Waldstein Trio’s Christos Fountos, Greta Papa and Miguel Ángel Villeda Cerón
UNDER its 2025 theme of Sonnet, North York Moors Chamber Music Festival takes quotations from poetry for each of its 14 events, with four of them – those that take place in churches – extracted from T S Eliot’s Four Quartets.
They also act as identifiers of each event, since the ensembles, all assembled from the pool of highly talented musicians holidaying on the moors, are otherwise anonymous.
One group, however, can be identified at once, since the honour of opening the festivities fell to the Waldstein Trio, winners of the Young Artists Focus award this year. Although the trio has already won a number of awards in its three years’ existence, its choice of Beethoven’s last piano trio, Op 97 in G (‘Archduke’) – a work that offers no hiding places – revealed some shortcomings.
All three are talented performers, but they are at different stages in the evolution of their musical personalities. The Mexican cellist Miguel Ángel Villeda Cerón is a fully rounded player, delivering nicely rounded tone that inspires confidence in his judgement. His colleagues are not yet quite at that level.
Pianist Daniel Lebhardt. Picture: Matthew Johnson
The Greek-Albanian violinist Greta Papa is another good player, but here she swapped her musicality for an almost permanent smile. Nothing wrong with a smile but here it seemed to mask nerves: at any rate, she lacked the conviction to balance her string colleague.
The Cypriot pianist Christos Fountos never really settled. Too many of his accents were hammered: accents need to steal up on the listener, not thump them between the eyeballs. His passage-work was also suspect, too many rapid runs not clearly articulated. He may well be a better soloist than collaborator.
There was little grandeur in Beethoven’s opening theme, but the scherzo was crisp with some neat touches of rubato. The andante promised to cast a spell several times, but it was interrupted by over-eager piano. The finale was much more even-tempered, with a pleasing accelerando into its coda.
Musicianship of a different order was on display after the interval. Benjamin Baker’s fluent violin allowed Schumann to speak to us directly through his Three Romances Op 94, never forcing the tone. The first emerged as a sinuous lament, the second evoked a beautifully songful line, and the third was sprightly. Daniel Lebhardt’s piano provided sympathetic support.
Violinist Charlotte Scott: “Luscious tone and rapt attention to detail”
Lebhardt also offered the first two extracts from Book 1 of Janacek’s On An Overgrown Path, ten evocations of childhood memories, which are being interwoven into festival programmes. They were gently intimate, with the odd surprise.
Brahms’s First Violin Sonata, Op 78 in G, brought the return of another festival favourite, Charlotte Scott, with Joseph Havlat as her pianist. They were exceptionally well-matched.
Havlat came to the fore whenever needed but never intruded on Scott’s luscious tone and rapt attention to detail. They clearly experienced the first movement’s surges of emotion together. Scott’s double-stopping accompaniment in the Adagio was as remarkable as her luscious melodic line. The duo’s exchanges in the closing rondo flowed smoothly and purposefully. This was playing of the highest calibre.
Review by Martin Dreyer
The festival continues with daily concerts until August 23. For full festival details and tickets, head to: www.northyorkmoorsfestival.com
Sonnets in Bloom script writer Natalie Roe, left, and director Josie Connor on a churchyard bench at Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, where York Shakespeare Project’s performances will be staged
SHAKESPEARE in poetic full bloom, arguably the best ever British farce and moorland classical music lead off Charles Hutchinson’s case for not going on holiday in August.
Poetic return of the week: York Shakespeare Project presents Sonnets In Bloom, Holy Trinity churchyard, Goodramgate, York, August 15 to 23, 6pm and 7.30pm, plus 4.30pm, August 16 and 23
REVEREND Planter is very excited that his church is hosting the regional leg of Summer in Bloom. You are warmly invited to enjoy a complimentary drink and to see the goings-on. Participants will be arriving with their prized entries, some more competitive than others, but where is the special guest? And who will win the People’s Vote?
Welcome back Sonnets In Bloom as YSP’s 50-minute summer show returns to Holy Trinity’s churchyard with a new director, Josie Connor, new scenario script writer, Natalie Roe, and nine new sonneteers among the dozen presenting a new collection of characters, each finding a way to share one of Shakespeare’s celebrated sonnets. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Age recommendation: 14 plus.
Lucy Hook Designs’ poster for York River Art Market’s tenth anniversary
Art event of the month: York River Art Market, Dame Judi Dench Walk, by Lendal Bridge, York, today and tomorrow, August 16 and 17, 10am to 5.30pm
YORK River Art Market returns for its tenth anniversary season by the Ouse riverside railings, where 30 artists and designers will be setting up stalls each day.
Organised by York artist and tutor Charlotte Dawson, the market offers the chance to buy directly from the makers of ceramics, jewellery, paintings, prints, photographs, clothing, candles, soaps, cards and more besides. Admission is free.
Mad Alice: History talk and Georgian gin tasting at Impossible York at 4pm tomorrow
York festival of the week: York Georgian Festival 2025, until August 11
ORGANISED by York Mansion House, in tandem with York businesses, the York Georgian Festival is a whirl of dashing dandy fashions, extravagant feasting and romantic country dancing in a celebration of a golden social scene hidden within the brickwork of York’s abundant 18th century architecture.
Among the highlights will be a Promenade through the city; Georgian ice-cream cooking demonstrations; Regency Rejigged dance performances; Georgian Execution Tour with Bloody Tours of York; Mad Alice and York Gin’s history talk and Georgian gin tasting at Impossible York bar; York Georgian Ball at Grand Assembly Rooms; Portraits in Jane Austen; A Byron Letter and A Georgian Kerfuffle at York Mansion House and An Intimate History: The Life and Loves of Anne Lister at Holy Trinity, Goodramgate. For the full programme and tickets, go to: mansionhouseyork.com/york-georgian-festival.
Seven Wonders: Paying tribute to Fleetwood Mac at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre
Tribute show of the week: Seven Wonders, The Spirit Of Fleetwood Mac, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tonight, 7.30pm
SEVEN Wonders, a seven-piece, 100 per cent live band, cover all eras of Fleetwood Mac, from the Peter Green blues years, through Rumours, to Tango In The Night. Be prepared to dance the night away to Go Your Own Way, Don’t Stop, The Chain, Rhiannon, Dreams, Little Lies, Oh Well, Edge Of Seventeen and many more. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Alex Phelps, left, Christopher Godwin, Olivia Woolhouse, Valerie Antwi, Susan Twist, Charlie Ryan and Andy Cryer in rehearsal for Michael Frayn’s Noises Off at the SJT, Scarborough. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Play of the week: Noises Off, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, today until September 6, 7.30pm plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
SJT artistic director Paul Robinson directs the first ever in-the-round production of Michael Frayn’s legendary 1982 farce with its play-within-a- play structure. “Good luck!” said the playwright on hearing the Scarborough theatre was taking on what has always been considered an impossible task.
Noises Off follows the on and off-stage antics of a touring theatre company stumbling its way through the fictional farce Nothing On. Across three acts, Frayn charts the shambolic final rehearsals, a disastrous matinee, seen entirely from backstage and the brilliantly catastrophic final performance. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
Jamie Walton: North York Moors Chamber Music Festival director and cellist. Picture: Matthew Johnson
Moorlandfestival of the week: North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, August 10 to 23
IN its 17th year, cellist Jamie Walton’s festival presents 14 concerts designed to mirror the 14-line structure of a sonnet, guiding audiences through a pagan year with its unfolding seasons, solstices and equinoxes.
