THE Lake District Summer Music festival returns this weekend with an eclectic mix of classical music.

By Karl Steel ( email )

The UK’s widest-spread music event will come to venues in Grasemere, Rydal, Ambleside, Hawkshead, Windermere, Kendal, Grange and Kirkby Lonsdale for a series of concerts between Saturday July 30 and Friday August 12.

Internationally-renowned musicians and the leading local talents feature in the prestigious event, which has been a fixture across the region for more than 30 years.

The opening night's main event sees the Amabile Girls’ Choir, and the Northern Chamber Orchestra perform at Kendal Parish Church, in a joint celebration, which also serves as the launch concert for the new Cumbria Festival Chorus. Expect a programme that includes Verdi, Stravinsky and Elgar.

Sunday 31 heralds the first afternoon feature at Fellinis cinema in Ambleside, with the Berlioz La damnation de Faust being screened from the Opéra de Paris, and the evening also includes an appearance from A4 Brass at St Thomas’s Church, in Kendal. Comprising principal players from some of the UK’s leading brass bands, the quartet has a unique blend of instruments, with cornet, tenor horn, baritone and euphonium creating a distinctive sound that stands out from the standard brass quartet.
A4 Brass

There is an early start at Ambleside Parish Centre on Monday August 1 as Tabea Debus, Joe Bolger and Richard MacKenzie - three of the brightest rising stars in the UK’s early music firmament - come together to perform music spanning over 450 years in one morning. Later in the evening, the venue welcomes the Škampa Quartet: two classical masterpieces from Haydn and Beethoven bookend Kodály’s strikingly original First World War composition in the first of two concerts by the great Czech quartet.

A more experienced trio appears at Blackwell Arts & Crafts House, near Bowness, as Richard Deakin, Garfield Jackson, and Emma Ferrand combine to bring some of Mozart’s most sublime music to the festival.

Two more concerts take place at Ambleside Parish Centre on Tuesday 2: Bartosz Głowacki displays his proficiency on the classical accordion in the first Music at Noon concert; and in the evening, festival favourite Andrew Brownell takes to the piano to mark the bicentenary of Sterndale Bennett’s birth with this major work dedicated to his close friend Robert Schumann.

Verdi Il trovatore from the Opéra de Paris is screened at Fellinis in the early afternoon.

Music at Noon returns to Ambleside Parish Centre on Wednesday 3, with husband and wife Kazuki Sawa and Emiko Tadenuma celebrating their 40th anniversary as a duo.

Roger Chase will be giving a viola masterclass at Brathay Hall, near Ambleside, and the evening's highlight is the festival's first-ever visit to St George’s Church, in Kendal - an attractive Victorian church, built in the Gothic Revival style. Breaking the Rules sees The Marian Consort and Jamie Akers blurring the boundaries between a one-actor play and a concert, and marking the 450th anniversary of Gesualdo’s birth.

BBC New Generation artist and principal horn of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Alec Frank-Gemmill, teams up with pianist Andrew Dunlop on Thursday 4 at Ambleside Parish Centre.

The day's programme also includes the Purcell Violin Consort at Kirkby Lonsdale Parish Church, a screening of Verdi Rigoletto at Fellinis, and the Japanese-based Thaleia Quartet make their UK debut at Blackwell. The Thursday action wraps up at the Ambleside Parish Centre with the first appearance at the festival from Manchester Piano Trio, and a high-profile concert from the acclaimed Gwilym Simcock, Mike Walker and Iain Dixon at Zeffirellis, also in Ambleside.

The Parish Centre welcomes back cellist Colin Carr on Friday 5, teaming up with pianist Andrew Brownell. Colin then moves on for an afternoon concert at Brathay Hall.

The Škampa Quartet make their second festival appearance, playing at the St Thomas’s Church, Kendal, paying tribute to their compatriot, Dvorák, by playing his 1877 quartet - the first time it has ever been heard at the event.
Chloë Hanslip

Saturday 6 sees Sonnets from the Somme at Ambleside Parish Centre, with Simon Yaxley narrating and Gemma Beeson on piano. Black comedy Measure for Measure, filmed at Shakespeare's Globe theatre, is screened at Fellinis, and the evening concert at St Thomas’s Church, in Kendal, is entitled Royalty, Romans, Rakes and Revenge! - an enchanted evening of solos, duos, trios and quartets sung by graduates of the National Opera Studio.

The second Sunday programme is made up of a violin masterclass from Chloë Hanslip at Brathay Hall, and Manchester Piano Trio are back for their second performance, playing at m St Thomas’s Church, in Kendal.

Chloë then appears on Monday 8 with a morning appearance alongside pianist Danny Driver at Ambleside Parish Church, bringing the music of Bloch to the festival for the first time.

The day also includes the Silk and Bamboo Ensemble, a renowned Chinese music group based in the UK, playing at Blackwell, and the popular Chilingirian Quartet make their first of two appearances this year, with an evening concert at St Thomas’s Church, in Kendal.

The LDSM Academy Artists get a chance to shine at Grasmere Parish Church on Tuesday 9, as the emerging professional artists from the festival's International Summer Music Academy are put in the spotlight.

Fellinis has a screening of Berlioz Béatrice et Bénédict live from Glyndebourne, and The Battle of the Somme film is shown at Kendal Town Hall, where composer and percussionist Jan Bradley will improvise a soundtrack live for the screening.

The LDSM Academy Artists are at Hawkshead Parish Church in the evening, presenting a varied programme offering talent, musicianship and mastery.

They then appear at Rydal Church on the Wednesday morning, in a day that also sees the festival's artistic associate and founder violist of the Endellion Quartet, Garfield Jackson, bringing his decades of experience as a chamber musician with a masterclass at Brathay.


Elinor Nicholson The highly regarded Maxwell Quartet, from Scotland, have an evening appearance at the Victoria Hall, in Grange, covering Mozart, Beamish, Bridge and Brahms in their programme, and world music quintet Project Jam Sandwich offer everything from Celtic reels to Afrobeat, Middle Eastern melodies to gypsy jazz in their concert at Zeffirellis.

The penultimate day, Thursday 11, gets under way with a Morning Serenade from LDSM Academy Artists and Ensemble Jeunesse at Carver Church, in Windermere, and Romeo and Juliet from the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company showing at Fellinis.

Scottish harpist Elinor Nicholson is one of the stand-out names on the festival line-up, and she performs live at Blackwell, while Christoph Richter, Yuko Inoue, and Andrew Dunlop come together for an evening performance at Ambleside Parish Church. The same venue then welcomes the Herdwyck Consort - music from the Mexican baroque and European renaissance contrasts with meditative hymns and responds from 16th Century England.

The two final concerts on Friday August 12 come from the Chilingirian Quartet, performing Dvorák, Bartók and Mozart at the Ambleside Parish Church, where the festival is rounded out by the Candlelight Serenade, which features LDSM Academy Artists and the LDSM Academy Ensemble. Solos, duos and some of the greatest chamber works of the classical repertoire bring the festival to a close in a spectacular fusion of sound and lighting.

Tickets for all performances, and festival passes can be booked by phoning 01539 742621.