13-27 Canterbury OCTOBER 2012 Festival canterburyfestival.co.uk Kent’s International Arts Festival y ed Com & Dance | eatre | Th ic us M ce itions | Talks | Scien xhib | E ks al W Funders Welcome What makes this year’s Festival special? Van Morrison may be light on small talk but he’s still the greatest exponent of jazz, blues and Celtic rock on the planet. Also Irish, and guaranteed to raise a smile, Kieran Goss is Partner and Principal Sponsor Media Partners a folk superstar and charisma personified. KENTISH The MozART Group are four fabulous Polish Contents GAZETTE musicians who have turned their considerable The official newspaper of talents to debunking the stuffiness of the classical platform in favour 2012 Canterbury Festival Live updates at 8.45am and 3.05pm Classical Music 02 of belly laughs. In the UK for one concert only – in Canterbury. World Music 10 Science Centre Stage has grown and spread throughout the Festival Club 13 Sponsors programme. To help you locate Science events look out for the icon. Don’t miss the award-winning play Going Dark. As Theatre & Dance 17 an acting tour-de-force this one man show about an astronomer is Comedy 26 truly out of this world. Literature 27 The Festival’s unique dining experiences combine supper and Talks 28 entertainment. This year – in celebration of the Jubilee – your presence is requested by Britannia herself, waiving the rules in a Science 30 whimsical musical tribute to all things British. Family 32 Looking ahead, there’s exciting news for Festival 2013. We have Festival Fringe 34 the chance to bring an authentic Spiegeltent to Canterbury. These Walks 35 beautiful, atmospheric mirrored tents were created in Belgium in the © Kentish Gazette late 19th century and the few remaining have graced some of the Exhibitions 39 world’s greatest festivals. The ultimate cabaret and music salon, Portrait Artists’ Open Houses 41 this will open up new programming and give us an exciting extra venue. To secure the Spiegeltent for Canterbury we have to raise The Big Eat Out 44 £150,000 to match a grant of £187,000 already offered to us by the The Big Sleepover 45 Arts Council. Please help us by joining the fundraising effort (see Umbrella 46 page 16). Even a small donation will help make future Festivals even more fantastic. Meanwhile – get booking for this October and I’ll see At a Glance Diary 50 nebulostrata.com, nebulostrata.com, Trusts and Patrons you there! Acknowledgments 52 The John Swire 1989 Charitable Trust / The Seary Charitable Trust / James and Jenny Bird / Peter and Beryl Stevens / The Beerling Foundation Rosie Turner Map 53 Festival Box Office: 01227 378188 | www.canterburyfestival.co.uk 01227 378188 | www.canterburyfestival.co.uk Festival Box Office: 01227 787787 | www.canterburyfestival.co.uk Festival Box Office: Canterbury Festival Foundation (Friends) / Kent County Councillor Leyland Ridings Festival Director 01 Cathedral image © Festival Evensong Rêverie WORLD PREMIERE Canterbury Cathedral Choir The Life and Loves of Claude Debussy When The Flame Dies Dr David Flood Director Created by Lucy Parham (Piano) with Brendan Coyle Concert Performance with Video A special Evensong sung Last year pianist Lucy Parham’s biographical performance Ed Hughes Composer by the Cathedral choir to Odyssey of Love on Franz Liszt delighted audiences Roger Morris Libretto celebrate the opening of at the Festival. She’s back – commemorating the 150th William Reynolds Video Designer CLASSICAL MUSIC CLASSICAL the Festival. anniversary of Claude Debussy, one of the most prolific and MUSIC CLASSICAL innovative composers of the early 20th century. New Music Players Sunday 14 October His complex intellectual and emotional world involved an Carlos del Cueto Conductor Cathedral Quire 3.15pm entangled love life of illicit trysts in Jersey, a brush with Love or creativity? The Poet must Admission free a revolver and even a suicide attempt. With acclaimed actor Brendan Coyle (Downton Abbey’s Mr Bates) choose before the candle flickers narrating, Rêverie takes the form of a personal journey from and dies. Will he bring back his Debussy’s initial success with the Prix de Rome in 1885 to dead lover from the underworld, or his untimely death in 1918. It is punctuated with solo piano choose art, creativity, and immortal A concert of glorious music opens the Festival, revisiting the works including the ever-popular Clair de Lune and The fame? When the Flame Dies St Petersburg Symphony artistic connections between Russia and Canterbury. Following Girl with the Flaxen Hair to virtuosic showpieces such as explores the life of French poet, Orchestra stunning appearances here in 2006 and 2009 (with cellist Jardins sous la pluie, the Études and L’isle joyeuse. novelist, artist and filmmaker Jean Guy Johnston – this year appearing with the Australian String Cocteau and characters from his Sponsored by Vladimir Altschuler Conductor Quartet, see page 6) the St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra