Three top classical music concerts have been announced by Rye Arts Festival (September 14-28 2019) and tickets are on sale now. The festival has lined up three genuinely world class British performers – one is currently on tour in the US and another is in Germany – to entertain the Rye audience.
The festival starts on Saturday, September 14 with a concert by the incomparable violinist Tasmin Little accompanied by Martin Roscoe on piano. Both artistes have played at Rye in the recent past but, sadly, this is likely to be the last chance for Rye listen to Tasmin playing live!
Earlier this year, Tasmin made the shock announcement that she would no longer perform on the concert stage, anywhere in the world, from the summer of 2020. Rye is very lucky to have secured her for this year, when she will play three Beethoven sonatas with Martin as an early celebration of the great composer’s 200th anniversary in 2020.
Tasmin’s ‘swan song’ is not to be missed. And neither is the return to Rye of the baritone Roderick Williams, who will be singing songs from the Schwanengesang cycle by Franz Schubert. Schwanengesang translates from German as ‘swan song’ and is a series of songs that were written at the end of the composer’s life and were published posthumously.
Williams has been described by the Daily Telegraph columnist Simon Heffer as ‘a stupendous and intelligent singer at the zenith of his powers”. Heffer is also on record stating he believes that Williams is one of the world’s leading baritones! Roderick Williams will be accompanied on Friday, September 27 by pianist Iain Burnside, who has also visited Rye in the past, and will be warmly welcomed back.
For the last of these early bird concerts, but far from least, Rye Arts Festival is thrilled to welcome back Emma Kirkby with Dowland works to sing and play early music from the English canon on Saturday, September 28th. Starting with John Dowland’s music the concert will also feature his successors – John Danyell, the brothers Lawes and Henry Purcell.
Emma Kirkby is world-renowned as an early music specialist and is one of the UK’s finest sopranos, and while she has no plans to retire at any time soon, this concert will be the swan song of the 2019 Rye Arts Festival as it is the final concert
All three concerts will be at St Mary’s Church in Rye, which has wonderful acoustics – a few years ago the Royal String Quartet from Poland said they would love to take the church back stone by stone to Warsaw as they believed it has the finest acoustics of anywhere they had played! Concerts start at 7:30pm, but doors open at 7:00pm and there will be a bar.
Tickets (with discounts of 10% for members and 15% for benefactors on unlimited purchases) for the three events flagged up above are on sale now, but they are available online only (and sales are ticking over already).
Image Credits: Rye Arts Festival .