IL RE PASTORE

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)

A Buxton International Festival production, with the Northern Chamber Orchestra

Mozart was just 19 years old when he wrote Il re pastore in 1775 at the command of the Prince of Salzburg, for the royal visit of Archduke Maximillian Francis of Austria. This youthful work shines with the richness of its orchestration, its inexhaustible melodic inspiration, and its dazzlingly ingenious score; it wonderfully foreshadows the composer’s future works. The plot is based on hypothetical moments from the life of Alexander the Great and was deemed suitable entertainment for a royal visit. Alessandro has recently conquered Sidon and is looking for the rightful heir to the throne. He believes it is the shepherd Aminta, who is in love with the noble Elisa. Aminta must decide if royal duty is greater than love.

Vocally, Mozart demands both lightness and agility of his singers, and every one of the arias is an expression of joy and contentment but created with enormous variety. The opera is a reflection upon the intertwining nature of love, duty and power. At once lively and full of feeling, Mozart’s music and the unusually colourful orchestration of the arias turn this serenata into a feast for the senses. Composed in six weeks with a libretto by Metastasio, this exquisite bucolic tale brims with energy, spirit, and enthusiasm.

Jack Furness is one of the most exciting young opera directors in Britain. Last summer he garnered a string of five-star reviews. This is his Buxton debut.

Libretto by Metastasio based on the play ‘Aminta’ by Torquato Tasso. Sung in Italian with English side-titles.

DATES & TIMES

10% OFF WHEN YOU BOOK ALL 3 BIF PRODUCTIONS La sonnambula, The Land of MightHave-Been, Il re pastore

Sun 9 July 7.15pm

Thurs 13 July 7.15pm

Mon 17 July 7.15pm

Thurs 20 July 7.15pm

VENUE

Buxton Opera House

TICKETS

£25 - £85 Early Bird tickets available until Tues 18 April.

Concessions: £10 tickets for under 35s, who are part of the Friends of BIF Next Gen scheme. Join for free at buxtonfestival.co.uk

CREATIVE TEAM

Adrian Kelly Conductor

Jack Furness Director

Hannah Wolfe Set and Costume Designer

Jake Wiltshire Lighting Designer

CAST

Katie Coventry Aminta

Ellie Neate Elisa

Olivia Carrell Tamiri

Joseph Doody Alessandro

George Curnow Agenore

Duration: 2 hours, including a 20-minute interval.

George Frideric Handel (1685–1759)

A Liberata Collective production, with the Ensemble Hesperi

Have you ever wondered how Handel’s own audiences would have experienced his operas? Liberata Collective endeavours to recreate this experience for modern audiences: using period instruments, providing printed libretti, and most crucially, performing in the art of Baroque Gesture (rarely seen on stages since that period). The complex plot of Orlando, one of Handel’s most vibrant and experimental works, is interpreted through a series of expressive movements, in the style that Handel’s own singers would have performed.

One of the three Handel operas based on Ludovico Ariosto’s epic poem Orlando Furioso, Orlando premiered at the King’s Theatre in London on 27 January 1722 and ran for only 10 performances. Now considered a masterpiece, it fell into obscurity until its revival in 1922, and since the 1960s has been more regularly performed. The plot centres on the obsessive and intense relationships between the knight Orlando, the princess Angelica, the prince Medoro and the shepherdess Dorinda, watched over by the magician Zoroastro. Orlando’s refusal to accept Angelica’s choice of lover leads him to madness and violence.

For this production, the exciting young singers of Liberata Collective – who between them have performed as soloists with Royal Opera House, Welsh National Opera, Longborough Festival Opera, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Opera Holland Park and Opéra de Lyon – join forces with the dynamic and innovative musicians of Ensemble Hesperi, playing on period instruments. Musical Director and highly-respected historical performance expert Adrian Butterfield directs the opera from the violin.

DATES & TIMES

Mon 10 July 2pm

Fri 14 July 7.15pm

Fri 21 July 7.15pm

VENUE

Pavilion Arts Centre

TICKETS

£40

Concessions: £10 tickets for under 35s, who are part of the Friends of BIF Next Gen scheme. Join for free at buxtonfestival.co.uk

Creative Team

Adrian Butterfield Music Director

Ensemble Hesperi

Cast

Christian Joel Orlando

Joanna Harries Medoro

Olivia Doutney Angelica

Susana MacRae Dorinda

Jolyon Loy Zoroastro

Duration: 2 hours, including a 20-minute interval.

