2019 Lammermuir Festival Launch - Lammermuir Festival

Lammermuir Festival
13 – 22 September 2019
10th Festival

2019 Lammermuir Festival Release – Adobe PDF

2019 Lammermuir Festival Release – Word file

Beautiful Music Beautiful Places
www.lammermuirfestival.co.uk

• 10th Lammermuir Festival (2010 – 2019)
• Ten days of beautiful music in beautiful places across East Lothian
• Quatuor Mosaïques play Beethoven’s Razumovsky Quartets
• Baritone Roderick Williams : three Schubert song cycles in new English translations
• Two concerts from breathtaking Belgian vocal ensemble Vox Luminis
• Three concerts from flautist Adam Walker
• BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra & Scottish Chamber Orchestra
• Festival Patron Steven Osborne, piano, performs Beethoven and Messiaen
• Composer in Association, Stuart MacRae’s third Prometheus-inspired commission
• Dunedin Consort and John Butt: Bach Brandenburg Concertos and Vivaldi Four Seasons
• Scottish Opera returns with a double bill
• Film and music from ZRI (Zum Roten Igel): live soundtrack to Chaplin’s The Adventurer
• Multi-award winning guitarist Sean Shibe
• New festival venues including Red Note Ensemble in East Linton’s historic cattle market

Since 2010, The Lammermuir Festival has brought beautiful music to beautiful places in a host of rural and town settings, sometimes in surprising venues, nestling between the Lammermuir Hills and the sea.  Born of a conviction that historic architecture and beautiful landscape can create the ideal environment for great music-making, the Festival has consistently and carefully matched the highest calibre of musicians and music to its venues, making Lammermuir Festival the special musical experience for which it has become known.

The 10th Lammermuir Festival features a programme of musical and geographical journeys which affirm the endless possibilities of music in this beautiful part of Scotland.

Festival founders and co-artistic directors Hugh Macdonald and James Waters said, “We really cannot believe that this is our 10^th Festival and we are celebrating in style.  Our major musical journeys with Quatuor Mosaïques, Adam Walker, Roderick Williams and Ensemble in Residence the Dunedin Consort are only starting points for a musical feast which we hope will thrill our audiences.”

Head of Music at Creative Scotland, Alan Morrison said, “ To celebrate its tenth anniversary, the Lammermuir Festival has crafted a perfectly balanced programme that travels from Palestrina’s 16^th-century peak of polyphony to Stuart MacRae’s 21^st-century reshaping of the Prometheus myth. The human voice has a starring role this year, from opera to ensemble to soloist, and even silent cinema star Charlie Chaplin has something to say as ZRI perform live at a screening of classic short The Adventurer. It’s particularly pleasing to see so many of Scotland’s best musicians performing at world-class level in these wonderful local locations, underlining the quality and uniqueness of this much-loved event.”

Paul Bush OBE, Director of Events at VisitScotland, said: “EventScotland are delighted to be supporting the 10^th Lammermuir Festival through our Beacon Funding Programme. The Lammermuir area is the perfect stage for such an event, offering the opportunity for visitors to discover new places and unique concert experiences in some of Scotland’s finest historic buildings and unexpected venues.”

The 2019 Lammermuir Festival is most grateful to the many public and private investors whose support has made this Festival possible. In particular we thank Creative Scotland, EventScotland,

BBC Radio 3, The Lamp of Lothian and sponsors McInroy & Wood, Turcan Connell and Take One Media.  Support from The Binks Trust, Dunard Fund, Penpont Charitable Trust and the Stevenston Charitable Trust has this year been supplemented by donations from a growing number of individuals whose commitment is vital and greatly appreciated.

The 10th Festival programme for 2019 includes four journeys with Festival friends old and new: Quatuor Mosaïques, Dunedin Consort, Adam Walker and Roderick Williams. We open with a return visit from Quatuor Mosaïques in one of our best loved venues, Whitekirk’s beautiful mediaeval church, for the first of three programmes centred around Beethoven’s Razumovsky Quartets.

Dunedin Consort directed by John Butt has performed at every Lammermuir Festival and to celebrate their tenth Festival, they bring us four concerts spanning the complete Bach Brandenburg Concertos and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, with the brilliant violinist, Cecilia Bernardini.

Britain’s leading baritone Roderick Williams brings us Schubert’s great song cycles The Fair Maid of The Mill, Winter Journey and Swansongs in acclaimed new English translations by Jeremy Sams, with Christopher Glynn, piano.

