Music 2019 & 2020

M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L A RT • A R C H I T E C T U R E • G A S T R ONO M Y • A R C H A E OLO G Y • H I S TORY • M U S I C

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 Tours | Martin Randall Festivals | Short Chamber Music Breaks | Choral Days

The leading provider of cultural tours and events Martin Randall Travel has the widest range of tours and events offered by any cultural travel organiser, as well as the largest number. We operate in over fifty countries.

We enrich lives. Our aim is to provide the circumstances which lead to a deeper understanding of a place or subject matter, and an enhanced appreciation of the culture of civilisations around the world.

The best lecturers. Expert speakers are a key ingredient. Selected with great care, they not only have deep knowledge of their subject but also the ability to convey their learning to educated lay people.

Inspired itineraries. Assiduous research and reconnaissance underlie our itineraries, which are imaginatively conceived, meticulously planned – and original. Due attention is given to practical as well as academic matters to ensure a smoothrunning experience.

Special arrangements. All our events include ingredients which are not available to the general public such as out-of-hours opening or access to private properties. Some events consist entirely of these special experiences.

Martin Randall Travel Ltd Voysey House Barley Mow Passage London W4 4GF, United Kingdom Tel +44 (0)20 8742 3355 Fax +44 (0)20 8742 7766 info@martinrandall.co.uk

www.martinrandall.com ATOL 3622 | ABTA Y6050 | AITO 5085

Travel in comfort. Most of the hotels we use are 4- or 5–star, we only use full service airlines, and the restaurants we choose are among the best in the region. While our itineraries are full, they are not rushed.

Additional tour staff. Our tours are accompanied by a trained tour manager, sometimes a member of our full-time staff. In many parts of the world local guides feature with varying degrees of prominence.

Care for our clients. We aim for faultless administration from your first encounter with us to the end of the holiday, and beyond. Personal service is a feature.

We aim for excellence. Our clients have voted us Best Special Interest Holiday Company at the British Travel Awards for the last four years, yet we ‘have a habit of divine discontent with our performance’: complacency does not corrode our desire to strive ever to be the best.

To see our full range of cultural tours and events, visit www.martinrandall.com or contact us to receive our 2019 brochure.

Martin Randall Australasia PO Box 1024, Indooroopilly QLD 4068, Australia Tel 1300 55 95 95 New Zealand 0800 877 622 Fax +61 (0)7 3371 8288 anz@martinrandall.com.au North America 1155 Connecticut Avenue NW Suite 300 Washington, DC 20036, USA Tel 1 800 988 6168 usa@martinrandall.com

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | About us

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 Dear Traveller, In 2019 Martin Randall Travel has a rich offering of classical musical tours and festivals to suit all tastes. With tours both to well-known festivals and those a little off the beaten track, as well as our own MRT-curated music festivals and chamber music short breaks, this has to be one of our best ever line-ups for variety of destination, artists and musical styles.

Alongside well-known greats such as Verona Opera, Glyndebourne & Garsington and Ballet in St Petersburg, we also try to find festivals with elements that are a little more unusual, such as the Enescu Festival Bucharest, which juxtaposes music by the underrated eponymous composer with better-known works, performed by what is possibly the starriest line-up of any of our music tours this year. The Schubertiade in Catalonia sounded an unlikely concept, given that Schubert never visited Spain, but captured our imagination with its charm and high standard of artists performing, and the West Cork Chamber Music Festival offers an intimate and intense musical experience amid one of the most spectacularly beautiful landscapes in Europe – the Wild Atlantic Way. In terms of our large-scale events it is difficult to single out one particular Martin Randall Festival from our range of six this year. Two are entirely new – West Country Choral Festival and Sacred Music in Santiago – but my heart lies with our J.S. Bach Journey as the ultimate manifestation of our ethos of matching music and place.

Photo ©Emmie Scott.

Date of printing this brochure: 21 January 2019.

2020 is of course the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, and our thoughts have turned accordingly to how best to mark this. One of our chamber music short breaks will be entirely Beethoven – most likely one of our large festivals too, with concerts in Vienna – and we are investigating a small-group tour to hear all of his symphonies, performed in Barcelona.

Not forgetting the less obvious, we are also excited to present our first ever music tour to South America – Baroque Music in the Bolivian Missions. Details can be found in this brochure.

Lizzie Watson Product Development Manager | Music

Contents NEWLY-LAUNCHED TOURS

MARTIN RANDALL FESTIVALS

Baroque Music in the Bolivian Missions........ 4

Festivals in 2019 & 2020............................16–17

The Sibelius Festival........................................... 7

UK Short Chamber Music Breaks in 2019 & 2020.................................................. 17

West Cork Chamber Music Festival................ 8 Verdi in Parma & Busseto................................. 9 Trasimeno Music Festival................................ 11

CHORAL DAYS & LONDON DAYS

Lofoten Chamber Music Festival................... 13

London Choral Day......................................... 18

Drottningholm & Confidencen...................... 15

Handel in London............................................ 19

MUSIC TOURS & EVENTS LISTED BY DATE In 2019, and planned for 2020.................19–20

BOOKING Booking form..............................................21–22 Booking details................................................. 23

Telephone +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | info@martinrandall.co.uk | www.martinrandall.com

3

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | Newly-launched in Bolivia

Baroque Music in the Bolivian Missions Santa Cruz, La Paz and a jungle journey

24 April–3 May 2020 (mg 185) Lecturer: Jeffrey Skidmore obe For full details, please contact us or visit www.martinrandall.com Attend the International Festival of American Renaissance and Baroque Music held in the Jesuit Mission churches of north-east Bolivia.

World-renowned musicians perform alongside local school and university groups; repertoire is from Bolivia and beyond.

Colonial architecture in remote locations.

Further exploration of native instruments and Bolivian dance in La Paz. Led by Jeffrey Skidmore, director of Ex Cathedra and a pioneer in the research and performance of Latin American Baroque music.

Photograph above: San Javier, Jesuit Mission, ©Jess Kraft/shutterstock.

4

The six unesco world heritage-site Chiquitos Indian mission stations are one of Bolivia’s great cultural riches. Located north-east of Santa Cruz in Bolivia’s lowlands, part of the Amazon basin, these remote colonial churches are simple, barn-like constructions of wood and adobe, gloriously painted inside and out with swirling floral patterns, angels and saints in modest shades of ochre and tan. Spiralling columns are crafted from entire tree trunks, and exquisitely carved retables and confessionals abound.

Every two years they provide an extraordinary backdrop and context for the performance of Baroque music.

The biennial festival of American Renaissance and Baroque Music is based in Santa Cruz but spreads through this precious chain of enchanting jungle churches and attracts performers and scholars from the Americas, Europe and the Far-East. All are eager to join the proud and friendly local musicians and communities who are passionate about their musical heritage, a legacy from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which saw the fusion of European and Indian cultures. The inspiration flows in both directions, with concerts in these vast cathedrals full to capacity (the locals leave just a few rows at the front free for visitors such

Telephone +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | info@martinrandall.co.uk | www.martinrandall.com

as ourselves) creating a magical and unique atmosphere, seemingly frozen in time and yet flourishing and alive.

Musical traditions in these settlements go back over four hundred years but much of the distinctive local Baroque sacred music was found in the 1990s during a restoration process which uncovered over twelve thousand manuscripts. The music, mostly anonymous, but written by European - notably Dominico Zipoli - and indigenous composers, is lively, energetic and colourful with the joy and freshness of a young Vivaldi. Instrumental accompaniments appear simple on the page but inventories show a lavish musical resource was available including many harps, woodwind of various kinds, harpsichord, organ and strings including tromba marinas. Texts are mostly liturgical and in Latin but also feature native languages.

Further evidence of the inherent rich musicality of Bolivians throughout the ages, as well as their great dance traditions that dominate regular festivals, can be witnessed in the museums of La Paz. Pre-hispanic instruments such as giant panpipes and bamboo violins sit alongside colourful masks and vivid textiles, brought to life with dramatic displays.

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | Newly-launched in Bolivia

Itinerary Day 1 (24th April). Fly at c. 5.30pm from London Gatwick to Santa Cruz, travelling overnight via Madrid (Air Europa; Madrid– Santa Cruz c. 12 hours in the air). If you are not travelling with the group from London your room is available from 2.00pm today.

Day 2 (25th April): Santa Cruz. Land in Santa Cruz at c. 5.30am and transfer to the hotel for a free day to recover. There is an introductory lecture to prepare for the journey ahead. First of two nights in Santa Cruz.

Day 3: Santa Cruz. A morning excursion to Biocentro Güembé provides an insight into Bolivia’s flora and fauna with 24 hectares of exotic plants and animals, a butterfly dome and an aviary. Afternoon visits in the centre of the city include the folklore museum and cathedral.

Evening concert in either the chapel of the former school of arts or the 19th cent. church of San Roque.

Day 4: San José. Drive from Santa Cruz to San José (c. 4½ hours), founded in 1696. Dominating one side of the huge and dusty main square is the mission complex, a defensive compound that housed the Jesuit college behind the elegant Baroque stone façades of the church, chapel and bell tower. Evening concert in the church.

Overnight San José.

Day 5: San Rafael, Santa Ana, San Ignacio.

Drive to San Rafael (c. 3 hours) where the wooden church was completed in 1749 by Swiss missionary Fr. Martin Schmid, whose music usually features on festival programmes.

The church at Santa Ana was probably constructed entirely by the indigenous population after the expulsion of the Jesuits between 1770 and 1780 and overlooks a grassy square where donkeys and chickens roam.

Evening concert in the cathedral of San Ignacio, a reconstruction of the original mission church but still home to the original Baroque altarpieces. Overnight San Ignacio.

Day 6: San Miguel, Concepción. A morning excursion to San Miguel where, once more, the 1721 mission church shines in its humble surroundings. Visit a workshop producing elaborate cedar carvings in the Baroque style.

Continue to Concepción (3½ hours) whose church is the most lavishly decorated with much gold leaf. A substantial musical archive was uncovered here and a museum documents its discovery, along with the restoration of the mission churches. Evening concert and overnight in Concepción.

