North Shropshire classical music festival ready to return
A north Shropshire music festival is hoping to bring the magic of live events back to the county.
Within days of the reopening of concert halls and theatres for live performance in England, Whittington International Chamber Music Festival will be bringing live music to a live audience in north Shropshire.
Three socially-distanced concerts on Thursday 20, Friday 21 and Saturday 22 May will be performed by 15 experienced classical musicians in Holy Trinity Church, Oswestry.
After the festival had to be cancelled last year, this year’s return of Whittington Music Festival has been planned by Sophia Rahman, who festival regulars will recognise from 2019.
A festival spokesman said: "We are delighted to be one of the first festivals to bring live music to a live audience. We have a wonderful array of musicians with international experience who are bringing us three concerts of classical music – the first celebrating rustic song and dance, followed the next day by a concert with the theme of transformation, and lastly baroque music and its inspiration of dance which marks the 300th Anniversary of Bach’s Brandenburg concertos.
“Each concert will be carefully managed with a socially distanced audience and sadly will have to be shorter than usual, with no interval. Tickets have been selling quickly and there are not many seats left. Fans of Schubert’s Trout will be pleased to hear that a few tickets are still available to hear a version for voice and cello at the start of the first concert with the full quintet as the final piece.
"There are just a couple of seats available for the second concert and the final concert on Saturday afternoon is already fully booked.
“Our concerts benefit from support from the lottery-funded Arts Council which provided a grant for what was to be an ambitious series of concerts last year and when they were cancelled we were allowed to keep part of that grant for this year.
“We are so lucky that our performers will bring live music back to Shropshire. Now we are starting our planning for a full-blown festival next year.”
The organisers add that they are still looking for one or two people to join the festival team – detailed music knowledge is not as important as enthusiasm for what the festival offers musicians and audience, they said.
Ticket sales and further details of the festival can be found at www.whittingtonmusicfestival.org.uk.
