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Northern Aldborough Festival marks 30th anniversary with music, comedy and a talk. Here’s the full programme, June 13 to 22

Sir Tony Robinson: Guest speaker at Northern Aldborough Festival. Picture: Paul Marc Mitchell

THE 30th anniversary Northern Aldborough Festival, in Aldborough, near Boroughbridge, opens tonight.

Sir Tony Robinson, Leeds Piano Competition winner Alim Beisembayev and one of the world’s great violin virtuosos, Viktoria Mullova, will be among the headline acts

Half an hour’s journey from York or Harrogate, opera singers, pianists and jazz ensembles will mingle among the village’s Roman history.

Festival director Robert Ogden says: “Each year we invite a headline speaker. It’s fitting Sir Tony Robinson is this year’s guest, given the setting of our festival and its rich historic and archaeological significance. It promises to be a very special evening.”

Run as a charity, the annual festival’s mission is to bring high-end live music to its rural location, making the “sleepy village” that was once a prosperous Roman capital an unlikely epicentre for classical music.

Mikeleiz-Zucchi Duo: Playing The Chapel, Rudding Park, Harrogate, on June 20

This year, its music programme has a focus on championing young classical talent. The opening night sees 25-year-old Tom Fetherstonehaugh conducting the young musicians of the Fantasia Orchestra, performing Tchaikovsky and Chopin alongside pianist Alim Beisembayev, who at 23 won the last Leeds International Piano Competition.

Further highlights include Armonico Consort with a semi-staged production of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen and the rising star of classical guitar, Jack Hancher.

The festival also welcomes an award-winning comedian with an opera degree, Amy Webber, as heard on BBC Radio 4, and the British jazz pianist Julian Joseph, who performs with his trio.

Pan-flute player Adriana Babin, already a bona-fide star at 22 in her home country of Moldova, will head for Aldborough, as will the Mikeleiz-Zucchi Duo, featuring Canadia saxophonist David Zucchi and Spanish accordionist Iñigo Mikeleiz-Berrade.

The festival’s nationwide hunt for the best vocal talent returns in the annual New Voices Singing Competition, with cash prizes of £7,000 and a live semi-final and grand final.

Adriana Babin: Pan flute concert at St Andrew’s Church, Aldborough, on June 15

The competition was launched in 2023 by festival director Robert Ogden, supported by longstanding sponsors, in response to the funding cuts faced by the classical music sector, to provide a platform for emerging vocal talent.

Robert, who began his career as a countertenor, adds: “We’ll have some world-class musicians once more in Aldborough. It doesn’t matter if you are an aficionado of classical music, or you’re a complete novice, we hope audiences will come and experience these very special performances. 

“The rewards of a live concert are so huge, there’s nothing like it; it’s an emotional, visceral experience that you can’t replicate on a screen. It’s a chance to hear remarkable sounds in an intimate and gorgeous countryside setting.”

Aldborough’s late-night venue The Shed also returns for concert-goers who want to continue festivities in a relaxed environment with a variety of live entertainment and refreshments.

The ever-popular Last Night Outdoor Concert will see Queen tribute band Majesty perform to circa 1,000 festival-goers in the grounds of Aldborough Manor. Those attending are invited to bring a picnic and dance the night away, ending with an orchestrated firework display.

Pianist Alim Beisembayev: Performing with Fantasia Orchestra at St Andrew’s Church, Aldborough, on June 13. Picture: Nabin Maharjan

Northern Aldborough Festival 2024 programme

June 13, 6.30pm

Alim Beisembayev (piano) with Fantasia Orchestra, conducted by Tom Fetherstonehaugh, St Andrew’s Church, Aldborough

Winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition at 23, Kazakstan-born Alim Beisembayev performs the opening concert with the young musicians of Fantasia Orchestra, conducted by Tom Fetherstonehaugh, 25. Programme includes Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings and Chopin’s 1st Piano Concerto.

June 13, 9pm

After the Show in The Shed

Light musical entertainment and something to eat and drink.

Guitarist Jack Hancher: Morning concert at Brockfield Hall, Warthil, on June 14. Picture: Manny Sowicz

June 14, 11am

Jack Hancher, guitar, Brockfield Hall, Warthill, York

ELEGANT, expressive, fiery and passionate, Jack Hancher is a rising star of the classical guitar, whose debut album will be released this year on the Deux-Elles label.

Last year he became one of only three guitarists to win the Gold Medal of the Royal Overseas League Competition.

June 14, 8pm

Amy Webber, The Old Hall, North Deighton     

Wry comedian Amy Webber performs her job-hunting one-woman show, No Previous Experience, equipped with a mini electric piano and an opera degree that has never been useful. Winner of Audience Choice Award at Musical Comedy Awards.

June 15, 11am

Adriana Babin, St Andrew’s Church, Aldborough             

At the age of 22, Moldovan musician Adriana Babin already has won major prizes and performed all over the world. The warm, rich, and haunting pan flute is rarely heard in classical music, but she has collaborated with European orchestras, starred on German television and received an award from Moldova’s Minister of Culture.