Dale Storr

THE SOUNDS OF NEW ORLEANS

Thursday 6 July 8pm – 10.30pm

Jazz at The Palace £15

Thursday 6 July

‘A very, very fine piano player indeed’ Paul Jones, BBC Radio 2

‘Authentic barrelhouse pianism and singing ... should be on the play list of all broad-minded jazz lovers’ Jazz Journal magazine

Described by Jazz Journal magazine as ‘a national treasure’, Dale Storr’s musical journey has brought him recognition as one of the UK’s leading exponents of New Orleans piano. His music is steeped in the styles of Dr John, Professor Longhair, Fats Domino and others. Get ready for an emotional rollercoaster ride of the music and the stories of his much-loved piano heroes from the ‘Crescent City’.

Gary Younge

Friday 7 July 10am – 11am

Pavilion Arts Centre £12

Dispatches from the Diaspora: From Nelson Mandela to Black Lives Matter

Fri 7 July 6pm

See p.17

For the last three decades Gary Younge has had a ringside seat during the biggest events and with the most significant personalities to impact the black diaspora: accompanying Nelson Mandela on his first election campaign, joining revellers on the southside of Chicago during Obama’s victory, entering New Orleans days after hurricane Katrina or interviewing Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Maya Angelou and Stormzy. Gary has witnessed how much change is possible, the power of systems to thwart those aspirations, and compels you to ‘imagine a world in which you might thrive, for which there is no evidence. And then fight for it.’

Charlotte Glasson Band

Friday 7 July 1pm – 3pm Jazz at The Palace £20

‘If you’ve ever wondered what smiles sound like, this is it’ Jackie Hayden, Hot Press

Charlotte Glasson is a multiinstrumentalist, composer and band leader, playing mainly original music and drawing on influences from across the globe. Since winning the ‘Best Newcomer Award’ at Marlborough Jazz Festival, she has been wowing audiences at festivals from London to Swanage to Southport. Expect to hear influences from Latin rhythms, New Orleans Mardi Gras, swing, Arabic, to spaghetti westerns and Gypsy jazz.

Charlotte Glasson Saxophone, flute, violin and more

Mark Bassey Trombone

Chris Spedding Guitar and vocals, Lloyd Coote Sousaphone and bass guitar

Sam Glasson Drums/percussion.

Friday 7 July

Gaia Vince

Friday 7 July 4pm – 5pm

Pavilion Arts Centre £12

Nomad Century

With every degree of temperature rise, a billion people will be displaced from the zone in which humans have lived for thousands of years. While we must do everything we can to mitigate the impact of climate change, the brutal truth is that huge swathes of the world are becoming uninhabitable. In a rousing call to arms, Royal Society Science Book Prize winner Gaia Vince, discusses how we can plan for this unavoidable climate migration while we restore the planet to a fully habitable state. Her vital message is that migration is not the problem – it is the solution.

VERA BRITTAIN’S TESTAMENT OF A LOST YOUTH

Friday 7 July 3.30pm – 5pm

Meet at the Devonshire Dome £15

Jamie Safir

Friday 7 July 10.30pm – Late

Jazz at The Palace £15

‘Safir plays with wonderful judgment, delicacy and alertness’ London Jazz News

Jamie Safir is a critically-acclaimed, much-loved young jazz virtuoso who has collaborated with pop-music royalty and is a witty raconteur. His sparkling new one man show ‘Piano Talk’ presents the glamorous (and not so glamorous!) view from the piano. It features a wonderfully diverse selection of his exciting arrangements, interwoven with often hilarious tales of performing at iconic West End venues. His performance credits include Will Young, Kylie Minogue and Tony Christie.

Join actor Sarah Gordon and Discover Buxton Tours to hear Vera Brittain’s story told in the Devonshire Dome, Buxton where she worked in the summer of 1915 as a VAD nurse. It was here, far removed from the real atrocity of the Great War, that she began to comprehend its devastating effects as she nursed and listened to returning soldiers.

THE LAND OF MIGHT HAVE BEEN

Fri 7 July 7.15pm See p.20

Sir David Hare

Saturday 8 July 12pm – 1pm

Buxton Opera House £15

We Travelled: Essays and Poems

‘I can’t remember if I had any plans for the twenty-first century. I was already 52 when it arrived. But events raced off in such unexpected directions that any possible ideas must have gone out the window. Many of us shared the sensation that history was speeding up.’

