Special pre-festival concert     

WEDNESDAY 15 AUGUST

7.30pm Marble Hall, Holkham 

MELVYN TAN piano                           

SCARLATTI Sonatas

SCHUMANN Phantasiestücke Op.12

CHOPIN Sonata in B minor Op.58

Melvyn Tan returns following his rapturously received recital at the 2011 Festival. This year his programme includes works by composers with which his name is particularly associated: a selection of sonatas from the 555 by Domenico Scarlatti, the eight character pieces that make up Robert Schumann’s Phantasiestücke Op. 12, inspired by the novellas of E.T.A. Hoffman, and Chopin’s last large-scale composition for solo piano.

TICKETS £25 includes a glass of wine in Holkham Hall’s State Rooms during the interval.

WEDNESDAY 22 AUGUST      

6pm St Mary’s Church,

East Raynham             

LAURA SAMUEL violin 

SIMON ROWLAND-JONES viola

A programme of music

by J.S. BACH

Suite in G for solo cello BWV 1007 (transcribed for viola by Simon Rowland-Jones)

Two-part Inventions BWV 772-786

Sonata in G minor for solo violin BWV 1001

After the concert the audience will be invited by kind permission permission of The Marquis and Marchioness Townshend for a glass of wine at Raynham Hall, next to the Church

Everyone present at Laura Samuel’s performance of Bach’s D minor Partita at Burnham Norton in 2010 will surely remember her magical playing.  In this concert Laura will perform another of Bach’s great Soli for violin. That and the solo cello suite will be framed by intriguing transcriptions for violin and viola of Bach’s Two-part Inventions for Solo Keyboard.

TICKETS £20 includes a glass of wine after the concert

This concert will last approximately 75 mins and there will be no interval.

THURSDAY 23 AUGUST

4.30pm St Margaret's Church,

Burnham Norton             

CHRISTOPHER MONCKTON 

Arthur Gordon Westwood-Paget:

A Priest with a Passion
When Westwood-Paget arrived in Norfolk in 1923 to begin his ministry, there were even more than the 900 churches in the county that there are today. A student of organs and organ-building, he set out on a pilgrimage that was to last over fifty years - he visited every Norfolk church and made an inventory of all the organs he found, whatever their condition. Through his determination, by the late '60's over 100 Norfolk churches owed the revival of liturgical music to this one man. Organist and singer, Christopher Monckton owns Paget's Accounts of the Organs in Norfolk Churches and in this entertaining talk explores not only the history of the organs themselves but the social history of life in the county over fifty years.

TICKETS £3

6pm St Margaret’s Church, Burnham Norton

LAURA SAMUEL violin 

SIMON ROWLAND-JONES viola

ALASDAIR TAIT cello                                       

MOZARTPreludes and Fugues for String Trio (after J.S. Bach)

ROWLAND-JONES String Trio

BEETHOVEN String Trio in D Op. 9 No. 2

After a joyful musical reunion at the 7th NNMF Simon Rowland-Jones once again joins forces with two former members of the Belcea Quartet, Laura Samuel and Alasdair Tait, in a programme ranging from Bach arranged by Mozart to Simon’s own String Trio, written in 1989 for the Almeida Festival. Beethoven’s D major String Trio is one of the great works for this unusual but most gratifying string chamber music genre, renowned for its transparency and brilliance of texture.

TICKETS £12

This concert will last approximately 75 mins and there will be no interval.

FRIDAY 24 AUGUST

4.45pm St Mary’s Church,

South Creake             

A talk by SUSAN SHARPE  

Broadcaster Susan Sharpe, a familiar voice to BBC Radio 3 listeners, returns to the Festival this year to give a talk about Beethoven, in preparation for the concert which follows.

