Somewhere for the Weekend - North Norfolk Music Festival

This year's North Norfolk Music Festival is the 12th festival. Running from 15 to 27 August 2016 at St Mary's Church, South Creake, artistic directors Barry Cheesman and Simon Rowland-Jones have put together their usual attractive mix of recitals and concerts with a strong line up of performers.

The festival opens with James Gorick and Floreat Sonus in music for the Feast of the Assumption including Byrd's Great Service and concludes with a sequence of events celebrating the 100th anniversary of Yehudi Menuhin's birth, including a recital from violinist Benjamin Baker, and a programme of chamber music from former pupils at the Yehudi Menuhin School including the premiere of Simon Rowland-Jones new Piano Quintet.

Three concerts feature tenor Joshua Ellicott; Ellicott and Simon Lepper's Your ever loving son Jack based around Ellicott's great uncle Jack who died at the Battle of the Somme, Joshua Ellicott joins the Carducci Quartet for Simon Rowland-Jones's Pianto antico, and finally Ellicott joins forces with guitarist James Boyd for songs by Lennox Berkeley, Reynaldo Hahn and more.

A pair of baritones give contrasting programmes, both accompanied by pianist Gary Matthewman. Gareth Brynmor John and Gary Matthewman perform a programme based around Housman's A Shropshire Lad with music by Butterworth, Somervell, Ireland and Gurney, whilst Andrei Bondarenko (baritone) and Gary Matthewman perform an all Russian programme with songs by Glinka, Borodin, Rubenstein, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky.

Pianist Tim Horton gives an all Beethoven recital, the Doric Quartet perform Haydn, Beethoven and Debussy, pianist Alexander Melnikov performs Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues, Op.87 alongside Schubert and Brahms. Then Melnikov joins the Doric Quartet for piano quintets by Brahms and Shostakovich. Melvyn Tan plays Beethoven, Czerny and Liszt, and the Gould Piano Trio play Mozart & Rachmaninov alongside Simon Rowland-Jones' Piano Trio No.2 ‘Eidfjord’ in the Marble Hall of Holkham Hall. Other artists include the Ferio Saxophone Quartet, Van Kuijk Quartet.

Ingibjörg Guðjónsdóttir (soprano), Einar Jóhannesson (clarinet) and Benjamin Frith (piano) give an all-Icelandic programme with music from the Middle-Ages to the present day. The Icelandic theme continues with Voces Thules, the Icelandic Medieval vocal and instrumental ensemble, performing Of Odin’s Mead Let Draught In England Now Be Quaff’d.

Full details from the North Norfolk Music Festival website.