Kentish Express Ashford & District
Father-and-son duet gives poignancy to festival finale
The final weekend of Stour Music is set to feature famous composers, international voices and a poignant duet.
Vox Luminis, the International Vocal Ensemble from Belgium, kick off the final few days on Friday evening with three performances including Carissimi’s Jephte.
The ensemble specialises in the performance of 16th to 18th Century vocal music and their 2012 CD of Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien won Gramophone Record of the Year and Baroque Vocal Award.
Friday’s late night extra, in the candle-lit church, is Duets for Counter-tenors and will feature father and son duo Michael and Alexander Chance singing pieces by Henry Purcell and John Blow.
Michael has been described as one of the most distinguished singers of his generation while his son Alexander is a choral scholar at Oxford.
The performance is particularly relevant for Stour Music as founder Alfred Deller and his son and current festival director Mark frequently gave duet concerts at the event, and around the world, in the 1960s and 1970s.
On Saturday the Academy of Ancient Music, with virtuoso Croatian solo violinist and director Bojan Cicic, will perform Angels and Saints featuring pieces by composers Vivaldi, Vejvanovsky, Locatelli and Biber.
Saturday’s late-night offering is harpsichordist Steven Devine, who has directed performances at the Proms, playing Bach.
Finally, on Sunday afternoon, the Stour Festival Choir will join professional singers including soprano Kathryn Jenkin for a choral concert of A newly commissioned community opera, which launched Stour Music last week, has been hailed a success.
Fifty adults and 100 children performed The Pied Piper, composed for the festival by Kent composer Matthew King and featuring pupils from Lady Joanna Thornhill Primary School and Spring Grove School in Wye.
Telling the story of the stranger who rids the town of rats before taking away all the children when the mayor refuses to pay him, the words were written by Michael Irwin.
International counter-tenor Michael Chance led the cast in the title role, with bassbaritone Peter Cox as the Mayor, soprano Penelope Martin-Smith as the hysterical ‘Queen of the Night’ Mayor’s secretary, and tenor Paul Young as the leading councillor.
The costumes and sets were designed by Jo Dyer and the production was directed by Mairi Coyle.
Festival director Mark Deller, who conducted the performances and organised the whole project, said: “This extraordinary event was the culmination of three years’ careful planning and was only made possible with the support of a number of generous sponsors, to whom we are most grateful.
“With a new work, particularly one which involves such large forces, one can never be sure what the finished article is going to be like. But Michael and Matthew provided us with a truly wonderful piece, and one which certainly deserves to be taken up by other festivals looking for an exciting community project.”