2014 Festival Events

Friday 23 May at 2.00pm

Community Outreach EventFREE

St. Mary & St. Eanswythe’s Church, Folkestone

Stephen Deazley • Polly Ives

Last year’s spectacular and colourful performance of Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, directed by Professor Grenville Hancox and performed by local schoolchildren, musicians and members of the Canterbury Cantata Trust, was truly something to behold. This year the Sacconis wanted to open the Festival with another large-scale community outreach project.

Those of you who came to the 2012 Sacconi Festival will already be familiar with the work of composer Stephen Deazley. He wrote the music for the dark and beautiful ‘Death’s Cabaret’ performed by cellist Matthew Sharp and the Sacconis. This year Deazley returns with a specially commissioned string quartet inspired by the changing seasons. The work will also provide the basis and inspiration of a brand new outreach project that will involve local schoolchildren playing instruments and singing with the Sacconi Quartet in a one-off performance.

Leading the school workshops will be animateur and educator Polly Ives, also an ex-member of the Kent County Youth Orchestra like Ben, Hannah and Robin! We welcome Polly back to the southern shores from her now hometown of Sheffield where she is Education and Outreach Manager at Music in the Round.

Friday 23 May at 7.00pm

Concert£24 (including wine)

St. Mary & St. Eanswythe's Church, Folkestone

Sacconi Quartet • Alasdair Beatson - Piano • Sarah Beaty - Clarinet

Mozart : String Quartet In E Flat Major, K428
Janácek : String Quartet Nº.1 'Kreutzer Sonata'
Schumann : String Quartet In F Major, Op.41 Nº.2
Messiaen : Quartet For The End Of Time

Two optimistic and life affirming works from Mozart and Schumann frame Janácek's dark and troubled Kreutzer Sonata, where we find jealousy, rage and crimes of passion! Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, composed in a prisoner of war camp in Germany at the start of WW2, is one of the most haunting and powerful works ever written.

Friday night's extended concert will be in two parts, with a short break between the Janácek and Schumann and a longer interval before a candlelit performance of the Messiaen.

Saturday 24 May at 11.00am

Folkestone Artworks TourFREE event with limited spaces

There will be a second Artworks tour at 2.00pm

Folkestone Artworks is the collection of 16 high calibre works originally commissioned by the Creative Foundation for the Folkestone Triennial that are now on permanent display in public spaces around the town. The collection includes work by Tracey Emin, Mark Wallinger and Richard Wilson. The dates for the 2014 Folkestone Triennial are 30th August – 2nd November. www.folkestonetriennial.org.uk

To book in advance email festival@sacconi.com. Meet at the Quarterhouse, Mill Bay, Folkestone, CT20 1BN. Tour is approx. 1.5 hours long and is on foot. www.folkestoneartworks.co.uk for more details.

Saturday 24 May at 4.30pm

Friends and Patrons Reception

Fresh & Easy, 35 The Old High St, Folkestone, CT20 1RL

An exclusive reception to thank the Sacconi Friends & Patrons who help make the Sacconi Festival possible.

To become a Friend visit www.sacconi.com/friends

Saturday 24 May at 7.00pm

Concert£24

St. Mary & St. Eanswythe's Church, Folkestone

Sacconi Quartet • Pekka Kuusisto - Violin • Christopher Bucknall - Harpsichord • Royal College of Music Chamber Orchestra

Deazley : String Quartet (World Premiere)
Richard Strauss : Metamorphosen
Vivaldi : The Four Seasons

This year we are embracing new music and Stephen Deazley's quartet is the first of two premieres at this year's Festival, and opens the Saturday concert. We mark the 150th Anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth with a performance of his rich and poignant work Metamorphosen, followed by the renewed hope and ebullience of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. In the hands of the Finnish 'maverick' virtuoso Pekka Kuusisto this performance will feel like another premiere!

In 2005 the Sacconis became Junior Fellows at the Royal College of Music. Now, continuing their role there as Quartet in Association, the quartet coach many of its up-and-coming chamber musicians. For tonight's concert they have invited some of those students to form a chamber orchestra to perform these two seminal works.

Saturday 24 May at 9.30pm

Concert£16

St. Eanswythe's Primary School, Folkestone

Pekka Kuusisto - Violin • Teemu Korpipää - Sound Engineer

Bach with electronics

Pekka has the rare ability to seamlessly bridge gaps between musical genres. In this performance of Bach's D minor partita, he will intersperse the original work with electronic improvisations inspired by funeral chorales, which are believed to be the foundation of the work.

Sunday 25 May at 11.00am

Sunday Mass

St. Mary & St. Eanswythe's Church, Folkestone

Canterbury Cantata Choir • Canterbury Camerata • Roderick Spencer - Organ • Grenville Hancox - Director

Haydn : Missa Brevis Sancti Joannis De Deo (Little Organ Mass)

Sunday 25 May at 3.00pm

Concert£16

St. Mary & St. Eanswythe's Church, Folkestone

Sacconi Quartet • Paul Edmund-Davies - Flute • Sally Pryce - Harp • Sarah Beaty - Clarinet

Debussy : Sonata For Flute, Viola & Harp
Ravel : Introduction & Allegro
Tournier : Harp Sonatine, Op.30

This afternoon's concert will feature harpist Sally Pryce in two of the great French chamber works written for this magnificent instrument. Sarah Beaty will join us again in the Ravel and we will also welcome flautist Paul Edmund-Davies for one of Debussy's last works, written in 1915 while WW1 raged not much more than 100 miles away.

Sunday 25 May at 7.00pm

Concert£20

St. Mary & St. Eanswythe's Church, Folkestone

Sacconi Quartet • Simon Rowland-Jones - Viola • Christine Anderson - Viola • Anton Crayton - Cello

Richard Strauss : String Sextet From Capriccio
Rowland-Jones : String Quintet (World Premiere)
Schubert : String Quartet In G Major, D887

In our final concert, we are joined by two talented students from the RCM to perform Strauss's sumptuous sextet from his last opera Capriccio. Simon Rowland Jones joins us to premiere this specially commissioned Viola Quintet and the Festival concludes with one of Schubert's very last compositions, the epic G major string quartet.