VALE OF GLAMORGAN
FESTIVAL OF MUSIC 2005
ABOUT THIS YEAR’S FESTIVAL
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VALE OF GLAMORGAN |
FESTIVAL OF MUSIC 2005 |
ABOUT THIS YEAR’S FESTIVAL |
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A number of fascinating threads and programming ideas inform the 2005 Festival. Music by Japanese composers, storytelling, visual art and a focus on the work of women composers are all part of the pattern. A fair number of composers are represented this year, but among them are names that will be familiar to regular Festival attenders.
The opening and closing events are in the spectacular surroundings of the arts centre at St Donats. The first concert is built around the clarsach, the beautiful Scottish harp, offering again a somewhat different perspective of what the words ‘contemporary music’ might mean. Ruth Wall’s contribution is complemented by other solo performers, each of whose presence anticipates an even more substantial involvement later in the week. One of those is Howard Skempton. The brilliant young vocal group EXAUDI offer what is in effect a Skempton portrait in the second concert – choral music interwoven with exquisite and quirky accordion miniatures played by the composer himself.
The BBC National Orchestra of Wales concert includes a 70th-birthday tribute to Kurt Schwertsik and a further chance to hear Guto Puw’s Reservoirs (nominated for a Royal Philharmonic Society prize this year). Works by two women composers – Elena Kats-Chernin, who we featured in 2001, and Judith Weir, whose intriguing music we have long intended to present at the Festival – complete the programme. Saturday’s concert by the Schubert Ensemble also contains key chamber music works by Weir and, as a centrepiece of the programme, the world premiere of Graham Fitkin’s new Piano Quartet.
Two concerts by Okeanos bring the Festival to a spectacular close. Their candlelit concert in the magical surroundings of Ewenny Priory includes world premieres by Akiko Ogawa and Robin Holloway. Their last evening concert (note starting time!) will use all three spaces in St Donats Arts Centre – gallery, theatre and glass room – for a performance which will move seamlessly from music to visual art and storytelling – to be complemented by delicious Japanese food. This all should add up to a compelling and diverse range of music by living composers.
I believe that a knowledge of and interest in new music is as much a part of a true contemporary cultural awareness as, for example, an interest in film, writing, or the visual arts. Given the beautiful and atmospheric venues, outstanding performers, what I hope is distinctive and original programming and the presence of the composers themselves for talks and informal discussion, there really is no better place to develop and enhance such an awareness than the Vale of Glamorgan Festival.
John Metcalf, June 2005
www.johnmetcalf.co.uk
