Our fantastic festival programme for 2024.


FRIDAY 12th APRIL 2024


6.30pm DOORS OPEN
WELCOME DRINKS FOR FESTIVAL PASS HOLDERS
7.30pm OPENING RECITAL:
SURE ON THIS SHINING NIGHT

Ludlow Assembly Rooms

James Newby baritone
Iain Burnside piano

George Butterworth
Bredon Hill
Oh Fair Enough Are Sky and Plain
When the Lad For Longing Sighs
On the Idle Hill of Summer
With Rue My Heart is Laden

Sir C.V. Stanford Johneen
John Ireland Youth’s Spring Tribute
Arr Benjamin Britten The Plough Boy
Roger Quilter Go, Lovely Rose
Ned Rorem Youth, day, old age, and night
Sir C.V.Stanford Ochone when I used to be young
Herbert Howells An Old Man’s Lullaby

Jessy Reason Songs of Death :
I. On the day when death will knock at thy door
II. O thou, the last fulfilment of life
III. When I go from hence

Samuel Barber Sure on this shining night
Sir Arthur Sullivan The Nightmare Song
Jake Heggie The haughty snail-King
Claude Michel-Schönberg Stars


9.30pm  CABARET: GIRLS WILL BE BOYS

Ludlow Assembly Rooms

Jess Walker with Joseph Atkins

A whistle-stop musical tour of cross-dressing in song: from Victorian music hall, through Weimar cabaret of 1920s Berlin and onto the musical stages of the later twentieth century, with Victor Victoria and Peter Pan.


SATURDAY 13th APRIL 2024

11.00am MORNING RECITAL – MARCHING THROUGH TIME

Ludlow Assembly Rooms

Harriet Burns soprano
Elgan Llŷr Thomas tenor
Ian Tindale piano

Cheryl Frances-Hoad
Magic Lantern Tales: 1. Marching Through Time

Michael Tippett The Heart’s Assurance
Song
The heart’s assurance
Compassion
The Dancer
Remember your lovers

Cheryl Frances-Hoad
Magic Lantern Tales: 2. Lily Maynard
Magic Lantern Tales: 3. The Ballad of Harry Holmes

Christopher Churcher Skysongs PREMIERE
i. To the Rain (Ursula K. Le Guin)

ii. A short story of falling (Alice Oswald)
iii. There Will Come Soft Rains (Sara Teasdale)

Gerald Finzi Till Earth Outwears
Let me enjoy the earth
In years defaced
The market-girl
I look into my glass
It never looks like summer
At a Lunar eclipse
Life laughs onwards

Cheryl Frances-Hoad
Magic Lantern Tales: 5. Marching Through Time

Ivor Novello We’ll Gather Lilacs


2.30pm FILM: MICHAEL TIPPETT, THE SHADOW AND THE LIGHT

Ludlow Assembly Rooms


4.30pm JOHN BRIDCUT IN CONVERSATION WITH KATY HAMILTON

Ludlow Assembly Rooms

Festival Pass Holder Event

concluding with a performance of Tippett’s Boyhood’s End
Elgan Llŷr Thomas tenor
Ian Tindale piano


7.30PM EVENING RECITAL: THE LAND OF LOST CONTENT

St Laurence’s Church

Roderick Williams baritone
Leon Bosch Double Bass
Iain Burnside piano

W Denis Browne Arabia (Walter de la Mare)
Amy Woodforde-Finden Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar (Violet Nicolson)
Amy Beach The Moon-path (Katharine Adams)
Rebecca Clarke The Seal Man (John Masefield)

Harry T Burleigh Five Songs of Laurence Hope Laurence Hope (Violet Nicolson)
Worth while
The Jungle Flower
Kashmiri Song
Among the Fuchsias
Till I wake

Grant McLachlan The silence of the day
Olifantsbos (Archie Swanson)
Sea (Mxolisi Nyezwa)
Langebaan (Stephen Watson)
Happiness (Mxolisi Nyezwa)
Stone Clouds (Stephen Watson)
Winter is past (Archie Swanson)

Arthur Somervell From ‘A Shropshire Lad’ (A E Housman)
Loveliest of Trees
When I was one-and-twenty
The street sounds to the soldiers’ tread
On the idle hill of summer
Think no more, lad
Into my heart an air that kills


SUNDAY 14TH APRIL 2024


10.00am PANEL:  CHAIRED BY KATY HAMILTON
Festival Pass Holder Event

Ludlow Assembly Rooms

Further details follow


11.30am YOUNG ARTIST MASTERCLASS with Robert Dean and Iain Burnside
Festival Pass Holder Event

Ludlow Assembly Rooms


2.30pm CLOSING RECITAL: CELEBRATING STANFORD

Ludlow Assembly Rooms

Harriet Burns soprano
Olivia Ray mezzo
Dafydd Jones tenor
Jerome Knox baritone
Ian Tindale piano

Howells Under the greenwood tree
Moeran The Lover and his Lass
Ireland When Daffodils begin to peer

Stanford A cycle of songs Op.68
As thro’ the land
Sweet and low
The Splendour Falls

Clarke Down by the Sally Gardens
Wood Of all the trees in England
Somervell In summertime on Bredon
Parry From a City Window

Derri Joseph Lewis 9 Songs for Barts
Rahere’s vision
Petition to King Henry VIII The Heart
The Great Hall
Rules to be observed

Stanford A cycle of songs Op.68
Tears, idle tears
O swallow, swallow

Arr. Vaughan Williams Think of Me
Dunhill The Cloths of Heaven
Stanford Crossing the Bar

Stanford A cycle of songs Op.68
Home they brought her warrior dead
Ask me no more


The above programme is subject to change without notification.