Ticket for the 46th annual Rye Arts Festival go on general sale on Monday August 7.
And this year’s Festival, which runs between September 17 and October 1, promises to be the best ever, with quality acts to interest everyone. Rye will have something to offer – music (contemporary and classical), book talks, historical and nature walks, professional theatre, film, art exhibitions and children’s events.
There will be a big treat courtesy of The English Concert. One of the finest chamber orchestras in the world, The English Concert returns to Rye three years after first wowing the audience, and will play St Mary’s church on the opening Saturday, September 16.
Kenneth Broberg, the young American winner of the recent 2017 Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition, will fly in from his home in Missouri USA for a concert on September 20.
The contemporary-music organisers have looked around the world when assembling their programme. And on Saturday September 30, Ari Eisinger is another American to jet in and entertain the good people of Rye. Ari, who hails from Pennsylvania, is reckoned to be just about the best acoustic blues and ragtime guitar player in the World – check him out!
And while Ari crosses the Atlantic to delight the good folks of Rye, Scottish folk band Malinky are getting in a tour bus and driving down from north of the border to perform a one-off gig before heading straight home to Scotland.
This year’s varied literary programme kicks off on Saturday September 16 with Kenneth Clarke MP, and to provide political balance, from the opposite benches comes Dame Margaret Hodge, the Labour MP who speaks on Thursday September 28. The award-winning young novelist Evie Wylde returns to the Festival on Saturday September 23.
Theatre provides a focus on Jane Austen in the author’s bicentenary year. Karin Fernald brings her one-woman play called Jane Austen – The Early Years on Sunday September 17, which focuses on the writer’s works from her childhood and adolescence.
Brochures area available from shops and businesses around all town. More information is available and tickets can be bought online by going to www.ryeartsfestival.co.uk or telephone the Box Office on 01797 224442. Otherwise drop in to Phillips & Stubbs between 9:30am and 12:30pm from Monday to Friday, starting Monday September 7.
Photos: Rye Arts Festival and Stephanie Berger (English Concert)