TICKETS £3

From 5.30pm FESTIVAL DINNER

  

7pm St Mary’s Church,

South Creake             

TIM HORTON piano

BEETHOVEN Six Piano Sonatas

Op. 49/1 in G minor, Op. 78 in F sharp minor "A Thérèse", 

Op. 27/1 in E flat 'Sonata quasi una fantasia', Op. 49/2 in G,

Op. 54 in F, Op. 27/2 in C sharp minor "Moonlight”

We welcome this truly miraculous musician to the Festival for the first time and look forward to no less than four appearances.  Tim Horton studied at Chethams’ School, Manchester and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He has performed all over the world and is equally well known as soloist and chamber musician. He is the pianist of Ensemble 360, other members of which will join him later in the Festival.

The six Beethoven sonatas he has chosen to play, out of the 32 that make up one of the pinnacles of the piano repertoire, all date from the first decade of the 19^th Century.

TICKETS £15

7pm St Mary’s Church,

South Creake             

LAURA SAMUEL violin 

ANDREW BALL piano

DVORAK Sonatina in G Op. 100

FAURÉ Sonata No. 1 in A major Op. 13 

STRAUSS Sonata Op. 18

A programme of three exuberant works for violin and piano from the last quarter of the nineteenth century: Dvorak's charming Sonatina combines American and Czech influences, Faure's 1st Sonata is awash with rapturous lyricism and fervent, unforgettable melodies, and Richard Strauss's early sonata is virtually a symphonic poem for the two players, an enigmatic quotation from a famous work of Beethoven's cunningly concealed in the closing bars of the slow movement. Laura Samuel, in her third concert of the Festival, is joined by pianist Andrew Ball whose dazzling account of the Samuel Barber Sonata in our 2008 Festival is still fresh in our minds.

TICKETS £15

3pm St Mary’s Church,

South Creake             

DUNCAN ROCK baritone 

TIM HORTON piano

Duncan Rock studied at The Guildhall School of Music & Drama where he made an impression in the production of Donizetti’s L’assedio di Calais in a student performance there. During the 2010 Glyndebourne Festival he appeared in The Rake’s Progress and as the Novice in Billy Budd “displaying boundless promise”(Rodney Milnes, Opera). He has sung the title role in Don Giovanni at Iford Opera and for Welsh National Opera, and will open his 2012/3 season as Massetto for Opera North. Duncan Rock’s recital includes songs by TCHAIKOVSKY, RAVEL, DUPARC and FINZI. Duncan will also sing "A Shropshire Lad" by BUTTERWORTH. 



TICKETS £15

From 5.30pm FESTIVAL DINNER

7pm St Mary’s Church,

South Creake             

WU QUARTET

HAYDN String Quartet in C Op. 20 No. 2

TIPPETT String Quartet No. 2 

SCHUBERT String Quartet in D minor D810 “Death and the Maiden”

Semi-finalists at the 2011 Beijing International String Quartet competition and winners of the ‘Artis Quartet Prize’ for the outstanding string quartet at the 2011 ISA Prague/Wien/Budapest Sommerakademie, the Wu Quartet are fast making a name for themselves.  They gave the NNMF pre-festival fund-raising concert for St Mary’s Church two years ago after studying at Simon Rowland-Jones’s summer course at the Yorke Trust.  We feel it is high time for the quartet to be presented in the main Festival and are certain that these young players will make a profound impact.

Two well-known quartet masterpieces frame the Wu Quartet’s programme and Tippett’s String Quartet No. 2 comes in between – a work that is lyrical, lively, deeply passionate and with an irresistibly English flavour.

TICKETS £15 

Matthew Hunt, clarinet

BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY 27 AUGUST

From 1pm FESTIVAL LUNCH

3pm St Mary’s Church,

South Creake       

ENSEMBLE 360

GLINKA Trio Pathétique in D minor for clarinet, bassoon and piano

BRITTEN Movements from Six Metamorphoses after Ovid, Opus 49

BEETHOVEN Quintet in E flat for piano and winds Op. 16

MESSIAEN Appel interstellaire

from Des Canyons aux Étoiles for solo horn

MOZART Quintet for Piano and Winds in E flat K452

Four wind players from Ensemble 360 join the Ensemble’s pianist Tim Horton in a lively and original programme of works for piano and winds. Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable reputation across the UK not only for the quality and integrity of the members’ playing, but also for their ability to communicate the music to a range of different audiences. Formed in 2005, eleven musicians of international standing came together to take up residency in Sheffield with Music in the Round, establishing a versatile group comprising five string players, five wind players and a pianist. 

