Some where for the weekend: chamber music at the the quiestest place under the sun - Clun Valley Music

Clun Valley Music was founded by viola player Luba Tunnicliffe and cellist Richard Tunnicliffe to bring high-quality performances of classical chamber music by artists of international standing to Clun and the surrounding villages in Shropshire. Clun, of course, being one of the places featured in A.E.Housman's A Shropshire Lad, where:

 'Clunton and Clunbury, 

Clungunford and Clun, 

Are the quietest places 

Under the sun', 

though it turns out that Housman had no topgraphical knowledge of the area when writing the poems! And, as if to further prove him wrong, this weekend features a pair of concerts at St George's Church, Clun SY7 8JH.

On Saturday 7 December 2019, the Aurora Percussion Duo (Delia Stevens and Le Yu), a pair of young percussionists who describe their mission as 'to create virtuosic, physical and visual experiences which stimulate emotion, inspire imagination and bridge cultural divides'. Then on Sunday, Luba Tunnicliffe's own group, The Pelleas Ensemble (which includes flautist Henry Roberts, and harpist Oliver Wass, whom readers may remember was the harpist in my recent opera The Gardeners) are joined by friends, the Aurora Percussion Duo and Elizabeth Lynch (soprano), for a concert which features songs by Purcell (including Bess of Bedlam) and Berio's Folk Songs, plus music by Debussy, Jolivet and Benjamin Graves.

If you can't make this weekend, then make a note of the 2020 dates when Beethoven is the focus of a pair of concerts.

Full details from the Clun Valley Music website.

Somewhere for the weekend: the 10th Lammermuir Festival

It was in 2010 that the Lammermuir Festival started bringing music to beautiful and sometimes surprising venues in rural and town settings in the area of Scotland between the Lammermuir Hills and the sea. This year the festival celebrates with the 10th festival from 13th to 22nd September 2019.


Quatuor Mosaïques is returning to the festival to perform in one of its best loved venues, Whitekirk’s mediaeval church, for three programmes centred around Beethoven’s Razumovsky Quartets. Dunedin Consort directed by John Butt has performed at every Lammermuir Festival and to celebrate, they perform Bach's complete Brandenburg Concertos and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, with the violinist, Cecilia Bernardini. Baritone Roderick Williams and pianist Christopher Glynn will be performing Schubert's great song cycles in Jeremy Sams' recent English translations, The Fair Maid of The Mill, Winter Journey and Swansongs. Vox Luminis is visiting the festival for the first time, bringing music by Palestrina, Victoria and Scarlatti.

Flautist Adam Smith will be performing a new piece by Brett Dean and music by Nielsen with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and joining guitarist Sean Shibe for music by Piazzolla and Debussy. Composer Stuart MacRae completes a trio of festival commissions with Prometheus Symphony, a dramatic work for voices and orchestra based on the Prometheus myth. It will be performed at Haddington’s mediaeval church, St Mary’s with soprano Jennifer France and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conductor Matthew Halls.

Scottish Opera is performing a double bill of two unusual 20th century operas, Mascagni’s Zanetto and Wolf-Ferrari’s Susanna’s Secret with mezzo-soprano Hanna Hipp, sopranos Sinead Campbell Wallace and Clare Presland, and baritone Richard Burkhard, directed by Rose Purdie and conducted by David Parry.

Full details from the Lammermuir Festival website.

Somewhere for the Weekend: Dartington Summer School & Festival

Dartington Summer School & Festival

This year's Dartington Summer School and Festival will be Joanna Macgregor's fifth and final year as artistic director. Open to the Summer School's course participants and the general public, the concerts range from opera, orchestral music and chamber music recitals to jazz, folk, gospel and more. This year Macgregor has included music and composers that she has found influential, including Moondog (paired with Bach's Art of Fugue), Beethoven's Choral Fantasy, Britten's Turn of the Screw and Saint Nicholas, John Cage's Musicircus and Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring as well as 85th birthday celebrations for Sir Harrison Birtwistle.

