09 Oct

Sing with Bob Chilcott

Saturday 19 October
Singing Day with Bob Chilcott

Come and join us for a choral workshop with esteemed composer and conductor, Bob Chilcott, taking place at St Andrew’s Presteigne as part of the Presteigne Festival’s year round community programme.

The day runs from 10am until approximately 4.30pm. In order to enjoy the workshop fully, a reasonable level of sight reading is required.

Works to be rehearsed are Bob Chilcott’s Requiem and Cecilia McDowall’s A Prayer of St Columba. We’ll also be joined by young soloists Sophia Jin and Ethan Jacobs with some fabulous accompaniment supplied by Jonathan Lyness of Mid Wales Opera.

Tickets are £20 plus a booking fee of £1, which must be booked in advance, are available only online via this link: https://presteignefestival.com/events/ 
or by calling 01544 267 800

The day will run for four sessions concluding with a read-through for friends and family. Tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided during breaks.

Presented in association with Choral Connections and Oxford University Press Music Department

01 Oct

Compose for Harp

Compose for Harp
A professional development opportunity for early career composers

The Presteigne Festival, in partnership with Tŷ Cerdd and with funding from the Colwinston Charitable Trust, is about to embark on an exciting new composer development project to involve a maximum of six emergent music creators with a classical music background of which a minimum of three will be Welsh or are living in Wales.

The scheme is open to early career composers not in full-time education (no age limit), and will award a £400 commission to each of the selected candidates to write a 5-minute piece for solo harp (for acoustic performance, without electronics), to be workshopped in front of a live audience at the Presteigne Festival’s Springboard weekend on 10/11 May 2025.

Mentors for the scheme are composer Lynne Plowman, harpist Anne Denholm and conductor and Festival Director, George Vass.

Please apply by email by 5pm on Friday 4 October 2024

For full details of the project follow one of the links below:

Cymraig – https://presteignefestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/PF2024-Compose-for-Harp-project-CYM.pdf 

English – https://presteignefestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/PF2024-Compose-for-Harp-project-ENG.pdf

If you have any problems, please contact
composeforharp at presteignefestival dot com

03 Sep

2024 Presteigne Festival | Thank you

Huge thanks to everyone – audience, artists, composers, funders, staff and volunteers – who made the 2024 Presteigne Festival such an unqualified success. The Festival was just the most positive and uplifting experience, and a bumper year for ticket sales, with 84% seat occupancy over the whole five-day period.

Our Britten feature proved particularly popular, and with Richard Blackford as composer-in-residence, new music was still very much in evidence, with premieres of no fewer than 16 works of which 11 were specially commissioned.

In addition to the outstanding music programme, other events included showings of three Wales-produced films (in association with Presteigne Screen), readings and talks from Sioned Davies, Thomas Hyde, Rhiannon Mathias, Nicholas Murray, Gavin Plumley, Oliver Soden, Peter Sutton and a Bat walk in association with the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust.

Local galleries and attractions contributed to the Festival with other arts-based activity including exhibitions at the Sidney Nolan Trust and the Presteigne ‘Open Studios’ weekend which showed work by 36 local artists and makers, including several supported by the Sidney Nolan Trust Youth Arts Programme.

04 Aug

Box Office opens for personal callers on 6 August

The Presteigne Festival Box Office opens for ‘in person’ booking on Tuesday 6 August

The Festival Box Office is situated inside Presteigne Assembly Rooms:
1 Hereford Street, Presteigne, Powys LD8 2AD

Opening times
6-17 August, 10am to 1pm, Monday to Saturday
19-26 August, 10am to 5pm, Daily

Telephone booking
Please call 01544 267800

Online booking
Online booking is available 24/7 by following this link

We strongly advise advance booking for all events, although tickets are available at the door, some  events are close to being sold out.

We look forward to welcoming you to the 2024 Festival at the end of this month.

06 Jun

We’re looking for experienced professionals

The Presteigne Festival is seeking experienced professionals to work in the roles listed below. Please note that the funding for these roles must be used by December 2024, so availability to carry out the brief within that time frame is vital. Key dates would be the Festival period itself, 22-26 August 2024.

FUNDRAISING CONSULTANT
Thanks to a grant from Powys County Council’s Shared Prosperity Fund, we are seeking professional fundraising support to help us formulate and implement a strategy that focuses on maximising support from grant-makers and individuals, expanding  our funder pool and on devising and launching a legacy fundraising strategy.

Please follow this LINK to see the brief for this and other roles available, and details of how to contact us if you wish to discuss any of the roles further.

EVALUATION CONSULTANT
Thanks to a grant from Powys County Council’s Shared Prosperity Fund, we are seeking professional evaluation support to formulate and implement a strategy that focuses on evaluating this year’s Festival activities and on providing a framework for future evaluation to track progress and change year by year.

Please follow this LINK to see the brief for this and other roles available, and details of how to contact us if you wish to discuss any of the roles further.

ECONOMIC IMPACT SURVEY (potentially coupled with evaluation, above)
Thanks to a grant from Powys County Council’s Shared Prosperity Fund, we are seeking professional input to assess the value to the local economy and employment market of this year’s Festival activities. Work was carried out on this in 2010 and yielded invaluable information. We now seek to update this work to help us with our advocacy in years to come.

Please follow this LINK to see the brief for this and other roles available, and details of how to contact us if you wish to discuss any of the roles further.

