Celebrating new commissions and unlikely connections – Music@Malling returns !

Celebrating new commissions and unlikely connections, Music@Malling returns, bringing world-class musicians into the heart of the community.

 

An enriched programme for audiences in the Kent community and beyond, exploring six centuries of music.

Music@Malling returns with an eclectic programme spanning the Renaissance through to the music
of our time. Running from 20th-28th September 2024, Music@Malling presents an innovative programme of concerts and outreach held in historic venues in an area of outstanding natural beauty and fascinating heritage.

Featured contemporary composers include Deborah Pritchard, Brian Elias, Gavin Bryars, John
Woolrich, Sir George Benjamin, Stephen McNeff and Alec Roth who will introduce their works and
place them into their musical context.

Highlights include:

● An exploration of Schoenberg through the prism of 19th century Romanticism with concerts by Chamber Domaine and Mark Padmore CBE; The Smith Quartet and Fidelio Trio. Legendary musicologist, Professor John Deathridge will set the scene on 20th September 2024 – exploring the background to Schoenberg’s music and his valedictory article: Brahms the Progressive (1947).

● Be Aware – an installation of seven friezes based on the Seven Deadly Sins by renowned artist, Ana Maria Pacheco with a new work by composer John Woolrich in the Old Chapel at Ightham Mote supported by the Marchus Trust.

● Fretwork makes a welcome return performing consorts by Lawes, Gibbons and Purcell and contemporary works by John Woolrich and Sir George Benjamin’s ground breaking On Silence (1989) – the first new work to be written for viols since the 17th century – featuring celebrated mezzo soprano, Susan Bickley.

● Alessandro Fisher and Sholto Kynoch perform Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin in the Drawing Room of Ightham Mote on an 1830 Stodart – the house was owned by a descendant of Wilhelm Müller whose poetry Schubert set in 1823. Kynoch brings an outstanding group of singers to Music@Malling – Schubert and Co for a Schubertiad – exploring his rarely heard part songs.

● The Marian Consort performs new works by Deborah Pritchard and John Woolrich alongside music by Purcell, Tompkins and Blow. The concert includes a side-by-side project with local secondary schools culminating in a performance of Purcell – Remember Not.

● Two primary schools are involved in an outreach project creating and performing new music inspired by Ana Maria Pacheco’s The Garden of Earthly Delights.

● James Pearson – Artistic Director of Ronnie Scott’s – commemorates the centenary of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in a programme that links jazz with 20th century modernism!

● World premieres include new works by Gavin Bryars for the Smith Quartet and Elsa Torp and Deborah Pritchard – Heart of Light for Solo Violin inspired by the Marc Chagall windows of All Saints’ Church, Tudeley – one of Music@Malling’s stunning venues.