Visiting performers including conductors Stephen Barlow, Laurence Cummings and Graeme Jenkins, performance poet Caroline Bergvall, tenor Tom Randle, Alfred Brendel, Stile Antico, and Škampa Quartet. Emma Kirkby will be celebrating her 70th birthday in a concert given with counter-tenor Nicholas Clapton, lutenist David Miller and students from vocal and lute masterclasses.

Opera this year includes Handel's Agrippina with Robert Howarth as musical director, and Graeme Jenkins conducts Britten's The Turn of the Screw with tenor Tom Randle. Laurence Cummings directs Handel's Saul with Dartington Choir and Dartington Baroque Orchestra. Tom Randle and Joanna Macgregor will perform Janacek's The Diary of One who Disappeared with singers from the Advanced Opera Course. Students from the musical theatre course will be presenting scenes from Annie Get Your Gun and Calamity Jane.

Steuart Bedford will be conducting Britten's Saint Nicholas with Tom Randle alongside Adriano Adewale's Percussion Concerto conducted by Steve Drummer.

The Summer School and Festival runs from 27  July to 24 August 2019, full details from the Dartington web site.

Somewhere for the weekend: A rousing start to Cheltenham Music Festival's 75th birthday

Cheltenham Music Festival

The Cheltenham Music Festival is 75 this year, and so there are celebrations. Things get off to a rousing start with a new Fanfare for Three Trumpets, and then a weekend of free music (5-7 July 2019) in Imperial Gardens with everything from a carnival, soul and jazz bands, to up-and-coming singer songwriters, gospel and world music, not to mention circus performers, face painting, balloon modelling and lots of bubbles. The opening concert, on 5 July 2019 at Cheltenham Town Hall features Elim Chan (the Hong-Kong born chief conductor of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra) conducting the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), and will be broadcast live on Classic FM.

The festival's opening Fanfare for Three Trumpets will be chosen as a result of a competition. Composers of all ages are asked to submit a fanfare, with a closing date of 1 July 2019. The winner will receive a £250 prize, and the winning entry will be performed by three professional trumpeters on the festival's free stage at the opening celebrations on Friday 5 July 2019. Full details of the competition from the festival website.

The opening concert from Elim Chan and the LSO features the world premiere of Dani Howard's Gates of Spring, plus Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with Emmanuel Tjeknavorian and Rimsky Korsakov's Scheherazade .

This year's festival runs from 5 to 14 July 2019, and is the first under the artistic directorship of trumpeter Alison Balsom.

Full details from the Cheltenham Music Festival website.

Somewhere for the Weekend: Cremona Musica

Cremona Musica

This weekend, 28 to 30 September 2018, Cremona Musica takes place, an exhibition devoted to musical instruments in Cremona, Italy, a town renowned since the 17th century for its violin making (as well as being the place where Monteverdi was born). It is a must for anyone interested in hand-crafted instruments.

This year there are over 320 exhibitors and over 160 events at the exhibition, and it is not just violins there is a 'Piano Experience' and an 'Acoustic Guitar Village'. Performers will include Maxim Vengerov, Boris Berman, Louis Lortie and many others. The event takes place at the Cremona Exhibition Centre.

One of the interesting features this year is an exhibition and conference devoted to the acoustic-guitar making dynasty of Hauser. The concert guitar Hermann Hauser Sr. built for Andrés Segovia is now kept at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York and Segovia, in the 1950s, called it "the best guitar of our times". At Cremona, there will be an exhibition of historic Hauser guitars as well as a conference. There will also be a homage to Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, with a masterclass about the music of the Florentine composer, plus performances of Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Quintetto op. 143 and a selection of Caprichos de Goya op.195.

Full information from Cremona Musica

Somewhere for the weekend: Dresden Music Festival

Beethoven's Leonore  at the 2017 Dresden Music Festival celebrates the re-opening of the Dresden Kulturpalast
Ivor Bolton, Michael Kupfer-Radecky, Ann Kern, Dresden Festival Orchestra (photo Oliver Killig)

The 2019 Dresden Music Festival takes place from 16 May to 10 June 2019. Under the artistic direction of Jan Vogler the festival's theme is Visions and a particular area of celebration will be the centenary of the Bauhaus. 

