Celebrating visual arts created by classical musicians during lockdown

Anyone who has had half an eye on Instagram and Twitter during the past year will realise that many performers have been turning to other arts and crafts during the terrible fallow period. Quite a number of musicians have been drawing and painting, and this has inspired a new festival.

Roger Vignoles: Garden

The three-day Fermata Festival is the brainchild of violinist Yuri Kalnits and cellist Julia Morneweg, who run ChamberMusicBox, a collective of leading British and European artists promoting concerts in London and other parts of the UK. Fermata is a festival of classical music and visual art being presented from 25 to 27 June 2021, as part of the Kensington and Chelsea Arts Week. There will be four live concerts alongside an exhibition of artworks created by classical musicians during the period when concerts halls were silent. The exhibition is being created by gallery owner and arts consultant Alan Kluckow.

There will be a physical exhibition of around 100 works at St Cuthbert's Church in Earl's Court as well as an online Fermata Festival Gallery. All works are exhibited for sale and proceeds, after exhibition costs, go directly to the artists, with names such as Stephen Hough, Roger Vignoles, Moray Welsh, Elisaveta Blumina, Rivka Golani, Ilya Kondratiev and members of the Carducci and Albion Quartets. 

There are four concerts planned, ChamberMusicBox Artists play sextets by Strauss and Tchaikovsky (25 June), the Misha Mullov-Abbado Group performs jazz compositions by Misha (26 June), Raphael Wallfisch in Bach's Cello Suites nos. 1-3 (27 June), and a free community concert performed by several of the exhibition artists.

Full details from the festival website.