The four elements – Fire, Air, Water and Earth – will be explored through the lens of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets and staged in four historic moorland churches: St Hilda’s, Danby; St Hedda’s, Egton Bridge; St Michael’s, Coxwold, and St Mary’s, Lastingham. Ten concerts will be held in an acoustically treated venue in the grounds of Welburn Manor, near Kirkbymoorside. For the full programme, go to northyorkmoorsfestival.com. Box office: 07722 038990 or email bookings@northyorkmoorsfestival.com.
Mark Radcliffe and Arlo: Dog tales at The Crescent
Shaggy dog stories of the week: Mark Radcliffe (& Arlo): In Conversation, The Crescent, August 11, 7.30pm
MARK Radcliffe, radio broadcaster, musician and writer, is one half of BBC Radio 1′s semi-legendary Mark and Lard and one half of BBC 6Music’s Radcliffe & Maconie. Now he introduces his new double-act partner, his beloved pampered Cavapoo, Arlo, as featured in the book Et Tu, Cavapoo?, published by Corsair on August 14.
In March 2024, Radcliffe and Arlo set off from Cheshire in their VW Beetle convertible for a three-month sojourn in Rome. Join them in conversation for an account of their time amid the sights (and sniffs) of the Italian capital in a show for lovers of travel and history, food and drink, art and architecture, and those seeking an insight into the eccentricities of the canine mind. This event combines a book signing, an interview with a special guest host and a chance to put questions to Mark (and Arlo). Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
Smashing Pumpkins: Heading to Scarborough on Aghori Tour
Coastal gig of the week: Smashing Pumpkins and White Lies, TK Maxx Presents Scarborough Open Air Theatre, August 13, gates 6pm
AMERICAN alternative rockers The Smashing Pumpkins play Scarborough on their Aghori Tour. Billy Corgan, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin’s multi-platinum-selling band will be supported on the Yorkshire coast by London post-punk revival band White Lies.
Since emerging from Chicago, Illinois, in 1988 with their iconoclastic sound, Smashing Pumpkins have sold more than 30 million albums. Box office: ticketmaster.co.uk.
Scarborough band Brightside: Making NCEM debut on August 14
From coast to York: Piano Goes Brightside, National Centre for Early Music, York, August 14, 7.30pm
SCARBOROUGH band Brightside are undergoing a name change to The Waisons but not before playing this Piano Goes Brightside gig in York. In the line-up are Josh Lappao, lead guitar and vocals, Vince Lappao, drums and keyboards, Mason Marshall, guitar and vocals, and Olly Kershaw, bass guitar.
Formed to compete in a Battle of the Bands school competition, where they were placed runners-up, their two years of gigging has taken in school events, a Nativity entertainment, Christmas parties and a wedding. “We mostly do covers, but plan on making originals soon,” they say. As for the piano, progressive Scarborough pianist Jamie Kershaw will play 45 minutes of Schubert, Debussy, Ludovicio Einaudi, jazz and more. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.
Lucy Hook Designs’ poster for York River Art Market’s tenth anniversary
AUGUST’S arrival heralds the return of riverside art, Georgian festival frolics and moorland classical music in Charles Hutchinson’s guide to a cornucopia of culture.
Art event of the month: York River Art Market, Dame Judi Dench Walk, by Lendal Bridge, York, August 9 and 10, August 16 and 17, 10am to 5.30pm
YORK River Art Market returns for its tenth anniversary season by the Ouse riverside railings, where 30 artists and designers will be setting up stalls each day.
Organised by York artist and tutor Charlotte Dawson, the market offers the chance to buy directly from the makers of ceramics, jewellery, paintings, prints, photographs, clothing, candles, soaps, cards and more besides. Admission is free.
Scott Bennett: Presenting Blood Sugar Baby at Pocklington Arts Centre
Storyteller of the week: Scott Bennett, Blood Sugar Baby, Pocklington Arts Centre, tonight, 8pm
ONE family, one condition, one hell of a hairy baby: Scott Bennett, from The News Quiz and the Parenting Hell podcast, relates how his daughter fell ill with a rare genetic condition, congenital hyperinsulinism (CHI).
Never heard of it? Neither have new parents Scott and Jemma as they fight to achieve the right diagnosis for their daughter and are plunged into months of bewildering treatment, sleepless nights, celebrity encounters and bizarre side effects, but a happy ending ensues. Box office: Pocklington, 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Ryosuke Kiyasu: Drumming prowess on The Arts Barge
Beat that: No Instrument and Arts Barge present Ryosuke Kiyasu, The Arts Barge, Foss Basin Moorings, York, tonight, 7.30pm
PIONEERING snare-drum soloist Ryosuke Kiyasu has redefined percussion since 2003, releasing more than 200 albums, both solo and with his band, drawing 23 million views for his 2018 Berlin live set and featuring on BBC News.
He drums for noise-grind duo Sete Star Sept, the Kiyasu Orchestra and Keiji Haino’s Fushitsusha and co-founded Canada’s cult hardcore unit The Endless Blockade. Box office: artsbarge.com/events.
Iago Banet: Finger-style Spanish guitar playing at The Basement
Guitarist of the week: Iago Banet, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, tonight, 7.30pm
VIRTUOSO finger-style Spanish guitarist Iago Banet, who moved to London from Galicia in 2014, combines gypsy jazz, blues, country, Dixieland, swing, pop, folk and Americana in his acoustic repertoire, as heard on his third album, 2023’s Tres.
He has performed on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune and Cerys Matthews’ The Blues Show on BBC Radio 2, appeared at Brecon Jazz, Hellys International Guitar Festival and Aberjazz and played with Josh Smith, Mark Flanagan, Jack Broadbent and Clive Carroll. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk.
Four actors, two plays, forty minutes each: 440 Theatre in Much Ado About Nothing and Macbeth at Joseph Rowntree Theatre
Shaking up Shakespeare: 440 Theatre in Much Ado About Nothing and Macbeth, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tomorrow, 7.30pm
FOUR actors perform 40-minute versions of Much Ado About Nothing and Macbeth, transforming the Scottish play from tragedy into comedy in this raucous, breakneck double bill. “Experience the hilarity of not only one of the Bard’s best comedies but also a side-splitting (literally!) Macbeth,” say director Dom Gee-Burch and producer-composer Laura Sillett. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Terry Deary presents Revolting at York Mansion House tomorrow at 5.30pm at York Georgian Festival
York festival of the week: York Georgian Festival 2025, August 7 to 11
ORGANISED by York Mansion House, in tandem with York businesses, the York Georgian Festival will be a whirl of dashing dandy fashions, extravagant feasting and romantic country dancing in a celebration of a golden social scene hidden within the brickwork of York’s abundant 18th century architecture.