The first of flautist Adam Walker’s three concerts this year is with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra as soloist in the Nielsen Flute Concerto and Siduri Dances, a short piece written for him by Brett Dean, conducted by Daniel Blendulf. We next hear him in his first of two recitals, a coffee concert programme of virtuosic and sparkling French music for flute. The multi-award-winning guitarist Sean Shibe joins Adam for the second recital with colourful and sensual music for flute and guitar including Piazzolla Histoire du Tango and Debussy’s Syrinx.

The last and most ambitious of Stuart MacRae’s three Lammermuir Festival commissions based on the Prometheus myth is his Prometheus Symphony, a work for voices and orchestra which will make dramatic use of the space in Haddington’s great mediaeval church, St Mary’s. Soprano Jennifer France joins the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Matthew Halls for this co-commission with BBC Radio 3. The programme includes Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis and Sibelius Symphony No 5.

The breathtaking Belgian vocal ensemble Vox Luminis directed by Lionel Meunier visit Lammermuir Festival for the first time this year. They sing great works by Palestrina and Victoria in a venue new to us, the glorious church of Our Lady of Loretto and St Michael in Musselburgh. Vox Luminis’s second concert includes Scarlatti’s dramatically soaring ten-part Stabat Mater, in the impressive setting of St Mary’s Church, Haddington.

Scottish Opera join the Festival for the second year, in a double-bill of Mascagni’s Zanetto and Wolf-Ferrari’s Susanna’s Secret. Singers are mezzo-soprano Hanna Hipp, sopranos Sinead Campbell Wallace and Clare Presland, and baritone Richard Burkhard, who performed Papageno in Scottish Opera’s recent performances of The Magic Flute. Directed by Rosie Purdie. Conducted by David Parry.

We are delighted to present for the first time at Lammermuir Festival, the five virtuosic and vibrant players who are ZRI – Zum Roten Igel (The Red Hedgehog). They perform live to Charlie Chaplin’s classic silent movie The Adventurer at Musselburgh’s Brunton Theatre. ZRI’s five musicians transport the listener to the exciting melting pot of early 20th-century New York where jazz, Klezmer, East European folk music and classical intertwined. This concert is suitable for children but will be enjoyed by people of all ages.

Festival regulars Red Note Ensemble, innovative as ever, bring their part-performance, part-kinetic sculptural work entitled Aeolian. The sounds of specially made, air-activated mechanical instruments blend with the virtuoso accordion playing of Andreas Borregaard to create an extraordinary sonic experience in an extraordinary historic building – the recently restored Mart in East Linton. In an earlier concert, Red Note and the talented young musicians of the Red Note Academy, drawn from leading international conservatoires, play works by its Academy composers, plus two works by Knussen and Maxwell Davies, conducted by Simon Proust.

Lammermuir Festival’s Patron is one of the most distinguished international pianists, Steven Osborne. In the first of two concerts this Festival, Steven performs Beethoven’s last three sonatas, which he introduces himself. Steven is known as one of the world’s leading interpreters of Messiaen’s music, and he leads an ensemble including Jean Johnston clarinet and Philip Higham cello in Messiaen’s seminal 20th-century work, the Quartet for the End of Time.

Beethoven’s monumental ’Hammerklavier’ sonata is performed by another of Britain’s finest pianists making a welcome return – Danny Driver. Danny then joins other old Festival friends the Maxwell Quartet for Brahms’s stunning Piano Quintet. The Maxwells give another concert, bringing us a unique mix of Mozart’s Hunt Quartet, and Schubert’s great Death and the Maiden, along with the quartet’s own charming arrangements of Scottish folk tunes.

The third solo pianist in this year’s programme is Tom Poster who gives a late night concert of nocturnes and music for and about night time, including Chopin, Debussy, Clara Schumann and Grieg and his own arrangements of Gershwin, Jerome Kern and Cole Porter.

Another late night concert, this time with Buxtehude and Bach on the organ of St Mary’s Haddington, is with master organist David Goode, who is currently recording all of Bach’s organ music.

The great barrel-vaulted mediaeval hall of Lennoxlove House, home of the Duke and Duchess of Hamilton, is one of our more intimate, but extremely special settings, with music brought to us this year by Tabea Debus recorder, Alex McCartney theorbo and Jonathan Rees cello continuo.

The very popular weekday (Mon-Fri) Coffee Concerts in Holy Trinity Church, Haddington open at 11.00 for coffee and cake. The concerts – roughly an hour of music – begin at 11.30am. As well as Sean Shibe, Adam Walker and Danny Driver already mentioned, the coffee concerts feature Hebrides Ensemble and Jamal Aliyev cello (Winner of the 2017 YCAT competition at Wigmore Hall, London) with Can Çakmur (most recent winner of the Scottish International Piano Competition).

