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2008 is Diamond Anniversary Year: The Swansea Festival of Music and the Arts - 4 to 18 October 2008 (HH)


The 2008 Swansea Festival of Music and the Arts celebrates its Diamond Anniversary this year with a sparkling programme of events to mark this important occasion in its history.

From 4 to 18 October 2008 the Festival will be bringing an extensive programme of outstanding live music, dance, opera, theatre, jazz, competitions and written and visual art to the City of Swansea, presenting a wealth of exceptional Welsh and international artists. This year’s special Festival is brim full of a wide range of exciting events with something to inspire and delight everyone.

Starting off the Festival, in nostalgic homage to the opening in 1948, the celebrated London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Colin Davis, will be performing Elgar’s Enigma Variations – the first piece to be performed at the opening of the Festival in 1948 which was at that time conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. Musically the variations need no introduction with Nimrod being arguably the most moving and best-loved excerpt in the whole of the classical repertoire. This exciting programme also includes Vaughan Williams' hauntingly beautiful The Lark Ascending, which takes its title from a poem by George Meredith and captures the aura of the lark’s song and the countryside, and Karl Jenkins’s Welsh premiere of Quirk, to be conducted by the composer. This composition, written for flute, piano, percussion and orchestra was an LSO Centenary Anniversary Commission. Karl Jenkins was born in Wales and educated at Gowerton Grammar School before reading music at the University of Wales, Cardiff, followed by postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Welsh National Opera are two regular organisations, which have contributed to the Festival over the years and will again be present this year. BBC NOW celebrates its 80^th anniversary and WNO mark 62 years of performing this year.

Brangwyn Hall will host two concerts by BBC National Orchestra of Wales. On 10th October the first concert given by the orchestra is a sumptuous programme of Glinka’s Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla - a story of the trials of two lovers who despite magical opposition are eventually united - and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 in B-flat minor - considered to be the most famous of the three piano concerto’s written by Tchaikovsky. The final piece of the concert is Rachmaninov’s Symphony No 2 in E minor Op.23 which, along with his Third Symphony, are considered to be his greatest works. The orchestra will be conducted by award-winning conductor David Atherton and feature the gifted pianist/composer Stephen Hough.

As part of the Walestonia Festival of 2008 - to mark the 90th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia - the second concert on 15 October, conducted by BBC NOW’s Principle Guest Conductor, Jac van Steen, will see the orchestra joined by the Estonian National Male Choir for Stravinsky’s dramatic opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex with soloists James Gilchrist in the title role, Christine Rice as Jocasta, Andrew Staples as the Shepherd, Stephen Richardson as Tiresias, Darren Jeffrey as Creon and Welsh baritone Neal Davies as The Messenger. This concert will also feature Schubert’s Song of the Spirits over the Waters and the Welsh premiere of Guto Puw’s …onyt agoraf y drws (..unless I open the door) based on an episode from the Mabinogion tales.

The Estonian National Male Choir, conducted by Ants Soots, also share a concert at the Brangwyn Hall on 13 October with the Pontarddulais Male Choir, conducted by Clive Phillips. The Pontarddulais Male Choir was originally created from the Pontarddulais Youth Choir in 1960 and has become the most successful competitive male choir in Wales. The Estonian National Male Choir was founded in 1944 and is currently the largest full-time professional male choir in the world. Both choirs tour extensively in their own countries and internationally and have come together to celebrate the longstanding cultural ties between Wales and Estonia and their shared heritage of expressing their national identity through the arts for a programme of Estonian and Welsh choral highlights.

Welsh National Opera's links with Swansea stretch back to their beginnings 62 years ago when there were two amateur choruses - one in Cardiff and one in Swansea - which came together for performances! Appearing at the Swansea Grand Theatre during the Festival this year, WNO will be bringing two popular opera’s. On 16 and 18 October there will be performances of Rossini’s ever- popular comic opera, The Barber of Seville, conducted by Simon Phillippo and featuring Welsh singers Eric Roberts as Bartolo and Laura Parfitt in her role debut as Rosina. The title role will be sung by the American baritone John Moore in his UK debut. Pranks and confusion abound in this light-hearted up-lifting opera. On 17 October there will be a performance of a new production of Verdi’s tragic masterpiece Otello, conducted by Michal Klauza with Dennis O’Neill - also celebrating his 60th year - in the title role, Amanda Roocroft is Desdemona, former Cardiff Singer of the World Welsh contender David Kempster is Iago and popular Carmarthen tenor, Wynne Evans, is Casio. This new production, telling of Otello’s downfall through his jealousy and hatred, is directed by Paul Curran who has recently been appointed General Director of the Norwegian Opera.

Competitions showcase the talent of young people at this year’s Festival, when the winner of the 2008 John Fussell Award for Young Musicians, Aberystwyth born tenor Alex Vearey-Roberts, along with Wales’ entrant for the 2009 Cardiff Singer of the World, Morriston born soprano Natalya Romaniw, combine their talents for an outstanding evening of wide-ranging music. Also this year sees the first Swansea Life Magazine Prize for Young Writers – in conjunction with The Dylan Thomas Prize - at the Rooftop Café Bar of the Grand Theatre on 8 October, where each young writer will give a reading from their own work.