Comedian Amy Webber: No Previous Experience gig at The Old Hall, North Deighton, on June 14

June 15, 7pm

Julian Joseph Trio, St Andrew’s Church, Aldborough

Bandleader, pianist, composer, educator and broadcaster Julian Joseph OBE has championed jazz home and abroad for 35 years. He presents originals and classics with his hard-swinging trio.

June 15, 9pm

After the Show in The Shed

Light musical entertainment and something to eat and drink.

June 16, 3pm

Young Artist Showcase, St Andrew’s Church, Aldborough            

Chance to catch upcoming stars as four of Yorkshire’s most talented young musicians perform.

June 17, 12 noon

The New Voices Singing Competition: Semi-final 1, St Andrew’s Church, Aldborough

After launching national New Voices competition in 2023, the hunt for the year’s best classical vocal talent returns. The first group of semi-finalists battles for a place in the Grand Final. Judging panel includes conductor Edward Gardner OBE and English bass Sir John Tomlinson CBE.

Jazz pianist Julian Joseph: Playing with his trio on June 15 at St Andrew’s Church, Aldborough

June 17, 3.30pm

The New Voices Singing Competition: Semi-final 2, St Andrew’s Church, Aldborough

Second group of semi-finalists.

June 18, 11am

Lea Shaw, mezzo soprano, with Kristina Yorgova, piano

Before the Grand Final of 2024’s New Voices Singing Competition, last year’s victors, Lea Shaw and Kristina Yorgova, return to perform their winners’ recital. 

Shaw is a Scottish Opera Emerging Artist and Scottish Opera’s Associate Artist; Bulgarian pianist Kristina Yorgova is a master’s student at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

June 18, 7pm

Grand Final of the New Voices Singing Competition, St Andrew’s Church, Aldborough            

Hundreds of young singers graduate each year with aspirations to become professionals. This competition is a nationwide hunt with four finalists chasing cash prizes of £7,000 in a springboard for UK classical vocal talent.

June 18, 10pm

After the Show in the Shed

Musical entertainment and something to eat and drink.

Violinist Viktoria Mullova: Playing with pianist Alasdair Beatson at St Andrew’s Church, Aldborough, on June 19. Picture: Benjamin Ealovega

June 19, 7.30pm

Viktoria Mullova, violin, with Alasdair Beatson, piano, St Andrew’s Church, Aldborough

Moscow Conservatoire graduate Viktoria Mullova’s extraordinary violin talent captured the world in the 1980s before her much-publicised defection to the West. She will perform Beethoven and Schubert works with Scotsman Alasdair Beatson, her piano accompanist in a three-year collaboration of concerts and recordings.

June 20, 11am

Mikeleiz-Zucchi Duo, The Chapel, Rudding Park, Harrogate 

Forging a partnership in the spirit of curiosity and open-mindedness, Canadia saxophonist David Zucchi and Spanish accordionist Iñigo Mikeleiz-Berrade sound like an unusual pairing, but this dynamic duo won the Royal Overseas League Annual Music Competition’s Mixed Ensemble Prize. Rooted in jazz and folk, both instruments occupy the fringes of classical music in a dance-themed programme of Praetorius, Ravel and Piazzolla works.

June 20, 7.30pm 

An Evening with Sir Tony Robinson, St Andrew’s Church, Aldborough

ACTOR, author, broadcaster, comedian, presenter and political activist Sir Tony Robinson promises a behind-the-scenes insight into his life and career, from playing Baldrick in the BBC comedy Blackadder (1983-1989) to hosting Channel 4’s Time Team, presenting history and archaeology series and writing books on the subject and being active on many charity and political campaigns.

Festival director Robert Ogden by the Aldborough maypole

June 20, 9.30pm

After the Show in the Shed

Light musical entertainment and something to eat and drink.

June 21, 7.30pm

Armonico Consort presents Henry Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, directed by Christopher Monks, St Andrew’s Church, Aldborough. Grounds of Aldborough Manor open for picnics at 5pm.

The Fairy Queen is a musical adaption of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, given an inventive, magical  performance on a beautiful midsummer evening.

June 22, gates open at 5.30pm

Majesty – A Tribute to Queen, grounds of Aldborough Manor

Majesty close the festival with their latest Queen show, The Break Free Tour. Bring a picnic; let the orchestrated fireworks begin.  

Robert Ogden: the back story

Artistic director of Northern Aldborough Festival.

Runs his family’s flagship jewellery store in James Street, Harrogate, founded by James Robert (JR) Ogden in 1893.

Before taking on Ogden of Harrogate, operatic countertenor Robert sang all over the world. As a boy, he was a chorister at Westminster Cathedral, before training at King’s College, Cambridge, the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, and  Netherlands Opera Studio.

