neill’s unpublished Pastoral,
are brought to us by the Milton Keynes
City Orchestra and the City of London
Choir under their dynamic conductor
Hilary Davan Wetton. The Bridge Quartet
performs a selection of works by Frank
Bridge, as well as Delius’s charming
Late Swallows, the fascinating
Three Winter Poems by Alwyn,
and Britten’s arrangement of Purcell’s
Chacony.
Old favourites
such as Elgar’s Serenade and
less familiar pieces such as Vaughan
Williams’s Concerto Accademico
feature in a concert by Vox Musica,
together with works by Finzi, Howells
and Holst, while Vaughan Williams’s
Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis
– one of his most familiar and best
loved works – features in a concert
by the Amaretti Orchestra, which also
includes Ireland’s Downland Suite,
Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro,
and Finzi’s Clarinet Concerto, with
David Campbell as the soloist. The
award-winning Carducci Quartet performs
Vaughan Williams’s String Quartets,
together with Moeran’s beautiful String
Quartet in Eb. Organ music by the
much under-rated British composer
Dyson, together with his Agincourt
and Elgar’s Banner of St George
are performed by the Andover Choral
Society under the multi-talented David
Owen Norris, who also provides a lighter
touch to the Festival with a late-night
of piano works by Billy Mayerl.
Early
Music is well represented at this
year’s EMF, with the highly acclaimed
Dufay Collective taking us back in
time to the merry old England of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
and the much-praised Cannons Scholars,
under the direction of John Andrews,
performing eighteenth century works
such as Arne’s Symphony No.4 and Judgement
of Paris, and In Yonder
Grove by Linley, ‘the English
Mozart’.
The Grand
Finale of this year’s English Music
Festival is a concert of new compositions
– all specially commissioned by the
EMF – which will demonstrate how contemporary
music can be innovative and exciting
whilst keeping its roots firmly in
the English tradition. Composers featured
in this major concert include Matthew
Curtis, Philip Lane, Ronald Corp,
Cecilia McDowall, Paul Carr and David
Owen Norris.
Tickets
for the Festival are on sale from
April. Discounts are available for
group bookings. Check out the Festival
website, www.englishmusicfestival.org.uk,
for the full EMF programme, ticket
information and prices, and details
of the EMF Friends scheme (which offers
priority booking and individual discounts).
Press
contacts:
Andy
Smith, 07737 271676.
