Dartington Summer Festival 2019

Start Date

27th Jul 2019

End Date

24th Aug 2019

Location

Dartington Hall, Totnes, Devon

Lineup

MacGregor, Moondog

Details

Through the four weeks of the Summer School & Festival, Dartington is to host more than 90 concerts and events.The concerts are open to Summer School course participants and the public alike, set against the backdrop of a medieval estate in the heart of Devon.This vibrant programme of events encompasses opera, jazz, folk, orchestral, chamber recitals, gospel, film music, and more.

Joanna MacGregor’s 2019 programme sweeps a broad range of musical collaboration - as her final year as Artistic Director she is gifting Dartington audiences a personal and intimate series of performances. Highlights include composers and music MacGregor has found profoundly influential.Among them are the NewYork street musician Moondog (whose work MacGregor was so passionate about she recorded 14 new arrangements on the album Sidewalk Dances) aired with Bach’s Art of Fugue; Beethoven’s magnificent Choral Fantasy and Piazzolla’s sizzling tango-études; Benjamin Britten’s Turn of the Screw with Tom Randle as Peter Quint, and Saint Nicolas conducted by Steuart Bedford;John Cage’s iconic Musicircus,and Stravinsky’sThe Rite of Spring.

The programme also features conductors Stephen Barlow, Laurence Cummings and Graeme Jenkins, mixed media performance poet Caroline Bergvall, pianist and author Alfred Brendel, vocal ensemble Stile Antico, Czech string group Škampa Quartet and Harrison Birtwistle’s 85th birthday celebrations - one of Europe’s leading figures in contemporary music. MacGregor has also commissioned Eleanor Alberga to write a new work for large choir and piano, with a text by Alice Oswald.