New York at night and French queens’affairs

THE seventh Chiltern Arts Festival has a theme of human stories.

The eight-day event starts in Henley next Friday (May 10) with poet Roger McGough performing on board The New Orleans.

Organiser Naomi Taylor says: “The programme looks at how we can use music and different art forms to bring stories to life.

“I love these broad themes that can be interpreted in lots of different ways.

“Our very first event is a lovely afternoon of poetry and tea on the Thames with Roger McGough.

“He is just such a character and his poetry is wonderful. He’s going to talk about his career and life and read some of his poetry.”

On the same day at St Mary’s Church in Hart Street at 7.30pm, there is a night of music called City Soundscapes with saxophone player Huw Wiggin, pianist Noriko Ogawa and harpist Oliver Wass.

Naomi says: “They are a brilliant trio and they’ll do a combination of duos and trios and solos.

“It’s inspired by Night Paths by Joseph Phibbs, who’s a contemporary composer and the piece was written about New York at night and the feel and the sound of the city.

“We’ve taken pieces that might take you to different places in different cities with different vibes and then wound some poetry through that to bring the theme a little bit more solidly to life.”

Huw says: “It’s going to be a really special evening. We’re doing Rhapsody in Blue, which is the climax of the programme and always a great way to finish. Before that we have some new arrangements that John Lenehan has arranged specifically for the trio. The first half of the programme is based on my Rhapsody programme, which I did with Anita D’Attellis for the Winter Recitals Wallingford.

“It’s around the same arrangements by Iain Farrington, a Debussy rhapsody and then Hungarian Rhapsody in C sharp minor. Oliver and I have worked together since 2016. We were both on the St John’s Smith Square Young Artists programme and we got on so well.

“A concert series promoter said to me, ‘Do you have a combination that could work?’ and I said, ‘Ooh, how about harp?’ and basically the duo was formed and we’ve been going ever since.

“We played on my first album, Reflections, in 2018 and we had a really lovely review which said it was ‘a seemingly unlikely combination that works real magic’. It’s quite unusual but with soprano sax and harp it really does work.”

Noriko played on Huw’s album, Rhapsody, which was released in March last year.

He says: “I met Noriko in 2018 when we toured Hong Kong together through Absolute Classics, a concert series based in Scotland. This is the first time we’ve done the trio and then I’ll be performing separate pieces with Oliver and Noriko.

“One of the most important pieces is Night Paths, which Joseph Phibbs wrote based on his life in New York.”

On Saturday, May 11 at 11am St Mary’s Church will be the venue for a coffee morning concert called “Mozart and Haydn: A Friendship” with music by the Brompton String Quartet.

Naomi says: “It’s the first time that we have done a morning concert, so there will be coffee and cake.

“There will be Mozart and Haydn string quartets, just one of each but with some of the letters that they wrote to one another and just a little bit about their friendship, which is a really interesting thing to dig into.”

The cellist is Wallis Power, niece of Lawrence Power, founder of the West Wycombe Chamber Music Festival at Hambleden.

This will be followed at 12.30pm by a festival chorus workshop with Owain Park with Fauré’s Requiem.

At 3pm that day Holy Trinity Church in Greys Hill will host an afternoon concert with the Natrio Trumpet Trio: “Dances Through Time”.

Naomi says: “Holy Trinity Church is a new venue for us and I think it’s a really lovely space and brass will be beautiful in there.

“The trumpet trio programme is all about different forms of dance, galliards and waltzes and they’ll talk in between those about the different forms of dance.”

At St Mary’s in the evening (7.30pm), there will be music from the Gesualdo Six called “Queen of Hearts”.

They will join the festival workshop for Fauré’s Requiem.

Naomi says: “This outstanding vocal group led by Owain Park will sing the first half of the concert, some French Renaissance music mixed in with some contemporary music, looking at the queens of France and some of their journeys. The programme is all about love affairs in the French monarchy over the years, which is quite fun.

“In the second half of the concert we have Fauré’s Requiem and that will be performed by the Chiltern Arts Festival chorus.

“We actually did Faurés Requiem in Henley six years ago so it’s nice to be doing it again and it’s the centenary of Fauré’s death, so it feels appropriate.”

The festival is launching a new outreach project called ListenUp and ListenIn with a focus on getting children and young people into concert halls.

“We’re inspiring a new generation of audiences,” says Naomi. “It’s about normalising the act of going to a classical concert and taking away some of the stigma around listening to classical music.”

Naomi, who is married with a daughter aged eight and a five-year-old son, is keen to encourage her own children but without pressure.

She says: “My daughter is doing piano and singing and she sings in a little school choir. She’s really keen to come to concerts.

“Of course, I’m very aware that not every eight-year-old has a mother that runs a classical music festival.

“My husband and I have been quite careful as we don’t want to force any of it on her.

“We are lucky enough to have a piano at home, so she has been around the instrument and both my children like sitting down and trying to make sounds on it.”

• The Chiltern Arts Festival runs from Fridays, May 10 to 17. For more information and to buy tickets, call 01442 920303 or visit chilternarts.com