THE FOURTH LINCOLN AND LINCOLNSHIRE INTERNATIONAL CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL

This year the Festival is delighted to have the pianist, Ashley Wass as a new Artistic Director. He is now established as one of the leading performers of his generation. As a native of Lincolnshire he has been very keen to undertake this project and has come up with a wonderful programme with fantastic artists. “I have invited to this Festival several well-loved, established artists and some superb young musicians who have brilliant careers ahead of them. They hail from America, France, Serbia, Germany, Russia, Armenia and Australia as well as Britain. They will be resident in Lincoln over each weekend, and there will be opportunities to meet them in pre-concert talks or over refreshments after the concerts. We aim to make the concert experience accessible and friendly.”

The Romantic Experience

The theme of the Festival, “The Romantic Experience” illustrates the wealth of music through the nineteenth century from Beethoven to Elgar including Schumann, Schubert, Brahms, Fauré, Liszt and Tchaikovsky, and also explores aspects of Romantic music from earlier and later periods. The concerts all have themes with names such as Home Sweet Home, Green and Pleasant, Invitation to the Dance and String Fellows. A particular highlight will be The Storytellers which illustrates programme music from the 18th and 19th centuries and which features world renowned American violinist Sarah Chang in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. With one performance only, Sarah is making an exclusive visit to Lincoln to be part of this Festival.

Another coup for this event will be the appearance of soprano, Elizabeth Watts, finalist in the recently televised BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition and winner of the Rosenblatt Song Prize in that competition. She will be singing French songs including Fauré’s “La Bonne Chanson” with words by Paul Verlaine, who, intriguingly, lived and worked for two years in Stickney near Boston! French artists Philippe Cassard and the Parisii Quartet will also be playing in the same programme entitled Salut d’Amour.

A tourist theme for Lincolnshire this year, the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, Virginia is commemorated in a mini American theme in the first weekend. There are concerts in Boston and in Willoughby where John Smith, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, was born and the concerts are enhanced with talks on the subject.

County Wide

Altogether there are 30 concerts in Lincoln city and Lincolnshire towns and villages, planned so that anyone in the county is just a short journey from an event. Festival organisers are pleased to be able to benefit from the wealth of venues in the county. “ In Lincolnshire we have the choice of so many attractive buildings and we aim to celebrate that heritage by staging concerts in them. Impressive churches such as those in Brant Broughton, Tattershall, and Spilsby and St Swithins in Lincoln, the splendid houses of Doddington Hall, and Westgate House in Louth, the intimacy of the historic village hall in Tealby and the unique atmosphere of Lincoln’s première venue, The Drill Hall all help to create the character of the Festival and display Lincolnshire at its best”

Details

The 2007 Festival begins on Friday 24th August at 7.30pm at The Lincoln Drill Hall.

For more information and the full Festival brochure, call 07757 708858, email licmfoffice@ntlworld.com or visit www.licmf.org.uk.

Tickets for all concerts are available now and can be booked either in person or by phone at Lincoln Drill Hall Box Office - 01522 873894.

last updated: 01-08-2007 13:10

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