The festival opens on 16 May 2019 at the Kulturpalast when Ivor Bolton conducts the Dresden Festival Orchestra in a programme in Weber, Schubert and Schumann including Schubert songs arranged for voice and orchestra with the Dresden-born bass René Pape. Another intriguing highlight is a new Cello Concerto written for Jan Vogler, which will he will be premiering with the WDR Symphony Orchestra under Cristian Măcelaru. Written not by one composer but by three, the concerto will unite the talents of Sven Helbig (Germany), Nico Muhly (USA) and Zhou Long (China). And in a different vein, the festival finale will be provided by legendary guitarist Eric Clapton.

Bauhaus celebrations include the Bavarian Junior Ballet from Munich and the Berlin Academy of the Arts in Gerhard Bohner’s new version of Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet at the Dresden Theatre. Originally premiered in Stuttgartin 1922 with music by Paul Hindemith, the geometrically inspired ballet helped to spread the ethos of the Bauhaus. The Russian pianist Nikolai Tokarev will perform Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition accompanied by a video installation which reminds the audience of Kandinsky’s production at the Friedrich Theatre in Dessau in 1928 which Mussorgsky’s work inspired.

Further highlights include appearances of the Staatskapelle Berlin with Daniel Barenboim, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia with Sir Antonio Pappano, the Vienna Philharmonic with Tugan Sokhiev, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with their new chief conductor Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla. Igor Stravinsky’s opera The Rake’s Progress will be performed as part of Equilibrium Artists, a mentoring initiative for young singers created by soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan.

The 2019 festival, the 42nd, will be presenting 56 events at 22 performance venues, many venues historic in their own right.

Full details from the festival website, and read the coverage of past festivals on this blog.

Somewhere for the weekend: Launching new season with a bang in Chicago

The Pritzter Music Pavilion, Chicago (Photo Music of the Baroque)

Whilst UK audiences got their most recent glimpse of conductor Jane Glover directing a performance of Gilbert & Sullivan's Trial by Jury at the BBC Proms [see my review], since 2002 Glover has also been music director of Music of the Baroque, a Chicago (USA) based orchestra and choir which specialises in the music of the 18th century.

The group is launching its 48th season with a bang, giving a free out-door concert in Chicago's Millennium Park on 12 September 2018, performing music by Vivaldi, Handel and Mozart. in the Frank Gehry-designed Pritzker Music Pavilion in the park.

The ensemble's main season opens on 15 & 16 September 2018 with performances of Mozart's Requiem and three of Handel's Coronation Anthems, with soloists Amanda Majeski, Daniela Mack, Jonas Hacker and Eric Owens.

Jane Glover on Baroque in the Park from Music of the Baroque on Vimeo.

Full details from the Music of the Baroque website.

Somewhere for the weekend: Music at magical Cuckmere

The Coastguard Cottages at Cuckmere Haven

The Lapwing Music Festival takes place in the stunning location of Cuckmere Haven. Running from 31 August to 2 September 2018, it provides a series of intimate concerts in the magical setting of the Coastguard Cottages at Cuckmere Haven, and all profits will go to Cuckmere Haven SOS which seeks to save the setting from coastal erosion.

Artists at this year's festival include the quanum player Maya Youssef, the hang drums player Manu Delago, mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre in recital with lutenist Thomas Dunford, and Dunford will also be giving a solo recital. There will be a screening of Manu Delago’s 30-minute film Parasol Peak, as well as a screening of Cuckmere: A Portrait by Cesca Eaton and Ed Hughes which premiered at the Brighton Festival this year, as well as a buffet lunch with guest speaker Juliet Nicholson.

Full details from the Lapwing Music Festival website.

Somewhere for the weekend: Suoni dal Golfo

Conductor Gianluca Marcianò's festival Suoni dal Golfo returns to Lerici in Ligura, Italy from 16 to 31 August 2018. Marcianò and co-artistic director Maxim Novikov are presenting a programme of music and poetry inspired by the sea and by the poets who were drawn to this emerald coastline.

