A RENOWNED Powys festival will be celebrating its 40th anniversary this summer.

After two years of uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Presteigne Festival will mark its 40th birthday from August 25-30.

With an international reputation for the commissioning of important new work and the support of young generation performers and composers, the 2022 festival takes the 150th anniversary of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ birth as its central theme.

Continuing its promotion of the widest range of British contemporary music, the festival has commissioned no fewer than nine works to mark this very special anniversary year: Looking West, a major new concert-theatre work from composer-in-residence Julian Philips, together with an exciting corpus of orchestral, chamber, instrumental and choral pieces from Cheryl Frances-Hoad, David Matthews, Tarik O’Regan, Aileen Sweeney, Huw Watkins and 2022 Royal Philharmonic Society young composer, Rylan Gleave.

There are also important commissions from Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade and Sarah Frances Jenkins, exceptional younger-generation artists currently supported by the Presteigne Festival’s own ‘Evolve and Emerge’ composer mentoring schemes.

In addition to the festival’s new music strand, the music programme also features a wide variety of works by Bach, Beethoven, Elgar, Fauré, Hindemith, Ireland, Ravel, Schoenberg, Schubert, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Walton and a collection of important pieces by Vaughan Williams.

The artist roster includes many festival favourites and a number of newcomers – from the Carducci Quartet, members of Nova Music Opera, Leonore Piano Trio, oboist Nicholas Daniel, violinist Benjamin Nabarro, saxophonist Amy Dickson, baritone Julien Van Mellaerts, pianists Tim Horton and Huw Watkins, cellist Gemma Rosefield, harpist Olivia Jageurs, guitarist Emmanuel Sowicz, the Bath Camerata with conductor Benjamin Goodson and the ever-popular Festival Orchestra under the leadership of artistic director, George Vass.

The supporting programme includes cabaret from Jessica Walker and Joseph Atkins, poetry from Gillian Clarke, literature from Helen Attlee and Nicholas Murray, Stephen Johnson on Vaughan Williams, musical and local history from Michael Tavinor, a trio of films by American director Wes Anderson, exhibitions and the hugely popular Presteigne ‘Open Studios’ weekend.

The festival brochure has been published and is now available, with phone and online booking opening on Tuesday, May 24.

Visit presteignefestival.com or call 01544 267800 for more information.