Day 7: San Javier, Santa Cruz, La Paz. Drive back to Santa Cruz via San Javier, the first mission town to be established in the region.

The carved retable of the church depicts the Jesuit missionaries at work. Fly from Santa

Jeffrey Skidmore

obe

Leading choral conductor, and director of the ensemble Ex Cathedra. He read music at Magdalen College, Oxford and has become a pioneer in the field of research and performance of choral works of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, both in the old and new worlds, winning wide acclaim for his recordings of French and Latin American Baroque music with Ex Cathedra.​

Cruz to La Paz in the late afternoon (Boliviana de Aviación, BOA), arriving in time for dinner.

First of three nights in La Paz. Day 8: La Paz. The sprawling city of La Paz overflows from its mountainous basin 3,500m above sea level and is best traversed and viewed from an excellent network of cable cars. Morning visit to the National Museum of Ethnography and Folklore with its fascinating collection of carnival masks as well as ceramics and textiles. An afternoon walk through the historic centre takes in the Witches’ Market, a hub of herbal medicine and magical cures, and the main square with cathedral and presidential palace. A demonstration at the Museum of Musical Instruments is followed by a private show of Bolivian dance.

Day 9: La Paz. San Francisco is the city’s finest colonial church and houses an interesting exhibition of religious art and furniture. The National Museum of Art, housed in an elegant baroque palace, contains an extensive collection of sacred, colonial works. Free afternoon.

Dinner is at Gustu, ranked number 28 on San Pellegrino’s list of 50 best restaurants in Latin America – and the only entry for Bolivia.

Day 10: Tiwanaku, Santa Cruz. Morning visit to the archaeological site of Tiwanaku, once home to an impressive civilisation, established around 1200 bc, that by 400 ad controlled the entire Titicaca basin. Excellent museums display ceramics and monoliths excavated from the site.

Continue to La Paz airport for a late afternoon flight back to Santa Cruz. Overnight Santa Cruz.

Practicalities Price: not confirmed at the time of printing.

It is likely that we will have this information by the time you receive this brochure – please contact us or visit www.martinrandall.com.

Music: the full programme is announced in early 2020. We will endeavour to include as many concerts as possible by both international professionals and local amateurs.

Accommodation. We book the best available hotels in the mission towns, which are 2- or 3-star

by European standards. Single rooms throughout are doubles for sole use. Hotel los Tajibos, Santa Cruz (lostajiboshotel.com): 5-star resort hotel with comfortable rooms, good restaurants and a pool. Hotel Villa Chiquitana, San José (hotellavillachiquitana.com): friendly, familyrun with simple rooms. Hotel la Misión, San Ignacio (hotel-lamision.com): an attractive hotel on the town’s main square. Gran Hotel Concepción (granhotelconcepcion.com.bo): converted colonial house, with well kept gardens and simple rooms. Suites Camino Real, La Paz (caminoreal.com.bo): modern and reliable 5-star chain hotel with large rooms, located in an upscale area of La Paz. How strenuous? This is a strenuous tour and a good level of fitness and stamina are essential.

It begins with an overnight flight and has a number of hotel changes. There are some long drives, often on unpaved, bumpy roads with little opportunity for comfort stops. While there is not a huge amount of walking, uneven ground is standard. La Paz is 3,500m above sea level.

It can take time to aclimatise and anyone with heart or respiratory problems should seek advice from their doctor before booking. Additional travel insurance cover may be required. Average distance by coach per day: 75 miles.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Day 11. Fly at c. 11.45am from Santa Cruz to Madrid, arriving at c. 5.00am the following day.

Day 12. Fly from Madrid to London Gatwick arriving c. 8.45am.

See overleaf for details of an optional tour extension.

Telephone +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | info@martinrandall.co.uk | www.martinrandall.com

5

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | Newly-launched in Bolivia

Baroque Music in the Bolivian Missions continued

The fortunes of Potosí also endowed Sucre with a beautifully preserved historic centre and rich museum collections. Seat of an important university, it was here that liberal thinking sparked ideas of independence, eventually declared in 1825, establishing Sucre as the nation’s capital.

Some would say a visit to Bolivia would not be complete without glimpsing the vast, bleached expanse of the Uyuni salt flats.

Formerly a series of huge lakes, water still exists deep beneath the surface, causing honeycombshaped cracks to form as liquid continuously saturates the crust and dries. With a surface are of around ten thousand square kilometres it is easy to escape the crowds and feel very far from the jungles of the north-east.

Itinerary Day 10 (Saturday 2nd May), continued: La Paz, Uyuni. Fly in the early evening to Uyuni (3,656m above sea level). First of two nights at a salt hotel on the edge of the flats.

Optional tour extension: 2–9 May 2020 (mg 185) For full price details, please contact us or visit www.martinrandall.com An extension to Bolivian Baroque, remain in the country and explore further the cultural and natural heritage.

Ethereal landscapes of Uyuni’s salt flats.

The fascinating history of silver mining in Potosí, epitomised at the former royal mint.

The whitewashed city of Sucre has some of South America’s finest colonial architecture.

In the hands of a trusted national guide, and our tour manager should numbers permit, we offer the opportunity to remain in Bolivia and discover more than its musical history.

The imposing Cerro Rico, (‘rich mountain’), that overlooks Potosí is a constant reminder of the prosperity of the seventeenth-century silver rush but also the millions of indigenous people that perished in appalling conditions to fuel the wealth of the Spanish Empire. Even today miners chew coca leaves to suppress the side-effects of working underground. Much of the silver passed through the Imperial mint, creating the world’s first true global currency.

Although now slightly crumbling, an abundance of fine colonial buildings in Andean Baroque style are the legacy of these boom years.

6

Day 11: Salar de Uyuni. All day excursion by jeep on Bolivia’s dramatic salt flats. See abandoned steam trains that once carried ore from the mines here, and visit one of the few families permitted to extract and process the salt. Lunch is on the flats, while a short uphill walk (and then downhill: c. 1 hour total) on the cactus-studded Incahuasi island provides more panoramic views.

Day 12: Potosí. Drive through the highlands (4 hours) to Potosí at 4,100m above sea level.

The beautiful, 17th-cent. Carmelite convent of Santa María was occupied by the daughters of wealthy Spaniards and mine owners who paid handsomely for the privilege, donating an extraordinary collection of art and other treasures. Overnight in Potosí.

while the museum of indigenous art displays beautiful weavings.

Day 15: Sucre, Santa Cruz. Fly from Sucre back to Santa Cruz for your final night in Bolivia.

Day 16. Fly at c. 11.45am from Santa Cruz to Madrid, arriving at c. 5.00am the following day.

Day 17. Fly from Madrid to London Gatwick arriving c. 8.45am.

Practicalities Price: not confirmed at the time of printing.

It is likely that we will have this information by the time you receive this brochure – please contact us or visit www.martinrandall.com.

Tour leader. This extension is led by a Bolivian national guide. Should numbers permit, the tour manager of Baroque Music in the Bolivian Missions will also accompany the group.

Accommodation. Hotel Luna Salada, Uyuni (lunasaladahotel.com.bo): constructed entirely from salt. Comfortable rooms and a good restaurant. Hotel Coloso, Potosí (potosihotel. com): traditional hotel with oxygen available in case of altitude sickness. Hotel Parador Santa María la Real, Sucre (parador.com. bo): attractive hotel in a converted 18th cent. mansion with traditional and antique décor.

How strenuous? This extension involves a lot of walking in town centres, where coach access is restricted, and a lot of standing in museums and churches. Walking shoes would be appropriate for the visit to the salt flats and Incahuasi island.

Altitude remains an issue, particularly in Potosí at 4,100m above sea level. Average distance by coach per day: 80 miles.

Day 13: Potosí, Sucre. Morning visit to the Casa Real de la Moneda, the former royal mint, providing insight into coin production using the silver of the nearby Cerro Rico mines.

Displays include machinery and a fine collection of art and archaeological finds. Drive in the afternoon to the miners’ market where the tragic consequences of the city’s prosperity live on.

Continue to Sucre (4 hours) at 2,810m above sea level. First of two nights in Sucre.

Day 14: Sucre. The cathedral displays a range of architectural styles from Baroque to Neoclassical; see also the adjoining art museum.

The Bolivian Act of Independence was signed in the Casa de la Libertad, which now houses a history museum. Continue to the treasury museum with an overview of the different metals, minerals and semi-precious stones and the mining process. The convent of La Recoleta documents the work of Franciscan missionaries with a substantial collection of art and artefacts,

Telephone +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | info@martinrandall.co.uk | www.martinrandall.com

Illustration: copper engraving c. 1770 by Victor Marie Picot (1744–1805) after a painting by Benedetto Luti.

See pages 19–20 for a full list of our music tours and events.

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | Newly-launched in Finland

The Sibelius Festival A celebration of music in Lahti 4–9 September 2019 (mf 695) 6 days • £2,530 (Including tickets to 5 performances) Lecturer: Dr Stephen Darlington mbe Celebrates the music of Jean Sibelius in the lakeside town of Lahti, the composer’s home.

The world-famous Lahti Symphony Orchestra and conductor Dima Slobodeniouk and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.

Among the works performed: the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Symphonies, En saga and Kullervo.

A night in Helsinki before moving to Lahti.

Concerts are interspersed with visits associated with Sibelius and National Romanticism.

Sibelius’s compositions are among the greatest and most universally appreciated achievements of western music. While displaying a range of stylistic influences, they are nevertheless highly original and distinctive, and are rooted in a passion for nature and a sense of the endurance of the human spirit.

Sibelius was also one of the most placespecific of composers. His main literary influences were Nordic, particularly the Kalevala, the great Finnish national epic, and the landscapes which moved him so intensely are the forests and lakes of central Finland.

He lived through and gave expression to the period of National Romanticism when Finland rebelled against Russian political and cultural dominance and emerged as an independent nation in 1917.

