04 Feb Inside 2020’s Harwich Festival
2020’s Harwich Festival promises to including themed events for the Mayflower 400 celebrations. Please see below for details for just a few highlights of classical events taking place during the festival – 25th June until 5th July. The classical concerts take place in St Nicholas Church, Harwich.
Sunday 28th June,. 7.30pm – Huw Wiggin (Saxophonist) and Oliver Wass (Harpist) duo
Huw and Oliver will present a programme of Bach, Debussy, Gershwin and Chick Corea.
Thursday 2nd July, 1pm – Sarah Kingdom Nicholls – ’12 Years’ UK tour
Acclaimed pianist and composer Sarah Nicolls’ new project 12 Years was inspired by the 2018IPCC Special Report that said we had just 12 years to radically change our behaviour to save the planet. Nicolls’ response was to explore this on her unique Inside-Out Piano, a vertical grand designed so that she can play the strings directly to create visceral and dramatic sonic textures. The resulting one-hour, 12-movement work combines original music, news headlines and conversations between three characters. Leading climate scientists local to each venue will also join Sarah for post-show discussions.
Sunday 5th July, 7.3pm – Stile Antico
Stile Antico is one of the world’s finest vocal ensembles, renowned for vibrant and expressive performances of music from the Renaissance. The ensemble has an extensive and award-winning discography on the Harmonia Mundi label.
2020 marks 400 years since William Bradford and his fellow pilgrims set out on their fateful journey across the Atlantic in the Mayflower, seeking freedom from persecution. England in 1620 was a country rife with religious and political division, standing on the brink of civil war. But the age also spawned some of the finest music ever composed in the land, with Gibbons, Tomkins and the aged Byrd overseeing the late flowering of the English musical Renaissance.
This programme explores the journey the pilgrims took – from Northern England to Leiden and Southampton, before setting sail for modern day Massachusetts – using music of the time, interspersed with first-hand accounts from the pilgrims themselves.
In the classical programme for 2020 we are also delighted to have Wayne Sleep joining us, with a presentation and performance, taking in his career from dance to musical theatre.
Daniel Johnson is the Classical Artistic Associate, ‘I’m very proud to work with the Harwich Festival, to help bring world-class performances to a beautiful and historic part of Essex, Harwich’
