Lake District Summer Music

Lake District Summer Music celebrates its Silver Jubilee this August with public sales of its 2009 International Festival programme launched on Monday 1 June. Heralded in the national press as one of the top three UK classical music festivals, organisers are seeking to ensure that the combination of world music across five centuries, performed by world artists, plus the inspirational backdrop of our beautiful Lake District, is an irresistible recipe.

The 25th International Festival runs from 31 July to 15 August and once again draws top international musicians and groups to perform in this “Festival painted on the canvas of the Lake District”.

Festival highlights for 2009 include performances by Argentinian pianist Nelson Goerner, cellists Robert Cohen, UK, and Christoph Richter, Germany, Trio di Parma from Italy, and South-African born double bass virtuoso Leon Bosch. Soprano Lesley-Jane Rogers sings in three concerts across the Festival, including performances of 3 world premieres. Young composer Nirmali Fenn also has her new string quartet premiered by the Vardanyan Quartet, LDSM’s new MBF Ensemble Associate.

LDSM is also extending the birthday celebrations well beyond its own Silver Jubilee. The programme marks the genius of Haydn, who died in 1809, with a Haydn Celebration presenting some of his most popular works including the Nelson Mass and Trumpet Concerto. The concert is being conducted by Denis McCaldin, Director of the Haydn Society of Great Britain and blogger-in-residence for Radio 3 during this 200th anniversary year. Without access to such things as radio, CDs, or ipods, classical composers relied on ingenious ways to help their music ‘travel’. Florilegium’s performance of 3 of Haydn’s ‘London’ symphonies, arranged by Johann Peter Salomon who brought the composer to the UK, presents ideal examples.

The boy prodigy Mendelssohn, who was born in 1809, is celebrated in another key Festival strand. A performance of his Octet brings together the Chilingirian Quartet, resident artists with LDSM across its 25 years, with one of the finest young professional ensembles, the Vardanyan Quartet and also marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of Friends of the Lake District.

Other anniversaries include Pro Nobis Singers’ 40th, Chaconne Brass’s 25th, and the 500th of Henry VIII’s coronation in a concert held in the shadows of Kendal Castle, home to the family of Katherine Parr, Henry’s sixth and surviving wife.

LDSM’s reach extends well beyond its heart in Ambleside and the Central Lakes. The event is the widest spread music Festival in the UK, reaching 13 towns and villages across the county - from Kirkby Lonsdale to Penrith, Keswick to Ulverston – in over 50 events. Its impact is felt well beyond these geographical boundaries too. Over 10,000 people attend LDSM’s offering of thrilling concerts in inspiring locations, and its showcasing of some 180 young musicians from over 20 countries give the event a unique quality.

Renna Kellaway, LDSM’s Founder and Artistic Director, was awarded an MBE in the New Year’s Honours for services to music. Renna says: “A quarter of a century – of course we should celebrate. What greater good or pleasure can there be in absorbing the genius of inspired composers brought to us in live, committed performances by artists at the height of illustrious careers and new generation musicians who will illuminate our 21st century? Music touches us all. It is timeless and ageless.”

Tickets can be purchased online from www.ldsm.org.uk, or by calling the box office on 08456 44 21 44.