The twentieth year of the International Sibelius Festival presents a number of symphonies interspersed with other orchestral, chamber and choral music. The Lahti Symphony Orchestra, directed by Dima Slobodeniouk, are joined by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, themselves conducted by Sibelius in 1924 for the world première of Symphony No. 7. They perform the same symphony nearly 100 years on, in addition to Symphonies 5 and 6.

Other highlights include a programme featuring Finnish soprano Karita Mattila and the folk-inspired En saga, a recital with exciting young cellist Jonathan Roozeman, and a performance of Kullervo with Sibelius Academy graduate and baritone, Tommi Hakala.

The small lakeside city of Lahti has hosted the festival annually since 2000 with performances taking place in the stunning timber concert hall, renowned for both design and acoustics. Our four nights there are preceded by a night in Helsinki, staying at Sibelius’s preferred Hotel Kamp, in order to set the National Romantic scene.

Itinerary Day 1: London to Helsinki. Fly at c. 10.15am from London Heathrow to Helsinki (Finnair).

Begin with a walk through the Neo-Classical heart of the city: the Esplanade, Senate Square, cathedral and Market Square.

Day 2: Helsinki, Lahti. Lecture on the evening performance. The morning walk includes the Art Nouveau railway station by Eliel Saarinen and the Ateneum, Finland’s foremost art museum, with a collection of brilliant National Romantic pictures. Afternoon drive to Lahti, a pleasant if unspectacular town with attractive waterfront and adjoining parkland. Time to settle into the hotel before the evening performance. Concert at the Sibelius Hall with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Dima Slobodeniouk (conductor), Tuuli Takala (soprano), Tommi Hakala (baritone), The Polytech Choir: Have You Courage?; The RapidsShooter’s Brides; The Origin of Fire; Kullervo.

Day 3: Hämeenlinna, Lahti. Drive through birch forests to Hämeenlinna, one of the oldest settlements in Finland and birthplace of Sibelius.

Visit the Sibelius Museum in the composer’s childhood home and the 13th-century Häme Castle. Return to Lahti for a lecture before an evening concert at the Sibelius Hall with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Thomas Dausgaard (conductor): Symphony Nos 5, 6 & 7.

Day 4: Lahti. After a lecture, a free morning in Lahti before an early afternoon recital at the Felix Krohn Hall with Ossi Tanner (piano) and Jonathan Roozeman (cello). In the afternoon a guided tour of the City Hall designed by Saarinen (1912). Evening concert with the Lahti

Symphony Orchestra, Dima Slobodeniouk (conductor), Karita Mattila (soprano): The Bard; Arioso for soprano & string orchestra; Songs of Sibelius; Night Ride & Sunrise; En saga.

Day 5: Lahti. Morning choral concert at the Sibelius Hall with the Dominante Choir.

Afternoon visit to the Church of the Cross, the last work (1976) by the great Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. Continue to the Sibelius Hall for a private guided tour (subject to confirmation).

Some free time in Lahti before a final dinner.

Day 6: Lahti, Järvenpää. At Järvenpää visit Ainola, Sibelius’s lakeside home from 1903 until his death in 1957, unchanged and preserved as a museum; his grave is also here. Fly from Helsinki, arrive Heathrow c. 6.00pm.

Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £2,530 or £2,380 without flights. Single occupancy: £2,820 or £2,670 without flights.

Included: flights (economy class) with Finnair (aircraft: Airbus A350-900); private coach; boat trip; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 4 dinners with wine; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager and visits led by local guides.

Music: tickets (first category) for 5 concerts are also included, costing c. £200.

Accommodation. Hotel Kämp, Helsinki (hotelkamp.com): elegant 5-star hotel in Art Deco style. Solo Sokos Hotel Lahden Seurahuone, Lahti (sokoshotels.fi): modern 4-star hotel in the commercial heart of town with bar and bistro opening onto the street and contemporary, if smallish, bedrooms (mostly with shower only).

How strenuous? To be able to participate fully in the tour, some walking and standing in museums is required. Average distance by coach per day: 69 miles.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Dr Stephen Darlington

mbe

One of the country’s leading choral conductors. From 1985– 2018 he was Director of Music at Christ Church, Oxford. Under his direction, Christ Church Choir performed in the Lahti festival (2002) and he has lectured on the music of Sibelius at Oxford University.

Telephone +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | info@martinrandall.co.uk | www.martinrandall.com

7

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | Newly-launched in Ireland

West Cork Chamber Music Festival Concerts on Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way An introductory lecture precedes dinner and evening concert in the library of Bantry House.

Quatuor Zaïde: Fanny Mendelssohn, Quartet in E flat; Chiaroscuro Quartet: Beethoven, Quartet in F, Op.18 No.1; Dahlkvist Quartet: Andrea Tarrodi, Quartet No.3, ‘Light Scattering’; Borusan Quartet: Pēteris Vasks, Quartet No.4.

Day 2: Bantry. 11.00am concert in St Brendan’s Church. Quatuor Zaïde: Mozart, Quartet in C K.465 ‘Dissonance’; Beethoven Quartet in D, Op.18 No.3. Break for lunch before an early afternoon concert in St Brendan’s Hall. Dahlkvist Quartet: Mozart, Quartet in B flat, K.458 ‘The Hunt’; Beethoven, Quartet in G, Op.18 No.2.

Some free time and dinner before the evening concert in Bantry House. Quatuor Zaïde: Haydn, Quartet in G minor, Op.74 No.3 ‘Rider’; Mairéad Hickey, Izabella Simon: Beethoven, Violin Sonata in A, Op.30 No.1; Delta Piano Trio: Shostakovich, Trio No.2 in E minor, Op.67.

28 June–2 July 2019 (mf 603) 5 days • £1,580 (Including tickets to 11 performances) Lecturer: Stephen Johnson Concerts featuring national and international artists; Barry Douglas, Borusan Quartet, Delta Piano Trio, Johannes Moser and Finghin Collins.

Grounded in artistic collaboration, the festival is an intensive musical experience, often comprising three or four short concerts a day.

Set in the picturesque town of Bantry on Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way. The southwest coast of Ireland is one of the most beautiful and dramatic landscapes in all Europe.

There are towering mountains, rugged cliffs and magnificent long, deep bays; but the climate is mild, encouraging the growth of lush, verdant woodland and a profusion of wild flowers. There is something about being amid fertile nature, far removed from the clamour of modern urban life, that is perfectly suited to the experience of chamber music: the subtlest, most confidential form of music in the Western classical literature.

The picturesque little harbour town of Bantry, convenient but intimate, is the 8

ideal location, as its founders realised when they established the West Cork Chamber Music Festival 24 years ago, and Bantry House, an eighteenth-century stately home with glorious ornamental gardens, makes a superb location for concerts. From modest beginnings, staffed by volunteers, the festival has developed into one of Europe’s leading chamber music events, attracting visitors and performers from all over the world, while at the same time building strong connections with the local community, especially through its ambitious outreach projects involving schools throughout the county.

Local Irish talent is featured, and there is an impressive showing by women composers, from Felix Mendelssohn’s brilliantly talented sister Fanny through to the powerfully imaginative Bulgarian-born Dobrinka Tabakova. Familiar classics sit alongside fascinating new discoveries.

Here, the listener can be both challenged and soothed. It is the perfect antidote to the deadening frenzy of so much of modern life.

Day 3: Bantry, Garinish Island. 11.00am concert in St Brendan’s Church. Ensemble Dagda: Isabella Leonarda, Ave Suavis Dilectio; Lucrezia Vizzana, Amo Christum; Francesca Caccini, Maria dolce Maria; Settimia Caccini; Barbara Strozzi, Hor che Apollo. In the afternoon travel by boat to Garinish Island, an island garden designed by Harold Peto. Evening concert in Bantry House. Delta Piano Trio: Lera Auerbach, Trio No.2, Triptych: ‘This Mirror has Three Faces’; Quatuor Zaïde: Martinů, Quartet No.5; Viviane Hagner, Johannes Moser, Barry Douglas: Beethoven, Piano Trio in D Op.70/1 ‘Ghost’. An option to stay for the late-night candle-lit concert in Bantry House. Finghin Collins: Schubert, Piano Sonata in B flat, D960.

Day 4: Bantry. 11.00am concert in St Brendan’s Church. Chiaroscuro Quartet: Mozart, Quartet in E flat K.428; Beethoven, Quartet in B flat Op.18 No.6. Break for lunch and some free time before returning to St Brendan’s Church for the late afternoon concert: Johannes Moser, Dénes Várjon: Chopin, Cello Sonata in G minor Op.65; Britten, Cello Sonata Op.65; Beethoven, 7 Variations on Mozart’s ‘Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen’ WoO 46. Some free time and dinner before the evening concert in Bantry House. Azahar Ensemble: Endre Szervánszky, Wind Quintet No.1; Viviane Hagner, Johannes Moser, Barry Douglas: Beethoven, Piano Trio in E flat Op.70 No.2; Emanuelle Bertrand, Pascal Amoyel: Charles-Valentin Alkan, Sonate de Concert Op.47.

Itinerary

Day 5: Bantry. 11.00am concert in St Brendan’s Church. Fieri Consort: Italian Madrigals.

A coach leaves for Cork Airport at c. 1.00pm to meet the 4.00pm Aer Lingus flight to Heathrow.

Day 1: Bantry. The coach leaves Cork airport at midday or meet in the hotel. Drive to the small, charming harbour town of Bantry, renowned for its brightly decorated houses and views across Bantry Bay. Visit the 18th-cent. Bantry House.

Photograph: Bantry House, photograph ©Lizzy Holsgrove.

Telephone +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | info@martinrandall.co.uk | www.martinrandall.com

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | Newly-launched in Italy

Verdi in Parma & Busseto Nabucco, Aida, Luisa Miller and I due Foscari in historic theatres Stephen Johnson Writer, broadcaster and composer. For 15 years he presented BBC Radio 3’s Discovering Music. His books include Bruckner Remembered, studies of Wagner and Mahler, and How Shostakovich Changed My Mind, which examines the effect of music on mental health.

Practicalities Prices, per person. Two sharing: £1,580.

Single occupancy: £1,790.

