Friday 10th April
4.30pm
Bonus Event
A Guided Tour of St Laurence’s Church
St Laurence’s Church (60 mins)
Join a friendly, expert tour of the wonders of Ludlow’s ‘Cathedral of the Marches’, especially for Ludlow English Song Weekend. Tickets include a donation to St. Laurence’s.
6.00pm
Welcome Reception
Festival passholders
Oscar’s, Ludlow Assembly Rooms
Festival passholders are invited to join us for a light, buffet supper and drinks ahead of the evening’s performance.
7.30pm
Eight Haiku
Roderick Williams & Iain Burnside
St Laurence’s Church (80 mins)
Festival favourite and internationally-renowned baritone Roderick Williams returns to Ludlow with a programme devised around the UK premiere of music by American composer Libby Larsen. Eight delicate haiku settings are interwoven with thematically related songs by Britten, Finzi, Schubert and more.
Saturday 11th April
Celebrating Gerald Finzi
10.00am
Talk: Where does Finzi stand today?
Festival passholders
Ludlow Assembly Rooms (60 mins)
An exclusive event for festival passholders: Katy Hamilton chairs a lively discussion of the music and legacy of composer Gerald Finzi, 70 years after his death.
11.30am
Thomas Hardy’s World
Ludlow Assembly Rooms (75 mins)
Actor Alex Jennings CBE (The Queen, The Lady in the Van) returns to LESW, as we trace the lines of Hardy’s life through poems and songs by Finzi and others. He joins Iain Burnside, mezzo Katie Bray, tenor James Way, and bass-baritone Ossian Huskinson.
2.30pm
Shall We Dance?
Finzi in the 1930s
Ludlow Assembly Rooms (75 mins)
The 1930s was the most fruitful time of Finzi’s creativity. Pianist Ian Tindale curates a varied programme, contrasting Finzi with other music of the decade from Gerschwin to Shostakovich, with mezzos Bethany Horak-Hallett and Lily Mo Browne, and baritone James Atkinson.
5.00pm
Challenging Hardy
Women poets answer back to
‘A Young Man’s Exhortation’
Ludlow Assembly Rooms (75 mins)
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 song cycle performed by tenors Adrian Thompson, Robin Tritschler and Francis Melville.
8.00pm
Gerald Finzi’s World
The composer and his friends
Ludlow Assembly Rooms (75 mins)
Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside are joined by soprano Ailish Tynan and bass Matthew Rose, as our Finzi celebrations reach their climax, with a picture in song of Finzi’s friendship group, including Ralph Vaughan Williams, Edmund Rubbra, Howard Ferguson and William Busch.
Getting here
By Road
Ludlow is just off the A49, between Leominster and Shrewsbury.
By Rail
Don’t want to drive? Ludlow railway station is only a short walk from the town centre, and is served by frequent Transport for Wales services. (The station is Llwydlo in Welsh). Trains run into the late evening.
Sunday 12th April
Under the Greenwood Tree - Celebrating William Shakespeare
10.00am
Talk: When is a poem singable?
Festival passholders
Ludlow Assembly Rooms (60 mins)
An exclusive event for festival passholders: Katy Hamilton leads a discussion of the art of word setting, taking Hardy and Shakespeare as examples.
11.30am
Shakespeare Abroad
Ludlow Assembly Rooms (75 mins)
We explore Shakespeare’s appeal to composers everywhere, in a globe-trotting programme with songs from Haydn to Berlioz, Poulenc to Shostakovich. Actor Richard Goulding (The Windsors) joins Iain Burnside and an all-star ensemble of eight singers.
2.30pm
Shakespeare at Home
Ludlow Assembly Rooms (75 mins)
The festival closes in style, with Shakespearean settings by English composers including Finzi Parry, Tippett, Dring and many more. Plus, all sixteen of the weekend’s extraordinary singers come together for a special performance of Vaughan Williams’ immortal Serenade to Music.