Presteigne Festival: The Open Fund for Organisations
For:
Presteigne Festival | 23-28 August 2018
The programme for the 2018 Presteigne Festival has a Baltic flavor, with a range of works from Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian composers.
There are birthday celebrations for two composers with long-held Presteigne Festival connections – our President, Michael Berkeley (70) and David Matthews (75), whilst musical polymath Martin Butler joins us as composer-in-residence.
We continue to explore contemporary British music, with exciting commissions from a rich mix of both established artists and emerging talent – Cydonie Banting (a work for solo piano), David Bednall (an unaccompanied choral setting of a Marian text), Martin Butler (Concertante Dances, for piano and chamber orchestra), Gareth Moorcraft (a work for oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon and piano), Huw Watkins (Echo, a song-cycle for soprano and piano, commissioned jointly with Carnegie Hall, New York) and a solo cello work from Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize winner, Manos Charalabopoulos.
The Festival’s successful relationship with Nova Music Opera continues to flourish; the company perform Joseph Phibbs’ chamber opera Juliana at the Festival (a co-commission with the Cheltenham Music Festival), inspired by August Strindberg’s unsettling stage drama, Miss Julie.
The roster of performing artists includes the Navarra Quartet, soprano Ruby Hughes, Latvian violinist Kristīne Balanas, pianists Huw Watkins, Joseph Tong and Martin Butler, a specially-formed Festival Ensemble, oboists James Turnbull and Jenny Brittlebank, Polish cellist Joanna Gutowska, the Choir of Royal Holloway conducted by Rupert Gough and the ever-popular Festival Orchestra under artistic director George Vass.
The full programme will be announced in late April 2018.