Included: travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts; 2 dinners and 2 lunches with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager.

Music: first category tickets to 11 concerts are also included, costing c. £340.

Accommodation. The Maritime Hotel, Bantry (themaritime.ie): comfortable 4-star hotel in the centre of Bantry. Most rooms have views across Bantry Bay. How strenuous? Access to performances would be difficult with impaired walking. There is very little coach travel throughout apart from the journey to and from Cork Airport on the first and last days. Average distance by coach per day: 25 miles.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

2–7 October 2019 (mf 780) 6 days • £3,060 (Including tickets to 4 performances) Lecturers: Dr John Allison & Dr R. T. Cobianchi Four operas by Giuseppe Verdi: Nabucco, Aida, Luisa Miller and I due Foscari.

Performed in a duo of beautiful and historically important theatres, and a monumental space in the heart of Parma.

Visits Verdi’s place of birth at Le Roncole and his place of death at Villa Sant’Agata. Time also for the sights of Parma and Cremona.

Please contact us for advice on combining this tour with our West Country Choral Festival, 7–11 July 2019.

See page 17 for information about our series of UK Short Chamber Music Breaks.

The Festival Verdi takes place on the stretch of country where the composer was born, schooled, learnt his trade, and, despite youthful resentments, where he bought a farm and built a villa as a haven and retreat for the last 50 years of his life. Lying then within the Duchy of Parma, it remains predominantly rural, with the attraction of a kind of unchanging, authentic ordinariness. This was the mise-en-scène which gave rise to an artistic oeuvre displaying a range of tumultuous passions and human empathy equalled perhaps only by Shakespeare.

The performances are in two theatres which are of the highest historical importance and beauty, and a monumental space in the heart of Parma. The Teatro Regio in Parma

was built in 1829 by ex-Empress Maria-Luisa, modelled on La Scala in Milan. The small horse-shoe Teatro Verdi at Busseto dates to 1856 and was built within what had been the local magnate’s residence.

Performances at Parma’s Teatro Regio are always exciting occasions – the audience is one of the most knowledgeable and vocal in Italy – and the new production of I due Foscari will surely offer a wonderful opportunity to sample authentic Italian operatic culture. Though only Verdi’s sixth opera, I due Foscari is a sombre tragedy with its own, distinctive tinta to match – full of that deep feeling for Italian history that was to find fullest expression in his mature masterpiece Simon Boccanegra. Prefiguring that famous operatic portrayal of a Doge of Genoa, it tells the story of the elderly Francesco Foscari, the disgraced Doge of Venice, and his exiled son Jacopo. Though its premiere was judged by Verdi to have been a ‘mezzo-fiasco’, audiences have come to recognize the opera as one of the most distinctive of Verdi’s early works. Of course, the most famous of Verdi’s early operas is Nabucco, with which we open our visit to Parma. The tour also gives us the chance to sample perhaps the least well known of Verdi’s mature operas, Luisa Miller, a work full of wonderful, first-rate music.

Somehow Luisa Miller seems to have fallen into that slightly blurry patch of works composed between Macbeth and Rigoletto.

Busseto, near the composer’s birthplace, offers a very different experience – and this autumn it will be hosting its own immersive

Telephone +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | info@martinrandall.co.uk | www.martinrandall.com

9

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | Newly-launched in Italy

Verdi in Parma & Busseto continued

Dr John Allison Editor of Opera magazine, he is music critic for the Daily Telegraph and former critic for the Sunday Telegraph and The Times.

He has written two books and has served on the juries of various international music competitions.

Dr R. T. Cobianchi Art historian and researcher specialising in Italian art and architecture of the Renaissance and Baroque. His interests also span from the iconography of the late Middle Ages to the sculpture of Neo-Classicism.

See pages 19–20 for a full list of our music tours and events.

celebration, called ‘Verdi Off’. Expect to find artists gathering in the streets to perform their Verdian favourites. Seeing performances in the little Teatro Verdi di Busseto provides one of the most intimate operatic experiences – one well suited to the tragic drama of Aida. Although this may not be immediately apparent, given the imposing Triumph Scene for which the work is so famous, most of the opera is actually a series of intimate duets, so we can expect to see this opera revealed in a new light.

Itinerary Day 1: Parma. Fly at c. 2.45pm from London Heathrow to Bologna Airport (British Airways).

Drive to Parma, one of the loveliest of the smaller cities in Italy and the base for all five nights of the tour.

Day 2: Parma. Court city of the Farnese dynasty, Parma is a treasure house of art and architecture. In the morning there is a visit to the cathedral and baptistry, among the finest Romanesque buildings in Italy, the former with dazzling illusionistic frescoes by Correggio. Evening opera at the Teatro Regio di Parma: Nabucco.

Day 3: Sant’Agata, Le Roncole, Busseto.

An excursion begins with the villa that Verdi built for himself at Sant’Agata, and continues to the territory where Verdi was born, grew up and lived intermittently for much of his life.

Visit his birthplace in the hamlet of Le Roncole, and Busseto, where he lived for the earlier part of his life. Evening opera at the Teatro Verdi in Busseto: Aida.

Day 4: Parma. Free morning, followed by a visit to the vast Farnese Palace where an excellent picture collection is displayed. Afternoon visits may also include a backstage tour of the Teatro Regio, subject to rehearsal schedules. Evening opera in a monumental space in the heart of Parma: Luisa Miller.

Day 5. Cremona. The birthplace of Monteverdi, Stradivarius and Guarini and still a centre of violin making, Cremona has a splendid central square formed of cathedral, campanile (Italy’s tallest), baptistry and civic palaces.

The cathedral is richly embellished with 16th-century paintings, the baptistry with Romanesque sculpture and the municipal fortresses are red-brick Gothic. Evening opera at the Teatro Regio di Parma: I due Foscari.

Day 6. Drive to Bologna Airport for the flight to London Heathrow, arriving at c. 1.30pm.

Illustration, previous page: Verdi’s Villa in Sant’Agata, wood engraving c. 1880. Above left: Giuseppi Verdi, mid19th-century engraving.

10

Telephone +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | info@martinrandall.co.uk | www.martinrandall.com

Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £3,060 or £2,940 without flights. Single occupancy: £3,435 or £3,315 without flights.

Included: tickets to 4 performances; flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus 321); private coach for transfers and excursions; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 4 dinners with wine; all tips for waiters, drivers, guides; state and airport taxes; the services of two lecturers.

Music: top category tickets for 4 performances are included, costing c. £800. At the time of going to print, we are unable to confirm whether these will be in stalls or boxes.

Accommodation. Hotel Sina Maria Luigia, Parma (sinahotels.com): recently renovated 4-star hotel, located near the historic centre.

How strenuous? Some walking is unavoidable as coaches are not permitted into historic town centres. There are late nights throughout the tour, and most mornings start at 10.00am.

Average distance by coach per day: 53 miles.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | Newly-launched in Italy

Trasimeno Music Festival Angela Hewitt and friends in Umbria 29 June–6 July 2019 (mf 605) 8 days • £3,570 (Including tickets to 8 performances) Lecturers: Professor Geoffrey Norris & Dr R. T. Cobianchi The fifteenth edition of the festival created by pianist Angela Hewitt, who performs in seven of the eight performances.

Other artists include pianist Gloria Campaner (piano), Anu Komsi, Piia Komsi and Emöke Baráth (soprano), Camerata RCO, Il Pomo d’Oro and Mark Simpson (clarinet).

Eight concerts in beautiful settings, including the Basilica di San Francesco in Assisi, Teatro Signorelli in Cortona and a castle courtyard.

Based in Perugia, one of the largest and loveliest of Italian hill towns.

One of the most acclaimed pianists of today, Angela Hewitt inaugurated her own music festival in the heart of Italy in 2005. She bought land overlooking Lake Trasimeno, and built a house as a retreat from her gruelling concert tours. The idea of a festival in the vicinity emerged and with characteristic energy Hewitt made it a reality, charming local officials into giving the necessary permissions and enlisting their enthusiastic support. For her festival, she gathers around her artists of international standing, and as they make music together the atmosphere created is one of complete enjoyment for performers and audience alike.

Our group stays in a comfortable 5-star hotel in the centre of Perugia. There are excursions to such significant towns as Cortona amd Assisi, and by boat on Lake Trasimeno itself.

Concerts take place in the courtyard of the castle belonging to the Knights of Malta in nearby Magione, as well as in the Basilica di San Pietro in Perugia, the Teatro Signorelli in Cortona and the Basilica di San Francesco in Assisi.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 8.30am from London Heathrow to Rome Fiumicino and drive to Perugia.

Opening concert at the Basilica di San Francesco, Assisi with Angela Hewitt (piano), the Coro Sinfonico di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Matthew Halls (conductor), Gloria Campaner (piano), Anu Komsi (soprano), Anna Bonitatibus (mezzosoprano), Diego Godoy (tenor), Christian Senn (bass), William Crane (harmonium): Rossini, Petite Messe Solennelle.

Day 2: Perugia. There are major works of art and architecture to see in Perugia including the medieval town hall housing the National Gallery of Umbria. Afternoon recital at the Basilica di San Pietro, Perugia with Angela Hewitt (piano): Bach, Four Toccatas, BWV 911, BWV 916, BWV 910 & BWV 914; Mozart, Sonata in C minor, K.457; Beethoven, Sonata in C minor, Op.111.

Gala dinner in the cloisters of San Pietro, often hosted personally by Angela Hewitt. Evening concert at the Basilica di San Pietro, Perugia with

Telephone +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | info@martinrandall.co.uk | www.martinrandall.com

11

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | Newly-launched in Italy

Trasimeno Music Festival continued

Angela Hewitt (organ), Anu Komsi (soprano), Piia Komsi (soprano), Rodney Prada (viola da gamba): Couperin, Leçons de Ténèbres pour le Mercredi Saint.

