Welcome Box Office 01434 652477 www.hexhamabbey.org.uk/festival Friday 24 September Hexham Abbey Festival in 2010 more than ever has “something Event 1 for everyone” (Hexham Courant in 2009), and we continue THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME to grow from “strength to tuneful strength!” (Journal Culture Classic Lon Chaney silent film with live music 7.30 pm Forum Cinema magazine). Enjoy the energy and diversity of it all! Tickets: £8.50, £6.00 (concession) This year our “Fantastic Fables” theme Festival in Last year we cowered before the Phantom of the Opera, this draws on the full title of the Festival 2012, since we year Lon Chaney’s earlier success in the 1923 classic silent film of Music & Arts in a rich spectrum of are just now Hunchback of Notre Dame will make us suffer the torments Romantic and pre- and post-Romantic enjoying a of the poor deformed Quasimodo! This was Universal’s most music, all with some inner narrative. We resurgent trend. successful silent film, grossing over $3 million, based on the tale celebrate centenary anniversaries of the 2009 marked by Victor Hugo. Directed by Wallace Worsley it also stars Patsy births of composers Chopin, Schumann a turning point Ruth Miller as Esmeralda. The film is most notable for the grand and Barber. These composers stories for us in many sets recalling 15th century Paris, and Lon Chaney’s outstanding tell of struggles overcome, which is ways. Not only performance and spectacular make-up as the tortured demonstrated by the emotional power of did we hold bellringer. The film elevated Chaney, already a well-known their music. Our other events, too, whether up against the character actor, to full star status in Hollywood. it be the classic struggle of the outsider recessionary rejected, as in our silent film presentation trend, but the Now a firm Festival favourite, this classic silent film is accompanied by live music from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the demographic Graham Coatman (piano), Phil Wilcox (accordion) and Martin Batchelar (percussion). social satire of Gilbert & Sullivan’s HMS spread of our Pinafore, underlined in Opera della Luna’s audience widened. It was wonderful to We are grateful to Corbridge Pianos for the supply of the piano for this event highly original production, the innocent welcome visitors from across the country, story of the little lead soldier in our family amongst our cherished regulars! concert, or the narrative evident in Carolyn Mendelsohn’s portraits of Hexham We encourage you to enjoy all of the Event 2 shopkeepers, all have something to say to Festival, and charming, rural Hexham, with enrich the lives of all of us. a host of special treats and entertainments IMPROMPTU in store in 2010! Beautifully filmed Chopin biopic starring Hugh Indeed, our own story over 58 years has its Grant, Judy Davis & Emma Thompson ups and downs too, yet encourages us as Graham Coatman 9.30 pm Forum Cinema we look towards our Diamond Jubilee Artistic Director Tickets: £5.50 Filmed entirely on location in France, the main location being the Chateau des Briottières in the Thank you! Loire Valley, the plot explores the relationship between George Sand and Frederic Chopin. Baroness Aurora Dudevant, successful and We are indebted to our network of funding partners & supporters. Arts Council notorious writer of sensational romantic novels, is England North East, Queens Hall Arts Hexham, and many more. Thanks to the 43 now living in Paris under the pseudonym George Sand. She dresses like a man, for in her Fund and a generous donor, we have been able to acquire some staging, which romantic pursuit of the sensitive Chopin, whose music she fell in love with before seeing him in person, George/Aurora is advised that she must act like a man pursuing a woman. will enhance the experience for our audiences. We are pleased to be working with She is also advised not to pursue him at all! Hexham & District Music Society, 20,000 Voices, Théâtre Sans Frontières and Hexham Community Partnership, and there are trusts & foundations and many individuals who Impromptu (1991) won the Audience Favorite award at the Houston WorldFest Film help in all kinds of ways - we thank you all! Festival. Hugh Grant plays Chopin, with Judy Davis as Sand, whilst Emma Thompson is the Duchess d’Antan, an aspiring socialite, in whose country house Chopin and Sand meet. Of course the film score features music by Chopin, and also Liszt. FESTIVAL SAVER: Combined ticket for Events 1 + 2: £12.00, £9.00 (concessions) Saturday 25 September www.hexhamabbey.org.uk/festival Box Office 01434 652477 Sunday 26 September “SPIRIT OF HEXHAM” FESTIVAL FESTIVAL EUCHARIST 10.00 am Hexham Abbey The street festival has long been a feature of the opening weekend of the Festival, heralding a week of memorable Music includes Louis Vierne