 

For additional press and media details please contact:

Jane Nicolson [email protected]  07887 500977

 

TICKETS

www.lammermuirfestival.co.uk
0131 473 2000
Hub Tickets, Castlehill, Edinburgh, EH1 2NE

On the day of the concert, tickets may be available for cash only from the venue one hour before the performance.  Availability enquiries one hour before the performance only on 07876 170888.

notes to editors:

1. The Lammermuir Festival was founded in 2010, and this year (2019) is the 10th Festival. It was the recipient of the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Award in 2017 for the Festivals and Concert Series category. Co-Artistic Directors and founders are James Waters and Hugh Macdonald.
2. Creative Scotland is the public body that supports the arts, screen and creative industries across all parts of Scotland on behalf of everyone who lives, works or visits here. We enable people and organisations to work in and experience the arts, screen and creative industries in Scotland by helping others to develop great ideas and bring them to life. We distribute funding provided by the Scottish Government and the National Lottery. For further information about Creative Scotland please visit creativescotland.com. Follow us @creativescots and www.facebook.com/ CreativeScotland.
3. EventScotland is working to make Scotland the perfect stage for events. By developing an exciting portfolio of sporting and cultural events EventScotland is helping to raise Scotland’s international profile and boost the economy by attracting more visitors. For further information about EventScotland, its funding programmes and latest event news visit EventScotland.org. Follow EventScotland on Twitter @EventScotNews.

   EventScotland is a team within VisitScotland’s Events Directorate, the national tourism organisation which markets Scotland as a tourism destination across the world, gives support to the tourism industry and brings sustainable tourism growth to Scotland. For more information about VisitScotland see www.visitscotland.org or for consumer information on Scotland as a visitor destination see www.visitscotland.com.

4. Stuart MacRae: Composer in Association
   Stuart MacRae, one of the most distinctive composers of his generation, became Lammermuir Festival’s first Composer in Association in 2017. For Lammermuir, Stuart has written a specially-commissioned series of three works, over three years, on the theme of Prometheus. The first, Sunrises, was premiered at the 2017 Festival by the Gould Piano Trio; the second, I am Prometheus, was premiered at the 2018 Festival by tenor Joshua Ellicot and Hebrides Ensemble; and the third commission, The Prometheus Symphony, will be performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra with soprano Jennifer France at the 2019 Festival. This project is supported by the PRS Foundation Composers’ Fund.

   Stuart’s music has been performed at BBC Proms, the Royal Opera House by numerous orchestras and by groups including Scottish Chamber Orchestra, BCMG and London Sinfonietta. Stuart was Composer in Association with the BBC SSO from 1999 – 2003. His opera Ghost Patrol (2012), written with Louise Welsh, won the 2013 South Bank Sky Arts Award for Opera and was shortlisted for an Olivier Award.

5. The 2019 Lammermuir Festival is most grateful to the many public and private investors whose support has made this Festival possible. In particular, we thank Creative Scotland, EventScotland, BBC Radio 3, The Lamp of Lothian and sponsors McInroy & Wood, Turcan Connell and Take One Media.  Support from The Binks Trust, Dunard Fund, Penpont Charitable Trust and the Stevenston Charitable Trust has this year been supplemented by donations from a growing number of individuals whose commitment is vital and greatly appreciated.
6. ZRI – Zum Roten Igel (The Red Hedgehog) takes its name from the coffee house in Vienna which was a regular haunt of many famous composers, including Schubert and Brahms who were influenced by the gypsy musicians they heard there.
7. Venues: The great mediaeval church of St Mary’s Haddington continues to be the venue at the heart of the Lammermuir Festival. We return to annual favourites including Dirleton Kirk in its pretty, village setting, and the fine mediaeval church of St Mary’s Whitekirk in its ancient, remote setting with breathtaking views. New venues for 2019 include mediaeval Crichton Collegiate Church idyllically situated near Pathhead; Ormiston Parish Church; the beautiful Our Lady of Loretto and St Michael Catholic Church in Musselburgh and one of Scotland’s last remaining historic cattle markets, the superbly restored hexagonal building of The Mart, East Linton. We also visit historic Prestongrange Church, Prestonpans for the first time. More unusual venues to date have included Concorde and the vast mediaeval ruins of Tantallon Castle.