Day 3: Isola Maggiore. Take a boat trip on Lake Trasimeno to visit Isola Maggiore and its church with 14th- and 15th-century frescoes. Evening concert at the Castle of the Knights of Malta, Magione with Angela Hewitt (piano), members of the Royal Orchestra Concertgebouw Amsterdam: Martinů, La revue de cuisine for clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, violin, cello & piano; SaintSaëns, Septet for piano, trumpet & strings, Op.65; Dvořák, String Quintet No.2 in G, Op.77.

Day 4: Cortona. Free morning in Perugia. In the afternoon, drive around Lake Trasimeno to the charming Tuscan hill town of Cortona.

See the high quality collection of Renaissance art in the Museo Diocesano and the Gothic altarpiece in San Domenico. Evening concert at Teatro Signorelli, Cortona with Il Pomo d’Oro (orchestra), Francesco Corti (conductor and harpsichord), Emöke Baráth (soprano): Hommage to Barbara Strozzi.

Day 5: Perugia. Visit two merchants’ halls, one with frescoes by native artist Perugino. Evening concert at the Castle of the Knights of Malta,

Magione with Angela Hewitt (piano), Anu Komsi (soprano), Mark Simpson (clarinet): Beethoven, Mit einem gemalten Band, Op.83 No.3; T´intendo, sì, Op.82 No.2; L´amante impaziente, Op.82 No.3; Resignation; Sehnsucht; Neue Liebe, neues Leben, Op.75 No.2; Brahms, Sonata in E flat for clarinet and piano, Op.120 No.2; Chopin and Viardot, L´oiselet; Coquette; Berceuse; La jeune fille; Chopin, selected piano works (to be confirmed); Schubert, The Shepherd on the Rock (Der Hirt auf dem Felsen), D965.

Day 6: Assisi. Assisi is one of the most evocative of Italian towns, with its austere medieval streets and world-class paintings. In San Francesco, mother church of the Franciscan Order, is one of the greatest assemblages of medieval fresco painting, including the controversial cycle of the Life of St Francis. Evening concert at Sala Podiani, Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Perugia with Angela Hewitt (piano), Anu Komsi (soprano), Piia Komsi (soprano), Mark Simpson (clarinet): Mark Simpson, Barkham Fantasy; Kaija Saariaho, From the Grammar of Dreams; Jovanika Trbojevic, Sky Shopping – Hommage to Brahms; Mark Simpson, Darkness Moves; Matthew Whittall, excerpts from Leaves of Grass; Samuel Barber, Adagio Mesto and Fuga from Piano Sonata Op.26.

Day 7: Montefalco. Visit Montefalco, a hilltop community with magnificent views of the valley below and hills around. In the deconsecrated church of S. Francesco are frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli. Closing recital at the Castle of the Knights of Malta, Magione with Angela Hewitt (piano): Bach, Three Toccatas, BWV 913, BWV 915 & BWV 912; Chromatic Fantasy & Fugue, BWV 903; Mozart, Piano Sonata in D, K.576; Ravel, Le Tombeau de Couperin.

Professor Geoffrey Norris Writer, lecturer and former music critic.

For many years, he was Chief Music Critic of the Daily Telegraph. At different times he has been lecturer at the Royal Northern College of Music and at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is Professor at the Rachmaninoff Music Academy in Russia and also teaches at the Gnesin Music Academy in Moscow.

Dr R. T. Cobianchi Art historian and researcher specialising in Italian art and architecture of the Renaissance and Baroque. His interests also span from the iconography of the late Middle Ages to the sculpture of Neo-Classicism.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking, much of it on roughly paved and often steep streets and in hot weather conditions. There are late nights throughout the tour, and most mornings start at 10.00am. Average distance by coach per day: c. 72 miles.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Day 8. Drive to Rome and fly to London Heathrow, arriving at c. 5.00pm.

Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £3,570 or £3,280 without flights. Single occupancy: £3,950 or £3,660 without flights.

Included: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus 321); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts; 2 lunches (including one picnic) and 7 dinners with wine (one of which is a gala dinner with all festival participants, often hosted by Angela Hewitt); all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturers.

Music: 8 concert tickets are also included, costing c. £450.

Accommodation. Hotel Sina Brufani Palace, Perugia (brufanipalace.com): grand 5-star hotel 5 minutes’ walk from the main square with spectacular countryside views. Good restaurant, small indoor pool and roof terrace.

12

Telephone +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | info@martinrandall.co.uk | www.martinrandall.com

Illustration, previous page: Perugia, Arco della Conca, etching by Albany Howarth c. 1910. Left: Assisi, Church of St Francis, watercolour by Frank Fox c. 1900.

See pages 16–17 for information about Martin Randall Festivals in 2019 & 2010.

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | Newly-launched in Norway

Lofoten Chamber Music Festival Concerts and walks in the Arctic archipelago

8–14 July 2019 (mf 622) 7 days • £ 3,780 (Including tickets to 6 performances) Lecturer: Dr Michael Downes Six concerts featuring national and international artists; András Schiff and the Doric String Quartet among them.

Experience an area of outstanding natural beauty, under the majesty of the midnight sun.

Three country walks against a backdrop of dramatic mountains, lakes, fjords and coastline.

In the fifteen years since its foundation, the Lofoten International Chamber Music Festival has quickly acquired an enviable reputation for the quality of its programmes, which juxtapose the very best Scandinavian performers with eminent musicians from throughout the world, attracted by the unique environment for musicmaking that the festival offers.

The 2019 line-up is particularly impressive.

Sir András Schiff, doyen of the Viennese classical tradition, leads an enticing roster of pianists that also includes young Russian Georgy Tchaidze, and Norwegian Joachim Carr.

Chamber groups include the euphoniously named Trio con Brio from Copenhagen, whose debut CD was praised by the American Record Guide as ‘one of the greatest performances of chamber music I’ve ever encountered’, the Doric String Quartet, one of Britain’s most exciting young groups, and the Engegård Quartet, formed in Lofoten itself.

Meanwhile the tango-influenced sounds of Per Arne Glorvigen, born in Norway and one of the world’s greatest exponents of the bandoneon, will add both variety and atmosphere to this beguiling festival.

Concert venues include intimate churches (many with their own Steinway Grands), and the Lofoten ‘Cathedral,’ the largest wooden building north of Trondheim. Most days feature two or three concerts across the islands, between an hour and an hour and a half in length, a musical intensity amplified by the winding coastal journeys themselves; on more than one occasion, late night concerts take advantage of the wonder of the midnight sun.

Our itinerary starts with a night in Oslo, and a private tour of the opera house, a glacial construction of marble and glass dominating the Oslo Fjord, before flying to the islands. Based in Svolvær throughout thereafter, the tour returns to London via Oslo on the final day.

The tour includes several walks in areas of outstanding natural beauty, led by an experienced local guide. Lying within the Arctic circle, distinctive scenery of deep fjords and dramatic mountains make up the landscape of the Lofoten archipelago and the islands boast archaeological finds from the Iron and Viking Ages.

Itinerary Day 1: Oslo. Fly at c. 10.30am from London Heathrow to Oslo (Scandinavian Airlines).

Late-afternoon walk through the city with Oslobased art historian and MRT lecturer, Frank Høifødt (Royal Palace, Town Hall, Parliament) to the new waterfront developments by Niels Torp and others. The latest addition here is Renzo Piano’s contemporary art gallery. Lecture and overnight in Oslo.

Day 2: Oslo to Svolvær. Fly at c. 11.00am from Oslo to Svolvær (Widerøe). Check in to the hotel, before driving to Leknes for a pre-concert dinner. Evening concert at Buksnes Church, Gravdal. Arvid Engegård (violin), Georgy Tchaidze (piano): Mozart, Violin Sonata, K.303; Torbjørn Gulbrandsøy (tenor), Georgy Tchaidze (piano): Strauss, Heimliche Aufforderung,

Telephone +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | info@martinrandall.co.uk | www.martinrandall.com

13

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | Newly-launched in Norway

Lofoten Chamber Music Festival continued

Allerseen, Zueignung; Doric String Quartet: Beethoven, String Quartet Op.131. Return to the hotel by c. 10.00pm. First of five nights in Svolvær.

Day 3: Svolvær, Henningsvær. An easy morning walk mostly follows a flat boardwalk around a lake near Svolvær: c. 5 km, c. 1½ hours.

Late afternoon excursion to Henningsvær where there is an opportunity to visit the Kaviarfactory, a restored 1950s factory building housing a collection of modern art. Late evening concert in Henningsvær Church, Henningsvær: András Schiff (piano), Yuuko Shiokawa (violin): Mozart, Violin Sonata in A, K.526; Joachim Carr (piano), Engegård Quartet: Dohnanyi, Piano Quintet No.2 in E-flat minor. Return to the hotel by c. 11.45pm.

Day 4: Leknes, Stamsund. Following a late morning lecture, drive towards Leknes for a moderate walk through unspoiled countryside, with impressive views both of the coastline and back towards Leknes: c. 9 km, 3½ hours. We end in the centre of the town in time for an early dinner. Evening concert in nearby Stamsund Church, Stamsund. Trio con Brio Copenhagen: Haydn, Piano Trio in E; András Schiff (piano), Engegård Quartet: Brahms, Piano Quintet in F minor, as well as a further piece to be confirmed.

Return to the hotel by c. 10.00pm.

Day 5: Kabelvåg, Svolvær. A moderate walk following a gravel track around a lake: c. 6 km, 2 hours. There are several inclines and protruding roots make for uneven ground.

End in Kabelvåg for lunch. Visit the Galleri Espolin, linking Kaare Espolin Johnson’s work with the history of the region, and Lofotmuseet, a folk museum dedicated to the Lofoten Fishery. Evening concert in Lofoten Cathedral, Kabelvåg. Trio con Brio Copenhagen: Arensky, Piano Trio No.1 in D minor; Doric String Quartet: Ades, Four String Quartet; András Schiff (piano): Schubert, Piano Sonata in D, D850. Return to the hotel by coach for a brief time before continuing on foot for a late evening concert in Svolvær Church, Svolvær: Torbjørn Gulbrandsøy (tenor), Ingrid Fliter (piano); Schumann, Dichterliebe; Per Arne Glorvigen (bandoneon), Engegård Quartet; P. A. Glorvigen, Violent Tenderness; Anton Dressler (clarinet), Jan Clemens Carlsen (cello), Ingrid Fliter (piano): Brahms, Clarinet Trio. Return to the hotel by c. 11.15pm.