Among the highlights will be Terry Deary Presents Revolting; the Life and Loves of Anne Lister; a Georgian dance lesson at the Guildhall; Men’s Hats; Mad Alice’s history talk and gin tasting; the York Georgian Ball; Sounds of Regency by Candlelight; The World of Georgian Fashion; Portraits in Jane Austen and a revival of York actor-playwright Joseph Peterson’s comic romp The Raree Show or The Fox Trap’t. For the full programme and tickets, go to: mansionhouseyork.com/york-georgian-festival.
Alex Phelps, left, Christopher Godwin, Olivia Woolhouse, Valerie Antwi, Susan Twist, Charlie Ryan and Andy Cryer in rehearsal for Michael Frayn’s Noises Off at the SJT, Scarborough. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Play of the week: Noises Off, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, August 9 to September 6, 7.30pm plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
SJT artistic director Paul Robinson directs the first ever in-the-round production of Michael Frayn’s legendary 1982 farce with its play-within-a- play structure. “Good luck!” said the playwright on hearing the Scarborough theatre was taking on what has always been considered an impossible task.
Noises Off follows the on and off-stage antics of a touring theatre company stumbling its way through the fictional farce Nothing On. Across three acts, Frayn charts the shambolic final rehearsals, a disastrous matinee seen entirely from backstage and the brilliantly catastrophic final performance. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
Jamie Walton: North York Moors Chamber Music Festival director and cellist. Picture: Matthew Johnson
Ryedale festival of the week: North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, August 10 to 23
IN its 17th year, cellist Jamie Walton’s festival presents 14 concerts designed to mirror the 14-line structure of a sonnet, guiding audiences through a pagan year with its unfolding seasons, solstices and equinoxes.
The four elements – Fire, Air, Water and Earth – will be explored through the lens of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets and staged in four historic moorland churches: St Hilda’s, Danby; St Hedda’s, Egton Bridge; St Michael’s, Coxwold, and St Mary’s, Lastingham. Ten concerts will be held in an acoustically treated venue in the grounds of Welburn Manor, near Kirkbymoorside. For the full programme, go to northyorkmoorsfestival.com. Box office: 07722 038990 or email bookings@northyorkmoorsfestival.com.
The Smashing Pumpkins: Heading to Scarborough on Aghori Tour next Wednesday
Coastal gig of the week: Smashing Pumpkins and White Lies, TK Maxx Presents Scarborough Open Air Theatre, August 13, gates 6pm
AMERICAN alternative rockers The Smashing Pumpkins play Scarborough on their Aghori Tour. Billy Corgan, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin’s multi-platinum-selling band will be supported on the Yorkshire coast by London post-punk revival band White Lies.
Since emerging from Chicago, Illinois, in 1988 with their iconoclastic sound, Smashing Pumpkins have sold more than 30 million albums worldwide and collected two Grammy Awards, seven MTV VMAs and an American Music Award. Box office: ticketmaster.co.uk.
Dusk through the tent: North York Moors Chamber Music Festival. Picture: Matthew Johnson
IN its 17th year, the North York Moors Chamber Music Festival returns next month with a programme designed to mirror the 14-line structure of a sonnet.
Fourteen concerts will take place from August 10 to August 23, guiding audiences through a pagan year with its unfolding seasons, solstices and equinoxes.
The four elements – Fire, Air, Water and Earth – will be explored through the lens of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets and staged in four historic moorland churches: St Hilda’s, Danby; St Hedda’s, Egton Bridge; St Michael’s, Coxwold, and St Mary’s, Lastingham.
Sonnet: The theme for the 2025 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival
The remaining ten concerts will be held in an acoustically treated venue in the grounds of Welburn Manor, near Kirkbymoorside.
Festival curator and internationally renowned cellist Jamie Walton says: “This year’s festival, Sonnet, celebrates the art of collaboration in awe-inspiring settings, taking audiences on a musical quest through interwoven themes within a central storyline.
“Each concert is titled after a celebrated poem alongside music that reflects the time of year, guiding us through the 12 months, with the Summer Solstice as our opening and closing landmark.
Cellist Jamie Walton: Curator of the North York Moors Chamber Music Festival
“The festival promises to be another exhilarating and thought-provoking experience, and we hope you will join us as we explore the pagan cycle of the year.”
Combining moorland churches with the Welburn Manor acoustically designed venue – an innovation introduced in 2020 to allow the festival to continue despite the pandemic – has proven to be a popular formula for the festival, attracting international artists, many of whom commit to the entire fortnight by taking up residencies.
This year, these will include violinists Alena Baeva, Benjamin Baker, Emma Parker, Oliver Heath, Charlotte Scott and Victoria Sayles; viola players Simone Gramaglia, Simone van der Giessen and Gary Pomeroy; cellists Rebecca Gilliver, Tim Posner and Jamie Walton; double bass player Will Duerden; pianists Katya Apekisheva, Joseph Havlat, Daniel Lebhardt, Anna Tibrook and Huw Watkins and harpsichordist David Gerrard.
Tenor James Gilchrist performing at the 2024 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival. Picture: Matthew Johnson
Taking part too will be tenor James Gilchrist; clarinettists Julian Bliss and Matthew Hunt; French horn player Ben Goldscheider; flautist Silvija Ščerbavičiūtė and harpist Celine Souat. Completing the line-up will be The Waldstein Trio.
Jamie Walton says: “Many of our artists return every year, embracing residencies and immersing themselves in the festival as a creative retreat. This camaraderie allows the freedom to rehearse in a relaxed setting, forming ensembles that bring fresh interpretations to the repertoire, inspired by the landscape, the people and the atmosphere.”
Tickets for individual concerts are £18; a season ticket for all 14 costs £190. As ever, under-30s gain free entry to any of the concerts. To book, email bookings@northyorkmoorsfestival.com, call 07722 038990 or visit northyorkmoorsfestival.com.
For the full festival programme, head to northyorkmoorsfestival.com.
Violinist Alena Baeva playing at the 2024 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival. Picture: Matthew Johnson
TWO-PIANO recitals are rare enough in themselves, but this one was doubly welcome, not least because one of this pair is a frequent visitor to this neck of the woods.
Katya Apekisheva makes regular solo and chamber appearances at the North York Moors Chamber Music Festival – well worth checking out if you don’t know it – where Charles Owen has also looked in occasionally.
They revealed tireless enthusiasm in this full programme for the British Music Society of York, aligning Mozart and Brahms with three pieces from the last 80-odd years, none of them unduly challenging to the listener but requiring serious virtuosity from the duo.
Mozart wrote his only sonata for two keyboards, K.448 in D, in 1781 to play with a student. Some student! Its demands held no fear for our duo, who launched into it with brio, crisp and bright at the top, if a little light in the bass.
Its slow movement was given a lovely line, with a seductive rallentando back into the main melody on its return. The closing rondo bubbled over with wit.
This enthusiasm continued into Jonathan Dove’s memorial piece Between Friends for Graeme Mitchison, a polymathic scientist who was also a first-class pianist. It was commissioned in 2019 by this duo, whose recording will appear on the Hyperion label on March.
A gently moving intro boils up into the second of four “conversations”, staccato, nervy and energetic, doubtless reflective of Mitchison’s restless mind. The duo dealt with its rapid cross-rhythms spectacularly well.