Messe Solenelle with two organs, motets Maurice DurufléUbi musical events. Someone dubbed its sense of energy and Caritas and Déodat de Séverac Tantum Ergo. Concluding organ voluntary, played by fun as the “Spirit of Hexham returned” last year - and the Assistant Organist Alex Woodrow is the Final from Vierne’s Organ Symphony No 1. name has stuck! So the first Saturday of the Festival is aimed at all generations, with lots of free music to suit all tastes, Event 4 a procession round town, Morris dancing, and activities especially for children to join in. SONGS, SPOOKS & SOLDIERS Family fun concert for children 6-12 Again, with Hexham Community Partnership, we present 3.00 pm Hexham Abbey an eating (and drinking!) Festival, with a range of food and Tickets: £5 (£17.50 for family ticket; 2 adults, 2 children) drink from local producers on offer, cookery demonstrations, and other stalls and attractions making it a great “feel A great success first time in 2009, Phil Wilcox and Eleanor Ripman good” day out for all! will again lead us a merry dance (but not penguins this year!) in our Family Fun Concert. There are stories with music, songs, and Musical acts include Tenth Avenue Band from Newcastle, opportunities for children to join in, aimed at children of Primary school who have been entertaining regional audiences for more age (6-12 years), but adults are admitted too! The performance lasts than 15 years, with a mix of jazz, blues, African tunes, ska, approximately 50 minutes, and tickets include a tea time treat for klezmer, and Latin dance music. Also Alex Percy & Phil children (a glass of wine for the grown-ups!). Wilcox dexterous fiddle and accordion duo play traditional tunes, plus youthful folk band Toble. Great entertainment for all - and all our events are FREE! FESTIVAL CHORAL EVENSONG Music & events 10.00 am - 4.00 pm in Hexham Market Square and the Abbey precincts. 6.30 pm Hexham Abbey Watch the website for latest news and full entertainment line up! Music sung by Hexham Abbey choir includes Responses Clucas; Canticles Wood in D; Event 3 Anthem Wood Hail, Gladdening Light and Voluntary Elgar Sonata in G (1st movement) HANDEL’S MESSIAH Hexham Abbey Festival Chorus & Orchestra Keepers - exhibition by Carolyn Mendelsohn 7.30 pm Hexham Abbey Scott’s Bar, Forum Cinema 24 Sept - 18 Oct Tickets: £18 (reserved), £14 (unreserved), £10 (concession) Carolyn created the Face film/sound installation for Kathryn Jenkin soprano Sally Burchell alto Hexham Abbey Festival in 2008. Whilst in Hexham she James Geer tenor Philip Smith bass became fascinated by the uniqueness of the town and its David Murray conductor independent shopkeepers. For 2010 she has returned to Of all our Fantastic Fables the supreme classic “greatest create some additional images, and these form this more story ever told”, is the subject of G F Handel’s masterpiece, traditional photographic exhibition. written as always with this accomplished composer, in a remarkably short space of time. The premiere was in 1742 She continues: “Curious person that I am, I asked many of in Dublin, rather than London, to avoid the controversy these shopkeepers whether I could take a photograph of and charges of blasphemy often surrounding Handel’s them by their shop, or in their shop, partly for myself, but oratorios. Handel was, after all, a man of the theatre, an also because I wanted to document something unique and opera composer, a humanist, dealing with real people and special much in the same way Victorians did. I am coming real life situations. Although Messiah is not strictly an oratorio, since it has no narrative, it back this summer to stumble into more shops and (if they let me) photograph more is unmistakably full of all the theatrical colour and drama of his best operas. We have an people for this project, and the end result will be an exhibition and photographic outstanding team of soloists, with a background of performances with Glyndebourne document of some of the amazing shops and their keepers that make up Hexham. In Opera and the Royal Opera, ensuring, with the Festival Chorus in fine fettle, this evergreen this world of multi-nationals and supermarkets, the independent shop and trader is a work will come alive with freshness and vitality, as well as drama and pathos. rare and wonderful thing, this exhibition seeks to celebrate some of Hexham’s finest.” Sunday 26 September Box Office 01434 652477 www.hexhamabbey.org.uk/festival Monday 27 September Event 5 Event 6 UN COEUR EN HIVER PHIL WILCOX (baritone) & Graham Coatman (piano) Emmanuelle Béart & Daniel Auteuil in a tale Young Artist Platform - 1 about a young violinist 1.00 pm Hexham Abbey 7.45 pm Forum Cinema Tickets: £6.00 Tickets: £5.50 Phil Wilcox is the first of this year’s Young Artists, singing English song Last in our mini French film series, this is a and Lieder.