Week two of the 46th annual Rye Arts Festival will be as full and exciting as the first week with events to suit all interests! And the good news is that tickets are available for most events.
Take classical music. Saturdays September 23 and 30 see performances of Puccini’s opera La Boheme, which has been described as the opera someone should see if they have never seen an opera! Rannveig Karadottir, the Icelandic soprano who starred in the 2014 production of La Traviata at Rye Arts Festival, returns as Mimi in this opera.
Rye is privileged to have world class singing, as the choir Tenebrae perform at 7pm on Friday September 22 at St Mary’s Church. The programme is called Spanish Glories of the 16th Century and will be one of the highlights of the whole Festival programme.
And on Tuesday September 26, starting at 7pm at All Saints Church in Iden, the violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky accompanied by the viola player Maxim Rysanov, who are two of the most talented and charismatic string players in Europe, will delight the crowded church.
Contemporary music events will be led off by the young London five-piece folk band Stick in the Wheel, who play the Rye Community Centre, on Saturday September 23 with an 8pm kick-off. The multi-award-winning band take pride in the fact that they sing in their own accents, bringing a real authenticity to their music.
And on Friday September 29 the fabulous The Mountain Fireworks Company return to the Festival! The five-piece acoustic band from Brighton blew away the audience at the 2015 Rye Arts Festival, afterwards selling a record number of CDs. Come and enjoy the Fireworks! They have been described as “gorgeous with equal parts darkness and cheeky humour” and “alternative bluegrass with a dark treacle folk centre”. The gig promises to be a sell-out at Rye Community Centre, but some tickets are still available and the show starts at 8pm.
This year’s varied literary programme has lots to offer! Award-winning novelist Evie Wylde comes to the Mermaid on Saturday September 23 at 3pm to talk about her two novels and one graphic novel.
And on Wednesday September 27 at 3pm in the Methodist Church, Vanessa Nicolson, who is the grand-daughter of Vita Sackville-West, talks about her brutally frank memoirs and how writing has played a central and often restorative role in her life.
William Shaw is a novelist who has written a crime story set on Romney Marsh but returns to his series of detective novels set in London. He will be talking at the Mermaid at 3pm on Friday September 29.
And on Thursday September 28 at 3:10pm in the Kino Digital, the author Helen Simonson introduces the recent BBC documentary Writers of Rye, which showcases the many world famous authors who have lived in the town. Helen was brought up in Rye, but now lives in the US, and she will talk about her latest novel The Summer Before the War which is set in Rye in 1914 as storm clouds start together over Europe.
There is also the return of a 10-person capacity theatre inside a caravan parked outside the Kino offering several performances of two 15-minute plays on the afternoon of Saturday September 26. Caravan Shorts will be intimate theatre as the actors are up close and very personal!
As part of the Film programme on Monday September 25 at 8:10pm in the Kino, the Festival is screening Amy, the moving biopic of the brilliant but tragic Amy Winehouse. The Oscar-winning film features interviews with friend and family plus archive footage of the young girl who became an international singing superstar but sadly died far too young, aged just 27.
More information can be found and tickets purchased online at www.ryeartsfestival.co.uk. The Box Office will be open for personal bookings at Phillips & Stubbs in Cinque Ports St, Rye, from 9:30am to 12:30pm Monday to Saturday.
Photos: Courtesy of Rye Arts Festival and Ellen Shaw, Chris O’Donovan, Nina Subin