The elegiac third conversation grew ever more intense, generating the sense of a funeral march. Jack-in-the-box snippets opened and closed the final chat, enclosing brief whirlwind passages and a multitude of offbeat accents, all over a thrumming underlay. It was undeniably exciting, brilliantly played, making one wish to have known Mitchison himself.
Nothing after the interval quite matched this for exuberance. It was good to hear Brahms’s own two-piano version of his Variations on a theme by Haydn, so often heard in its orchestral guise, although they are not exact copies of one another.
The duo managed to maintain their clarity despite challenging tempos, which allowed the composer’s facility for complex counterpoint to shine, notably in the fourth variation. The finale’s ground bass built into immensely satisfying grandeur as the ‘St Antoni’ chorale theme returned.
Depending on your view of minimalism, John Adams’s portrait of a truck stop on the Nevada/California border, Hallelujah Junction, is either wonderfully teasing or irritatingly repetitive – or somewhere in between.
While I could admire the duo’s unflagging concentration through its dense thickets of vicious accents, I found its relentless ‘surprises’ ultimately unsurprising. But the duo brought the jazz-inspired rhythms of its finale to renewed life.
Lutosławski’s Paganini Variations, built on the same theme as Brahms and Rachmaninov had done before him, proved as capricious as the original and just as busy. Like so much of the rest of the evening, there was plenty to dazzle but precious little to dream upon.
IN evocation of La Belle Époque – roughly 1871 to 1914 – the festival focus turned to French composers. A Fauré song cycle followed Debussy’s late violin sonata, with a second half devoted to Chausson: an extended song and what amounts to a double concerto.
Debussy’s Violin Sonata in G minor dates from 1917, the year before he died, so falls technically outside the belle époque. Nevertheless, its nostalgia harks back to an earlier age, more in regret for the ravages of war than self-pity at his terminal illness.
In a piece where you never quite know where the composer is going next, Charlotte Scott’s violin and Katya Apekisheva’s piano were alive to the many moods of the opening Allegro vivo.
There was dizzying staccato and pizzicato in the dry intermezzo, carrying more than a hint of its origins in fantasy. Apekisheva contrived to be both intimate and expansive at the start of the finale, with Scott scouring the lower regions of her instrument before soaring majestically into the concluding Presto. They remained in close harness, however, and revelled in the fireworks at the finish.
Violinist Charlotte Scott. Picture: Matthew Johnson
It is good that this festival remembers that the voice, too, is an instrument and includes vocal music especially when accompanied by more than ‘just’ a piano. Fauré was not the only composer to sense that extra instruments often suited the voice, and he expanded his 1892 song-cycle La Bonne Chanson by adding a string quintet (including double bass) six years later.
Conditions were particularly gusty for this recital. Even though mezzo-soprano Anna Huntley battled bravely, her words were not always easy to discern against the flapping of the tent. It became necessary to treat her voice as just another instrument in a septet – at which point the music became thoroughly satisfying.
Behind Verlaine’s nine poems lie strong undercurrents of romantic love, which suited Fauré’s affaire with Emma Bardac (who was to become Debussy’s wife). Huntley did her very best to explore the many facets of emotional entanglement, from early stirrings to full-blown ecstasy, reserving glorious full tone, for example, for ‘Ô Bien Aimée’ (O My Beloved) but toning it down for a confident C’est l’heure Exquise’ (Exquisite Hour).
The strings masterfully reflected the ebb and flow of excitement, not least in tremolo associated with a whirring flock of quails. Daniel Lebhardt’s piano carried the burden of the argument with subtlety and the instrumental postlude spoke of ultimate contentment, whatever the season.
Mezzo-soprano Anna Huntley: “Battled bravely with the gusty conditions”. Picture: Kaupo Kikkas
The wind had abated during the interval, when Huntley returned with Chausson’s Chanson Perpétuelle, this time with piano quintet in support. She brought fuller tone to Charles Cros’s picture of a woman abandoned in love and with it greater intensity, helped by individual instruments acting as her alter ego. Apekisheva’s agitated piano completed a well-rounded portrait.
Chausson’s Concert, Op 21 is a concertante piece for violin and piano (to all intents a concerto, here with Alena Baeva and Vadym Kholodenko respectively), with accompaniment from a string quartet rather than a full orchestra.
A bold duo-cadenza was the highlight of the portentous opening movement, followed by a pensive Sicilienne that threatened to wind up into a full-blown allegro but never quite managed it.
After a darkly elegiac Grave, which came to an anguished climax, all six players were asked to stretch themselves to the limit in the finale’s variation form. Marked ‘trés animé’, its thrills were much enhanced by the tautness of the ensemble. The soloists had previously predominated, but here they were subsumed into a glorious tutti.
Violinist Charlotte Scott. Picture: Matthew Johnson
THE two Viennese Schools – the classical and the post-romantic – were brought into sharp contrast in this succulent programme, in which works by Mozart and Schubert framed music by the big three of the Second Viennese Schoool, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern.
Charlotte Scott and Joseph Havlat took the stage for Mozart’s two-movement Violin Sonata in E minor, K.304, which he wrote in the wake of his mother’s death. Scott’s perceptive violin has long been a favourite with this audience, whereas Havlat’s piano is a relative newcomer, but they blended sympathetically.
They treated the Allegro’s development section as a clear attempt by the composer to exorcise his grief, its storminess bordering on anger here. The tender, sighing motif in the succeeding trio had great feeling, although the minuet – hardly a dance – was much more fiery.
Webern’s Langsamer Satz (‘slow movement’) in C minor is a student piece for string quartet. With Scott at the helm, the ensemble worked its way urgently to its central unison before a muted elegy and a satisfyingly tender final pianissimo.
In similar vein was Berg’s Adagio, a distillation for trio of the slow movement of his Chamber Concerto. Here Scott’s violin was joined by Matthew Hunt’s clarinet, the two phrasing sensitively while Ariel Lanyi’s piano was intuitive in initiating mood changes.
Webern saw the commercial sense of thinning down Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony from the original 15 players to a mere quintet. Here we had the rare chance to hear the version with flute and clarinet alongside piano trio.
Forthrightly led by Alena Baeva’s violin, with Lanyi at the piano, the ensemble delivered clarity and vigour in equal measure, with contrastingly elegant lines in the Adagio before an exciting climax.
But the best was, incredibly, yet to come. Schubert’s Fantasy in C major, D.934 is rightly regarded as an Everest of the violin and piano repertoire, not to be undertaken lightly. Benjamin Baker’s violin was on fire and he played with assuringly few glances at his score.
Vadym Kholodenko recorded this work last year with his regular duo partner Alena Baeva. So we were in the hands of experts: both clearly knew the score in every sense. There was an immediacy here that felt utterly spontaneous, from the teasingly enigmatic opening to the spine-tingling final Presto.
En route, Baker was amazingly fluent, throwing off the variations on Sei Mir Gegrüsst (I Greet You), a song of romantic yearning, with carefree abandon after a gaily dancing czardas: we had eloquent rubato, dazzling pizzicato, breathtakingly accurate moto perpetuo, it was all there.
Kholodenko was with him every step of the way, indeed spurring him on: their relish was intoxicating. They were not afraid to be coolly meditative in the Allegretto before a finale of heart-stopping virtuosity. This was a sensational performance, surely destined to be the highlight of the festival.