Liszt's recently re-discovered Italianate opera Sardanapolo will receive its Italian premiere. Liszt worked on the opera intermittently until 1852 when he abandoned it. The libretto is based on Lord Byron's tragedy of 1821, and Liszt completed a substantial part of Act One, but having conducted Wagner's Lohengrin and Tannhauser he stopped work on it. Marcianò will conduct a cast including Anush Hovhannisyan, Sam Sakker and Vazgen Ghazaryan. The orchestra will be Orchestra Excellence, Marcianò and Novikov's new initiative for emerging musicians.

Performing at the festival for the first time is the Polyphony Quartet, which has evolved out of Polyphony Foundation, established by Nabeel Abboud-Ashkar. The mixed group of Arab students from Polyphony Education and Jewish students from the Jerusalem Music Center perform at Castello di Lerici on 22 and 23 August. Polyphony Foundation is an organisation that bridges the divide between Arab and Jewish communities in Israel by uniting young people to perform classical music.

There will also be a programme of talks on Music, Diplomacy and Peace.


Gianluca Marciano's appearances in the UK have included Verdi's Un ballo in maschera at Grange Park Opera [see my review], Verdi's Nabucco with the Chelsea Opera Group [see Anthony's review on this blog] and Verdi's Don Carlo at Grange Park Opera [see my review]

Set on the famous coastline of the Golfo dei Poeti, the seaside town of Lerici has been a magnet for poets and composers alike, from Shelley, Byron and DH Lawrence to Wagner. Further details of the festival from its website.

Somewhere for the weekend: Looking ahead to the Lammermuir Festival

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.

Somewhere for the weekend: Plaster casts, piano music and Puccini: Sandro Ivo Bartoli in Pisa

The pianist Sandro Ivo Bartoli's recent Bach disc was reviewed on this blog in February this year [see my review]. If you fancy a trip to Italy, there is the chance to hear Bartoli live in a variety of repertoire as he is in the middle of a three-concert series at the Gipsoteca di Arte Antica, Palazzo San Paolo all'Orto, Pizza, which is the University of Pisa's collection of plaster casts. 

The second concert of the series, on 6 April, Viaggio in Italia, features Respighi's Frescobaldi transcription Passacaglia, music by Clementi and Liszt, including Liszt's Due Leggende di San Francesco and Cantico di San Francesco. Then on 20 April there is Il pianista all'opera with transcriptions of Verdi by Liszt and Fumagalli, Donizetti by Leschetizky (for left hand only) and Tchaikovsky by Pabst, taking in Jerusalem, La Traviata, Lucia di Lammermoor and Eugene Onegin plus Puccini's complete works for piano.


Further details from Sandro Ivo Bartoli's website.

Somewhere for the weekend: Gothenburg Opera

Gothenburg Opera

Gothenburg Opera's plans for 2017/18 include some items which make a weekend in this attractive city a tempting prospect, and there is also a Ring cycle being introduced from 2018 to 2021. Gothenburg Opera has a modern venue, designed by Jan Izikowitz of Lund and Valentin, which opened in October 1994. It seats 1,300 and boasts a state of the art acoustic enhanced by special egg-tempera acoustic paint.

But 2017/18 kicks off with an unusual double bill, Brecht/Weill's Seven Deadly Sins and Puccini's Gianni Schicchi. Perhaps a strange mix, it will be interesting to see what director David Radok (one of the house directors) does with it. Radok's father was a singer whose repertoire included the title role in the Puccini opera, and who had an exchange of letters with Brecht!

Mezzo-soprano Katarina Karneus is going where a few mezzos have gone, and is taking up the title role in Bellini's Norma in a new production directed by Stephane Braunschweig which premiered at the Theatre de Champs Elysees in Paris. The production is conducted by Giancarlo Andretta. Rodula Gaitanou's new production of Ariadne auf Naxos is shared with Opera North, and is set in a 1950s Fellini-style film studio. Expect a combination of high-art, camp and slapstick.

