A CELEBRATION of the music of Sir Edward Elgar kicks off tomorrow (Friday) as the Elgar Festival makes a triumphant return.
Cancelled in 2020 because of the pandemic, the feast of music and knowledge of Worcester’s favourite son is back with events for everyone to enjoy the legacy of one of Britain’s most famous composers.
Set in and around the composer’s home city, the event comprises orchestral concerts given by the resident English Symphony Orchestra, as well as guest artists, alongside guided ‘Elgar Tours’, workshops, street performances, exhibits and talks.
Embodying the ethos ‘Elgar for Everyone’, the Festival engages with those of all ages and backgrounds in music and legacy at a number of integral venues of both historic interest and personal significance to the composer, including Worcester Cathedral and the Guildhall.
Since its inauguration in 2018 – lauded as ‘Critic’s Pick’ in both The Guardian and The Times – the Festival has doubled in size and scale. Tickets are now on sale for all of the events throughout the weekend.
Friday, October 29
7pm – Worcester Guildhall – Opening Concert: Elgar’s Strings with Raphael Wallfisch and the ESO
Cellist Raphael Wallfisch, whose deeply-moving 100th Anniversary performance of the Elgar Cello Concerto was the undoubted highlight of the 2019 Elgar Festival, returns with a sequence of engaging miniatures for cello and strings arranged by Donald Fraser.
The programme opens with Elgar’s much loved Serenade, and concludes with the playful and witty “Little Music” for strings by the English String Orchestra’s former “Composer-in-Association”, Sir Michael Tippett.
Finally, there’s a musical after-dinner sorbet, Evan Chambers virtuosic and hilarious setting of two Irish jigs, The Tall-Eared Fox and the Wild-Eyed Man.
It’s an evening celebrating the best of English string music with one of the world’s most admired string orchestras, Worcester’s own English String Orchestra and a worthy celebration of the 400th anniversary of the Worcester Charter.
9pm – Worcester Guildhall – Club Elgar with the Misha Mullov Abbado Group
Another ground-breaking event, proving that the Elgar Festival really means Elgar For Everyone!
Join us for the first of our new, sure to be hugely popular, late night concerts.
We welcome one of the UK’s most innovative and exciting jazz ensembles for an evening of genre-bending music, and surely a healthy dose of Elgar…. as you’ve never heard him before
Saturday, October 30
1.30pm – St Martins, London Road – “Elgar in the Age of the Suffragettes” with Leah Broad
On the 21 January 1911 at the Royal Albert Hall, Ethel Smyth conducted the first performance of her ‘March of the Women’, the choral piece that would become known as the suffragette anthem.
Just three days later she led a small ensemble playing her March at a suffrage event — composer Rebecca Clarke was the violist.
This talk explores the connections and friendships between the composers in this afternoon’s concert, and the context that gave rise to their music. Leah Broad is currently writing a group biography of four women composers — Ethel Smyth, Rebecca Clarke, Dorothy Howell and Doreen Carwithen — which will be published by Faber & Faber.
She is regularly on BBC radio as a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker, and was winner of the Observer/Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism in 2015
2.30pm – St Martins, London Road – Corra Sound Concert
One of Britain’s most exciting professional chamber choirs, the all-female Corra Sound performs a vibrant, engaging and accessible programme of works by Gipps, Smyth, Poston, Clarke and Elgar.
It’s a rich and rewarding celebration of predominantly female composers from Elgar’s era, alongside contemporary works of great appeal.
5.45pm – Henry Sandon Hall – The A.T. Shaw Lecture with Stephen Johnson
The Elgar Festival is proud to welcome one of Britain’s most admired and engaging advocates for classical music, the leading broadcaster, author, critic and composer, Stephen Johnson, for a discussion of the many innovations to be found in Elgar’s Enigma Variations and the First Symphony.
The Elgar Society’s A.T. Shaw Lecture is a biennial talk by one of today’s leading Elgar Scholars.
From his first appearance on Radio 3’s CD Review in 1987, he has gone on to take part in several hundred radio programmes, most recently concentrating on documentaries about composers and musicians, and particularly on Radio 3’s weekly Discovering Music series.
Stephen has also made numerous appearances on TV, contributing as guest interviewee on BBC4 coverage of The Proms, ITV’s The South Bank Show, and more recently on BBC1’s The One Show.
More recently, Stephen has published highly regarded books on Mahler, Shostakovich, Bruckner and Wagner. He is also an active composer, having recently written a Clarinet for Emma Johnson and the Carducci Quartet, and this summer, he completed a new string quartet
7.30pm – Worcester Cathedral – Gala Festival Concert. Elgar’s Enigma Variations
There will surely be electricity in the air as Kenneth Woods and the ESO perform Elgar’s beloved Enigma Variations, a timeless celebration of friendship and community, and the perfect work with which to welcome our friends and listeners back.
It’s been over two years since the triumphant 100th Anniversary performance of the Elgar Cello Concerto for a packed Worcester Cathedral at the 2019 Elgar Festival. It’s time to let the music play again and to celebrate the life and music of Britain’s greatest composer
Sunday, October 31
11am – Huntingdon Hall – Celebrity Celebration of British Song
Emerging superstar tenor Mark Wilde is joined by one of Britain’s most loved and admired pianists and animateurs, David Owen Norris, for a concert celebrating the rich legacy of English song, from the Victorian stylings of Haynes, through the Edwardian mastery of Elgar, and on to a new cycle by Ian Venables, the man hailed by Musical Opinion Quarterly as “…Britain’s greatest living composer of art songs
1.30pm – St Martins in the Cornmarket – The Elgar Chorale in Concert
The much-admired local choir which proudly bears the name of our featured composer returns with a concert that will include favourite part songs by Elgar and Coleridge-Taylor, including the latter’s The Viking Song, as well as a selection of Vaughan Williams’ choral works including A Dark-eyed Sailor and Valiant-for-Truth.
3.30pm – Severn Hall, Three Counties Showground, Malvern – The 2021 Elgar for Everyone Family Concert
For many attendees, the Elgar for Everyone Family Concert was the surprise highlight of the 2019 Elgar Festival.
Over 130 young musicians, ranging in age from 7-21 joined forces alongside their English Symphony Orchestra mentors for a thrilling evening of music.
This year’s return of the E4E concert promises to be an even more moving and poignant concert, as these talented young musicians give their first performance for an audience since the March 2020 lockdown.
Visit www.elgarfestival.org for a complete list of events and booking information.
