An annual Suffolk arts festival will open with big band jazz and end with classics from the great American songbook this October.
Halesworth Arts Festival gets underway at the The Cut on October 7 with the 10-piece Big Chris Barber Band playing a repertoire of New Orleans-style jazz to early Duke Ellington.
The following day, songwriter and composer Chris Wood will uphold the tradition of English dance music with a multi-instrumental folk set.
The first week of the festival features award-winning chamber ensemble, Heath Quartet, performing Haydn, Tippett and Beethoven; and afternoon film presentation of documenting an exhibition of major work by Hieronymus in the artist’s home town of ‘s-Hertogenbosch; a concert of works by Beethoven, Yamane and Liszt by pianist Noriko Ogawa; satirical songs, comedy and animation from Tanya Holt in Cautionary Tales for Daughters; an afternoon lecture by James Russell on the work of Edward Seago; and a new show featuring music from the latest album by Grammy-nominated vocalist Stacey Kent.
Rounding off the opening week will be the Suffolk Young Poets Parade on October 13 – a chance to hear the 10 winners of this year’s Suffolk Young Poets Competition, joined by Dean Parkin as he celebrates the launch of his book for children, The Bubble Wrap.
The weekend features the Halesworth Community Choir in concert with Crossing the Border and Syzewell Gap; and upbeat ‘Celtic, Gypsy, Klezmer’ folk from the Dodo Street Band.
Week two starts with Kathy Lette’s new show, Girls’ Night Out, followed by Carry Akroyd on her work as a printmaker and painter; London sextet Harmoniemusik with a concert including Telemann, Roussel, Mozart and Handel; a screening of Cecil B DeMille’s silent film version of Chicago, with live musical accompaniment; an afternoon with award-winning Opera-lele – a crossover act specialising in opera and musical theatre accompanied by the ukulele; clarinettist Julian Marc Stringle and his six-piece Dream Band; and a talk by Gerald Durrell’s wife, Lee, about the family’s life in Corfu.
The closing weekend features Apphia Campbell’s cabaret inspired by Nina Simone, and music from the 1920s and 1930s by the Pasadena Roof Orchestra.
Visit halesworthartsfestival.org.uk for full details.
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