The Paddington Trio: North York Moors Chamber Music Festival’s Young Artists for the 2024 festival
IT is not often the opportunity arises to hear a 19th-century work for the first time, especially one by a composer whose music rarely graces concert platforms.
Juliusz Zarębski, a Pole born in what is now Ukraine, died in 1885 at the age of 31, leaving a host of piano pieces – apart from a piano quintet written in the final months of his terminal battle with tuberculosis.
It was the highlight of this programme, whose backbone was provided by the Paddington Trio, the festival’s Young Artists. The added guests were violinist Benjamin Baker and viola player Max Mandel.
The evening had opened with Liszt piano music and included Shostakovich’s Second Piano Trio. Zarębski’s Piano Quintet in G minor is in the conventional four movements, but in other respects it strays from the norm.
For a start, this is no piano concerto with added strings: the keyboard role is beautifully integrated into the whole. Furthermore, its opening theme is given to the viola and only the second theme taken by the first violin, its long, lyrical lines contrasting well with the viola’s earlier probing. The composer cleverly thinned the texture right down – drawing our attention – before a huge climax at the close of the first movement.
The Adagio’s opening sounds as if improvised before growing increasingly anguished, with folk-like harmonies. Here we heard strings alone more than once. Its three-part shape petered into a quiet ending with cello and piano, gently treated here.
The ensemble was sprightly in the jaunty scherzo before a smooth trio over rippling piano. There were more than a few shades of Dvořák in the finale, with Bohemian themes always close to the surface.
After a quiet interlude, the ebb and flow became quite volatile right up until a closing race for the tape. The ensemble, persuasively led by Baker, seemed to relish this rare opportunity, their lively approach evoking the spirit of the dance.
The Paddingtons were equal to the challenges of Shostakovich’s E minor trio, spearheaded by the tricky harmonics of Patrick Moriarty’s cello at the start. The fugue accelerated neatly and pizzicato was always taut. The group was fully alive to the quirks of the madcap scherzo, with its constant swerving between major and minor keys.
The elegiac Largo reflected the composer’s mood in 1944, in the wake of the tragic siege of Leningrad, but there was a contrasting urgency in the finale, with its elements of gypsy dance. The Paddingtons showed themselves to be a well-knit ensemble, even if occasionally Tuulia Hero’s violin might have been a touch more daring.
The group’s pianist, Stephanie Tang, had given us Liszt’s original version of La lugubre Gondola, written in the aftermath of Wagner’s death in Venice. It is so bare it sounds almost like doodling and Tang’s deliberately harsh tone did nothing to alleviate the composer’s evident grief. But it swayed smoothly enough, in true barcarole fashion.
THE 2024 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival began unusually with the Baroque before moving into more familiar Romantic territory.
These days you do not expect to hear a Corelli sonata played on a modern violin and partnered by a grand piano. But we have learnt to expect the unexpected in this festival. In any case, you should never write off the supposedly inauthentic.
Alena Baeva and her regular keyboard partner Vadym Kholodenko did their utmost to bring us ‘Baroque’ atmosphere; she used very little vibrato, he much preferred the soft (left-foot) to the sustaining (right-foot) pedal. We were never going to mistake the piano for a harpsichord, but the result was satisfying anyway.
In any case, Kholodenko’s taut ornamentation highlighted the importance of his role beyond merely filling in harmony; it provided just the right underlay for Baeva’s period-style phrasing. Rhythms were always lively, and contrasts between the 11 variations on ‘La Folia’ of Corelli’s single-movement Op 5 No 12 were superbly drawn.
Rachmaninov’s last piano work, Variations on a theme of Corelli, written in 1931, is misnamed. It is also based on ‘La Folia’, an Iberian tune that first emerged in the Renaissance – and is not by Corelli at all. Dozens of composers used it as a basis for variations.
Stephanie Tang was the determined soloist here, reflecting the overriding anger in Rachmaninov’s approach. Her accents were strong and her use of staccato particularly deft. She clearly enjoyed the composer’s jack-in-the-box tendencies but was alive to his attempts to evoke the Iberian origins of the tune. I would not vouch for her total accuracy but the tension in her technique certainly made the most of the work’s tangy harmonies.
Dvořák’s Dumky Op 90 – never named a piano trio but actually his fourth – delves as deeply as he ever did into his Bohemian roots. The title is the plural of dumka, a primarily reflective song that tends to alternate slow melancholy with rapid dance-like sections, in keeping with its folk origins. Its six movements can be treated as two groups of three apiece, but beyond that there is no deliberate formal shape.
Benjamin Baker was the violinist, Rebecca Gilliver the cellist and Daniel Lebhardt the pianist in what was an absolutely delightful penetration of the composer’s nationalistic emotions. They constantly held back the end of a slow section so that we were kept in suspense waiting for its rapid counterpart.
Indeed, their use of rubato, so keenly felt by all three players, was superbly stylish. Dvorak makes especially strong use of the cello, and Gilliver’s warm, expansive sound matched the composer’s intentions. Not that Baker was overshadowed; both revelled in their little cadenzas in the fifth movement. We had come closest to the heart of Bohemia in the leisurely cantabile of the third movement.
The work also encompasses the most taxing piano music Dvorak ever wrote. Lebhardt was alive to all its nuances even when stretched and was a major factor in what made this such an exciting performance.
Since the word ‘dumka’ is believed to originate in Ukraine, it was impossible to ignore thoughts of that benighted country when the music turned melancholic. A marvellous curtain-raiser for the festival, which continues daily until August 24.
REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, Enlightenment, St Michael’s Church, Coxwold, August 13
Festival curator and cellist Jamie Walton. Picture: Matthew Johnson
THE special magic of this festival was neatly crystallised in this afternoon recital, which featured a Beethoven string trio and Weber’s Clarinet Quintet.
A packed, rapt audience erupted joyously at the end of each, the first a rare visitor to our concert platforms, the second a much-loved repertoire piece.
You will see it claimed that Beethoven wrote his ‘early’ string trios (he was still in his twenties) as preparation for a full-scale incursion into the world of the string quartet, as if they were but student pieces.
Not a bit of it. With only three voices – violin, viola and cello – a composer has a restricted choice of harmony. In particular, all three parts need to be fully independent, the viola in particular.
In Beethoven’s String Trio Op 9 No 1 on G, we found Meghan Cassidy’s versatile viola paired with Benjamin Baker’s violin, almost as second violin, or with Jamie Walton’s cello, as the composer played off the two duos against one another. In other words, the viola role was vital and emerged here with great clarity.
All three players attacked the bold, arpeggios of the opening allegro with relish, before a delicately song-like slow movement in which the rests were delightfully prolonged. The brisk scherzo had a ruminative trio, a nice contrast.
In the finale, the moto perpetuo tailed off mid-stream into an apparent cul-de-sac. But the joke was on us and the rapid syncopation resumed, right into an accelerated coda. This was Beethoven the adventurer, while still learning from Haydn.
Weber’s Clarinet Quintet is a work of almost relentless jollity – and thoroughly good fun. Matthew Hunt is a clarinettist known for his sense of humour, so the score is tailor-made for him. With Charlotte Scott leading the string quartet, there was lively support for his sprightly cavorting. But the heart of the work lay elsewhere, in the deeply melancholic Adagio.
