Festival attracts
IT is hard to believe that Llandeilo’s much-loved annual music festival, in what must undoubtedly be one of Wales’ most attractive towns, will this year be celebrating its 17th birthday.
From comparatively modest beginnings the event has steadily raised the town’s musical profile, establishing it ever more securely on the national music scene, while it continues to attract singers and instrumentalists of international calibre.
It is no surprise, therefore, that among the glitterati of the musical world who will be gracing Llandeilo this summer will be two of the country’s leading instrumentalists, violinist Tasmin Little and pianist Martin Roscoe, both of whom will be making a return to the festival on Monday, July 17, at St Teilo’s Church.
The following night Britain’s best-loved clarinettist, Emma Johnson, will be paying tribute to Benny Goodman and other icons of the jazz world, in the company of the outstanding pianist John Lenehan and brilliant percussionist Paul Clarvis.
If one wished to complement this array of instrumental excellence it would be hard to improve on the truly renowned Brodsky Quartet, who have been described as not just a great group but a genuine phenomenon. They will be giving the penultimate recital on Friday, July 21.
Add to this eclectic mix an exciting debut by a rising young Welsh piano star, and Llandeilo Fawr looks to be pulling off yet another artistic triumph this year, in keeping with its many past coups.
Luke Jones is still only a student in Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music, but in the 2016 festival he stood in at the very last minute to give one of the lunchtime recitals and acquitted himself with such distinction that it seemed entirely appropriate to invite him to give an evening recital in the 2017 festival.
Luke Jones has what the noted virtuoso pianist (and past festival artist) Leslie Howard has referred to as a ‘prodigious technique’ and his recital programme of Chopin and Rachmaninov is guaranteed to leave his audience in a state of disbelief.
As ever, the opening and closing concerts will feature choral events, the first of which will see the John S Davies Singers celebrating their 40th anniversary, on July 15, with a special programme which will include the first performance of a work by Welsh composer Eric Jones, written especially for the occasion.
The festival will draw to a close with the first complete performance of In Memoriam, a new work by another Welsh composer, Eilir Owen Griffiths, commemorating the sacrifices of World War One with settings of words by Hedd Wyn, Ann Franck and Nelson Mandela, intertwined with some of Wales’ best-loved hymns and excerpts from the traditional Latin Requiem Mass.
Before that, however, on July 16, the National Trust’s Newton House will have played host to an enchanting evening of music for voice and guitar, with the beautiful soprano Lotte Betts-Dean partnered by leading guitarist Andrey Lebedev.
Born in Memphis, Tennessee, Charlie Wood is widely regarded as one of America’s leading jazz singers. Festival organisers are delighted that he will be appearing with his quartet at the Cawdor Hotel on Thursday, July 20.
He will be the latest in a line of top jazz musicians to appear at the festival, starting with a young Jamie Cullum back in the early days.