Sunday 14 October film Orphée in a fast-paced human Freddy Kempf Piano returns with our City’s favourite pianist Freddy Kempf. There’s Shirley Hall, The King’s School 7.30pm drama. Five outstanding young no finer artist to tackle Rachmaninov’s most challenging A Love Like Salt Tickets £18 singers join the New Music Players Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme concerto – and we are so delighted that Freddy’s international The Devil’s Violin ensemble of twelve top musicians. by Thomas Tallis schedule still permits the occasional performance ‘back home’. Company Zephyr Live electronics and stunning video Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 3 projection enhance this exciting collaboration with Sounds New Tchaikovsky Symphony No 5 The Canterbury connection is also found in Vaughan Masterful, theatrical Harford Lloyd Trio for Clarinet, Bassoon and Piano Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis composed storytelling with virtuoso Contemporary Music Festival. Rimsky-Korsakov Quintet in B flat for Piano, 1. in 1910 – a year after Rachmaninov’s masterpiece. The melodies – Flute, Clarinet, Bassoon and Horn Saturday 13 October ‘Theme’ concerned was a Psalter written by Tallis (one of the a magical evening. Norbert Burgmüller Duo for Clarinet and Piano Wednesday 17 October 2. The Marlowe Theatre 7.30pm Cathedral’s most famous lay clerks) in 1567 for the Louis Spohr Quintet Op 52 in C Minor Augustine Hall 8pm Tickets £35, £30, £25, £18, £12 then Archbishop. [See page 20] Tickets £15 3. Wednesday 17 October (Friends of Sounds New £12) Sponsored by 4. The second half is devoted to one work, Tchaikovsky’s Tuesday 16 October St Peter’s Methodist Church 7.30pm Presented by exhilarating Fifth Symphony. In four movements we journey Canterbury Cathedral Tickets £15 (Students £7.50, Under 16s free) Sounds New 1. Lucy Parham Festival Box Office: 01227 787787 | www.canterburyfestival.co.uk Festival Box Office: from a solemn funereal opening, through a serene second 01227 787787 | www.canterburyfestival.co.uk Festival Box Office: Lodge 2. Brendan Coyle Presented by movement (with its famous and beautiful horn solo), to a lilting Cathedral Precincts 8pm 3. Zephyr 02 waltz, and the triumphant march of the finale. Music at St Peter’s 4. Freddy Kempf Image © Neda Navaee 03 DIRECTOR'S CHOICE The Soldier’s Tale Don Giovanni By Igor Stravinsky By Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart The Cardinall’s Musick Mid Wales Opera and Chamber Orchestra ‘…the voices of Andrew Soloists of the Philharmonia Andrew Carwood Choir Director Carwood and his cohorts Nicholas Cleobury Conductor The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of Martin Lloyd-Evans Director William Byrd (c 1540–1623) was one of the brightest musical could probably start a the great orchestras of the world and stars of the Renaissance world and was described as blaze in the Antarctic!’ its soloists are among the leading A tragic tale of love, lust, betrayal and revenge CLASSICAL MUSIC CLASSICAL ‘Britannicae Musicae Parens’ – The Father of British MUSIC CLASSICAL exponents of their art. – all human passion is exposed in the tense, Music. Taking their name from the 16th century (The Times) claustrophobic world of Don Giovanni. The Don cardinal Thomas Wolsey, The Cardinall’s Musick Stravinsky based his allegorical Faustian ducks and dives but cannot in the end escape his have spent ten years recording every note tale on an old Russian folk story. It tells fate, while all around him others fall prey to their of Byrd’s sacred music – winning many of a deserting soldier and a conniving own weakness… prestigious prizes along the way. This year devil who eventually possesses his soul. they have been ‘going live’ in a series of With music by turns dramatic, overpowering and concerts from Orkney to Arundel, moving The music is immediately accessible, seductive, this new production gives an up-to- through the liturgical year in sequence, charming yet full of wit and excitement. date twist to an operatic favourite. Bound to set showcasing Byrd’s passion and placing It mixes jaunty jazz and ragtime with your heart racing! him in context as the most important tango rhythms, military marches, a musician of the Tudor age. Their waltz, a chorale and haunting melodies ‘Wow – so moved and in tears – out of this world – Festival concert includes Byrd’s Mass steeped in the traditions of ancient brilliant, absolutely brilliant’ for Five Voices, Propers for All Saints Russian culture. (Audience feedback Madam Butterfly – and Infelix ego. October 2011) ‘This is music of the highest Sunday 21 October ‘All praise to Mid Wales Opera, whose touring quality which has the power to St Gregory’s Centre for Music 3pm version is an absolute delight. With a cast move both the heart and mind.’ Tickets £12 (Friends of working as a team, the delivery of the text is (Andrew Carwood) St Gregory’s £10, Students £5) crystal-clear and the ensembles crackle.