In May 2018 the company is celebrating the great Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson in a gala which will include seven Swedish sopranos and one mezzo-soprano including Nina Stemme, Katarina Dalayman, Katarina Karnéus, Annlouice Lögdlund, Christina Nilsson, Annalena Persson, Elisabet Strid, Iréne Theorin, who will unite for the grand finale to sing together the Ride of the Valkyries.

Jonathan Dove's new piece for professional soloists, a professional actor, an adult community, youth and children choruses, The Monster in the Maze, receives its Scandinavian premiere in a new production which will be fully staged with 150 professionals and non-professionals on stage, directed by Mattias Ermedahl, conducted by Martin Nagashima Toft.

Further ahead, Stephen Langridge is directing Wagner's Ring Cycle for Gothenburg Opera, starting with Das Rheingold in 2018. Gothenburg Opera is a champion of ecological sustainability, and the whole cycle will be devised to be as ecologically sustainable as possible.

Full details from Gothenburg Opera website.

Somewhere for the weekend: the Ryedale Festival

Sledmere House, one of the venues at this year's Ryedale Festival

The centre-piece of this year's Ryedale Festival, which runs from 14 to 30 July 2017, is The Garden of Disguises, a staging of Mozart's La finta giardiniera in a new translation by John Warrack. Nina Brazier directs and Eamonn Dougan conducts with a cast including Alice Privett, Kieran Carrel, Clare Tunney, and Anna Harvey. But there are plenty of other delights on offer at the festival, artistic director Christopher Glynn, which takes place in and around Ryedale in North Yorkshire.

Disguises of another variety feature in the chamber music series, Truth's Disguise where the music of Dmitri Shostakovich is paired with the words of his great contemporary Anna Akhmatova, performed by the Carducci Quartet with reader Simon Callow. Another theme running through the festival is Schubert's last year, with a series of concerts exploring the music Schubert composed including Sir John Tomlinson and Christopher Glynn performing Schubert's Schwanengesang in Jeremy Sams new English translation (see my review of the performance at Wigmore Hall).

One feature of the festival is a pair of double concerts at Sledmere House where two programmes are performed twice in two venues (the house and the church) with the audience swapping over, and there is even a similar triple concert at Castle Howard!

The featured composer this year is Sally Beamish and there is the chance to hear her music in a variety of different contexts as well as hear her in conversation. There is also a celebration of Francis Jackson's 100th birthday. Jackson was organist at York Minster for over 30 years as well as developing an international reputation as composer and organist, and he will be present to join in the celebrations!

The festival opens with the Royal Northern Sinfonia in an all Richard Strauss coffee concert and a gala concert with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment performing four of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos and Sally Beamish's Spinal Chords; her piece for the Cultural Olympiad's 20x12 festival which sets text by Melanie Reid, author of the weekly 'Spinal Column' in The Times. Beamish's piece uses an actor to speak Reid's words and for this performance Beamish herself will be the speaker.

The festival closes with the Royal Northern Sinfonia being joined by violinist Bradley Creswick and viola player Lawrence Power for Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante and Sally Beamish's Viola Concerto No.3: Under the wong of the rock.

There is also a festival postlude in November when Sir Mark Elder conducts the Halle Orchestra, Halle Choir and Halle Youth Choir in Elgar's Dream of Gerontius at York Minster with David Butt Philip, Claudia Huckle and Iain Paterson.

Full details from the Ryedale Festival website.

Haydn in Haddington: pianist Roman Rabinovich at the Lammermuir Festival

Roman Rabinovich - photo ©Robin Mitchell

The young pianist Roman Rabinovich is at the Lammermuir Festival in East Lothian next week and will be spending his mornings playing Haydn piano sonatas, 25 sonatas in all over five days. But Rabinovich isn't just a pianist, and also on display will be his lively drawings where were done specifically to complement the performances. I met up with Roman earlier this week to find out more.

