Classical Weekend 2019

Classical Weekend 8-10 March 2019

classicalsheffield.org.uk More music, more places, more people 1

© Anthony Robling

© Kaupo Kikkas

Music that could change your life Classical Weekend 2019 brings more soul-stirring, spine-tingling, life-affirming classical music to more people than ever before. The huge variety of performances and workshops means there’s something for everyone.

Classical aficionados will find lots to love in a line-up that features some of the world’s finest musicians. But this festival isn’t just for those in the know. If you’ve never experienced the magic of classical music before, this weekend is also for you.

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ClassicalSheffield

The festival has three themes:

Women in Music Celebrating International Women’s Day on Friday 8 March.

How to book

Look out for

You can book online at classicalsheffield.org.uk or call us on 0114 223 3777

Hands-on!

Concerts or workshops where children, young people and the young-at-heart are especially welcome (though they’re welcome at everything!). A chance to get hands-on with crafts, making music or having a go at something new.

Tickets are £5 per event unless otherwise stated.

Tickets for under-18s are free.

Some events are free for everyone.

World premiere We’re so proud to have commissioned lots of new music for the festival as well as featured artists bringing brand-new work to Sheffield for the weekend.

You heard it here first!

Save nearly 50% with a pass Future Makers Celebrating talented young musicians in our city.

Beyond Borders Celebrating the fusion of classical music with other artforms and different world cultures.

Day Pass: £20. Gives you access to every concert and workshop on that day.* Weekend Pass: £30. Gives you access to every concert and workshop across the weekend.* * Passes don’t give you access to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra event on Friday 8 March or the Sheffield Bach Choir on Saturday 9 March, but a Weekend or Day pass does get you £5 off the ticket price for these events.

To redeem this offer, please present your pass when you buy your ticket on the door. If you’ve bought a ticket in advance, please present the ticket and your pass on the door.

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Accessibility

Friday 8 March

We’ve tried to make this guide as clear and as accurate as possible. If you have any questions or if there’s anything else we can do to make your visit comfortable, please give us a call on 0114 223 3777 or email boxoffice@sivtickets.com

Venues

Key

Channing Hall 45 Surrey St, Sheffield S1 2LG

Sheffield Winter Garden 90 Surrey St, Sheffield S1 2LH WC

WC

Graves Gallery Central Library, Surrey St, Sheffield S1 2LH

WC

Sheffield City Hall Barker’s Pool, Sheffield S1 2JA WC

Upper Chapel Norfolk St, Sheffield S1 2JD WC

WC

University of Sheffield Firth Hall Firth Court, Western Bank, Sheffield, S10 2TN

Access by ramps, slopes and/or manual doors – Easy/moderate ramp/slope with manual or automatic doors at entrance or inside venue.

Space for wheelchair (75cm).

WC

DINA 32 Cambridge St, Sheffield S1 4HP WC

WC

Level Access and Automatic doors – Level access to entrance, sensor or push pad-operated automatic doors (or no doors), space for wheelchair (75cm).

Sheffield Cathedral Church St, Sheffield S1 1HA

WC

WC

Spring, the Sweet Spring

WC

WC

Kelham Island Museum Alma St, Sheffield S3 8SA WC

WC

WC Accessible – Step-free access to accessible toilets, with grab rails, drop-down rails and space for wheelchair (75cm).

WC standard – Step-free access to standard toilets on ground floor or other floors accessible by lift.

Hearing Loop available.

Parking – Venue has its own car park for blue badge holders.

Sheffield Cathedral 13.00 – 13.45 Lose yourself as the music of Schubert, Schumann and Fauré captures the essence of springtime, followed by a celebration of the English garden from John Ireland and Roger Quilter. Featuring Elizabeth Charlesworth (soprano) and Hugh Finnigan (piano).

Free The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra: in Rehearsal

City Hall 16.00 – 17.30 A rare glimpse behind the scenes as conductor Anu Tali prepares her orchestra, featuring Jennifer Pike (violin), for this evening’s performance.

Tickets not required.

Breaking New Ground

DINA 18.30 – 19.15 A chance to explore new ideas in contemporary music with Sheffield’s Platform 4 collective, four composers with a common goal to make music like you’ve never heard before.

The Soaring Violin*

City Hall 19.00 – 21.00 This is what the best of the best sounds like. After a performance of Sibelius’s Finlandia, the worldclass Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Anu Tali, will be joined by the supremely talented Jennifer Pike (violin) for two contrasting pieces: Mozart’s richly melodic third concerto for violin and Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending.

