LAST YEAR: FESTIVAL 2007
 

Artistic Director’s Report  (as pdf)

HEXHAM ABBEY FESTIVAL 2007 was acclaimed as the most successful festival artistically in recent years. Performers and audiences alike have been very enthusiastic in their praise of the consistently high artistic standards, the enthusiasm and high calibre of the young artists, the friendliness of the festival support staff, the range of the new daytime events programme and, of course, the inspiring beauty of Hexham Abbey itself. Feedback through the audience survey has been overwhelmingly positive on all aspects of the festival.

I am writing to congratulate you on your festival. I enjoyed all of the concerts and I am already looking forward to next year. My personal favourite was the concert by Kosmos. I do hope that we will be seeing more of them. I loved the range of different music that the festival had to offer. Very innovative. May the festival go from strength to strength! Best wishes! - Dr Henry Markovitz (audience member)

Certainly with 31 events in just over a week (more than twice as many as previous festivals!) it has been an immensely challenging, but also an extremely rewarding and enjoyable time - and my first as Artistic Director of the Festival.

At its heart as ever were the classical and choral concerts, but this year we have also had early, jazz, folk and world music, opera, an exhibition, film, street theatre and more. Innovations this year have included daytime events, and our featured Young Artist Platform which have been very well received, also three first performances and a larger schools programme with 8 local schools involved in various ways.

Thank you so much for giving me such a wonderful opportunity. I really enjoyed the whole experience as well as the recital. - Yuki Kagajo (Young Artist pianist)

Highlights occurred almost daily and are too many to mention, and if you were there, you will have your own favourites. The new staging, lighting and seating arrangement in the north transept provided both visually and acoustically a new clarity and focus to the sound throughout the week. The traditional Festival Chorus concert started the week with a warmly engaging performance of Brahms Requiem and the equally traditional final candlelit concert, given by the perfectly blended Gothic Voices, was as magical as ever. In between we were entranced by the technically brilliant, beautifully lyrical and wittily good-humoured playing of world-class guitarist Antonio Forcione and his quartet. As he remarked, the Abbey “is such a very beautiful and spiritual building, I am inspired to make my playing more spiritual here. I hope I will be able to do so.” A full audience testified that he did so!

It would have been worth the money for the Possibility of Angels set alone! - Richard Place (audience member)

There was haunting eastern European and gypsy music from Kosmos Ensemble, with a brief thunderous downpour adding extra drama to some of the pieces in their performance. They also went down a treat in local schools, delivering a number of workshops. We were uplifted by the energetic and exuberant dexterity of youthful early music group Melopoetica, who had spent 12 hours travelling to reach Hexham, and never flagged for a moment - indeed were spurred on by the encouraging and highly receptive audience to give some exciting encores. Our own Abbey organist, Michael Haynes, gave one of the most exciting organ recitals I’ve ever heard.

I managed to go to hear India Patel, Melopoetica and the organ recital. All these programmes were of outstanding quality. It was good to see so many young musicians included in the programme, and this is something which ought to continue . . . . the new banner is better . . . it was good to see the number of people involved in the organisation of each event, and how very efficient and welcoming they were. - Stan Beckensall (Festival Friend)

In different vein altogether, sopranos Adey Grummet and Loré Lixenberg, with pianist Jonathan Williams presented a very alternative opera gala. “I’ve never laughed so much in a theatre before” was heard on the lips of the audience as they left the auditorium. Their rendition of Rossini’s Cat Duet, with a pair of balloons had to be seen (and heard) to be believed, so too the Queen of the Night’s aria with squeaky toys, or Offenbach’s Barcarolle gargled with gin - all unforgettable moments of sheer joy, good fun, and never less than perfect musicianship!

Dilston College’s performance on Friday at 6.30 was great! (audience member)

A special mention should be made of our young performers. The schools programme, for instance, featured some stylistic bebop from The Mood Swings (a jazz quintet from QE High School) or the exhilarating carnival atmosphere created by players from Dilston College led by Michael Freeman. Gigue Fish was so popular the gig had to be moved to the main auditorium at Queen’s Hall. Landermason, too, were extremely pleased and impressed at the audience they gained.

Great to see such enthusiastic young musicians of such high calibre (an anonymous comment on audience survey questionnaire - typical of many)

The superb performances in the Young Artist Platform gave us an emotionally charged English song recital from Philip Smith featuring elegiac songs by Finzi, and Vaughan Williams ever popular Songs of Travel; Philip had already shown his worth as baritone soloist in the Brahms Requiem the previous Saturday, and this is a feature that we hope to encourage further - artists who, rather than fly in and out for just a performance, become part of the festival scene for a few days.

Impressed with the range of daytime events this year. - Fay Winkworth

Matt London in some brilliantly uncompromising contemporary saxophone repertoire; Yuki Kagajo gave us a poetic piano recital of Bach and Schumann with exemplary clarity and purity of tone; violinist India Patel was outstanding in music by de Falla and Piazzolla and “genius” was the comment heard most in the audience for improvising multi-guitarist Graham Garside.

Thank you very much for arranging concerts for Kosmos in the Hexham Abbey Festival. The Abbey was a wonderful space to perform in, and the audience very appreciative. We also very much enjoyed performing at the local primary schools. Thanks for looking after us, and for a beautiful, fun introduction to Hexham. With best wishes - Meg Hamilton [Kosmos]

The Leeds College of Music Chamber Choir received an enthusiastic response from an audience of 100 children from South Tynedale Middle School. Indeed, despite some logistical problems, the response from the schools and their enjoyment at being involved in the festival has been a signal success. This aspect of the festival programme will in future years develop a higher profile and more extensive activity, including workshops and projects outside the festival period itself.

I must say a huge, huge thank you for inviting us to take part in this year’s Hexham Abbey Festival. We thoroughly enjoyed the workshop with the Kosmos Ensemble at our school last Wednesday. Meg Hamilton and her team were an absolute delight, an inspiration in everything they did and our school hall resounded with the sound of beautiful music, reverberated with the rhythms of dance and haunting melodies.

I was especially impressed with Meg, Harriet, John and Milos whose relationship and patience with the children were brilliant, the music was exciting and their explanation of the various instruments and knowledge of their music was outstanding. I also appreciated the fact that they stayed and had lunch with us and their social interaction and encouragement with the children is just what was needed. Our children come from a rural disadvantaged background and they need all the encouragement we can give in the area of performing arts.

We will be delighted to take part in future Abbey Festivals and I am sure that the second year for you, in terms of organisation and logistics, will be much easier than this. May I take this opportunity of wishing you best wishes for the future and, judging from the press coverage, Hexham Abbey Festival continues to be an outstanding community event enjoyed by many people in Tynedale. - John Moore (Headteacher, Newbrough First School)

Inevitably, there remain a number of challenges - we cannot expect to be absolutely perfect! Whilst the programme clearly hit the spot for audience and performers alike, and not least the staging arrangements, lighting and other backstage organisation, which showed a significant improvement on previous years. However, two major areas, fundamental to the continued success of the festival need to be addressed. These are; 1) the marketing & publicity strategy and its execution; 2) the establishment of secure core funding and additional private sponsorship and trust and foundation support.

GRAHAM COATMAN
Artistic Director, Hexham Abbey Festival
November 2007