Music@Malling

Music@Malling returns to West Malling in Kent for the seventh festival when for ten days, from 21 to 30 September 2017, the town will be filled with music with over 24 events. Music@Malling was founded by artistic director Thomas Kemp (who is a violinist and a conductor). Kemp hails from West Malling and part of the festival's ethos is local engagement and a sense of local identity. This year there will be performances from Thomas Kemp's group Chamber Domaine including Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time  and Kodaly duos, with solo recitals from cellist Richard Harwood in Reger's Cello Suites, violinist Thomas Bowes in Bach's partitas and sonatas, guitarist Craig Ogden and flautist Sami Junnonen.

The festival is also celebrating Alexander Goehr's 85th birthday, and other contemporary composers featured include Sciarrino, and Paul Patterson. Another theme running through the festival is the music of Bach with a series of Bach Pilgrimage concerts combining Bach's music with that of others.

Outreach work will involve 1400 local primary school children in a project focusing on Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes as well as 480 children performing in Paul Patterson's Little Red Riding Hood with Chamber Domaine and narrator Matthew Sharp. In conjunction with Sound and Music, Go compose!, gives 10 young composers from Kent the opportunity to compose a piece of music that is performed and recorded in one day.

Thomas Kemp will also be opening the Oxford Lieder Festival with the Orchestra Age of Enlightenment (OAE) in October with Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier Suite on period instruments. Kemp and the OAE will be on tour to Asia and Vienna, and to Bristol, Darlington, and Brighton as part of Orchestras Live.