“The British violinist has turned from child prodigy to superbly graceful virtuoso…”

Richard Morris, The Times A Sheffield International Concert Series Performance

Kadialy and the Kora

DINA 19.35 – 20.20 Discover music’s incredible storytelling power with singer-songwriter Kadialy Kouyate. Born into the great line of Kouyate griots (musician-storytellers) in Southern Senegal, Kadialy’s hauntingly beautiful voice is complemented by his fleet-fingered skills on the lute-like kora.

A University of Sheffield Concerts Performance

World Premiere Who Runs the World?

DINA 20.40 – 21.40 On International Women’s Day celebrate with pioneering contemporary music written by top female composers. Catch a world premiere by Ellen Sargen and join a contemporary quartet in lively conversation alongside influences from Jamaican mento music, poetry and space exploration! Performed by the Ligeti Quartet, Ella Taylor (soprano) and Sarah Watts (bass clarinet).

A University of Sheffield Concerts Performance

Surround Sound

DINA 22.00 – 23.00 Sound Junction presents a totally unique experience that can only be described as ‘cinema for the ear’. Using speakers as instruments, these innovative composers move their music around the space to create an immersive 3D sound.

A University of Sheffield Concerts Performance

* Passes don’t give access to this concert but they do entitle you to a discount. See page 3 for details.

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Saturday 9 March

Hands-On!

World Premiere

Sketching with Strings

Prayers from the Ark

Channing Hall 10.30 – 11.15 Both the young and the young at heart are welcome at this art workshop with a difference. Come along and make artworks inspired by the English countryside while Sheffield’s Guild of Strings orchestra plays music by Edward Elgar, Benjamin Britten and Gustav Holst.

We’ll provide some art materials but please feel free to bring your own.

A New Song

Upper Chapel 10.30 – 11.15 A chance to hear Sheffield’s emerging musical talent.

In collaboration with Sheffield Chamber Choir, singers from city schools perform choral music composed by students for their GCSE and A-level courses.

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Upper Chapel 11.45 – 12.30 History comes to vivid life when the poetry of Carmen Bernos de Gasztold, written in the occupied France of the 1940s is set to music by composer and tenor Robin Morton.

Performed by soprano Georgia Denham and Ingrid Beaumont (piano) alongside new works by Georgia.

Saturday 9 March Bach’s Calling Card

Channing Hall 13.00 – 13.30 How does a genius composer write a CV? In music, of course! George Kennaway (conductor) and violinist Ralph Dawson lead an orchestra of 40 musicians in pieces including Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, which the great man wrote for Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg, in the hope of landing a job.

World Premiere Sheffield Sings!

Free Feedback Loops: Art and Music

Graves Gallery 11.40 – 12.30 and 14.00 – 14.50 Exploring the relationship between music and visual art in live performance, the Gildas Quartet and Jack McNeill (clarinet) take inspiration from Graves Gallery’s art collection. With the University of Sheffield’s Dr Tim Shephard.

Free but booking required, see our website

Upper Chapel 14.00 – 14.45 The passionate Sheffield Singers community choir perform a new work by the accomplished young composer Kate Thickett.

Also featuring the talented Sheffield Junior Singers.

Beethoven Begins

Kelham Island Museum 14.00 – 14.30 Experience Beethoven’s explosive first symphony in the atmospheric surroundings of Kelham Island’s industrial museum, performed by the Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra.

Hands-On! Bring A Bottle

Kelham Island Museum 15.00 – 16.00 A fun-filled audienceparticipation event the whole family can enjoy.

Bring a bottle (any size, as long as it’s empty!) and join in the performance, which includes an arrangement of Ten Green Bottles for bottles and flutes. If you play the flute, bring it along. There are parts for all levels of ability and you’ll get to work on some new music too.

The Art of the Quartet

Channing Hall 15.15 – 16.00 Feel the emotional power of classical music as Sarentino Strings celebrate the genius of Romantic composer Fanny Hensel (née Mendelssohn) and father of the string quartet Joseph Haydn.

Also featuring Focus Pull, a contemporary piece composed by Jenny Jackson as a companion to Haydn’s string quartet Op. 33 in B minor.

