2018 Presteigne Festival | Online booking now open
Presteigne Festival
23-28 August 2018
The 2018 Presteigne Festival was launched on 23 April – a bright and varied programme of inspiring Arts events for an ever-widening Festival audience.
This year, the programming focus is on Baltic music, with major works by Pēteris Vasks, Arvo Pärt and Raminta Šerkšnytė marking the centenaries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania becoming independent republics.
The Festival continues to explore British contemporary music, featuring commissions from Martin Butler (composer-in-residence), Huw Watkins, David Bednall, Gareth Moorcraft, Cydonie Banting and Manos Charalabopoulos (winner of a Royal Philharmonic Society composition prize). There are also birthday tributes for two major British composers – the Festival’s President, Michael Berkeley in his 70th year and David Matthews in his 75th.
The Festival opens with the Welsh premiere of Joseph Phibbs’ exciting new chamber opera Juliana, based on Strindberg’s unsettling drama Miss Julie; this forms part of a Nordic strand which encompasses music, art workshops and the screening of three legendary Scandinavian movies.
The supporting programme is hugely varied – Welsh art with Peter Lord, Stephen Johnson on music, poet Gregory Leadbetter, Terry Victor’s one-man show Well Thumbed, music and literary talks, Open Studios, exhibitions and film.
The dazzling artist line-up includes Festival favourites – the Navarra Quartet, Huw Watkins and the Choir of Royal Holloway, together with some sensational performers appearing at Presteigne for the first time including virtuoso Latvian violinist Kristīne Balanas, fabulous British soprano Ruby Hughes and outstanding pianist Joseph Tong.
Booking
General online and postal booking is now open – book here
View or download the Festival Brochure here