Day 6: Svolvær, Buksnes. Free morning in Svolvær, before an afternoon visit to a reconstructed Viking village located in Borg, near tonight’s concert venue. Evening concert in Buksnes Church, Gravdal: a programme by musicians from throughout the festival. Return to the hotel by c. 10.00pm.

Day 7. Fly from Svolvær to London Heathrow via Oslo, landing at c. 6.30pm.

14

Although we have chosen the walks on this itinerary with due care and consideration, the Lofoten islands are subject to changeable weather conditions which may mean that walks have to be changed or modified at short notice. We follow the advice of local walking guides.

Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £3,780 or £3,600 without international flights on days 1 and 7. Single occupancy: £4,270 or £4,090 without international flights on days 1 and 7.

Included: tickets to 6 performances; international flights with Scandinavian Airlines (economy class, Boeing 737) between London and Oslo; domestic flights with Widerøe (economy class, DHC-8 100) between Oslo and Svolvær; travel by private coach; accommodation; breakfasts, 4 dinners and 2 lunches (including 1 picnic) with a glass or two of wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer, tour manager and walking guide.

Internal flights: domestic flights with Widerøe (economy class, DHC-8 100) from Oslo to Svolvær on day 2, and from Svolvaer to Oslo on day 7 are included in the tour price for all participants (even if you are paying the ‘without flights’ price).

Accommodation. Grand Hotel, Oslo (grand. no): 5-star hotel in the heart of the city; a short walk from the National Gallery. Thon Hotel Lofoten, Svolvær (thonhotels.com): a comfortable 4-star hotel on the waterfront with fjord, harbour, or mountain views.

How strenuous? This is a walking tour, graded ‘moderate’. (Please see www. martinrandall.com/ about-us for our walking tour grading system

Telephone +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | info@martinrandall.co.uk | www.martinrandall.com

or contact us). While there are only 3 walks, 2 graded ‘moderate’ and 1 graded ‘easy’, we walk on 3 consecutive days following some late nights (although morning starts are leisurely). There is also not always the opportunity to return to the hotel to freshen up before every concert or dinner. It is essential for participants to have appropriate walking footwear, be in good physical condition and to be used to country walking with uphill and downhill content and uneven terrain. In Lofoten the sun does not set in July so daylight is constant, and in Oslo there are only a few hours of darkness. We advise you to bring an eye mask.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Dr Michael Downes Director of Music at the University of St Andrews, musical director of St Andrews Chorus and founding artistic director of Byre Opera.

He writes programme notes for Wigmore Hall and Aldeburgh Music and reviews music for the Times Literary Supplement. He is author of a highly praised study of British composer Jonathan Harvey.

Photograph, previous page: Hauklandssanden in the Lofoten Islands ©Baard Loeken and courtesy of the Lofoten Islands Festival. Above: after a drawing of 1860.

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | Newly-launched in Sweden

Drottningholm & Confidencen Ariodante and Acis & Galatea 2–5 August 2019 (mf 638) 4 days • £2,130 (Including tickets to 2 performances) Lecturer: Dr David Vickers Two eighteenth-century operas in two eighteenth-century theatres.

A Handel festival with two of his best-loved works, Ariodante and Acis & Galatea.

Some free time around the performances and lectures to see some of Stockholm’s magnificent museums and art collections.

Very few theatres survive unchanged from the eighteenth century. Only the Drottningholm Court Theatre survives without having needed modern restoration or refurbishment, with the original stage machinery and scenery intact, and as home of a living operatic tradition of international renown.

Built in 1766 for Queen Louisa Ulrika of Sweden as part of a marvellous ensemble of palace, park and lake outside Stockholm, the theatre enjoyed its heyday during the reign of her son Gustav III. But after his death in 1792, it ceased to be used and was virtually forgotten for over a century. Performances recommenced in 1922, and an annual festival developed which specialises, appropriately enough, in Baroque and Classical repertoire. The performance for 2019 is Handel’s Ariodante.

Drottningholm is not the only eighteenth-century theatre in Stockholm’s watery environs. Confidencen, the theatre built in 1752 at Ulriksdal, is also part of a palace complex in a beautiful lakeside setting and, again like Drottningholm, a long period of neglect preceded its revival. But the festival here is of much more recent origin and as yet is little known outside Sweden. Artistically, it has to be said, it sets its sights lower, but productions have become increasingly accomplished.

Handel’s Acis & Galatea is performed here by candlelight with Baroque instruments, costumes and machinery.

The tour is based in Stockholm, a city with many architectural and artistic riches spread across the archipelago where the waters of Lake Mäleren meet the Baltic. There is quite a lot of free time to explore the city independently.

residence of the Swedish royal family since the 17th century; splendid interiors, wonderful gardens, landscaped park, exquisite Chinoiserie pavilion and theatre museum. Late afternoon performance at Drottningholm Slottsteater: Ariodante (Handel) with Ian Page (conductor), Johannes Weisser (Rè di Scozia), Roberta Mameli (Ginevra), Francesca Aspromonte (Dalinda), Ann Hallenberg (Ariodante) Martin Vanberg (Lurcanio), Christophe Dumaux (Polinesso).

Day 3: Stockholm. A morning lecture, followed by a guided tour of the old town centre. Free afternoon; recommended is the spectacular display of prehistoric gold artefacts at the Museum of Antiquities and the Museum of Modern Art. Late afternoon opera at Confidencen Theatre: Acis & Galatea (Handel) with Olof Boman (conductor), Ylva Stenberg (Galatea), Hyojong Kim (Acis), Staffan Liljas (Polyphemus), Jihan Shin (Damon).

Day 4: Stockholm. Free morning or optional visit to the museum of the Wasa, the royal flagship which sank on its maiden voyage in 1628. Fly to London Gatwick, arriving c. 7.00pm.

Itinerary

Practicalities

Day 1: Stockholm. Fly at c. 9.30am from London Gatwick to Stockholm (Norwegian Air). Drive to the Ulriksdal Palace, built in the 17th century on the banks of the Edsviken in Solna as a country retreat. There is time to settle into the hotel before an introductory talk and dinner.

Price, per person. Two sharing: £2,130 or £1,980 without flights. Single occupancy: £2,410 or £2,260 without flights.

Day 2: Drottningholm. After a morning lecture, travel by boat from the centre of Stockholm to Drottningholm Palace, summer

Included: tickets for two operas; flights (Economy) with Norwegian Air (Boeing 738); coach or boat for excursions; hotel accommodation; breakfasts and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer.

Dr David Vickers Author, journalist, broadcaster and lecturer.

He is co-editor of The Cambridge Handel Encyclopedia and is preparing new editions of several of Handel’s music dramas. He is a critic for Gramophone and BBC Radio 3 and an essayist for many record labels. He teaches at the Royal Northern College of Music.

Accommodation. Hilton Stockholm Slussen (hilton.com): 4-star hotel situated on the waterfront of the Södermalm district of Stockholm, a short walk from the old town of Gamla Stan. Rooms have a view over the lake and the old town.

How strenuous? This is a short tour with a fair amount of free time. Nevertheless participants need to be fit enough to navigate the city centre and parks on foot and to cope easily with stair climbing. Average coach travel per day: 12 miles.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Illustration: Drottningholm Palace, copper engraving c. 1700.

See pages 19–20 for a full list of our music tours and events.

Telephone +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | info@martinrandall.co.uk | www.martinrandall.com

15

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | Martin Randall Festivals

CELEBRATING MUSIC AND PLACE World-class musicians playing wonderful music in Europe’s glorious historic buildings, many of which are not normally accessible; a curated sequence of private concerts, each of which builds on the last; logistics taken care of, from flights and hotels to pre-concert talks.

16

Telephone +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | info@martinrandall.co.uk | www.martinrandall.com

‘Beyond superb!

The performances, choice of repertoire, venues... all perfect.’

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | Martin Randall Festivals

2019 THE JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH JOURNEY

13–19 May 2019

WEST COUNTRY CHORAL FESTIVAL 7–11 July 2019 MUSIC ALONG THE DANUBE

31 August–7 September 2019

SACRED MUSIC IN SANTIAGO

28 September–2 October 2019

THE THOMAS TALLIS TRAIL OPERA IN SOUTHERN SICILY

1–3 November 2019 5–11 November 2019

Please contact us for more information or visit www.martinrandall.com/festivals

Photographs are from our festival, Music in Bologna, in 2018 (©Ben Ealovega).

2020 POLYPHONY IN LUCCA HANDEL IN SUSSEX MUSIC ALONG THE RHINE MUSIC IN LOIRE CHÂTEAUX DANUBE BEETHOVEN FESTIVAL MUSIC IN VENICE Please call us to register your interest or e-mail alerts@martinrandall.co.uk

UK SHORT CHAMBER MUSIC BREAKS The Nash Ensemble The Heath Quartet The Fitzwilliam String Quartet

1–3 March 2019 5–7 April 2019 14–16 May 2019

Please contact us for more information or visit www.martinrandall.com/music-and-history-weekends

The Wihan Quartet 29 November–1 December 2019 Rising Stars 24–26 January 2020 Beethoven at The Castle 20–24 February 2020 More to be announced Call us to register your interest or e-mail alerts@martinrandall.co.uk Telephone +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | info@martinrandall.co.uk | www.martinrandall.com

17

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | Choral Days

London Choral Day Lambeth Palace and Westminster Friday 7 June 2019 (lf 566) Price: from £215 Our London Choral Days put outstanding and exciting choral ensembles in some of the most beautiful buildings in the capital. They take the form of a day-long sequence of performances, talks, lunch and refreshments, the audience moving between the venues on foot.

The days are conceived not as three discrete concerts but as an integrated, overarching musical experience in which the individual parts illumine and enlarge upon what has gone before.

Usually there is some connection between the venues and the music performed in them, which may be chronological – music of the same period as the building – or associational: a specific historical link between music and building.