The Woman of Samaria

Upper Chapel 15.15 – 16.00 Sheffield’s William Sterndale Bennett (1816–1875) is a forgotten genius. His cantata The Woman of Samaria was hugely popular in its time but is rarely performed today. Who better to lead a much-deserved revival than Sheffield’s own Sterndale Singers?

Vivacious Voices

Kelham Island Museum 16.30 – 17.00 Spend a life-affirming half-hour in the company of Vivacity Choir, prize winners at the recent North Wales Choir Festival, on a joyous musical journey from much-loved choral works by Fauré and Franck to popular hits by Elton John and Sting.

Three’s Aloud

Upper Chapel 17.00 – 17.45 Lively duo Lucy Phillips and Jonny Ingall (violin and cello) are passionate about introducing audiences to lesser-known works. They’ve teamed up with pianist Tom Owen to perform music by female composers including Elizabeth Maconchy and Jennifer Higdon. The perfect way to end your day – or begin your evening.

World Premiere Fusion Fireworks

Kelham Island Museum 17.30 – 18.30 21.30 – 22.30 Kuljit Bhamra’s electrifying fusion of Bhangra beats, Asian jazz, pop and classical is a global phenomenon.

Tonight, the virtuoso tabla player and composer is joined by Music in the Round’s Bridge Quartet and the Sheffield Music Hub Senior Orchestra for a programme that includes the world premiere of his new piece for string quartet and tabla.

A Music in the Round Performance

World Premiere Women of Steel

Kelham Island Museum 19.00 – 19.45 Sparks fly and spirits soar in this bold new production from Sheffield City Opera, telling the true stories of women who worked in the city’s munitions factories during World War Two. Staged among the remains of Kelham Island’s industrial past, this powerful tale takes on a special resonance.

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Saturday 9 March The Brilliance of Bach*

Sheffield Cathedral 19.30 – 22.00 It’s hard to imagine a more powerful introduction to Bach’s work than the moving, magnificent St John Passion, written during his first year as a church music director in Leipzig. Sheffield Bach Choir perform the work, with soloists including Stephen Liley as the Evangelist and Thomas Hunt as Christ.

World Premiere The Gospel Get-Together

Kelham Island Museum 20.15 – 21.00 Composer JoAnne Sibanda and her choir team up with the Endcliffe Orchestra to present a striking fusion of gospel and classical, alongside some of the most iconic, atmospheric music ever created by Mendelssohn, Mussorgsky and Grieg – music that takes us to wild places, weaves magic and brings us faceto-face with myth.

© Fox Moon Photography

Sunday 10 March Back to the Future

Sheffield City Hall Ballroom 10.00 – 10.45 Musical stars of the future from Sheffield Music Academy go beyond geographical borders to celebrate the work of two composer-violinists, Poland’s Grażyna Bacewicz and Britain’s Rebecca Clarke.

Hands-On! Try the Tabla

Firth Hall 10.00 – 11.00 A relaxed, fun workshop for people of all ages. Join internationally-renowned musician Kuljit Bhamra to learn all about the tabla (Indian drum).

No experience necessary.

A Music in the Round Workshop

Free Choral Eucharist and Choral Evensong

Sheffield Cathedral 10.30 – 11.40 and 16.00 – 17.00 The girls and lower voices of the Cathedral Choir present a liturgical celebration, including choral and organ music and music by the award-winning Sheffieldraised composer Judith Bingham.

Free, no need to book.

Sea Shanties and Souvenirs

Sheffield City Hall Ballroom 11.15 – 12.15 Ahoy there! Talented students from Sheffield Music Academy embark on a voyage that takes in Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence and Malcolm Arnold’s Sea Shanties.

Outstanding: Three Quartets

Firth Hall 12.45 – 13.35 Sheffield’s resident chamber musicians, the world-class Ensemble 360, present three string quartets written by women in three different centuries.

The pieces by Fanny Mendelssohn, Amy Beach and Helen Grime, provide a contrasting programme of charismatic, exuberant and enjoyable music.

A Music in the Round performance

Hands-On! Animal Adventures

Sheffield City Hall Ballroom 14.00 – 15.00 Sheffield Symphony Orchestra presents an adventurous and fun workshop for children and the family based on animals and inspired by music such as SaintSaëns’s Carnival of the Animals, Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, and John Williams’s Jurassic Park.

* Passes don’t give access to this concert but they do entitle you to a discount. See page 3 for details.

