Events Listing

We are thrilled to be able to offer you Guy Masterson’s signature, incredible, solo performance as part of this year’s Festival.
He will give us an interpretation of Dylan Thomas’ enduring masterpiece – Under Milk Wood: a day in the life of ‘Llareggub’ – a fictional sea-town somewhere in Wales.
Using nothing but a wooden chair, dark glasses and a beautifully haunting soundscape by long time Rolling Stones collaborator (and Hope Bagot resident) Matt Clifford, Guy performs the entire work – playing all 69 characters (men and women, girls and boys) himself! It is unbelievably recreated, totally convincing and entirely enchanting.
The performance is bawdy, beautiful, sad and sensual and celebrates the music of language. Quite simply unforgettable!

The Rossetti Ensemble is a piano quartet formed in 2018 by four musicians with impeccable chamber music credentials – John Lenehan (piano), Sara Trickey (violin), Sarah-Jane Bradley (viola) and Tim Lowe (cello). For the first evening concert of this year’s Festival they will be joined by virtuoso double bass player Chris West to perform a programme including Schubert’s famous Trout Quintet, Vaughan Williams’ Piano Quintet and John Lenehan’s piano quartet arrangement of Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite. Their audience can look forward to chamber music-making of the very highest quality.

Following their acclaimed appearances in the 2017 and 2022 Festivals, we welcome the return of costumed early music consort Passamezzo in a programme examining 16th and 17th Century fashions and attitudes to clothing. Through the medium of ballads, partsongs, rounds, consort music and readings they will recreate the world of ornate wedding clothes and lovers’ gifts; fine fabrics and accessories; court and country fashions; merchants, moralising rants, foreign styles and fairy clothing. This programme is inspired by references to clothing in the famous 16th Century song Greensleeves and features music by composers of that era such as Thomas Campion, John Jenkins and Thomas Morley.

Forged from the traditional music of Scotland and Ireland yet influenced by the Balkans, North America and far beyond, Dallahan guide audiences through a musical world tour of their own making. Guitarist and singer Jack Badcock, banjo player Ciaran Ryan, accordionist Andrew Waite, and fiddler Benedict Morris create a dazzling live show marked by restless creativity and stunning virtuosity. Their worldwide cult following reflects a band that has grown into its own identity while continually pushing its boundaries and their latest studio album, Speak of the Devil, captures this ongoing evolution: seasoned, adventurous, and unmistakably Dallahan.
“Wild and free yet precise and flawless... a bold stroke on the teeming trad folk landscape” Bright Young Folk

This exciting vocal ensemble features some of the country’s finest young professional singers under the direction of Freddie Crowley.
Along with multi-award-winning violinist Fenella Humphreys, they will explore different composers’ responses to the poetry of 17th-century English metaphysical poet George Herbert. Their programme will include music by James MacMillan and Judith Weir, interlinked with poetry readings, as well as Alec Roth’s sparkling Shared Ground which sets to music poems by Vikram Seth modelled on those by Herbert.
It will also feature the world premiere of a new piece by Alec Roth specially written for Corvus Consort and Fenella Humphreys.

This multi-talented and versatile Zulu company deliver a heady mix of raw, traditional African harmonies with rhythmic percussion, vibrant dance and soul-stirring harmony singing, in traditional costume.
“ZULU Tradition are guaranteed sunshine. The audience at Folk Week absolutely loved their workshop and their concert” Broadstairs Folk Week

We are thrilled to be bringing this award-winning comedian, author, broadcaster, bibliomaniac and populariser of scientific ideas to our Festival. He co-created and co-hosted the Sony Gold Award-winning BBC Radio 4 series The Infinite Monkey Cage with Professor Brian Cox, in which he starred from 2009-2025.
He will be talking to us with...
“An alchemic mix of enthusiasm, knowledge and observation” The Scotsman

London-based wind quintet Ensemble Renard comprises five of the UK’s most outstanding young musicians, committed to exploration of a wide range of timbral possibilities within modern chamber performance. Following a year as Chamber Music Fellows at the Royal Academy of Music in 2021, the Ensemble became Tunnell Trust awardees and Britten-Pears Young Artists. With a repertoire ranging from Gershwin to Knussen, each piece they play demonstrates the kaleidoscopic versatility of the ensemble, and most Ensemble Renard concerts feature works especially written or arranged for them. In their Festival concert, Ensemble Renard’s wide-ranging programme will feature works by Mozart, Samuel Barber, Ravel, Milhaud and Nielsen as well as the contemporary American flautist Valerie Coleman.

Bobbie, Peter and Phyllis have been swept off to the countryside by their mother, who won’t tell them why! Left to explore their new home, they discover the railway at the bottom of the garden. As they follow the tracks to the local station, they meet charming characters, romance, peril and questions that need answering. A touching and life-affirming retelling of a classic.

Please dress for the great British weather, as this performance will go ahead unless conditions are deemed dangerous.
Bring blankets or chairs to sit on.
Hot and cold drinks and ice creams will be on sale before the show and during the interval.
The car park will not open until 1.45pm.
Sorry, no picnics or dogs (except assistance dogs).

Many of our regular audiences will be familiar with Mid Wales Opera, attending one of their regular staged performances up and down the English/Welsh border in venues such as the Ludlow Assembly Rooms and the SpArC Theatre in Bishops Castle.
We are delighted to be hosting this fabulous touring opera company for the first time as they present, not an opera, but a summer celebration of great music, featuring three singers and three instrumentalists, led from the piano by their music director Jonathan Lyness. With operatic arias and ensembles together with songs, ballades and tailor-made arrangements of the familiar and the unfamiliar, this promises to be a joyful evening of discovery and enchantment.
“Brilliant, clever, sharp and done with finesse” Opera Now

With more than 80 albums to his credit John Lenehan ranks as one of the most versatile pianists on the classical scene today. He has appeared as soloist with many major orchestras and his recordings include piano recitals, concertos, duo sonatas, chamber music and jazz.
John’s interest in the combination of music and film is long-standing. As director of Sounds for Silents he has written and arranged more than 20 film scores to be performed throughout the UK and overseas. Reviving the art of the improvising pianist, in his Arts Festival concert he will pay tribute to that art and to the Roaring Twenties as he accompanies film from that era.
“John Lenehan once again proved that there is no finer accompanist in the world” The Yorkshire Post

Jess Gillam is a celebrated saxophonist and presenter. With her electrifying performances, vibrant stage presence and magnetic personality, the “uniquely mercurial” (The Times) Jess has been invited to play on the world’s major stages since becoming the youngest ever soloist to perform at the Last Night of the Proms. Equally at home behind the microphone, Jess’ award-winning weekly BBC Radio 3 show, This Classical Life, is now in its seventh season. For the Grand Finale of this year’s Festival, Jess will be joined by her own band, the Jess Gillam Ensemble. Since their formation in 2020, the Ensemble has performed throughout the UK and Europe to multiple sold-out audiences. Their bold, uplifting and open-minded approach is rooted in classical music but takes inspiration from different musical worlds. Not to be missed!
“Not just one of Britain’s most virtuosic instrumentalists, but also an unstuffy, inspiring personality” The Times