David Hare is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, film and television director. His great quality has always been his refusal to accept the division between fact and imagination. His creative invention is fired by public realities and in turn he makes those realities feel deeply personal. Recording dizzying changes in culture and politics, the elegant essays that make up We Travelled range in subject from the photographer Lee Miller to the Archbishop of Canterbury, from a celebration of Mad Men to a diagnosis of the incoherence of Conservatism in the new century.

Polly Toynbee

Saturday 8 July 10am – 11am

Pavilion Arts Centre £12

An Uneasy Inheritance: Class in Britain, or My Family and Other Radicals

Prominent social commentator Polly Toynbee uses the prism of her own remarkable family to examine the stubborn lack of class mobility in Britain. While for generations her ancestors have been committed left-wing rabble rousers, railing against injustice, they could never claim to be working class; settling instead for the prosperous life of academia or journalism. By examining her own family tree – which in addition to her writer father, Philip, and her historian grandfather, Arnold, contains everyone from the Glenconners to Jessica Mitford to Bertrand Russell – Polly shows us how entrenched class privilege remains in Britain.

VERA BRITTAIN’S TESTAMENT OF A LOST YOUTH

Saturday 8 July 3.30pm – 5pm

Meet at the Devonshire Dome £15

The Super Big Tramp Band

Saturday 8 July 3pm – 5.30pm

Pavilion Arts Centre £25

Sat 8 July 7.15pm

Join the great Supertramp saxophonist John Helliwell and his big band as they play the music of this legendary supergroup as you’ve never heard it before. Classic tracks are arranged to jazz big band format – with trumpets, trombones, saxophones and a rhythm section. There are no vocals, but you’ll know all the tunes – including Dreamer, Breakfast in America, Crime of the Century, It’s Raining Again. ‘An astonishing debut of this great new band and concept. Let it flourish with abandon’ - Frank Griffith, London Jazz News, on the first performance, Manchester Jazz Festival 2019.

SONG AT SIX

Sat 8 July 6pm See p.17

Shez Raja

Saturday 8 July 7.30pm – 10pm

Pavilion Arts Centre £20

‘Vivid and highly engaging’ BBC Music Magazine

Following spectacular performances at leading UK venues – including Ronnie Scott’s and the Jazz Café – as well as major international festivals, Shez and his band have forged a reputation as one of the most entertaining live acts on the scene today. He merges his rich musical heritage with a hugely diverse playing experience to create dynamic and passionate music that blends East with West.

Trish Clowes And Ross Stanley

Saturday 8 July 10.30pm – Late Jazz at The Palace £15

Trish Clowes and Ross Stanley have been carefully crafting their unique sound-world for several years, drawing on their own material, arrangements of music from jazz, folk and church organ traditions, and free improvisations. The duo’s performances include Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Royal Festival Hall, the Galway and Cheltenham Jazz Festivals, and touring internationally with Clowes’s band My Iris.

Northern Jazz Orchestra

Sunday 9 July 1pm – 3.30pm

Jazz at The Palace £20

FESTIVAL MASS

Sun 9 July 11am

See p.17

Back on the circuit and sounding as tight as ever, the NJO has thirty years’ experience of performing up and down the country, recently appearing on BBC Two’s ‘You Make Me Feel Like Dancing.’ The NJO is ready to perform exciting new material showing the modern sounds of today’s big bands. Come along and listen to the roar of the brass and sax section, complemented by the rhythm section, and led by veteran big band drummer and educator Paul J Rigby.

Victoria String Quartet

Sunday 9 July 3.30pm – 4.30pm

St John’s Church £30, Balcony £25

G Verdi String Quartet in E minor

A Borodin String Quartet No. 2 in D major

The Victoria Quartet began life in 2017 in a swimming pool, with a gala concert for the historic Victoria Baths in Manchester’s Hathersage Road, and moved on from pools to perform at venues as far afield as The Lake District, London, north Norfolk, north and west Wales as well as two previous Buxton Festivals. In demand since its formation, the ensemble is gathering many return invitations and creating an ongoing programme of curated projects: last summer recording clarinet quintets by Weber, Brahms and Arnold Cooke at the Nimbus Studios and this year a CD of string chamber music by Richard Pantcheff (Prima Facie). They also had an autumn residency at Marchmont House in the Scottish Borders to perform and record a collection of string chamber works by Scottish composer Helen Leach.

