Hampstead Arts Festival

The third Hampstead Arts Festival starts on Monday 2 November and runs for over three weeks when Hampstead will be overrun with arts events ranging from classical to jazz, spoken word and film in some fine historic venues such as 18th century Burgh House, Hampstead Parish Church and St John's Church, Downshire Hill.

Musical events include Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake in Schumann's Heine settings, the UK recital debut of Sayaka Shoji, a Paris-based violinist who was the youngest winner of the Paganini Competition, and who will be playing the “Recamier” Stradivarius, and there will be two world premieres by British Composer Award winner Joseph Phibbs.

Chamber music is something of a feature with a wide ranging programme of chamber music by Malcolm Arnold, the London debut of the Armida String Quartet (a Berlin-based group who recently joined the BBC New Generation Artist scheme) who will be performing Schumann, Schubert and Jorg Widmann, plus performances from the Wihan Quartet and the Sacconi Quartet.

Film events include Buster Keaton's film The General with live music by pianist composer Matan Porat. Spoken work events include a discussion series curated by Piers Plowright. The festival concludes on Sunday 29 November, the day of the Hampstead Christmas street fair, with a performance of Handel’s Messiah conducted by James Sherlock in Hampstead Parish Church