BBC Music Magazine much admired their recording of the Mozart Quintet which they will perform for NNMF: “This is a performance that can stand as a benchmark for this much recorded work…a real pleasure”. 

TICKETS £20 

Carole Presland, piano

TUESDAY 28 AUGUST

From 5.30pm FESTIVAL DINNER

7pm St Mary’s Church, 

South Creake             

LAURA SAMUEL violin 

SIMON ROWLAND-JONES viola

ALASDAIR TAIT cello 

CAROLE PRESLAND piano

MAHLER Piano Quartet

FAURÉ Piano Quartet No. 1 

BRAHMS Piano Quartet in C minor Op. 60

Barry Cheeseman writes, “After opening the 2011 NNMF with such élan and masterly musicianship, I immediately asked the same players to reunite this year. I’m delighted that they agreed.”  The programme includes Fauré’s 1^st and best loved piano quartet, which we all felt had to be heard at NNMF after seeing how much last year’s audience enjoyed the 2^nd.  Mahler only completed one movement of his piano quartet but it is a haunting, expansive work.  The C minor piano quartet by Brahms is the third and last of his works for the genre.  Bearing in mind that Brahms described it with the following words, "Imagine a man for whom nothing is left, and who wishes to put an end to himself", it will surely make a dramatic end to the programme.

TICKETS £20            

WEDNESDAY 29 AUGUST      

4.45pm St Mary’s Church,

South Creake             

GLENN RICHARDSON Musical Patronage

in the Court of Mary Tudor

Dr Glenn Richardson, a distinguished authority on the Tudor Court, will give a pre-concert talk. Here he talks about Mary’s musical patronage in her court and in the context of the religious reforms she instituted as both the eldest child of Henry VIII and as Europe’s first female Sovereign.

TICKETS £3

From 5.30pm FESTIVAL DINNER

7pm St Mary’s Church,

South Creake             

FLOREAT SONUS choir 

JAMES GORICK conductor

PALESTRINA Ave Regina Caelorum – Missa Papae Marcelli

WILLIAM BYRD Ne Irascaris Domine

ROBERT PARSONS Ave Maria

JOHN SHEPPARD Libera nos, salve nos I

WILLIAM MUNDY Vox Patris Caelestis

A feast of choral singing with a programme devoted to one of Palestrina’s most popular works and to a selection of pieces by English composers at work during the troubled times of the reign of Mary I.

Floreat Sonus is a group of professional singers equally at home in works from the Middle Ages to the present day.

James Gorick will conduct tonight’s force of 12 voices. He studied conducting at the Royal College of Music and was for six years Director of Music at St Paul’s Cathedral School, London. 

TICKETS £20  

THURSDAY 30 AUGUST          

3.30 pm St Mary's Church,Tittleshall

STEPHEN CLEOBURY in conversation

with Barry Cheeseman  

Stephen Cleobury is one of the best-known names in the world of music and choral singing thanks to his association with the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge. Before his recital he will be in conversation with Barry Cheeseman about his career and also about the works he will be playing this afternoon. TICKETS £3 includes tea and biscuits

5pm St Mary’s Church,Tittleshall

STEPHEN CLEOBURY organ and harmonium  

Programme to include works by VIERNE, TOMKINS,

BUXTEHUDE, PACHELBEL, J S BACH and MENDELSSOHN

Stephen Cleobury as Director of Music of the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge is best known to millions of music lovers for his annual appearance in the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols broadcast around the world on Christmas Eve.

He held the post of Conductor of Cambridge University Musical Society for more than 25 years and also was Chief Conductor of the BBC Singers. He has a distinguished career as an organist and has played in every major cathedral in England and Wales and throughout the USA.