Selfie with Haydn
Roman Rabinovich

Roman will be spending the whole week at the festival starting with a recital with violinist Liza Ferschtman on Saturday 10 September 2016 in Prestonkirk Parish Church when they are performing Debussy, Beethoven's Violin Sonata Op. 96, Bartók's Third Rhapsody and Brahms' Third Violin Sonata. Roman is then devoting five coffee concerts in the Town House in Haddington (at 11am Monday to Friday, 12-15 September 2016) to Haydn's piano sonatas. The 25 sonatas amount to a substantial amount of music, the recitals will be around 80 minutes each. 

It is challenging to programme concerts devoted to a single composer's sonatas, and Roman has had to look for variety of form and key to provide the right contrasts. He has enjoyed exploring the music and has found great variety in it, and he has wanted to bring a sense of dramatic continuity to each individual programme. Roman admits that the sonatas are not meant to be performed as a unit, Haydn would have been surprised and Roman agrees that he might be mad to do it. But he points out that neither Beethoven nor Mozart intended their sonatas to be performed in that way, yet plenty of people do it.

He has found it a powerful experience to immerse himself in the music, to live it. And it seems extraordinary to him that even performers do not know all the sonatas well, but admits that neither did he until he started work on the programme. And he feels that this only goes to show how underrated Haydn's music still is, and Roman calls his music 'genius'.

Somewhere for the weekend: Usedom Music Festival

Usedom Music Festival ©Geert Maciejewski

Usedom is an island in the Baltic Sea; situated close to the Eastern-most border of Germany, since 1945 the island has been split between Germany and Poland. And since 1994 the island has hosted the Usedom Music Festival. This year the festival runs from 24 September to 14 October 2016.

The festival celebrates Baltic musical cultures, and each year presents a programme focussing on one particular Baltic country. This year the focus is on Sweden, with music from Berwald to Sandström, from Baroque to Contemporary. Over 40 events are planned with performers including Kristjan Jarvi and his Baltic Sea Philharmonic, the NDR Elbphilharmonic Orchestra & Thomas Hengelbrock, Ann Hallenberg, Gidon Kremer, Jan Lisiecki and many more.

The island has many historical links to Sweden, and the many links between Sweden, Germany and the region of Western Pomerania (where Usedom is situated), will be explored throughout the festival. The Swedish connection dates back to the 30 Years War, when in 1630, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden landed on the island, and it remained annexed to Sweden until 1720 when it was sold to the Prussian King Frederick William I. In 1740 Frederick the Great of Prussia developed a seaport in Swinemünde (now Świnoujście in Poland). The small village of Peenemünde came to prominence again during World War II, as the Luftwaffe tested missiles and rockets, including the V-1 and V-2 nearby.

The Peenemünde Concerts, at the former WWII military testing site, will host Baltic Sea Philharmonic and Kristjan Järvi with violinist Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica. Kremer will perform the violin concerto by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, the Polish composer of Jewish origin and the concert marks the the 25th anniversary of the signing of the German-Polish Neighbour-Treaty.

The concerts give the audience the opportunity to explore places like the seaside resort of Ahlbeck, including one of Europe's longest sandy beaches. And the island is known as the sunniest region in both Germany and Poland!

Full information from the Usedom Music Festival website.

Somewhere for the weekend: Rye Arts Festival

Rye

You never really need an excuse to visit Rye, but the Rye Arts Festival (17 September to 1 October 2016) just makes the prospect more tempting. Euphonia (which we saw recently in Gluck's Iphigenie en Tauride) are performing Britten's The Turn of the Screw and Donizetti's Don Pasquale. Rather aptly The Turn of the Screw is based on the story by Henry James, who lived in Rye. ( And this year is the centenary of Henry James' death. Plus Myfanwy Piper, who wrote the libretto, was married to John Piper, who also lived in Rye for a spell - see comments)

Other events include light opera, comedy and song from Perfect Fifth (Harriet Jones (soprano), Caroline Jones (Alto), Greg Tassell (tenor) and Rupert Reid (baritone)), accompanied by Belinda Jones (piano)) including songs by local composer George Newson, Kaleidescope Saxophone Quartet, plus recitals from Polish soprano Anna Szalucka, the Busch Trio (Anthony Marwood (violin) and Aleksandar Madžar (piano)), Adrian Chandler and La Serenissima, Tzu-Yin Huang (piano), and the Wihan Strng Quartet.