Here, Hunt’s quiet, superbly sustained legato brought tears to the eyes, these eyes anyway. Towards the end he produced two echo-scales so pianissimo that they were virtually a whisper, a prodigious feat of breath control – and very moving.
The succeeding Scherzo brimmed over with wit and good humour, a total contrast and genuinely funny. The finale was never going to reach these heights, but we could only marvel as Hunt’s unashamed virtuosity carried the day through Weber’s flirtations with vapidity.
Spreading her wings: Elle Wootton in The 13-Storey Treehouse at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: James D Morgan
SHAKESPEARE sonnets, a treehouse with bowling alley and sea monster, The Magpies’ music festival and a thrilling children’s workshop will keep the summer diary busy, advises Charles Hutchinson.
Family show of the week: The 13-Storey Treehouse, Grand Opera House, York, today and tomorrow, 1pm and 5pm
ADAPTED by Richard Tulloch (The Book Of Everything, Bananas In Pyjamas), this one-hour play for children aged six to 12 brings Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton’s story to stage life with a seriously funny cast and a treehouse replete with a bowling alley, a secret underground laboratory, self-making beds and a marshmallow machine.
Expect magical moments of theatrical wizardry and a truckload of imagination from the cast of Elle Wootton, Edwin Beats and Ryan Dulieu when Andy and Terry forget to write their debut play. Where will they find flying cats, a mermaid, a sea monster, an invasion of monkeys and a giant gorilla? Find out this weekend. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Maurice Crichton’s Callum, the director, and Alexandra Logan’s Lily, the upstart actress, exchange words in the dress rehearsal for York Shakespeare Project’s Summer Sonnets in the Holy Trinity churchyard, in Goodramgate, York. Picture: John Saunders
Wedding invitation of the week: York Shakespeare Project, Summer Sonnets, Holy Trinity churchyard, Goodramgate, York, today to August 17, except August 12, 6pm and 7.30pm plus 4.30pm today and next Saturday
AUDIENCES are invited to a secret wedding at Holy Trinity, where they will meet the church’s most famous couple – Anne “Gentleman Jack” Lister and Ann Walker – while enjoying a complimentary drink.
Linked by Josie Campbell’s script, York Shakespeare Project’s tenth anniversary selection of Shakespeare sonnets will be performed in character by Maurice Crichton; Marie-Louise Feeley; Liam Godfrey; Emily Hansen; Halina Jaroszewska; Alexandra Logan; Sally Mitcham; Grace Scott; Effie Warboys; Helen Wilson and director Tony Froud. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/summer-sonnets/.
Lincoln Lightfoot: Taking part in the York River Art Market today
York’s answer to the Left Bank in Paris: York River Art Market, today and tomorrow; August 17 and 18, 10am to 5pm
ORGANISED by jewellery designer and York College art tutor Charlotte Dawson, York River Art Market sets out its stalls on the Dame Judi Dench Walk riverside for a ninth summer season. Up to 30 artists and makers per day will be exhibiting ceramics, jewellery, paintings, prints, photographs, clothing, candles, T-shirts, shaving products and more. Admission is free.
Castle Howard: “Silence” is golden in the Boar Garden tonight when DJs fill revellers’ headphones with Nineties’ dancefloor nuggets
Hush-hush event of the week: 90s’ Outdoor Silent Disco, Castle Howard, near Malton, today, 7pm to 10pm
CASTLE Howard’s Boar Garden plays host to some of Great Britain’s best 90s’ DJs, spinning pop, R&B and band favourites in a feel-good experience. Revellers can select from three different channels of music while wearing state-of-the-art LED headphones. sets. Valid photographic ID may be requested on entry to this strictly 18-plus event. Box office: eventbrite.co.uk/e/90s-silent-disco-at-castle-howard-tickets-846091200557.
Artist Peter Hicks in his studio, working on his Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal commission
Exhibition of the week: Peter Hicks, Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Garden, near Ripon
PETER Hicks’s summer exhibition, Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal – A Landscape Painter’s Perspective, is being extended to September 15. On show are works painted in response to the John and William Aislabie-designed landscapes at Fountains during Hicks’s 2023 residency.
Commissioned by the National Trust, the Yorkshire landscape artist’s paintings, studies and sketchbooks are on display in Fountains Mill. Hicks specialises in abstract landscapes with acrylic washes on canvas and board, making his own benches and brush handles and using humble, accessible materials. Tickets: nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/yorkshire/fountains-abbey-and-studley-royal-water-garden.
The Magpies: Running their fourth music festival at Sutton Park, near York
Festival of the week: The Magpies Festival, Sutton Park, near York, today
RUN by transatlantic folk band The Magpies, The Magpies Festival is rooted in the trio’s native Yorkshire, where they first met. Now in its fourth year, the 2024 event will be headlined today by Sam Kelly & The Lost Boys at 10pm, preceded by Charm Of Finches, 12 noon, The Often Herd, 2pm, Jesca Hoop, 4pm, The Magpies, 6pm, and Nati (formerly known as Nati Dreddd), 8pm.
The poster for the Three Day Thriller workshop for children at Helmsley Arts Centre
Children’s activity of the week: The Three Day Thriller, Helmsley Arts Centre, August 12 to 14, 10am to 2pm. CANCELLED
BUCKLE up for this improvising and devising workshop for 11 to 16-year-olds, designed to look at different theatre and performance techniques to make a new story in the thriller genre. The focus will be on character, plot and staging to create excitement, mystery and suspense, keeping audiences on the edge of their seats. At the end of day three, the work explored will be shared with family and friends. Places on the £75 workshop can be booked on 01439 771700 or at helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Robert Gammon: Playing at Dementia Friendly Tea Concert at St Chad’s Church, York
Dementia Friendly Tea Concert: Robert Gammon, piano, St Chad’s Church, Campleshon Road, York, August 15, 2.30pm
PIANIST Robert Gammon returns to St Chad’s to perform Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in F sharp Minor from the Well Tempered Clavier Book 2, Schumann’s Kinderszenen and two Chopin Polonaises. As usual, 45 minutes of music will be followed by tea and homemade cakes in the church hall.
“This relaxed event is ideal for people who may not feel comfortable at a formal classical concert, so we do not mind if the audience wants to talk or move about,” says organiser Alison Gammon. Seating is unreserved; no admission charge, but donations are welcome.
Elkie Brooks: Heading out on her Long Farewell Tour. Leeds and York await. Picture: Neil Kirk
Gig announcement of the week: Elkie Brooks, Long Farewell Tour, Leeds City Varieties Music Hall, September 12; York Barbican, April 11 2025
AFTER 64 years of performing live, the “British queen of blues”, Elkie Brooks, is to undertake her Long Farewell Tour, visiting Leeds and York among 24 dates.
The Salford singer, 79, will perform such hits as Pearl’s A Singer, Lilac Wine, Fool (If You Think It’s Over), Sunshine After The Rain, No More The Fool and Don’t Cry Out Loud in a career-spanning show of blues, rock and jazz numbers that will showcase material from her forthcoming 21st studio album for the first time. Box office: elkiebrooks.com/elkie-brooks-tour-dates-2024; leedsheritagetheatres.com and yorkbarbican.co.uk.
