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'Presteigne ... may be a festival known for having more composers per square yard than the others, but it never makes its commitment to new music seem uncompromising or remote. Rather, it succeeds in creating an ambience where, far from feeling intimidated by commissioned work, the audience accepts it as a kind of aural orienteering, more challenging than rambling in familiar foothills and potentially more rewarding.' - Rian Evans, The Guardian. The 2005 Presteigne Festival of Music and the Arts, Thursday 25 - Tuesday 30 August 2005, in venues around the Border Marches area where Wales meets England, and centred on St Andrew's Church, Presteigne in Powys, joins the centenary celebrations for English composers Michael Tippett and Alan Rawsthorne. The festival takes the opportunity this year to focus on British music, including that of its 2005 composer-in-residence, Belfast-born Ian Wilson, and specially-commissioned song cycles by David Matthews, John McCabe and Cecilia McDowall. The programming, by artistic director George Vass, also includes music from further afield, including works by C P E and J S Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Handel, György Ligeti, Messiaen, Mozart, Ravel, Schubert and Richard Strauss, and there are also conversations with featured composers, talks, poetry, literature, children's events, a Festival Eucharist in St Andrew's Church sung by the Canterbury Chamber Choir, and even an organised ramble in those familiar foothills, following in the steps of Lord Byron and Florence Nightingale. |