The Taliesin Arts Centre brings a mixture of jazz and dance to the 2008 Festival with the late Humphrey Lyttleton’s Jazz Band paying tribute to their celebrated leader in a one-off Memorial Concert on 5 October. Jazz is also the order of the day on 12 October when the world-class percussionist Billy Cobham explores the influences of jazz, soul and funk in the full Cuban experience of Billy Cobham and Asere. The Estonian influence continues when the Estonian National Opera Ballet Company, which was established in 1918, take Shakespeare’s Hamlet as a basis for a contemporary dance interpretation on 9 October.

Dance is also on offer at the Grand Theatre when Independent Ballet Wales - using dance, ballet and innovative physical theatre – perform their own interpretation of Dylan Thomas’s classic play, Under Milk Wood. Also at the Grand are the eight voices and sixteen feet that make up Umdumo Wesizwe (Sound of the Nation) as they perform various music styles to illustrate the music of their country, Zimbabwe.

Swansea-born Huw Williams, gives an organ recital at Brangwyn Hall on 6 October. This 37 year old Director of Music at the Church of the Redeemer, Philadelphia, and former Assistant Director of Music at St Paul’s Cathedral, has played at some of the most important services held at St. Paul’s – from the Millennium celebrations and the Queen Mother’s 100th Birthday, to the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Thanksgiving Service and the 11 November Remembrance Service. His programme includes a wide selection of organ music by Bach, Messiaen and Mozart.

The following evening, the Endellion String Quartet, comprising of violinists Andrew Watkinson, and Ralph de Souza, viola player Garfield Jackson and cellist David Waterman, will perform a concert of Mozart, Janacek and Beethoven and, in tribute to the late Alun Hoddinott who died earlier this year, his Scena for String Quartet Op.100. Formed in 1979 the Quartet is considered to be one of the finest quartets in the world and is a past winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Best Chamber Ensemble. They have been the Quartet in Residence at Cambridge University since 1992 and, since 2001, have been Associate Quartet of the Royal Northern College of Music.

Thank You for the Music plays at the Dylan Thomas Little Theatre on the 14 October – a celebration in words and music. Swansea Little Theatre was established in 1924 but did not have a permanent home until in 1979 when the Swansea City Council offered the derelict former Oscar Chess showroom. Work to convert the building was undertaken entirely by members and in 1983 Sir Harry Secombe officially opened the theatre naming it after its famous former member.

The Festival draws to a close at the Brangwyn Hall on 18 October with a fittingly exceptional concert by the illustrious Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. Founded in 1951 the orchestra is one of Russia’s premier orchestras whose tours cover more than fifty countries performing in the best concert halls of the world. Yuri Simonov, Music Director and Chief Conductor of the orchestra since 1998, conducts a programme of Tchaikovsky’s Francesca da Rimini Op.32 followed by Rachmaninov’s lilting Piano Concerto No.2 performed by the exciting young pianist Freddy Kempf, who came to prominence in 1992 when he won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition. The programme ends on a suitable high note with Khachaturian’s Suite from Spartacus. Premiered in 1954 this award winning ballet score – which later provided the signature tune to the television series The Onedin Line – is full of soaring, spine-tingling, magnificent music.

There are several exhibitions at Art Galleries across Swansea this year covering a range of subjects.  At the Mission Gallery Camarthenshire born Ainsley Hillard will develop an installation of art works inspired by the social and architectural history of this historic building which, in 1857, was a seaman’s chapel before being used as a reading room and meeting place for seamen and locals during the late 1900’s.  The exhibition at the Taliesin Arts Centre honours one of Wales’ most admired artists, Tony Goble. This colourful artist, whose narrative poetic paintings explore a world of magic and mystery which delight and amuse with their visual wit, was born in Newtown and came to live in Cardiff in 1979 to become Artist in Residence at Llanover Hall – a position he held until his untimely and tragic death last year.

The Glynn Vivian Gallery will have two exhibitions running during the Festival. Unreliable Truths explores transformation and illusion through the medium of photography and includes the works of eleven of Wales’ leading photographers. Minna Hint is an emerging Estonian artist who has been commissioned by the Glynn Vivian Gallery to make a new work to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Swansea Festival of Music and the Arts. Her project will involve an exhibition at the gallery and an off site project which will centre around her current interest in the enigmatic underground music scene. The off-site project will be held on 5 October opposite the Patti Pavilion on Oystermouth Road.

The National Waterfront Museum pays homage to a Swansea canine hero - Swansea Jack – with A Song for Jack. Artist Richard Higlett has taken inspiration for a ‘canine choir’ from the story of Swansea Jack, a black retriever who became a local hero in the 1930’s for rescuing drowning swimmers from Swansea Docks. Richard will be auditioning local dogs to make up a ‘canine choir’ to perform a special concert outside the National Waterfront Museum on 5 October.  At the Civic Centre, outside the Central Library, artist Jennie Savage explores the lure of the horizon with a specially designed viewing booth where visitors can experience the soundtrack Your Eyes Are a Window (A Soundtrack for the Horizon) while looking out over Swansea Bay.

You can visit all of these galleries and exhibitions on 14 October by taking the Art and Pasta Tour where you will tour the galleries receiving guidance from the artists and curators before arriving at Ristorante Bella Napoli for a pasta supper.On Sunday 12 October there will be a service of multi-faith thanksgiving - Spirit of Creative Light - at St. Mary’s Church, celebrated in words, music and dance.  This year,  Live Music Now musicians will again be taking the Festival to schools, hospitals, residential homes and other community venues.

Hazel Hardy