It seems extraordinary that 10 years have passed since we were invited to test the acoustic in the newly refurbished Penarth Pier Pavilion. Since then the festival has gone from strength to strength, weathering the covid storm with live-streamed concerts. We are incredibly grateful to everyone who has supported us along the way and are feeling elated to have reached this milestone!

This year the festival is a musical celebration jam-packed with events and concerts to bring the joy and energy of live music making to our audience. To celebrate this anniversary we have commissioned a string trio from esteemed Welsh composer Huw Watkins. We feel so privileged that he agreed to write this for us. Huw’s music is now internationally recognized, having been brought up just up the road in Blackwood. We’re delighted that this new string trio will begin its life here in Penarth! He is also a wonderful pianist so will not only be composer-in-residence but joining us on the platform throughout the festival. 

We are also thrilled to have secured the Dora Stoutzker Concert Hall at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama for our concerts on Saturday 29th June. Rebecca Evans and Carlo Rizzi will join us for our Gala Concert in a performance of the Closing Scene from Strauss’ s last opera Capriccio, in an arrangement by David Matthews. This glorious passage will follow the gorgeous opening music from the same opera, the string sextet from Capriccio, and acclaimed actor Samuel West will narrate the drama with text commissioned from Sir David Poutney. This will be followed by a late night concert featuring great friends Poulenc and Britten. Ligeti’s atmospheric and evocative Hora Lunga for solo viola will take us from Poulenc’s fabulously Parisian trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano to Britten’s nocturnal Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings with soloists James Gilchrist and Ben Goldscheider. To start this special celebratory day at RWCMD there is a mini-Schubertiade with 2 instrumental songs surrounding the incredible, virtuosic Fantasy for Violin and Piano. 

Watch out for the Opening Concert which is at lunchtime on Thursday 27th, with Huw Watkins Piano Trio no. 2 and Schubert’s breathtakingly beautiful String Quartet in A minor “Rosamunde”. There is another world première in the concert on Thursday evening, Judith Bingham’s Hodge’s Cat for Clarinet and Tenor. Prefaced by Mozart’s joyful Piano Quartet in Eb, this evening recital is finished with Beethoven’s epic String Quartet in Bb Op.130 which leads us beautifully into the late night concert featuring two ground-breaking string quartets, Beethoven’s alternative ending to Op.130, the Grosse Fuge and George Crumb’s avant garde Black Angels for electric String Quartet. Laura Tunbridge, acclaimed author of Beethoven: A  Life in Nine Pieces will give the interval talk shedding light on Beethoven’s genius and context to the composition of one of Beethoven’s greatest string quartets.

Friday night’s concert features another Straussian masterpiece, his Metamorphosen in the version for String Septet. A war theme pervades this concert with Vaughan Williams’ moving setting of A E Housman’s On Wenlock Edge, but Poulenc’s vivacious Sextet for Piano and Winds will lighten the mood. As will the late night folk music concert featuring Welsh folk superstars Patrick Rimes and Aneirin Jones. Our festival musicians will join these two fantastic fiddlers in some special arrangements giving a warmth of tone which beautifully reflects the tenderness of their musical story telling. 

Sunday sees Samuel West discuss his life and career with David through his musical choices played live by the festival musicians in our ever popular Flat Holm Island Discs. The Festival Finale features Huw’s poignant Elegy premièred by Huw and David last year, possibly Schumann’s most beautiful work the 3 Romances for Oboe and Piano and Dvorak’s uplifting and joyful Piano Quintet. But the cornerstone of this evening programme is Schoenberg’s dramatic and thought provoking Ode to Napoleon. Lord Byron’s poem is set to extraordinary music for piano quintet with Samuel West narrating the virtuoso part for speaker. 

Our outreach concerts are as vibrant as ever including a Relaxed Concert and Lenny Sayers presenting the Family Concert “Party” with party tricks performed by the musicians and interactive games for the audience. Local young musicians will be given a platform in our 2 Showcase concerts and in a Harp masterclass led by the incredible Lucy Wakeford, Principal Harp with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. We are delighted to welcome back CCVG Symphonic Brass to get us in the mood before the Gala Concert on Saturday. We also have a new venture with a guided tour around the Gwendoline and Margaret Davies collection at Cardiff Museum on Saturday afternoon. This will lead rather beautifully into impressionist composer Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro which opens the Gala Concert. 

We also continue with our Young Musicians Programme this year featuring young viola player Isobel Neary-Adams. An alumni of the Young Musicians Showcases, Isobel is studying music at Oxford University and the viola with renowned pedagogue David Takeno. We hope you’ll forgive us for ‘keeping it in the family’!

The programme has been designed to give us all the thrill of experiencing live chamber music in the most vibrant way possible. We hope you enjoy this year’s celebration as much as we will!!

Artistic Directors: David Adams and Alice Neary

The Artists

• David Adams

• Malin Broman

• Lesley Hatfield

• Agnes Langer

• Scott Dickinson

• Tom Dunn

• Isobel Neary-Adams

• Alice Neary

• Marie Bitlloch

• David Stark

• Simon Crawford-Phillips

• Huw Watkins

• Matthew Featherstone

• Steven Hudson

• Robert Plane

• Amy Harman

• Ben Goldscheider

• Patrick Rimes

• Aneirin Jones

• Andrew Smillie

• Laura Tunbridge

• James Lea

• Rebeccsa Evans

• James Gilchrist

• Carlo Rizzi

• Samuel West

Patron

• Rebecca Evans CBE

Venues

• Penarth Pier Pavilion

• Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama

• The Turner House, Penarth