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English Music Festival returns to Oxfordshire
The Third English Music Festival, Friday
22nd to Monday 25th May 2009
The English Music Festival (www.englishmusicfestival.org.uk)
returns toOxfordshire this May with an exciting and wide-ranging
programme of all-British compositions from Early Music to Festival
Commissions, and a world premiere by no less a composer than
Delius.
Building on the successes of the first two Festivals,
held in and around Dorchester-on-Thames, EMF Founder-Director
Em Marshall is bringing the EMF back to Oxfordshire from Friday
22nd to Monday 25th May 2009 (Whitsun
Bank Holiday weekend).
A series of 14 concerts and recitals by world-class
artists will showcase Britain’s unique and diverse musical heritage,
in historic locations such as the mediaeval Dorchester Abbey
and the imposing Chapel and Silk Hall at Radley College.
The Festival opens on the evening of Friday 22nd
May with a major concert in Dorchester Abbey performed by the
highly-esteemed vocal ensemble Vox Musica and the Southbank
Sinfonia Strings, which will showcase overlooked gems by
composers such as Finzi, Vaughan Williams, Howells, Holst and
Dyson.
World premiere performance
The following evening, the BBC Concert Orchestra
conducted by David Lloyd-Jones will perform the EMF-commissioned
Festival Overture by Matthew Curtis. Following
on from this will be rare performances of Havergal Brian’s Reverie,
Elgar’s Sanguine Fan, Vaughan Williams’s Willow Wood
– featuring baritone Jeremy Huw Williams – and Frederick
Cliffe’s Violin Concerto with acclaimed soloist Philippe
Graffin. Some of these works have not seen performances
in a hundred years.
The programme concludes with the World Premiere
concert performance of Delius’s tone poem Hiawatha.
Informal late evening concerts are a favourite
with concert-goers, and this year proves no exception, with
the effervescent pianist and EMF regular David Owen Norris
repeating his programme of infectious and toe-tapping Billy
Mayerl.
By contrast, the exciting early music group,
Joglaresa, will give a concert entitled Harp of Bones;
a programme of mediaeval and traditional English song, “demonstrating
concerns of life, love, and death that remain disturbingly contemporary”,
and which will provide an atmospheric end to Sunday evening.
The Canons Scholars, who proved so popular
at last year’s Festival, will perform works by Boyce, Eccles
and Purcell (in the 350th anniversary year of his
birth). “Audience members expressed their enjoyment at last
year’s concert by the group, which turned out to be one of the
highlights of the event, so we are really looking forward to
their return”, adds Em Marshall.
The final day opens in Dorchester Abbey and features
international counter-tenor James Bowman, accompanied
by Andrew Plant, in a programme of rare songs ranging
from Purcell, Quilter and Britten to a song premier by the young
and promising composer Tom Rose, written especially for this
concert at the Festival. The programme will also include the
haunting Return to Stromness by Peter Maxwell Davis.
As well as pre-concert talks, the EMF is pleased
to be hosting a Seminar entitled “Is there a future for the
British Choral Tradition?” where a panel including Hilary
Davan Wetton, Brian Kay, James Bowman and Dr Andrew Plant
will be discussing their experiences and thoughts on this
topic.
The Festival concludes in style with the City
of London Choir conducted by Hilary Davan Wetton
performing Vaughan Williams’s Mass in G, and Sun,
Moon, Stars and Man, Foulds’s Keltic Lament, Holst’s
Hymns from the Rig Veda, and Britten’s Choral Dances
from ‘Gloriana’.
“Holst was captivated by ancient Indian philosophy
- he understood that this philosophical system had something
deep and true to offer mankind, and he wrote a number of works
that set Sanskrit texts, such as the Hymns from the Rig Veda.
Unhappy with the translations then available, Holst taught
himself the Sanskrit language to enable him to produce more
accurate translations of these great texts", comments
Em Marshall.
Other highlights of this year’s Festival will
include David Owen Norris playing Lambert’s dazzling
Piano Sonata, as well as music by Quilter, Moeran, and
Bax’s second piano sonata. The Bridge Quartet, on their
return visit to the EMF, will perform String Quartets
by Elgar and Rawsthorne and Bridge’s Piano Quintet, with
Michael Dussek on piano. Oxford Liedertafel,
will perform English part-songs in the atmospheric surroundings
of Radley College Chapel, and the Musicians of All Saints
will present a programme including popular works by Parry,
Bridge, Holst, Elgar and Ireland.
Festival provides ideal Whitsun break
Patrons may like to know that there is a designated
shuttle bus which transfers concert-goers to venues in plenty
of time for each concert, so there is no need to worry about
finding venues or even the need to bring the car! There are
many lovely places to stay and to eat in the area.
Tickets for the Festival go on sale this month. Full details
are on the EMF website, www.englishmusicfestival.org.uk
For further information, please contact: Em Marshall, Managing
& Artistic Director, The English Music Festival, 36 Forest
Road, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3BZ. Tel 0203 274 1054 or
07808 473 889.
Email em.marshall@btinternet.com. Website www.englishmusicfestival.org.uk
Press contacts: Karen-Lisa Fletcher 07973 175588 and Andy
Smith 07737 271676.
Photos of the previous two English Music Festivals are available
on request.