Box office: 01423 900979 or aldboroughfestival.co.uk

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Northern Aldborough Festival to open tonight with first of many sold-out concerts

Lesley Garrett: Sold-out concert on Thursday at Northern Aldborough Festival

THE 2021 Northern Aldborough Festival is going ahead as planned, with Covid-secure and social distancing measures, from today until Sunday.

The Haffner Ensemble, with pianist Danny Driver, open the festival tonight at St Andrew’s Church, Aldborough, near Boroughbridge, with a 7.30pm programme of Poulenc, Mozart and Beethoven.

The chamber ensemble was founded by oboist Nicholas Daniel, with each member of the quintet being a chamber musician, soloist and principal of the Britten Sinfonia.

In Kindred Spirits, 4 Hands, 1 Piano, alias British Baroque specialist Julian Perkins and Italian pianist Emma Abbate, perform works by Greig, Mozart and Rachmaninov tomorrow, same time, same venue.

Taking part in Wednesday’s 11am Young Artists Showcase at St Andrew’s will be four Yorkshire rising talents, ranging in age from 12 to 17: Emilia Jaques, soprano, Alexander Abrahams, piano, Annabelle Dowell, flute, and Ava Brule-Walker, viola, accompanied by Penny Stirling and William Dore.

Ampleforth College pupil Emilia Jaques won the 2018 BBC Radio 2 Young Chorister of the Year and has appeared on BBC Radio 2’s Friday Night Is Music Night Christmas Special with Alfie Boe. Ripon Grammar School pupil Alexander Abrahams won the top prize at the Ripon Young Musicians of the Year awards.

Flautist’s daughter Annabelle Dowell, 14, is a Class A winner at the British Flute Society Competitions. Aba Brule-Walker, Abrahams’ fellow member of the Yorkshire Young Musicians, has won several prizes at the Ripon Young Musicians awards and will attend the Purcell School for Young Musicians, in Bushey, Hertfordshire, from September.

For An Evening With Richard Coles, the parish priest of St Mary’s Church, Finedon, will be swapping one church for another, St Andrew’s, on Wednesday at 7.30pm.

The Rev Richard is a multi-tasking vicar, being a journalist and presenter too, on BBC One’s The Big Painting Challenge and BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live, as well as having a pop charts past as the keyboards-playing half of the Eighties’ electronic pop duo The Communards.  In 2016, he competed in Celebrity Masterchef; in 2017, he partnered Australian dancer Dianne Buswell to week-two exit in Strictly Come Dancing.

On Thursday, William Bracken gives an 11am piano recital of Franz Liszt’s Ballade No 2 in B Minor and Maurice Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit at St Andrew’s.

Viktoria Mullova: Performing with her son, bassist and composer Misha Mullov-Abbado, at St Andrew’s Church, Aldborough, on Friday night

At 22, he has achieved many of his ambitions already, such as performing Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 3 at Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall and winning first prize at several international competitions.

Born into a musical family, he began playing piano at four and his studies have taken him to the Royal Northern College of Music and onwards to the Guildhall, where he is studying with Ronan O’Hara and Martin Roscoe. He is a keen jazz performer, composer and arranger too.

South Yorkshire soprano Lesley Garrett appears with her regular accompanist, pianist Anna Tilbrook, a repeat visitor to Northern Aldborough Festival, on Thursday at 7.30pm at St Andrew’s.

Born in the Yorkshire pit village of Thorne in 1955, Garrett studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London, won the Kathleen Ferrier Prize and rose to prominence at English National Opera as principal soprano.

She has sung with all Britain’s leading opera companies; performed on the world’s biggest stages and with every leading orchestra; released more than a dozen albums and sung not only opera and “other serious music”, but also light classics and Broadway fare, and made television and radio appearances aplenty as singer and host.

Violin virtuoso Viktoria Mullova and double bass player Misha Mullov-Abbado, combine for Music We Love, same location, same time, on Friday night.

Mullov-Abbado’s compositions Blue Deer, Brazil and Shanti Bell will be complemented by works by J S Bach, Profokiev, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Schumann and Zequinha de Abreu.

Mullova works regularly with period ensembles such as the Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment, Il Giardino and Accademia Bizantina, along with appearing each season with international orchestras and conductors. Jazz bassist, composer and arranger Misha is the son of Viktoria and conductor Claudio Abbado.

In the Last Night Outdoor Concert in the grounds of Aldborough Manor, The Rozzers pay tribute to Sting and The Police on Saturday. From 6pm, guests may bring a picnic and watch the main-stage entertainment, kicking off with support act So 80s and climaxing with an orchestrated firework display.

On Sunday, at 10.45am at St Andrew’s, Northern Aldborough Festival Voices perform moving choral music by English Renaissance composer William Byrd at the closing Festival Eucharist. The celebrant will be the Reverend Karen Gardiner; the preacher, the Reverend Canon Barry Pyke.

The Haffner Ensemble, Julian Perkins & Emma Abbate, Richard Coles, Lesley Garrett, Viktoria Mullova and Last Night Outdoor Concert events have all sold out. Tickets are still available for the Young Musicians and William Bracken at aldboroughfestival.co.uk.