CityLife

Classical highlights: August 6 to 12, 2010

It's already in full swing, but if you haven’t taken a look already there’s still plenty left to see in Lake District Summer Music, the country’s most widespread music festival.

With events stretching from Kirkby Lonsdale to Penrith and from Keswick to Ulverston, it’s easily reachable from this part of the north west, and many of its concerts are in the tourist honeypots of Kendal, Windermere, Bowness, Ambleside, Rydal and Grasmere.

Performers in the next seven days include early music specialist Andreas Staier playing the fortepiano (tomorrow night) and cellist Raphael Wallfisch with Barry Snyder, piano, both in Kendal town hall (Sunday afternoon).

Then there’s the Gaudier Ensemble (with composer Huw Watkins, whose own Octet is in the programme, giving the pre-concert talk) at Kendal parish church on Monday night and playing Schubert’s Octet at noon on Tuesday at St Martin’s church, Bowness – and the Škampa Quartet (pictured above), with Garfield Jackson, viola, giving a programme that includes a world premiere at Kendal parish church in the evening.

Wednesday night at St Martin’s, Bowness, sees Marcus Farnsworth – well known to many in Manchester and recent winner of the Wigmore Hall International Song Competition – in recital with Elizabeth Burgess, piano, in a programme that includes Schumann’s Dichterliebe cycle, Schubert and Finzi.

The Romantic spirit is a theme of the festival, whose artistic director is Renna Kellaway – taking Schumann’s bicentenary as its starting point but including much else besides.

On Thursday Gregor Horsch, cello, and Carole Presland, piano, are giving a morning recital at Kendal town hall, and Grange-over-Sands gets its spot in the evening with the Gagliano Piano Trio at the Victoria Hall. At the same time there’s early music from QuintEssential at Kendal parish church.

Among the final events of the festival are a Candlelight Serenade by LDSM’s Young Artists at St Thomas’s church, Kendal, next Friday evening, a choral programme including Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle at St Thomas’s on Saturday, August 14, and Handel’s Acis And Galatea in a semi-staged performance by the Brook Street Band at the Keswick theatre on Sunday, August 15.

It’s a special feature of Lake District Summer Music that two summer schools for young musicians run alongside the festival events, and many of the artists who perform in the concerts are also busy teaching while they are in residence – an experience which many find renewing and energising as they encounter the aspiration and enthusiasm of the youngsters.

There’s also a by-product for audiences, as the best of those young players get a chance to perform in the festival.

For instance, there’s a concert at Rydal church tomorrow morning, and another late in the evening at the University of Cumbria site in Ambleside. Grasmere church is the venue on Monday morning and on Wednesday afternoon, and they’re at Kirkby Lonsdale parish church at noon on Thursday.

And in the ‘Menuhin concert’ young players perform with the Chilingirian Quartet at Keswick’s Theatre By The Lake, on Sunday night.

“The past five years have seen an enormous and exciting change in Lake District Summer Music,” says its senior executive officer Andrew Lucas.

“Chamber music remains very much at the heart of what we do, but early music is now also very strong, and also opera and music theatre, contemporary music and orchestral music.”

The festival – unlike many others – is still expanding, and planning for an exciting future: the university campus at Ambleside is to close by the end of this year, but it has secured a deal with Windermere School, already the home of its Young Strings Venture, which will become its new base from 2011 onwards.