Music Directors' Picks

Music Director's Picks

"Classical Music is a very broad thing indeed. In Cheltenham every year, it’s everything from medieval plainchant to music so new the ink is still drying on the manuscript paper.

It’s a single pianist under the spotlight in the Pittville Pump Room to 200 orchestral players and singers cramming the Town Hall’s stage. It’s quartets, choirs and virtuosos – as sumptuous and stirring as it can be beautifully calming and thought-provoking."

Meurig Bowen Festival Director

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Festival Director Meurig Bowen's Picks of the Festival

Orchestra of Music Makers Orchestra of the Music Makers - Friday 6 July

This is a fantastic new orchestra from Singapore, making their European debut. They’re a new band – just five years old – and their average age is just 22. Top notch though. In a sumptuous programme that includes Delius in Paris, Holst in Algeria and Debussy’s marinescape La Mer, they’ll be joined by Singapore-born pianist Melvyn Tan for Ravel’s stunning piano concerto. The tender middle movement is one of the loveliest things ever written.
MEURIG’S CHOICE FOR... luxuriant orchestral opulence and collective youthful exuberance

I Fagiolini in Tewkesbury Abbey - Monday 9 July

When I was offered a live re-creation of I Fagiolini’s award-winning, chart-topping recording of Striggio’s newly-discovered 40 part mass, it was clearly a must-book unique festival event. This will be a spectacular, sonically-enveloping, shiver-down-the-spine experience: 60+ voices and 20 renaissance brass re-creating in surround-sound the splendour of not only Striggio’s mass, but Tallis’s Spem in Alium and music by Gabrieli written four centuries ago for St Mark’s Venice.
MEURIG’S CHOICE FOR... awe-inspiring sounds in an equally magnificent space

Sarah Connolly and Savitri - Saturday 14 July

Just a few years before he wrote The Planets, Cheltenham-raised Gustav Holst composed a remarkable one-act opera based on a love story featured in the Indian epic The Mahabharata. The title role of Savitri is a perfect match for mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly – a Gloucestershire resident whose immense talents are now gracing the world’s opera stages, from Glyndebourne and Covent Garden to the Met in New York.
MEURIG’S CHOICE FOR... witnessing a great British performer at the top of her game

Ivor Gurney in words and music - Friday 13 / Saturday 14 July

Pianist and broadcaster Iain Burnside has created a very special piece for the stage about the life and work of Gloucester-born poet-composer Ivor Gurney. Touching and vibrant, A Soldier and a Maker brings Gurney’s beautiful songs to life amidst his poetry and letters. It’s biography, literature and music entwined in a way I’ve never seen before.
MEURIG’S CHOICE FOR... Lit Fest buffs dipping their toe into the Music Festival

A Tango and Balkan Klezmer double bill - Wednesday 11 July

This is the night where the Music Festival lets its hair down. With sultry sophistication, the Fugata Quintet recreates the classic line-up of Argentinian tango master Astor Piazzolla’s own quintet. She’koyokh is an equally stylish octet, partying their way through Eastern European Jewish, Balkan and Gypsy music with exhilarating abandon.
MEURIG’S CHOICE FOR... party animals and those after something different

Music Festival programme highlights

Wed 4 July
Pittville Pump Room
Guitarist Milos returns to Cheltenham for the third successive year, this time performing solo Bach and a Boccherini quintet with the Carducci Quartet

Parabola Arts Centre
Tenor James Gilchrist sings Britten, Tippett and Finzi to a special video narrative created by filmmaker Netia Jones

Thu 5 July
Pittville Pump Room
The Nash Ensemble perform Mozart and Brahms, and a new trio by Alexander Goehr, 80 in 2012

Cheltenham College Chapel
The BBC Singers perform a host of premieres, including a new mass setting by the 83 year-old Finn Einojuhani Rautavaara

Fri 6 July
Pittville Pump Room
A huge hit at the 2011 festival for his virtuosity and charm, French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet returns with a special anniversary programme, The Essential Debussy

Parabola Arts Centre
A screening of the 1923 silent film Salome, with an exceptionally evocative soundtrack featuring four on-stage percussionists and pre-recorded voices

Sat 7 July
Deerhurst Priory
Celebrated Scandinavian Trio Medieval bring their unique style and sound – funky and angelic – to the Worcester Fragments, ancient sacred music from down the road

Parabola Arts Centre
Babur - a new opera by Edward Rushton that explores the complexities of faith and multiculturalism in modern day Britain

Sun 8 July
Pittville Pump Room
Pianist Melvyn Tan performs Bach and new variations on the beloved song Bist du bei mir

Pittville Pump Room
Baroque supremos Florilegium team up with a stunning choir from Bolivia for Music from the Missions

Town Hall
Royal Musical Treasures for the Diamond Jubilee – coronation pomp and majesty from Handel, Elgar, Parry and Walton

Mon 9 July
Pittville Pump Room
Teenage prodigy pianist Benjamin Grosvenor teams up with the Escher Quartet for Brahms’ expansive, passionate piano quintet

Tue 10 July
Pittville Pump Room
The Prince Consort – a Songmakers Almanac for the 21st century – perform love songs by Brahms, Schumann and pianist-turned-composer Stephen Hough

Wed 11 July
Town Hall
Cheltenham College Chapel
A late-night candlelit performance of Rachmaninov’s Vespers, performed by Ex Cathedra – composed in 1915, this forms part of the 1914-18 series

Thu 12 July
Town Hall
The Bournemouth Symphony Chorus lead a performance of David Fanshawe’s African Sanctus – a vivid journey through the sounds of Africa

Fri 13 July
Town Hall
The climax of our 1914-18 concerts, with Nigel Kennedy and Steven Isserlis heading up a performance of Elgar’s Piano Quintet

Sat 14 July
Town Hall
A Debussy tribute from French rhythm masters Percussions Claviers de Lyon – marimbas, vibraphones, xylophones galore

St Paul’s Church
The 100 strong choir and orchestra from Utrecht University perform Bach’s Mass in B Minor

Sun 15 July
Town Hall
A ‘baton handover’ salute to London, featuring Vaughan Williams’ London Symphony, Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture, Holst’s Hammersmith and Elgar’s Cello Concerto featuring Steven Isserlis. Martyn Brabbins conducts the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.