Saturday 11th April
Challenging Hardy
Women poets answer back to ‘A Young Man’s Exhortation’
Francis Melville – tenor
Adrian Thompson – tenor
Laurence Kilsby – tenor
With Joanna Scanlan
5.00pm (75 minutes, no interval)
Ludlow Assembly Rooms
Tickets £25; Under 21s £10
Many of Hardy’s views sit uncomfortably in the 21st century. Here women poets respond, affectionately and acerbically, with the help of BAFTA-winning actress Joanna Scanlan (Riot Women, After Love), with Finzi’s famous song cycle performed by tenors Adrian Thompson, Robin Tritschler and Francis Melville.
“Outstanding…a masterclass in the dramatic power of understatement.”
Mark Kermode (The Observer) on Joanna Scanlan’s BAFTA-winning performance in After Love
“Here is a realization of musicianship at its fullest, an ever spontaneous response to the specialized art form of recital singing.”
Calgary Herald on Adrian Thompson
With poetry by Fleur Adcock, Elizabeth Bishop, Lucille Clifton, Julia Darling, Carol Ann Duffy, U.A. Fanthorpe, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Elma Mitchell, Dorothy Nimmo, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sharon Olds and Adrienne Rich.
| Gerald Finzi | A Young Man’s Exhortation |
| Let Me Enjoy the Earth | |
| Ditty | |
| Budmouth Dears | |
| Her Temple | |
| The Comet at Yell’ham | |
| Shortening Days | |
| The Sigh | |
| Former Beauties | |
| The Market-Girl | |
| Transformations | |
| In Years Defaced | |
| I Say I’ll Seek Her | |
| Life Laughs Onward | |
| The Dance Continued |
Why not sponsor a favourite song?
You can sponsor a favourite song in your own name or anonymously, or dedicate a special piece of music to someone special. It’s the perfect gift for the music lovers and Finzi fans in your life!
We’ll include your sponsorship in the festival programme book next to the song title, with your own personalised wording. Once you’ve chosen a song, email Toria to arrange your sponsorship.
There isn’t a fixed donation amount for sponsorship. We make a suggestion of £50, but if that’s not affordable but you’d like to participate, please get in touch. If you’d like to offer more, or even sponsor a whole event, that’s fine too!
Joanna Scanlan
BAFTA award-winning actress Joanna Scanlan is one of Britain’s most versatile talents, seamlessly moving from comedy to drama across television, feature films and theatre.
Joanna’s film credits include After Love – for which she won the Lead Actress BAFTA and BIFA, Notes on a Scandal, Mad About the Boy and Bridget Jones’s Baby in the Bridget Jones franchise, and Wicked Little Letters. Joanna is also known for appearing in some of the best recent television series including Apple TV+’s hugely successful Slow Horses, A Very Royal Scandal, Boat Story, No Offence, Requiem, and The Thick of It. Joanna can currently be seen in Riot Women, a new BBC series created by Sally Wainwright.
Francis Melville
British tenor Francis Melville is currently studying for his Artist Diploma in Opera at the Royal College of Music, where he also completed his master’s degree.
He is a Cuthbert Smith Scholar and is supported by the Siow-Furniss Scholarship. He is taught by tenor Ben Johnson. Before studying at the RCM, he studied medicine at Imperial College London and worked as a junior doctor at Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital from 2020 until 2022.
He has been a Young Artist at the Ludlow English Song Weekend and at the Southrepps Music Festival and has taken part in masterclasses with Edith Wiens, Rachel Nicholls, Nicky Spence, Iain Burnside and Malcolm Martineau. He is also generously supported by the Josephine Baker Trust.
Opera roles include Miguel in Offenbach’s Pepito, Count Almaviva in Rossini’s Barber of Seville and Torquemada in Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnole. He performed in the Grange Park Opera chorus for their 2024 season. Recent solo oratorio performances include Puccini’s Messa di Gloria, Verdi’s Requiem, Mozart’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Howard Blake’s Benedictus and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio.
Adrian Thompson
London born Adrian Thompson is an artist of extraordinary versatility with a wide-ranging opera, concert and recital repertoire of works from the Renaissance to Contemporary music periods.
His recent opera appearances include Skuratov (The House of the Dead) and Canio (I Pagliacci) for Opera Frankfurt; Florestan (Fidelio) for Welsh National Opera; Albert Gregor (The Makropoulos Case) and Midas (Die Liebe der Danae) for Garsington Opera; as well as concert performances as Grigory (Boris Godunov) at The Brighton Festival and Bacchus (Ariadne auf Naxos) at the Barbican, London. He has also performed with Glyndebourne; The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; English National Opera; Scottish Opera; Badisches Staatstheater; Staatstheater Stuttgart; Staatstheater Darmstadt; Théâtre des Champs Elysées; New Israel Opera; Netherlands Opera; Opera Zuid; and more. No stranger to the contemporary music repertoire, he has performed Lutoslawski’s Paroles Tisées, recorded Judith Wier’s A Night at the Chinese Opera and given many premieres of works by British and European composers.
A very experienced recitalist, Adrian Thompson has made many appearances at the Wigmore Hall and at Festivals in the UK and Europe with pianists Graham Johnson, Iain Burnside, Roger Vignoles and harpist Ossian Ellis. He has recorded discs of works by Vaughan-Williams and Gurney, a volume in the acclaimed Complete Schubert Edition for Hyperion, Warlock’s The Curlew and Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin. His discography also includes Britten’s Serenade, Les Illuminations and Nocturne, Mendelssohn’s Lobegesang and Busoni’s Rondo Arlechinesco.
Laurence Kilsby
“A young singer to watch” (The Times), British tenor Laurence Kilsby makes his Glyndebourne Festival debut this season as the Novice in Billy Budd and returns to the BBC Proms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
He performs the Matthäus-Passion with the Concertgebouworkest, tours the UK with Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings with Sinfonia of London, and makes his US concert debut with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. He also joins regular collaborators Ensemble Pygmalion for the Matthäus-Passion at the Adelaide Festival; tours Handel’s Theodora with Jupiter Ensemble; and appears in recital with pianist Ella O’Neill in Madrid and Paris. Awakenings, his debut album with O’Neill, was released in 2024.
Other highlights include appearances at the Opéra national de Paris, Opéra national du Rhin, Opéra Comique, the Aix-en-Provence and Innsbruck Early Music Festivals; and with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra.
Laurence won First Prize at the Wigmore Hall / Bollinger International Song Competition in 2022.