In Focus: North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, August 11 to 24
North York Moors Chamber Music Festival curator Jamie Walton. Picture: Matthew Johnson
THE ground-breaking North York Moors Chamber Music Festival is returning for its 16th consecutive season after record audience figures last summer.
Running from August 11 to 24 with the title of Echos, the festival uses moorland churches and an acoustically treated venue in the grounds of Welburn Manor, attracting international artists, many of them committing to the entire fortnight by taking up residencies.
This summer, these musicians include violinist Alena Beava, Benjamin Baker and Charlotte Scott; pianists Vadym Kholodenko, Katya Apekisheva, Daniel Lebhardt and Leeds International Piano Competition prize-winner Ariel Lanyi; clarinettist Matthew Hunt and mezzo-soprano Anna Huntley, who originates from Yarm. The programme will feature a Young Artists Focus too.
The festival’s 14 afternoon and evening concerts will present music by Schubert, Rachmaninoff, Mozart, Schumann, Elgar, Debussy and Mendelssohn, together with thrilling 20th century classics.
Each concert will take the audience on a musical journey through the narrative of specific themes, in carefully curated, thought-provoking music that pushes the boundaries.
As well as Welburn Manor, concerts will take place at churches including St Michael’s, Coxwold; St Mary’s, Lastingham; St Hilda’s, Danby, and St Hedda’s, Egton Bridge.
Festival curator and cellist Jamie Walton says: “Expect to be stirred, thrilled and at times moved as we explore the phenomenon of influence, of cycles through the ages, musical shadows, and themes which echo the times. These concerts are intense for both the audiences and artists but often revelatory and transformative.
“There’s a palpable sense of common purpose and feeling between all those who are there participating in the experience, either on stage or as a listener. It’s a profoundly reassuring experience, and one which we all cherish.”
Who will be playing at North York Moors Chamber Music Festival
Violinist Alena Baeva performing at North York Moors Chamber Music Festival in 2023. Picture: Matthew Johnson
Violin: Alena Baeva; Benjamin Baker; Marike Kruup; Emma Parker; Victoria Sayles; Charlotte Scott; Bridget O’Donnell and Simmy Singh
Viola: Meghan Cassidy; Simone van der Giessen; Max Mandel; David Shaw
Cello: Rebecca Gilliver; Tim Posner; Jamie Walton and Deni Teo
Double bass: Misha Mullov-Abbado
Piano: Katya Apekisheva; Vadym Kholodenko; Joseph Havlat; Ariel Lanyi; Daniel Lebhardt
Clarinet: Matthew Hunt
Flute: Thomas Hancox and Silvija Scerbaviciute
Mezzo soprano: Anna Huntley
Plus: The Paddington Trio
North York Moors Chamber Music Festival: the programme
Charlotte Scott: Returning to North York Moors Chamber Music Festival in 2024. Picture: Matthew Johnson
August 11, 2pm, Passing Themes, Marquee, Welburn: Corelli – Violin sonata in D minor op 5 no 12 (‘La Folia’); Rachmaninoff – Variations on a Theme of Corelli op 42*; Dvořák – Piano trio no 4 in E minor op 90 (‘Dumky’)
August 12, 7pm, Tales From The Stage, Marquee, Welburn: Stravinsky – The Soldier’s Tale Suite; Poulenc – Sonata for violin and piano*; Debussy – Bilitis for flute and piano; Poulenc – L’Invitation au Chateau; Stravinsky – Divertimento (The Fairy’s Kiss Suite)
August 13, 2pm, Enlightenment, St Michael’s, Coxwold: Beethoven – String trio op 9 no 1 in G major; Weber – Clarinet quintet in B-flat major op 34
August 14, 7pm, Echoes and Embers, Marquee, Welburn: Dutilleux – Sonatine Myths; Simpson – Eleven Echoes of Autumn*; Szymanowski – Myths op 30; Simpson – An Essay of Love
August 15, 2pm, Landscape and Memory, St Mary’s, Lastingham : Dowland – Lachrymae Antiquae; Purcell – Chacony in G minor (arr. Britten); Adès – O Albion; Adès – Alchymia
August 16, 7pm, Towards The Edge, Marquee, Welburn: Shostakovich, Piano trio no 2 in E minor op 67*; Zarębski – Piano quintet; Liszt – La lugubre gondola II; Shostakovich – Piano trio no 2 in E minor op 67*; Zarębski – Piano quintet in G minor op 34
August 17, 7pm, Vienna!, Marquee, Welburn: Mozart – Sonata for violin and piano no 21 in E minor K304; Webern – Langsamer Satz; Schoenberg – Chamber Symphony no 1 op 9 (arr. Webern)*; Berg – Adagio for violin, clarinet and piano Schubert – Fantasy in C major for violin and piano D934
Pianist Daniel Lebhardt: A regular player at North York Moors Chamber Music Festival. Picture: Matthew Johnson
August 18, 2pm, Heading East, St Hilda’s, Danby: Kodály – Intermezzo for string trio; Dohnányi – Serenade in C for string trio op; Kodály – Duo sonata for violin and cello op 7
August 19, 7pm, Songs For The Earth, Marquee, Welburn: string quartet & double-bass
August 20, 7pm, La Belle Époque, Marquee, Welburn: Debussy – Violin sonata in G minor; Fauré – La Bonne Chanson op 61*; Chausson – Chanson perpétuelle op 37; Chausson – Concert for violin, piano and string quartet op 21
August 21, 7pm, A Wartime Story, Marquee, Welburn: Elgar – Sonata for violin and piano in E minor op 82*; Prokofiev – (War) Sonata for piano no 8 in b-flat major op 84; Ravel – Piano trio in A minor
August 22, 2pm, Jubilation, St Hedda’s, Egton Bridge: Brahms – String quintet no 2 in G major op 111; Mendelssohn – String octet in E flat major op 20
August 23, 7pm, Ghosts Of History, Marquee, Welburn: Beethoven – Piano trio op 70 no 1 in D major (‘Ghost’); Saariaho – Light and Matter; Matteis – Fantasia for violin in A minor*; Elgar – Piano quintet in A minor op 84
August 24, 2pm, A New Dawn, Marquee, Welburn; Schumann – Gesänge der Frühe op 133; Schubert – Adagio e Rondo Concertante D487*; Schumann – Piano quartet in E flat major op 47
* Interval follows
The North York Moors Chamber Music Festival stage at last summer’s event in the Welburn Abbey marquee. Picture: Matthew Johnson
More Things To Do in York and beyond “poo power” from August 17 onwards. Here’s Hutch’s List No 34, from The Press, York
DON’T poo-poo Ada Grey’s exhibition for children at Nunnington Hall, advises Charles Hutchinson, as he picks cultural highlights for the weeks ahead.
Wedding invitation of the week: York Shakespeare Project, Summer Sonnets, Holy Trinity churchyard, Goodramgate, York, August 17 at 4.30pm, 6pm and 7.30pm
AUDIENCES are invited to a secret wedding at Holy Trinity, where they will meet the church’s most famous couple – Anne “Gentleman Jack” Lister and Ann Walker – while enjoying a complimentary drink.
