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A week-long festival of classical music, with internationally-acclaimed musicians performing in churches across the Burnhams and later broadcast on BBC radio, will launch this July.
Festival Week is a new addition to the calendar of annual classical concerts and recitals organised by Music in the Burnhams, a charity which aims to throw off the elitist reputation of classical music and open the genre to all by bringing renowned musicians to beautiful venues across north-west Norfolk.
Devised by Adrian Bradbury, Artistic Director of Music in the Burnhams, this inaugural festival runs from Sunday 19th July to Friday 24th July and sees the charity join forces with the Museum of Music History to celebrate composer Sir Julius Benedict (1804-1885), who was the conductor of the Norwich Festival for over 30 years.
The week will showcase music by Benedict, his teachers Hummel and Weber, his close friends Mendelssohn, Moscheles and Liszt, and a composer he once met in Vienna - Beethoven.
It will officially launch with a Choral Evensong at St Mary's Church in Burnham Market, on 19th July, at 3pm, featuring choruses and arias from Benedict's cantata 'The Legend of St Cecilia' sung by St Martin's Voices, the choir of St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square, London. This service will be recorded for broadcast as the Daily Service on BBC Radio 4 on St Cecilia's Day to honour St Cecilia of Rome, patron saint of musicians, on 22nd November.
Then from 20th to 23rd July, All Saints Church in Burnham Thorpe will host daily lunchtime (1pm) and evening (7.30pm) concerts of chamber music.
A highlight, starting at 5pm on 22nd July, will be a five-hour marathon 'Monster Concert' of ballads, arias, poems and instrumental turns modelled on Benedict's legendary Grand Annual Concerts. Actor Dudley O'Shaughnessy from Netflix series 'Top Boy' will make a special guest appearance, reciting the poem 'The Uncle' by Henry Glassford Bell, a favourite of Benedict's Monster Concerts.
Sensational young pianist Thomas Kelly, a prize winner at this year's International Liszt Competition in Utrecht, will be resident throughout the festival.
Other world-class musicians will perform, including pianists Andrew West, Peter Hewitt and Philip Carli, clarinettists Emma Johnson and John Bradbury, flautist Michael Cox, oboist Gordon Hunt, bassoonist Sarah Burnett, horn player Ben Goldscheider, violinists Ben Holland, David Greed and Robert Gibbs, violist Wenhong Luo, cellist Adrian Bradbury, double bassist Christopher West, the Victoria String Quartet, soprano Milly Forrest and tenors Lawrence Thackeray and Gwilym Bowen.
The London Chamber Orchestra under conductor Christopher Warren-Green will provide the finale on 24th July at 7.30pm - an evening concert featuring Benedict's haunting second piano concerto, Mendelssohn's joyful Italian Symphony, and Weber's magical overture to Oberon.
Julius Benedict's colourful life will be the subject of daily talks presented by Dr Philip Carli, a preeminent Benedict scholar from the Eastman School of Music in New York. From 20th to 23rd July, at 11am in All Saints Church Sutton cum Ulph in Burnham Market, Dr Carli will tell Benedict's story with the help of diaries, letters, manuscripts, and a piano for musical illustration.
A festival café will operate throughout the week, plus a cocktail bar in the evenings offering two cocktails specifically created for the festival: 'The Gypsy's Warning' made with a base of Norfolk rum and its sister mocktail 'The Lily of Killarney' made with Norfolk punch, both named after Benedict operas.
Tickets for Music in the Burnham's Festival Week's concerts can be purchased in advance at musicintheburnhams.com/festival-week. Dr Carli's talks will be free to attend.