WEBSITE
Thanks to a grant from Powys County Council’s Shared Prosperity Fund, we are looking to overhaul the Festival’s website. The focus will be on an update of style, structure and content, increasing flexibility to serve new areas of Festival activity and improving the interface with our box office provider, Spektrix. It is vital that the website is fully Welsh/English bi-lingual.

Please follow this LINK to see the brief for this and other roles available, and details of how to contact us if you wish to discuss any of the roles further.

Mae’r ddogfen hon hefyd ar gael yn Gymraeg trwy’r ddolen hon
These documents are also available in Welsh via this LINK

We look forward to hearing from you!

22 May

2024 Presteigne Festival | Programme launched, tickets on sale

Presteigne Festival | 22-26 August 2024

The 2024 Presteigne Festival programme was officially announced yesterday – 25 amazing arts events taking place in the beauty of the Welsh Marches.

  • 13 world premieres.
  • A special feature of Benjamin Britten’s music.
  • Richard Blackford welcomed as composer-in-residence.
  • Concerts, film, exhibitions, poetry and literature.
  • A fabulous roster of exceptional performing artists and speakers.
  • Presteigne Open Studios extended to 4 days.
Online and telephone booking is now open via our website.
  • View or download Festival brochure here
  • Book tickets online here
We look forward to welcoming you to Radnorshire’s Cultural Capital at the end of August …
05 Apr

Springboard Weekend | 11 & 12 May

A brand new weekend of creative events takes place in Presteigne this May, celebrating the approach of summer and looking forward to the town’s annual Festival of Music and the Arts in August.

We’re delighted to host a super mix of events – some free of charge – celebrating spring’s passage into summer.

Contributors to the programme include Ian Marchant, The Radnorshire Wildlife Trust, The Pressgangers, Sue Harris, Nicholas Murray, George Vass and Dr Toby Driver, author of The Hillforts of Iron Age Wales (Logaston Press).

We also share a film exploration of Gustav Klimt’s iconic painting The Kiss from Exhibition on Screen, and welcome fabulous Dutch violinist Emma Roijackers and exciting young British harpist Heather Brooks, who perform recitals of well-known classics at St Andrew’s Church.

Saturday May 11 sees Presteigne’s lively shops supplemented with Broad Street Brocante, 9.30am to 2.30pm, plus live harp music in Presteigne Library.

Throughout the weekend, Ruth Kirkby and Penny Hughes open Art in the Yard behind Daphne’s Pizza, with creative events and displays for droppers-by, 10am to 4pm, on both days.

The full Springboard programme and details of booking are available online via this LINK

Booking is open now – Roll Up!

presteignefestival.com
01544 267800

08 Oct

2023 Presteigne Festival | Thank you

We wish to express our sincere gratitude to everyone who attended and participated in the 2023 Presteigne Festival – a truly uplifting experience for everyone involved.

Bucking the general trend, our 2023 audience numbers continued to improve, with 79% of all available seats taken and, of the total 24 events, a third were sold out. Audience renewal is hugely important for any arts organisation, and we’re happy to report that this year, over 24% of the audience were first time Festival attenders.

Our Janáček feature was particularly popular, as were the touching birthday celebrations for our old friends David Matthews and Michael Berkeley. With Roxanna Panufnik as composer-in-residence, new music was still very much in evidence, with premieres of no fewer than 10 specially commissioned pieces.

In addition to a packed music programme, other events included showings of three Wales-produced films promoted (in association with Presteigne Screen), readings and talks from Dr Sioned Davies, poet Rhiannon Hooson, Stephen Johnson and Gavin Plumley; also included was the first screening of Barrie Gavin’s superb David Matthews film.

Local galleries and attractions contributed to the Festival with other arts-based activity including exhibitions at the Sidney Nolan Trust and the Presteigne ‘Open Studios’ weekend which showed work by 33 local artists and makers, including three supported by the Sidney Nolan Trust Youth Arts Programme.

08 Aug

Presteigne Festival 2023 | Box Office open

The Box Office is now open for online, telephone and in person booking for the Presteigne Festival | 24 to 28 August 2023

The Festival Box Office is situated inside Presteigne Assembly Rooms:
1 Hereford Street, Presteigne, Powys LD8 2AD

Opening times
8-19 August, 10am to 1pm, Monday to Saturday
21-28 August, 10am to 5pm, Daily

Telephone booking
Please call 01544 267800

Online booking
Online booking is available 24/7 by following this link

We advise advance booking for all events, though tickets will be available at the door, provided the event hasn’t sold out.

We look forward to welcoming you to the 2023 Festival later this month.

11 May

Presteigne Festival 2023 | Programme launched

Presteigne Festival | 24-28 August 2023

The 2023 Presteigne Festival is launched today, a digital version of the Festival Brochure can be viewed here or downloaded via this link.

Booking is already open to Benefactors, Patrons and Friends, whilst general online and telephone booking opens on Tuesday 23 May

Roxanna Panufnik, whose music was heard as part of the recent Coronation Service for King Charles III, is 2023 composer-in-residence, whilst the extensive music programmes centres around the work of maverick Czech composer, Leoš Janáček. The Festival premieres no fewer than 10 brand new pieces from a wide range of British composers and joins in with important birthday celebrations for David Matthews and Michael Berkeley.

Other events include poetry, literature and music-based talks, film and the popular Presteigne ‘Open Studios’ weekend.

We look forward to welcoming you to Radnorshire’s cultural capital in August!