Linked by Josie Campbell’s script and theatrical characters, York Shakespeare Project’s tenth anniversary selection of Shakespeare sonnets is performed in character by Maurice Crichton; Marie-Louise Feeley; Liam Godfrey; Emily Hansen; Halina Jaroszewska; Alexandra Logan; Sally Mitcham; Grace Scott; Effie Warboys; Helen Wilson and director Tony Froud. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/summer-sonnets/.
Mopping up: Marie-Louise Feeley’s Doreen and Helen Wilson’s Maureen, the church-cleaning double act in York Shakespeare Project’s Summer Sonnets. Picture: John Saunders
York’s answer to the Left Bank in Paris: York River Art Market, August 17 and 18, 10am to 5pm
YORK River Art Market sets out its stalls on the Dame Judi Dench Walk riverside for its third weekend this summer, featuring up to 30 artists and makers per day. Among today’s stallholders will be Bejojo Art, Jillie Lazenby, Woody’s Creations, Emily Littler, Happy Pot Mama, Magdalena Biernacka, Kissed Frog, I’ve Been Creative, Matt Lightfoot Photography, Inky Print Designs and Wood Wyrm.
Popping up tomorrow will be Urban Infill Store, Wild Orange Tree, Jo O’Cuinneagan, Rock and Twig Studio, David Lobley Photography, The Littlest Falcon, Feather Isle, Fei’s Crochet, Painter Merv, Stairwell Books, Ounce Of Style and plenty more. Look out for York singer-songwriter Heather Findlay on busking duty tomorrow. Admission is free.
Heather Findlay: Busking at August 17’s York River Art Market. Picture: Adam Kennedy
Exhibition of the week: Ada Grey, Splat! Patter! Plop!, Nunnington Hall, Nunnington, near York, until September 8
DIVE into a world where the “hilarity of poo” takes centre stage in this “unique children’s illustration exhibition like no other” by Ada Grey, creator of such picture books as Poo In The Zoo, Island Of Dinosaur Poo and Super Pooper Road Race.
Noted for the vibrant colours, lively characters and comical twists of her children’s tales, for the first time Grey is showcasing illustrations of such beloved characters as Bob McGrew and Hector Gloop in iconic moments from her favourite stories. Children have the chance to immerse themselves in Ada’s books, draw inspiration to create their own characters and proudly display their creations in the Poop-a-Doodle gallery. Grey will drop in on August 20 to run workshops for children from 11am to 4pm. Tickets and workshop bookings: nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/yorkshire/nunnington-hall/exhibitions.
Poo power: Illustrator and author Ada Grey’s exhibition at Nunnington Hall
Dance show of the week: Michael Flatley’s Lord Of The Dance, York Barbican, August 20 to 25, 7.45pm, plus Saturday matinee at 2.30pm
IN the words of Lord Of The Dance impresario Michael Flatley: “Our 2024 tour promises to be an extraordinary journey that will take audiences to the next level once again.
“In 2024, this extraordinary experience for fans will feature new staging, fresh choreography, new costumes, cutting-edge technology, and special effects lighting. It’s a celebration of a lifetime of standing ovations and we aim to leave the audience spellbound.” Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Lord Of The Dance: “Aiming to leave the audience spellbound” at York Barbican
York gig of the week: Please Please You & Brudenell presents Lanterns On The Lake, The Crescent, York, August 23, 7.30pm
FORMED on Tyneside in 2007, Lanterns On The Lake combine dreamy, melancholic indie rock with beautiful layers of texture and celestial melodies. Led by singer and songwriter Hazel Wilde, the 2020 Mercury Prize nominees have supplied soundtrack music to Conversations With Friends, Uncanny, Made In Chelsea, Skins and the video game Life Is Strange and recorded an orchestral live album with the Royal Northern Sinfonia.
Their latest album, June 2023’s Versions Of Us, is full of existential meditations, “examining life’s possibilities, facing the hand we’ve been dealt and the question of whether we can change our individual and collective destinies”. Box office: thecrescentyork.com/events/lanterns-on-the-lake.
Lanterns On The Lake’s Hazel Wilde, Paul Gregory, Bob Allan and Angela Chan: Playing The Crescent on their return to York
Another slice of MeatLoaf: MeatLoud – Bat Out Of Hades, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, August 24, 7.30pm
FOUNDED in 2015, this powerhouse tribute to MeatLoaf and songwriter Jim Steinman is fronted by vocalist Andy Plimmer, who is joined Sally Rivers to take on the guise of Bonnie Tyler, Celine Dion and Cher. The second half features a complete performance of the classic 1977 album Bat Out Of Hell. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
MeatLoud: Paying tribute to MeatLoaf and Jim Steinman at Joseph Rowntree Theatre
New season opener: Jake Vaadeland & The Sturgeon River Boys, Selby Town Hall, September 4, 7.30pm
SELBY Town Hall kicks off its autumn season with the debut visit of Jake Vaadeland & The Sturgeon River Boys, purveyors of bluegrass and rockabilly from Saskatchewan, Canada.
Selby Town Council arts officer Chris Jones enthuses: “I absolutely love these guys. It’s probably the show I’m most looking forward to in the second half of the year. At just 21 years old, Jake is terrifyingly talented. He and the band – dressed in authentic 1950s’ suits – make the most fantastically fun, upbeat, toe-tapping music, already gracing the main stages of festivals across North America.” Box office: 01757 708449 or selbytownhall.co.uk.
Jake Vaadeland & The Sturgeon River Boys: Making debut appearance at Selby Town Hall next month
Theatre chat: An Evening With Simon Russell Beale, York Theatre Royal, September 10, 7.30pm
WAS Shakespeare an instinctive “conservative” or, rather, gently subversive? How collaborative was he? Did he add a line to Hamlet to accommodate his ageing and increasingly chubby principal actor Richard Burbage? Did he suffer from insomnia and experience sexual jealousy?
In An Evening With Simon Russell Beale, in conversation with a special guest, the Olivier Award-winning actor will share his experiences of “approaching and living with some of Shakespeare’s most famous characters”, from his school-play days as Desdemona in Othello to title roles in Hamlet and Macbeth. Expect anecdotes of Sam Mendes, Nick Hytner, Stephen Sondheim and Lauren Bacall too. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Simon Russell Beale: Shakespeare actor, now starring as Ser Simon Strong in House Of The Dragon, will be in conversation at York Theatre Royal in September
“Think The Great Gatsby meets Sinatra At The Sands meets Back To The Future”:Postmodern Jukebox, Moonlight & Magic World Tour, York Barbican, May 7 2025
RETRO musical collective Postmodern Jukebox have announced the 34-date UK & Australia/New Zealand leg of next year’s Moonlight & Magic World Tour that includes a return to York Barbican.
“If we’ve learned anything from ten years of touring the world, it’s that great music has the ability to transcend time and space in a way that is best described as ‘magic,” says Postmodern Jukebox creator and show director Scott Bradlee, whose parallel musical universe reimagines pop hits in 1920s’ jazz, swing, doo-wop and Motown settings. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Postmodern Jukebox: Retro musical collective head back to past triumphs at York Barbican