Choral events include evensong in St Mary's Church, Rye, sung by Chichester Cathedral Choir and Peter Philips conducting a choir made of performers from The Cantate Choir, Straight 8 and Tongswood Chamber Choir in large scale polyphonic music including Tallis's Spem in alium

Non-musical events include a tour of churches in Romney Marsh, a tour of cellars in Winchelsea and a walk through World War II Rye

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.

Somewhere for the weekend - Lewes Chamber Music Festival

Lewes Chamber Music Festival 2015 - photo Anna Patarinka

Directed by Beatrice Philips, the Lewes Chamber Music Festival is now in its fifth year and runs from 17 to 19 June 2016. A wide range of chamber music will take listeners from Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert through Faure and Ravel to Bartok, Berg and Schoenberg. 

But perhaps the main interest in the programme is the way more unusual works by Cécile Chaminade, Gabriel Pierné, Erno Dohnanyi, Henri Dutilleux and Huw Watkins are included. The music is performed by musicians from the festival artists, and this year there are 20 artists taking part over the three days including violinist Alina Ibragimova and pianist Bengt Forsberg

The opening concert has Haydn's Piano Trio Hob XV:18 in A major performed by Olga Jegunova, Tim Crawford, and Pierre Doumenge, Liszt's Three Sonnets of Petrarch performed by Ben Johnson and Alistair Beatson, Bartok's Out of Doors, Sz.81 performed by Bengt Forsberg, and Dohnanyi's Sextet in C major Op.37 performed by Bengt Forsberg, Venetia Jollands, James Boyd, Robin Michael, Matt Hunt, and Martin Owen.

The festival finale includes Ravel's Mother Goose Suite, Mozart's String Quintet in E flat major, K.614, Huw Watkins' String Trio, Bartok's Contrasts for Violin, Clarinet and Piano, Sz.111 and Faure's Piano Quintet No 2, Op.115.

Somewhere for the weekend - JAM on the Marsh

JAM on the Marsh is becoming an regular feature of summer on Romney Marsh. This year the festival runs from 7 to 17 July 2016. The Mousai Singers, the London Mozart Players and Daniel Cook will be giving the premiere of a Festival commission, The Shadows of War by Paul Mealor.

Other concerts include Onyx Brass, music and literature from the BBC Singers, Nicholas Cleobury and Dame Janet Suzman, the Sacconi Quartet in Mozart, Mendelssohn, Jonathan Dove and Graham Fitkin, the Magnard Ensembe in Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes and Marvellous Music, Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time and the Chapel Choir of Selwyn College in Howells, Brahms, RVW, and Finzi.

There is also a lively programme of art and photography exhibitions, along with tours of the churches and performances of poetry.  Concerts take place in New Romney, Hythe, Snargate, Lydd and Ivychurch.

Full details from the JAM website.

Somewhere for the weekend - Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival

Church of St Peter and St Paul, Peasmarsh

Peasmarsh in East Sussex is the venue for the Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival which takes place from 23 to 26 June 2016. The main festival venue is the historic Church of St Peter and St Paul which is a Norman building altered in the 13th century. The festival is run by artistic directors Anthony Marwood (violin) and Richard Lester (cello), and this year they are joined by violinist Carmit Zori, cellist Lilli Mijala, cellist Christoph Richter, the Castalian String Quartet, and pianists Alexander Melnikov, plus the London Mozart Players, conducted by Jaime Martin. 

Beethoven's works are a feature of the programme this year with his Violin Concerto, String Quartet No. 7 and Piano Trio in E Flat, Op.70 no.2. The festival opens with Schumann's Piano Quartet and concludes with Schumann's Piano Quintet, and along the way there is Shostakovich, Ravel, Faure, Mozart and mch more. Other delights include a concert of music inspired by the hunt including Jorg Widmann's Jagdquartett, and Alasdair Beatson & Alexander Melnikov will be giving a late night performance of the piano four-hands version of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.