Sun 9 July 7.15pm See p.22

Tom Seals

Sunday 9 July 5pm – 7.30pm

Jazz at The Palace £25

‘A master of the piano and vocals to pierce your soul. A boogie-woogie genius and quite charming with it all’ Close-up Culture

‘He sounds like Little Richard!’ Sir Tom Jones

Fresh from his sell-out ‘Let The Good Times Roll’ tour, Tom Seals has the world at his fingertips. His virtuoso soloing, excellent improvisation skills and distinctive voice have left top industry officials hailing him the UK’s finest boogiewoogie and blues pianist/vocalist. Still only in his twenties, Tom Seals’ star is destined to soar stratospherically in 2023 with his own TV show and festival appearances worldwide.

Gaz Hughes Trio

Sunday 9 July 9.30pm – 11pm

Jazz at The Palace £15

‘Thoroughly entertained by top class musical talent’ Pershore Jazz

Gaz Hughes fi rst came to wider public attention as the original drummer in the Matthew Halsall Band and featured heavily on the early recordings of the Gondwana label. A career highlight was recording the album ‘On the Go’, which won The Best Jazz Album of the Year at the Gilles Peterson Worldwide Awards in 2012. He has performed with many UK and international jazz artists including: Scott Hamilton, Alan Barnes, Tony Kofi, Guy Barker, Digby Fairweather and Tina May.

The Trio’s latest album ‘Beboptical Illusion’, featuring mostly original composition, has just been released.

Jack Hancher

Monday 10 July 11.15pm – 12.15pm

St John’s Church

£20, Balcony £18

J Dowland Praeludium; Fantasia in G Major

B Britten Nocturnal after John Dowland

J Bach Sarabande and Bourrée, from Partita for solo violin No. 1 in B minor, BWV 1002

A José Allegro moderato and Pavana Triste, from Sonata for Guitar

Among Jack’s numerous awards, last year he became only the third guitarist to win the prestigious Gold Medal of the Royal OverSeas League Competition. He has given masterclasses at conservatoires around Europe, including at the Royal College of Music, London, and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff.

Tommy Smith And Peter Johnstone

Monday 10 July 3pm – 4.30pm

Jazz at The Palace £20

Saxophonist Tommy Smith has toured the world with Gary Burton’s Whiz Kids, and worked with jazz greats including Chick Corea, Dame Cleo Laine and Jack DeJohnette.

Pianist Peter Johnstone was Young Scottish Jazz Musician of the Year winner in 2012, and the fi rst student on the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s jazz course to return as a teacher. Together, they draw on a wide range of music, from genre-defi ning jazz to folk music from the Scottish, Gaelic and Middle Eastern traditions.

Monday 10 July

Spa And Empire Festival Walk

Monday 10 July 3.30pm – 5pm

Meet outside Buxton Opera House £15

Take a stroll with creative historian

Gertie Whitfield and Discover Buxton Tours through the vastness of the British Empire, recorded on the headstones of those who came to seek health in a small provincial spa town high in the Derbyshire Hills. This walk will take you back to the 19th century when visitors flocked to take the waters. You will hear some of their family stories and the intimate lives of the citizens of Buxton, often at a vulnerable time in their lives.

Ni Maxine

Monday 10 July 12.30pm – 2pm

Jazz at The Palace £15

Neo-Jazz singer-songwriter Ni Maxine presents the story of a black woman navigating the modern world, exploring themes of home, identity, self-esteem and belonging. Her childhood was steeped in the deep cultural reference points of black history – through her father’s love of jazz, her mother’s love of funk and rare groove, and learning to sing in a gospel church – ‘I want to inspire young people who are having (or had) a similar experience to what I had, growing up, and cultivate community.’

Wynton Marsalis

Monday 10 July 9pm – 11.15pm

Buxton Opera House £20 – £55

Jazz royalty comes to Buxton. Wynton Marsalis is a worldrenowned trumpeter, bandleader, composer, and a leading advocate of American culture. Marsalis will be playing specially selected works in, what for him is, an intimate concert at Buxton Opera House. Marsalis performs and composes across the entire spectrum of jazz and has written jazzinfl uenced chamber music and symphonic works for revered classical ensembles across the US and abroad. He is inspired to experiment in an ever-widening palette of forms and concepts that constitute some of the most advanced thinking in modern jazz and in American music on the broad scale. His body of original work includes (but is not limited to) 600 songs and movements, 11 dance scores, 13 suites, four symphonies, two chamber pieces, two string quartets, a jazz oratorio, a fanfare, and concertos for violin and tuba.

ORLANDO

Mon 10 July 2pm See p.24

Monday 10 July