Summer Music Festivals

[doversoul1]

In the old R3 MBs, there was a thread about local music festivals. Now that the Proms have got going, I thought it might be a good time to talk about other music festivals too.

Here is my ‘local’ festival.
Stour Music Festival 17–26 June

http://www.stourmusic.org.uk/

The programme includes:
The Cardinall’s Musick
London Handel Players
The Tallis Scholars
La Serenissima
I Fagiolini, and a performance of Handel's Solomon (with Lynne Dawson and Michael Chance)

[LeMartinPecheur]

Here in E Cornwall, as well as the summer St Endellion Festival, we have the Dante Quartet's summer festival from 13 to 17 July, with Lars Vogt as main guest artist (13 July) in Schumann Marchenbilder with the 4tet's new violist Rachel Roberts, the Schumann Piano Trio No. 3 and the Dvorak Piano Quintet in A (with a couple of Dvorak waltzes for quartet as starters).

Plenty more Dvorak on other days (American 4tet and the 2-viola str quintet) plus Beethoven Op 131, Mozart K590, Barber Quartet op 11, Haydn op 74/3 and more.

Good job I like Dvorak, and tough on my musical best mate down here, who doesn't

There's also the London-bus phenomeneon as so often down here, in that the St Endellion Easter Festival did the Dvorak pf 5tet just the other night. Add this to previous local outbreaks of Mozart Clt 5tet, Britten 3rd quartet, Schubert D887, Tchaik Eugene Onegin, etc and you'll see life can be hell down here in the SW

[BBMmk2]

Ah, and what i find m,ost interesting nin Cornwall, especially in The Ship Inn, in Par, is that they have a band playing in the beer garden every weekend in the Summer to!! Great beer and the food is good to!!

[aeolium]

This is a festival fairly local to me, and some of the concerts will turn up on R3 later:

http://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/music

This is also a very enjoyable weekend festival at Highnam near Gloucester:

http://www.carducciquartet.co.uk/highnam_festival.html

And I always try to get to a couple of concerts at the Gower festival, with concerts taking place at churches around the Gower peninsula:

http://www.gowerfestival.org/gower_festival_2011prog.htm

(I'm afraid I can't get very excited about the Proms, but I do look forward to hearing the Edinburgh Festival broadcasts)

[Flosshilde]

Doversoul, the Stour festival does look awfully good - how accessible is it by public transport from London? I might be tempted to make one of my visits south coincide with it.

[doversoul1]

Flosshilde
That is my headache. I used to get a lift from a friend who was a friend of the festival but he has given up driving. From London, you can get to Ashford International from St. Pancras in 35 minutes but after that, it will have to be a taxi, probably 10 minutes plus.

[Flosshilde]

I thought that it would be the Ashford end that would be a problem!

[Old Grumpy]

My vote goes to the Brinkburn Music Festival ( http://www.brinkburnmusic.org/Brinkb...programme.html ) - unfortunately now reduced from 2 weekends to one (due to withdrawal of a substantial grant from a the charitable arm of a well known building society).

Brinkburn to me is the perfect setting for this kind of music - but, sorry, not easily reached by train from London!

[Don Petter]

I note that this year's Peasmarsh Festival, in East Sussex, will be the last, as the Florestan Trio is about to disband. A geat pity, but I am sure they have their reasons. (I don't have dates to hand, as I'm not at home until tomorrow.)

As far as I know,the Charleston Manor Festival, just to the South of us, is still going strong, under the wing of Robert Cohen.

[Donnie Essen]

I might check out some stuff at the Streatham Festival -

http://www.streathamfestival.com/listing/music/

[aeolium]

Would it be possible for a considerate host to set up a sub-forum for Summer Music Festivals (excluding the Proms of course which has its own forum)? It might well be of interest to those who are thinking of travelling in the UK (or Europe) and who would like to know about forthcoming festivals. There are so many good ones all over Europe (and beyond) and I would like to have a source of information and hear of people's experiences at festival concerts, reviews etc. As a mere thread like this one it can soon be forgotten about after a week or so, but as a sub-forum it could be added to regularly from time to time.

[Flosshilde]

I'd recommend the St Magnus festival on Orkney. I've been once, & thoroughly enjoyed it. It has some great venues, from the Italian Chapel (made out of Nissen Huts by Italian PoW to the magnificent St Magnus Cathedral, which is an absolute treasure - for the interior, think of a smaller version of Durham, in pink & cream stone.

There's plenty to do between the music, including super birdlife & prehistoric monuments galore. If you don't like Max's music don't worry - it has a wide range of music & composers, from orchestral to solo & chamber.

[Chris Newman]

We get Salisbury in three weeks time. Plenty of Dance this year: English National Ballet and Nederland Das Theater. Only one orchestral concert though; CBSO with Andris Nelsons....unwisely they have chosen rather a lot of fast and noisy music for the Cathedral which does not bode well ....Ravel's Bolero with obbligato side-drum echo, anyone? I have picked Monteverdi's Flying Circus at Salisbury Playhouse which got very good reviews when it first came out. Really looking forward to Die Schone Mullerin with Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis at Wilton Parish Church. Weather permitting I shall be joining local painters doing our own thing on canvases at the very spots where Constable painted the Cathedral. Also the Playhouse will be running Guys and Dolls in association with Theatre Clwyd.

[ostuni]

This thread evokes fond memories of 2 lovely venues, Boughton Aluph & Brinkburn Priory. Cheltenham is my local festival too; I'm not hugely tempted by anything on this year's programme, though. I much enjoyed the programmes devised during Martyn Brabbins's brief tenure as director there, and yesterday booked tickets to see his performance (one of 3) of Walküre in the Endellion festival (can't actually get to either of the ones in the church, so I'm going to the Truro one: not quite as atmospheric, but probably more practical for the band!).