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Sunday 10 March

World Premiere Sounds of Heaven

Sheffield Cathedral 14.00 – 15.00 Sheffield’s best chamber choirs unite for a heavenly programme which includes the world premiere of a celestiallythemed work by Tim Peters, commissioned

by Classical Sheffield.

With Abbeydale Singers, Sheffield Chorale, Sterndale Singers, and Sheffield Chamber Choir.

The Boulanger Legacy

Firth Hall 15.30 – 16.30 The strikingly original Lili Boulanger was the first woman to win France’s prestigious Prix de Rome for composition. After Lili’s death in 1918 at the age of 24, Nadia Boulanger dedicated her life to promoting her sister’s work, inspiring a generation of composers who helped shape 20th-century music.

The Lawson Trio explore the Boulangers’ music and their extraordinary legacy.

Global Soundtracks

Sheffield City Hall Ballroom 15.30 – 16.15 Fearless and experimental, Haymanot Tesfa’s voice is the sound of a free spirit. Backed by the driving rhythms of Iranian percussionist Arian Sadr, and accompanying herself on the six-string krar (lyre), Haymanot will sing a set of improvisations based on traditional Ethiopian songs.

A University of Sheffield Concerts performance

Singers in Chorus

Sheffield City Hall Ballroom 17.00 – 18.00 A fascinating programme of choral music and piano duets by women composers across three centuries featuring the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus with Darius Battiwalla.

Dreams and Visions: The Australian Landscape

Firth Hall 17.00 – 17.30 An exciting audiovisual journey into the Australian landscape.

Peter Fagerlind performs piano compositions by Australian female composers and pianists accompanied by stunning film footage.

Mighty Brahms

Sheffield City Hall Ballroom 18.30 – 19.30 The Sheffield Music Academy team up with members of the Hallé, one of the world’s top symphonic orchestras, to perform the first movement of Grieg’s much-loved Piano Concerto No.1 with soloist David Ning – you’ll know it when you hear it – and Brahms’s almighty Symphony No.1.

World Premiere Ode to Joy!

Sheffield Cathedral 20.00 – 21.15 The festival finale is a collaborative performance – by Hallam Sinfonia, Hallam Choral Society and Singers from the City – of Beethoven’s breathtaking, gargantuan Symphony No. 9, a piece that was remarkable in its day for its grandness of scale and especially for its final movement.

The evening also features the world premiere of a new viola concerto by Jenny Jackson.

Pop-Up Performances Saturday and Sunday from 10am.

Free! Just turn up and enjoy!

Winter Garden Pop-Up Programme Saturday and Sunday 10.00 – 18.00 Octogenesis, Sheffield Viola Ensemble, Dore Gilbert and Sullivan Society, Greenhill Primary School, Sheffield Youth Orchestra, University of Sheffield Juice Choir, Sheffield U3A A Cappella, Vivacity, Sheffield Music Hub Festival Choir and Changing Voices Lydian Singers, WestSide Singers, Sinsontes, University of Sheffield Students, Ensemble 360, and much more…

Pop-Up Folk Sessions: TUOS FOLK Kelham Island Museum (Millowners Pub) Saturday 17.30 – 21.00 Sheffield is a folk city, a hotbed of traditional music of the British Isles.

The best way to learn about this music is to go along to a session and join in.

Bring an instrument or your voice and take part, or simply have a pint and listen.

Pop-Up Bartók: Ensemble 360 Sunday at the Winter Garden 14.30, 15.30 and 16.30 360’s Claudia Ajmone-Marsan (violin) and Ruth Gibson (viola) take us on a journey through Hungary with Bartók’s 44 duos, fragmenting, developing and refashioning Hungarian folk tunes in a series of miniature masterpieces.

Pop-Up World Premieres: Sunday 10 March Lawson Trio 12.00 – 12.20 at the Winter Garden 17.45 – 18.00 at Firth Hall Catch the first outings of brand-new music by Sheffield’s Future Makers, including the winning entries of the Centre for New Music at Sheffield’s schools composition competition and Classical Sheffield’s university competition.

17.30 – 18.00 – Tunes I 18.15 – 18.45 – Singing I 19.30 – 20.00 – Tunes II 20.15 – 21.00 – Singing II + Performance by TUOS Folk

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This information is correct at the time of going to print. All information is subject to change. A notice of any changes will be published on our website classicalsheffield.org.uk

Classical Sheffield is a Registered Charity No. 1170970

Š Front cover image by Anthony Robling