THE 2009 Presteigne Festival of Music and the Arts take place in Radnorshire’s cultural capital over the August Bank Holiday weekend promoting more than 30 events including 15 concerts starting next Thursday, August 27, with the gala opening concert at St Andrew’s Church at 7.30pm.
The first of the festival’s world premiere commissioned pieces will be included in Thursday’s concert, a concerto for soprano saxophone and string orchestra written by Martin Butler, one of five of the UK’s brightest composers commissioned to write exciting new works for the festival.
The Concerto will be played by saxophonist Amy Dickson (right) with the Presteigne Festival Orchestra conducted by festival artistic director George Vass.
The concert will also feature violinists Alexandra Wood and Tom Hankey with other pieces by Tchaikovsky and Britten, the Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe, in his 80th birthday year, and John McCabe in his 70th birthday.
The festival goes on to September 1 with complementary activity to include talks, composers in conversation, exhibitions, poetry readings, a film, children’s shows and guided walks.
The main venue for concerts is St Andrew’s Church in Presteigne, with other performances given at village churches and halls in the surrounding villages.
Welsh musical polymath Huw Watkins is composer-in-residence and will also take part in three events as concerto soloist, chamber music player and recital partner. He is represented with a variety of orchestral, chamber and instrumental pieces.
Important musical anniversaries being marked also include the hugely important bicentenary of the death of Joseph Haydn.
A further musical strand is a series of chamber and orchestral masterworks by such composers such as JS Bach, Bartók, Beethoven, Brahms, Britten, Françaix, Janácek, Martinu, Mathias, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Ravel, Schumann, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky.
The artist roster for 2009 is impressive and includes a broad mix of well-established musicians with an international reputation, together with some wonderfully talented younger performers also including the Carducci Quartet (pictured below).
Despite recessionary pressures, advance ticket sales have exceeded all expectation, with several events already sold out. Full programme online at www.presteignefestival.com – or a free brochure is available by calling 01544 267800.