Amongst other composers, John Ireland is being featured in the ‘live in lock-down’ English Music Festival this coming weekend

22 – 25 May 2020
www.englishmusicfestival.org.uk

The English Music Festival (EMF) is delighted to announce an online Festival, following the necessary cancellation of the Oxfordshire EMF due to COVID-19 and government restrictions. The online Festival runs from Friday 22nd to Monday 25th May 2020, with concerts and talks held at the same times that the EMF events were planned to take place, and featuring as many of the same artists and composers from the original programme as possible.

Duncan Honeybourne will be performing Sarnia along with works by Bax, Vaughan Williams, Howells, Moeran and Scott, from his home at 2:30pm on Saturday 23 May, and on Monday 25 May, there is the opportunity to hear Cavatina and Bagatelle (arr. Graham Parlett) from the recording on the EM Records label (the EMF’s recording arm) performed by Chamber Ensemble of London under Director, Peter Fisher from the album ‘Set in Silver’ (EMR CD032–33) www.em-records.com/catalogue.html

EMF artists have been asked to provide live filmed concerts and talks from their homes in lockdown. There are talks from celebrated baritone Roderick Williams on Vaughan Williams’s Willow Wood; conductor Hilary Davan Wetton on British composers; conductor Joseph Fort on Brahms’s English Requiem; award-winning composer Richard Blackford on My Path from Musical Moderism; and violinist Rupert Marshall-Luck on Parry’s chamber music.

Paul Guinery performs Ivor Novello and Noel Coward and shares some of his scores.  Cellist Joseph Spooner is joined by pianist Nicholas Bosworth in a concert entitled ‘The English Cello at Home and Abroad’, while Rupert Marshall-Luck plays a solo violin programme of music by Elgar and Joseph Phibbs.

The online programme also comprises radio-style presentation of carefully curated works from EM Records discs (due to licencing restrictions we are unable to use recordings from record labels other than the EMF’s own label.)

Tickets are available for these events, a share of which will go to the contributing musicians, many of whom have lost vital work and income as a result of the current situation.

The online EMF runs from 7:30pm on Friday 22nd May until 9:00pm on Sunday 25th May 2020.
The full Programme may be viewed at https://www.englishmusicfestival.org.uk/2020-online-festival/programme.php
Tickets may be purchased from https://www.englishmusicfestival.org.uk/2020-online-festival/box-office/box-office-front-page.php

The EMF is encouraging those interested to join their Friends scheme which enables the Festival to expand and develop.  Receive the yearly British Music magazine, Spirited, as well as a host of benefits: https://www.englishmusicfestival.org.uk/friends.php