Little Missenden Festival 2008

 

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2007 Festival summary  

This is a brief summary of the programme.  Click the event numbers to see details.  Click here for a simple listing.

 

  • Loves and Laments:  EXAUDI return to perform music from the golden age of Italian song expressing love and lamentation by Monteverdi, Strozzi, Luzzaschi and others, interspersed with new works on the same theme.  (Event 1)

 

  • The exciting St Petersburg Quartet return to play Shostakovich's 5th quartet, Beethoven's marvellous late opus 127 quartet and Stravinsky’s delightful Three pieces.   (Event 8)  

 

 

  • Gary Cooper plays a programme of towering late-Beethoven masterpieces on a copy of a piano of Beethoven’s time – Sonata op 111, Diabelli variations, op 126 Bagatelles.  (Event 13)

 

  • Acoustic Triangle (Malcolm Creese, Gwilym Simcock and Tim Garland) bring their acclaimed virtuoso chamber jazz to Little Missenden church.  (Event 5)

 

  • The Britten Sinfonia perform Britten’s great Hardy settings Winter Words, , a recent cycle of John Tavener songs (Songs of the Sky), and pieces by Purcell, Bach, Vaughan Williams and Rubbra.  With Charles Daniels (tenor), Julius Drake (piano), Nicholas Daniel (oboe).  (Event 12)

 

  • Pavlo Beznosiuk’s Avison Ensemble programme explores the attractive work of little-known 18th century English composer Charles Avison and his more famous contemporaries Bach, Scarlatti, and Vivaldi.  (Event 6)

 

  • Alexandra Wood (violin) and Huw Watkins (piano) play pieces by Elgar, Howells, Drakeford, Goehr and Watkins.  (Event 10)

 

  • Magnificent music for solo viol (Marais, Ste Colombe, Hume, Forqueray) expertly played by Ibi Aziz in the intimate acoustic of Abbey Farmhouse.  (Event 3)

 

  • Children from three local schools perform their own songs, crafted in workshops led by Janet Davey.  Janet is writing a new piece, which will be performed alongside works by John Tavener, Steve Reich and Joanna Lee.  Sarah Leonard, Richard Benjafield and Michael Allen provide expert support.  (Event 2)

 

  • Askew & Avis, two solo singers with roots in jazz, folk and early music who use computer feedback loops to build up mesmerising harmonic and rhythmic patterns.  (Event 7)  

 

  • Rising young Lithuanian pianist Evelina Puzaite plays a wonderfully varied programme of Schubert, Schumann, Debussy and De Falla, including a set of  Nocturnes by young Oxford composer Thomas Hyde.  (Event 9)

 

  • Luke Syson, curator of the National Gallery’s autumn exhibition, The Renaissance in Siena, will talk about the exhibition and its paintings.  (Event 4)

 

  • John Fuller will read some of Auden’s poetry, and offer his analysis and reminiscences of the great poet and his work.  He will also read some of his own poems, and discuss how Auden influenced his writing.  (Event 11)

 

Little Missenden Festival 2007