After the great successes of Chelsea and Marylebone, the next London Choral Day begins in the shadow of Westminster Abbey and progresses across the river to Lambeth.

Here, beside the Thames and enclosed within high brick walls, lies a clutch of highly important historic buildings: Lambeth Palace, residence, offices and library of the Archbishop of Canterbury. As both home and workplace, access is restricted; perhaps this is the least visited of London’s major architectural precincts, and we are grateful to have been accorded the privilege of presenting two concerts and a lecture in three different spaces within the complex.

Illustration: St Margaret’s, Westminster after a drawing by G M Elmwood, publ. 1911 in ‘Some London Churches’.

The Programme St Margaret’s, Westminster Choir of St Margaret’s Beginning life in the twelfth century as the parish church of Westminster, St Margaret’s stands on a site which once lay within the precincts of Westminster Abbey; the formidable bulk of the abbey church rises only a few yards to the south. One of the very few pre-Reformation churches to survive in London, its current form dates largely to a rebuilding completed in 1523, though there have been frequent interventions for restoration and embellishment. The stained glass is of particular interest.

The superb professional choir of St Margaret’s is one of the finest liturgical choirs in the country. Aidan Oliver, Director of Music at St Margaret’s since 2003, is one of the UK’s leading choral directors, working across the whole spectrum of symphonic, liturgical, operatic and contemporary music.

Today’s programme juxtaposes works from the period following the church’s rebuilding in 1523, including Gibbons, Weelkes, Tomkins and Byrd. To this is added 20th-century and contemporary works showcasing the current vibrant musical tradition of St Margaret’s – Dove, Macmillan, Grier and others.

Lambeth Palace, the Chapel Gesualdo Six The beautiful chapel, Early Gothic in style, dates to c.1230, though a combination of Puritanism and World War Two bombing has necessitated fairly extensive (if sympathetic) restoration.

Its small size requires the concert here to be repeated; the other half of the audience attends a talk in the Guard Room, which has a fourteenthcentury roof with braces of traceried timber.

The Gesualdo Six comprises some of the UK’s finest young consort singers, most of whom cut their chorister teeth in the cathedral or college systems. Formed in 2014, they have rapidly established themselves as an exceptional ensemble, travelling widely abroad as well as in the UK. The director is Owain Park, who is also a prominent composer.

Lambeth Palace, Great Hall Choir of Royal Holloway ‘Londoners and strangers do not usually appreciate the fact that London possesses in the palace a complex of domestic buildings largely medieval and wholly picturesque which is of the greatest interest and merit.’ This verdict remains as true today as when Nikolaus Pevsner wrote it seventy years ago.

The magnificent Great Hall was rebuilt 1660–3, the style deliberately archaic to assert continuity after the turmoil of the Interregnum; it can plausibly be designated as the first instance of the Gothic Revival. Recently

18

Telephone +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | info@martinrandall.co.uk | www.martinrandall.com

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | By date

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 All tours and events 18–23 Ballet in St Petersburg (mf 537)

Jane Pritchard mbe 30– 2 Puccini in Copenhagen (mf 555)

Dr John Allison

restored and emptied, this is a spectacular space for the final concert.

The Choir of Royal Holloway, under their director Rupert Gough, is considered one of the finest mixed-voice collegiate choirs in the country. The 24 choral scholars undertake a busy schedule of services, concerts and tours and have recorded for Hyperion Records. Their programme includes early Tudor music from the Lambeth Choirbook, one of the palace’s greatest treasures, through to Tallis and Byrd and on to Blow and Purcell.

JUNE 2019 7 LONDON CHORAL DAY (lf 566)....... 18 12–17 Handel in Halle (mf 579)

Dr David Vickers 23–29 The Schubertiade with Mountain Walks

(mf 581) Richard Wigmore 27–30 Glyndebourne & Garsington (mf 604)

Amanda Holden

Practicalities

28– 2 West Cork Chamber Music Festival

(mf 603) Stephen Johnson............................ 8 29– 6 Trasimeno Music Festival (mf 605)

Prof. Geoffrey Norris

& Dr R.T. Cobianchi................................... 11

Price: £215, or £235 with transport by taxi.

This includes lunch and afternoon refreshments as well as exclusive admission to the three concerts and the lecture.

Start: 11.30am at St Margaret’s Westminster.

Doors open at 11.10am. Finish: c. 5.50pm at Lambeth Palace.

Walking: for those who do not choose the vehicular option, there are walks at a leisurely pace of, at most, 20 minutes (waiting at pedestrian crossings included). There is the option of signing up in advance for taxis to avoid the walks for an additional cost – see ‘Price’.

Lunch and refreshments: lunch in good restaurants; the audience is split between several.

Refreshments are served in the afternoon between the concerts.

Audience size: c. 100–160.

Booking: there is no need to complete a booking form for our one-day events. Please call us or visit www.martinrandall.com.

Handel in London Thursday 3 October 2019 (lf 778) Lecturer: Richard Wigmore Please contact us for full details or visit www.martinrandall.com A day spent exploring locations associated with the great composer.

Includes a recital on Handel’s organ by Will Vann, Director of Music at the Royal Hospital Chelsea.

JULY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 27– 1 Welsh National Opera (mf 423)

Simon Rees 27– 2 Opera & Ballet in Helsinki (mf 461)

Dr Michael Downes

MARCH 2019

1– 3 Chamber Music Break: THE NASH ENSEMBLE (mf 431)......... 17

APRIL 2019 5– 7 Chamber Music Break:

THE HEATH QUARTET (mf 467)........ 17 17–22 Music in Berlin (mf 487)

Dr John Allison 23–28 Opera in Vienna (mf 495)

Barry Millington & Tom Abbott • full 30– 6 The Ring in Leipzig (mf 504)

Barry Millington

MAY 2019 7–13 When Bach went AWOL (mf 528)

Lindsay Kemp 8–13 Organs of Bach’s Time (mf 518)

James Johnstone &

Dr Matthew Woodworth 12–18 Prague Spring (mf 523)

Professor Jan Smaczny 13–19 THE J.S. BACH JOURNEY (mf 530)..... 17

Future London Choral Days We hope to offer a Winter Choral Day in December 2019. Please contact us to register your interest.

14–16 Chamber Music Break:

THE FITZWILLIAM

STRING QUARTET (mf 519)................ 17 16–22 Dresden Music Festival (mf 532)

Professor John Holloway 18–22 Hamburg: Opera & ‘Elphi’ (mf 539)

Dr John Allison • full

7–11 WEST COUNTRY CHORAL FESTIVAL (mf 615)............... 17 8–14 Lofoten Chamber Music Festival

(mf 622) Dr Michael Downes.................... 13 22–25 Savonlinna Opera (mf 629)

Dr John Allison 22–26 Verona Opera (mf 630)

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 28– 3 Opera in Munich & Bregenz (mf 637)

Patrick Bade • full

AUGUST 2019 2– 5 Drottningholm & Confidencen (mf 638)

Dr David Vickers........................................ 15 15–19 Verona Opera (mf 647)

Dr Roberto Cobianchi 21–26 A Schubertiade in Catalonia (mf 658)

Richard Wigmore • full 26–31 The Lucerne Festival (mf 661)

Dr Michael Downes 26– 1 The Schubertiade (mf 662)

Misha Donat 31– 7 MUSIC ALONG

THE DANUBE (mf 665).......................... 17 31–7 Walking the Danube (mf 666)

Richard Wigmore

SEPTEMBER 2019 1– 7

4– 9

Enescu Festival Bucharest (mf 686) Dr John Allison The Sibelius Festival (mf 695) Dr Stephen Darlington mbe......................... 7

5–11 Lombardy: Gastronomy & Opera

(mf 685) Fred Plotkin 28– 2 SACRED MUSIC

IN SANTIAGO (mf 760).......................... 17 Illustration: engraving by J. Amman 1878.

Telephone +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | info@martinrandall.co.uk | www.martinrandall.com

19

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | By date

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 All tours and events

MARCH 2020

AUGUST 2020

Summer Music in Austria

The Schubertiade with Mountain Walks

DANUBE BEETHOVEN FESTIVAL..... 17

19–26 The Ring in Chicago (mg 169)

Barry Millington & Tom Abbott

Walking the Danube

24– 4 Baroque Music in the Bolivian Missions

(mg 185) Jeffrey Skidmore........................... 4

Bavarian Organs

Verona Opera

Rossini in Pesaro

A Schubertiade in Catalonia

Drottningholm & Confidencen

Opera in Stockholm

APRIL 2020

Opera in Vienna

Music in Berlin

Opera in Oslo

MAY 2020

OCTOBER 2019 2– 7 Verdi in Parma & Busseto (mf 780)

Dr John Allison & Dr R. T. Cobianchi........ 9 3

Handel in London (lf 778) Richard Wigmore........................................ 19

NOVEMBER 2019 1– 3 THE THOMAS

TALLIS TRAIL (mf 875).......................... 17 1– 4 Historic Musical Instruments (mf 873)

Professor Robert Adelson 5–11 OPERA IN

SOUTHERN SICILY (mf 876)................ 17 29– 1 Chamber Music Break:

THE WIHAN QUARTET

Register your interest.................................. 17

DECEMBER 2019

LONDON CHORAL DAY

Vienna at Christmas

Music in Berlin at New Year

JANUARY 2020 24–26 Chamber Music Break:

RISING STARS..........................................17

Valletta Baroque Festival

Mozart in Salzburg

FEBRUARY 2020 20–24 Chamber Music Break:

BEETHOVEN AT THE CASTLE........... 17

Music & Ballet in Paris

Opera in Nice & Montecarlo

POLYPHONY IN LUCCA....................... 17

Beethoven in Barcelona with the Monteverdi Choir & Orchestra

Welsh National Opera

20

Ballet in Copenhagen

HANDEL IN SUSSEX.............................. 17

Music in Hamburg

Opera in Leipzig

MUSIC ALONG THE RHINE................ 17

Budapest Spring Festival

Opera in Turin & Milan

Mahler in Amsterdam

The Bergen Festival

Ballet in St Petersburg

JUNE 2020

SEPTEMBER 2020

Music in Prague & Brno

Beethoven in Bonn

Music in the Saxon Hills

Lombardy: Gastronomy & Opera

Verdi in Parma & Busseto

OCTOBER 2020

Historic Musical Instruments

NOVEMBER 2020

MUSIC IN VENICE.................................. 17

The Ring in St Petersburg

The Schubertiade

Opera in Copenhagen

Glyndebourne & Garsington

Please see page 23 for booking details.

