This runs from 11th-14th September at West Meon. Visit the website for further details.
The 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth will be celebrated in memorable style at this year’s 15th West Meon Music Festival with a special gala concert, Jane Austen’s Playbook, starring leading actress Felicity Kendal as narrator reading extracts from Austen’s letters, notebooks and novels with the selection curated by internationally-celebrated director Nancy Meckler.
Joining them will be renowned tenor James Gilchrist and the festival’s founders, the Primrose Piano Quartet, with songs and chamber music from Jane Austen’s time, including works by Schubert, Beethoven, Handel, Haydn, and Maria Theresia von Paradis.
Highlight of the concert will be the world première of a new work – Notes for a Novel – or “how a tune a day inspired the development of Pride & Prejudice.…”, – commissioned by the festival from Peter Salem, known for his extensive output of TV, film and theatre music (among them the ever popular theme “Call the Midwife”).
Jane Austen’s Playbook on Sunday 14th September at 3.30pm at West Meon’s St John’s Church is the final concert of the four-day festival, which starts on Thursday 11th September. As well as six concerts in West Meon, there will also be a harpsichord recital in Warnford’s lovely Church of Our Lady and a morning concert of string quartets at East Meon’s All Saints.
Other highlights include a recital by young pianist Clara Isabella Siegle, who made her orchestral début at the age of nine, and is gaining worldwide renown as a solo artist.
The opening concert on 11th September will mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Dmitri Shostakovich, one of the most remarkable and popular composers of the twentieth century, with a performance of his Second Piano Trio. Completed in 1944, this supremely moving work reflects on the horrors of the Second Word War.
Ticket prices range from £10 to £27, with all tickets for under-16s priced at £1 and substantial discounts for full-time students.
Sue Scholes
The Primrose Piano Quartet, one the country’s leading ensembles, founded the West Meon Music Festival in 2011. the group’s acclaimed discography includes classical favourites as well as many unjustly neglected works by early twentieth century British composers. Their major previous commissions include piano quartets written for them by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Anthony Payne. The quartet appears regularly in London at Kings Place and the Conway Hall and has toured across Europe. The quartet is a leading exponent of historically informed performance and its recording of the complete Brahms piano quartets, made in Vienna on authentic pianos of the period, was highly recommended on Radio 3’s “Record Review”. Its latest CD of French nineteenth century piano quartets, also using an historic piano, was launched in April 2024.
Susanne Stanzeleit – violin, Dorothea Vogel – viola, Andrew Fuller – cello, John Thwaites – piano.
