Three year funding deal for Gregynog Festival

Wales’ oldest classical music festiva has assembled an exceptional array of headline performers for 2012, boosted by new three-year funding agreements from the Arts Council of Wales and Welsh Government’s Major Events Unit. The event includes six Welsh debuts and six exclusive UK appearances in and around the sumptuous setting of Gregynog Hall, near Newtown.

 

Gregynog has been home to a festival since 1933, combining the house’s exquisite surroundings with music-making of the highest standard. This year’s Festival takes Venezia as its inspiration and the world’s leading exponents of Venetian repertoire will perform seven centuries of music associated with the city during the fortnight.  The programme marks 100 years since Gregynog Festival’s founders - sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies - bought their first paintings of Venice by Monet, Whistler and Sickert. These paintings were among a staggering 260 works of art which they bequeathed to the National Museum of Wales in the 1950s and 1960s and where they still form a major part of the core collection.

 

Concert highlights in Gregynog’s Music Room include violinist Pavlo Beznosiuk and The Avison Ensemble who open the Festival with Vivaldi’s popular Four Seasons (Friday, 15 June at 7.30pm); prize-winning pianist Alessandro Taverna who takes his audience on a musical tour of Venice (Saturday, 16 June at 7.30pm); the world- famous vocal group La Venexiana, which makes its Welsh debut with an afternoon of spine-tingling madrigals (Sunday, 17 June at 2.30pm); and Catalan viol player, Jordi Savall who, with his group Hesperion XXI, has successfully brought this ancient instrument back to life with his jaw-dropping virtuosity and “folk-meets-baroque” repertoire (Friday, 29 June at 7.30pm).  Italian harpsichordist Ottavio Dantone, described as “making music sparkle like a glass of prosecco”, gives a solo recital (Saturday, 23 June at 2.30pm) and directs Accademia Bizantina (Saturday, 23 June at 7.30pm); and fellow Italian virtuoso Giuliano Carmignola, a “prince amongst Baroque violinists”, makes his Welsh debut with the Venetian ensemble Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca (Sunday, 24 June at 2.30pm).

 

Most Festival events are held in Gregynog’s Music Room and concerts – both daytime and evening - can be combined with visits to the local area or walks in the famous gardens at the Hall.  For the first time ever this year, there will be two concerts in National Museum Cardiff to mark the link with the Venetian paintings in the Gregynog Collection, including QuintEssential, the sackbut and cornett ensemble, which performs music by Giovanni Gabrieli in the Museum’s Main Hall (Thursday, 21 June at 7pm). And, as part of the Festival’s extensive annual programme of outreach work in the local community, the new Royal Harpist Hannah Stone gives a recital in Kerry Church (Monday, 18 June at 7.30pm); and the outstanding Paris choir Le Concert Spirituel performs Vivaldi’s uplifting Gloria in Montgomery Church (Saturday, 30 June at 7.30pm).