TICKETS £12 

Simon Rowland-Jones

From 6.30pm FESTIVAL DINNER

8pm St Mary’s Church,

South Creake             

LEONORE TRIO

BENJAMIN NABARRO violin

GEMMA ROSEFIELD cello

TIM HORTON piano

ARENSKY Piano Trio No.1 in D minor Op.32

ROWLAND-JONES Piano Trio Holkham Beach (world première)

BEETHOVEN Piano Trio in B flat Op. 97 "Archduke"

Two of the best-known piano trios in the repertoire are joined this evening by a brand new work dedicated to Paul and Eunice Morgan, close personal friends and great supporters of NNMF. Simon Rowland-Jones writes, ”Paul and Eunice are outstanding enthusiasts of chamber music; it is both a pleasure and a challenge to compose a piano trio for them. It will be an impressionistic work derived from two winter walks on Holkham Beach”.

TICKETS £15

Marianne Cornetti

FRIDAY 31 AUGUST

From 5.30pm FESTIVAL DINNER

7pm St Mary’s Church,

South Creake       

NELLY MIRICIOIU soprano 

MARIANNE CORNETTI mezzo soprano

SIMON LEPPER piano

Romanian soprano Nelly Miricioiu is making her third appearance at NNMF and this year she will be joined by the American mezzo-soprano Marianne Cornetti. Their programme will include a selection of their favourite arias and duets from the worlds of verismo and bel-canto operas including PONCHIELLI, DONIZETTI, BELLINI and VERDI. Nelly Miricioiu will be singing the role of Maria Padilla in Donizetti’s opera at Queen Elizabeth Hall in May 2012 and Marianne Cornetti has been very busy this season singing Amneris at La Scala Milan and at the Hamburg State Opera, Abigaille in Verdi’s Nabucco at the Metropolitan Opera, and the Princess de Bouillon at the Gran Teatre Liceu in Barcelona. A dramatically charged evening of vocal fireworks as these two divas sing together is guaranteed!

TICKETS £25 includes a glass of Prosecco in the interval

SATURDAY 1 SEPTEMBER  

From 1pm FESTIVAL LUNCH

3pm St Mary’s Church, 

South Creake             

BENYOUNES STRING QUARTET

HAYDN Quartet in F Op.77 No.2  

JANACEK Quartet No. 1 “Kreutzer Sonata”  

DEBUSSY Quartet

Formed in 2007 the Benyounes Quartet came together at the Royal Northern College of Music, from where so many great quartets have emerged.  They are Royal Philharmonic prize-winners, current holders of the Richard Carne Junior Fellowship for String Quartet at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, and gave their London début in January this year in the prestigious Park Lane Group series. Their programme brings together three great works for string quartet.

TICKETS £15 

From 5.30pm FESTIVAL DINNER

7pm St Mary’s Church,

South Creake           

ALEXANDER ROMANOVSKY piano

BACH Fantasia and Fugue in A minor BWV904  

BRAHMS Paganini Variations Books 1 & 2  

CHOPIN 24 Preludes Op. 28

Alexander Romanovksy was born in Ukraine in 1984 and studied in Imola and later with Dmitri Alexeev at the Royal College of Music. Last year he was a major prize-winner in the prestigious Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. This season he opened the 25^th series of “Master Pianists” at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and has played with the Orchestra of La Scala, Milan, the Accademia of Santa Cecilia, Rome, the Halle Orchestra and the St Petersburg Academic Orchestra. His recording of concertos by Glazunov is nominated for a 2012 Grammy Award.

TICKETS £20 

3.30pm St Mary’s Church,

South Creake             

DORIC STRING QUARTET

ALEXANDER ROMANOVSKY piano

BEETHOVEN String Quartet

in C sharp minor Op. 131 

BRAHMS Piano Quintet Op. 34

Festival favourites the Doric String Quartet are back to close the 8th NNMF in one of Beethoven’s most profound late works.  We look forward to the prospect of hearing them in this most expansive and intense quartet is an exciting one. 

Alexander Romanovsky will join them for a performance of the rousing Piano Quintet by Brahms, a work of huge dimension and power, certain to make an exhilarating finish to the this year's!

TICKETS £20