Friday 8 June 2018

Somewhere for the weekend: Looking ahead to the Lammermuir Festival

St Mary's Church, Haddington
St Mary's Church, Haddington
The Lammermuir Festival takes place in an around the Lammermuir Hills in East Lothian, just an hour from Edinburgh but the location for some stunningly beautiful venues and countryside. 

This year's festival is the 9th, and it runs from 14 to 23 September 2018, with concerts in and around Haddington, East Linton, Gladsmuir, Dirleton, North Berwick, Whitkirk, Musselburgh, Pencaitland, Port Seton and Dunbar, places that if you don't know them already you should think about visiting.

This year, composer and clarinettist Mark Simpson is artist in residence, performing with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and with the Red Note Ensemble in music by Nielsen, John Adams and Mozart, plus Mark's own music. Stuart MacRae, the festival's composer in association, has written a new work for the Hebrides Ensemble with tenor Joshua Ellicott and harpist Emily Hoile. The piece is the second of three that MacRae is writing for the festival, based on the Prometheus myth.

Scottish Opera will be visiting the festival for the first time, bringing a semi-staged production of Britten's church parable The Burning Fiery Furnace. There is also a specially commissioned community opera by composer Matthew Rooke involving over 150 people from the communities of Dunbar and East Lothian, performing alongside professional singers, and instrumentalists of Music Co-OPERAtive Scotland. Called An Cadal Trom (an old Gaelic song meaning A Deep Sleep), it is conducted by Sian Edwards and directed by Jack Furness.

Other visitors include soprano Anna Stephany with pianist Sholto Kynoch, the jazz pianist Jason Rebello joins the Prince Consort, the Danish String Quartet making a welcome return to the festival, the piano trio of Magnus Johnston, Guy Johnston and Tom Poster, and Stile Antico who will be bringing the festival to a close.

Full details from the festival website.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Popular Posts this month