The Leipzig Bach Festival

Trasimeno Music Festival

Fitness

JULY 2020

The Hindsgavl Festival

Savonlinna Opera

The Beaune Music Festival

MUSIC IN LOIRE CHÂTEAUX............17

Opera in Munich & Bregenz

West Cork Chamber Music Festival

Verona Opera

Torre del Lago

To register your interest... ...in 2020 tours and events, please call us or e-mail alerts@martinrandall.co.uk.

Booking

Ours are active holidays, and we ask that everyone wishing to join them takes the quick and simple self-assessment fitness tests described below. It is a condition of booking that you have passed these (except for UK Short Chamber Music Breaks, where these fitness requirements do not apply.)

If you have a medical condition or a disability which may affect your holiday or necessitate special arrangements being made for you, please discuss these with us before booking – or, if the condition develops or changes subsequently, as soon as possible before departure.

Fitness tests: 1. Chair stands. Sit in a dining chair, with arms folded and hands on opposite shoulders. Stand up and sit down at least eight times in thirty seconds.

2. Step test. Mark a wall at a height that is halfway between your knee and your hip bone. Raise each knee in turn to the mark at least sixty times in two minutes.

Most of our 2019 programme is available to book – please contact us for full details of these, or visit www.martinrandall.com

3. Agility test. Place an object 3 yards from the edge of a chair, sit, and record the time it takes to stand up, walk to the object and sit back down. You should be able to do this in under seven seconds.

Illustration: a Wagnerian audience by Aubrey Beardsley (1872–1898).

An additional indication of the fitness required, though we are not asking you to measure this, is that you should be able to walk unaided at a pace of 3 miles per hour for at least half an hour at a time, and to stand unsupported for at least 15 minutes.

Telephone +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | info@martinrandall.co.uk | www.martinrandall.com

Booking form

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | Booking

TOUR NAME(S)

DATES

TOUR CODE(S)

NAME(S) – We do not use titles on documents issued to tour participants unless you want us to by including them here.

Participant 1 Participant 2

ROOM TYPE

FURTHER INFORMATION or special requests. Please mention dietary requirements, even if you have told us before.

☐ Single occupancy room(s) ☐ Double room (two sharing) ☐ Twin room (two sharing)

TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS ☐ Group travel from London (air or rail), if applicable to this tour. ☐ No travel Making your own arrangements for travel to and from the destination.

CONTACT DETAILS – for all correspondence

FELLOW TRAVELLER – if applicable If you have made a booking for someone who does not share your address, please give their details here. We will then send them copies of all tour documents. We will NOT send them a copy of the invoice or anything else relating to financial matters.

Address

Postcode/Zip

Country

Their name

Mobile Telephone (home)

Address

Telephone (work) For speed and efficiency, we provide your tour and booking documents online where possible.

Please confirm whether you are happy to receive documents online: ☐ Yes

☐ No

E-mail address Postcode/Zip MARKETING PREFERENCES I would like to receive regular updates on MRT tours and events: By post (usually once a month at most) ☐ Yes By e-mail (weekly) ☐ Yes

Country

☐ No

☐ No

What prompted your booking? For example, an advertisement in a specific publication, a marketing e-mail from us, browsing on our website, or receiving one of our brochures by post:

E-mail Telephone

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | Booking

PASSPORT DETAILS. Essential for airlines and in case of emergency on tour (not applicable for tours in the UK if you are a UK resident).

Title

Surname

Forenames

Nationality

Place of birth

1.

2.

Date of birth (dd/mm/yy)

Passport number

Place of issue

Date of issue (dd/mm/yy)

Date of expiry (dd/mm/yy)

1.

2.

NEXT OF KIN or contact in case of emergency.

Participant 1:

Participant 2 (unless the same as for participant 1):

Name

Name

Telephone

Telephone

Relation to you

Relation to you

PAYMENT We prefer payment by bank transfer, cheque or debit card. We also accept payment by credit card. All money paid to us is fully protected regardless of payment method. Please tick an option:

Please tick payment amount:

☐ BANK TRANSFER. Give your surname and tour code (eg. MF123) only as a reference and ask your bank to allow for all charges.

☐ OR Full Payment. Required if you are booking within 10 weeks of departure.

Account name: Martin Randall Travel Ltd Bank: Handelsbanken, 2 Chiswick High Road, London W4 1TH

For transfers from UK (Sterling) bank accounts: Account number 8663 3438 • Sort code 40-51-62

For transfers from non-UK bank accounts: Please instruct your bank to send payment in pound sterling (GBP) IBAN: GB98 HAND 4051 6286 6334 38 Swift/BIC code: HAND GB22

☐ CHEQUE. I enclose a cheque payable to Martin Randall Travel Ltd – please write the tour code on the back (e.g. MF123). ☐ DEBIT OR CREDIT CARD. I authorise Martin Randall Travel to contact me by telephone to take payment from my Visa credit/Visa debit/Mastercard/AMEX.

☐ EITHER Deposit(s) amounting to 10% of your total booking cost.

Carbon offset donation. If you are taking a tour with flights and wish to make a donation to the India Solar Water Heating project, please tick an option below. Read more about this project, and about our other sustainable tourism activities, by visiting www.martinrandall.com/ sustainable-tourism. ☐ Add £5 per person for short-haul return flights ☐ Add £10 per person for mid- or long-haul return flights

TOTAL PAYMENT: £

I have read and agree to the Booking Conditions and Privacy Policy (www.martinrandall.com/privacy) on behalf of all listed on this form.

Signature Date Martin Randall Travel Ltd Voysey House Barley Mow Passage London W4 4GF, United Kingdom www.martinrandall.com ATOL 3622 | ABTA Y6050 | AITO 5085

Tel +44 (0)20 8742 3355 Fax +44 (0)20 8742 7766 info@martinrandall.co.uk

Martin Randall Australasia PO Box 1024, Indooroopilly QLD 4068, Australia Tel 1300 55 95 95 New Zealand 0800 877 622 Fax +61 (0)7 3371 8288 anz@martinrandall.com.au

North America 1155 Connecticut Avenue NW Suite 300 Washington, DC 20036, USA Tel 1 800 988 6168 usa@martinrandall.com

MUSIC 2019 & 2020 | Booking

Making a booking 1. Optional booking. We recommend that you contact us first to make an optional booking which we will hold for seven days. To confirm it please send the booking form and deposit within this period – the deposit is 10% of your total booking price.

Alternatively, make a definite booking straight away through our website.

2. Definite booking. Fill in the booking form and send it to us with the deposit. It is important that you read the Booking Conditions at this stage, and that you sign the booking form. Full payment is required if you are booking within ten weeks of departure.

3. Our confirmation. Upon receipt of the booking form and deposit we shall send you confirmation of your booking. After this your deposit is nonreturnable except in the special circumstances mentioned in the Booking Conditions. Further details about the tour may also be sent at this stage, or will follow shortly afterwards.

which varies according to the period of notice you give. Up to 57 days before the tour the deposit would be forfeited. Thereafter a percentage of the total cost of the tour will be due:

is protected by our Air Travel Organiser’s Licence (ATOL, number 3622). Payments for tours which do not include a flight from/to the UK are protected

by ABTA –The Travel Association. So, in the (highly unlikely) event of our insolvency in advance of the tour, you would get your money back, or if we failed after the tour had begun, the tour would be able to continue and you would be returned to the UK at its conclusion. Clients living elsewhere who have arranged their own flights should ensure their personal travel insurance covers repatriation in the event of holiday supplier failure.

Booking conditions Please read these •

You need to sign your assent to these booking conditions on the booking form.

Our promises to you •

We aim to be fair, reasonable and sympathetic in all our dealings with clients, and to act always with integrity.

•

We will meet all our legal and regulatory responsibilities, usually going far beyond the minimum obligations.

•

We aim to provide full and accurate information about our holidays. If there are changes, we will tell you promptly.

•

If something does go wrong, we will try to put it right. Our overriding aim is to ensure that every client is satisfied with our services.

What we ask of you •

That you read the information we send to you.

Specific terms Our contract with you. From the time we receive your signed booking form and initial payment, a contract exists between you and Martin Randall Travel Ltd. Eligibility. You must be in good health and have a level of fitness that would not impair other participants’ enjoyment by slowing them down or by absorbing disproportionate attention from the tour leaders. Please take the self-assessment tests described on page 20; by signing the booking form you are stating that you have passed these tests. If during the tour it transpires, in the judgement of the tour leaders, that you are not able to cope, you may be asked to opt out of certain visits or to leave the tour altogether. This would be at your own expense. We reserve the right to refuse to accept a booking without necessarily giving a reason.

Foreign Office advice. Before booking, please refer to the FCO website – www.fco.gov.uk – to ensure you understand the travel advice for the places to which the tour goes. Non-UK citizens should look at the advice issued by their governments, which may differ significantly.

Insurance. It is a requirement of booking that you have adequate holiday insurance cover. The insurance must cover, at minimum, medical treatment, repatriation, loss of property and loss of payments to us in the event that you cancel the tour. If you are making your own arrangements for international travel, please ensure you have insurance that protects you in the rare event of Martin Randall Travel cancelling the tour. Experience indicates that free travel insurance offered by some credit card companies is not to be relied upon.

up to 57 days: between 56 and 29 days: between 28 and 15 days: between 14 days and 3 days: within 48 hours:

deposit only 40% 60% 80% 100%

If you cancel your booking in a double or twin room but are travelling with a companion who chooses to continue to participate in the tour, the companion would have to pay the single-occupancy price.

If you cancel a non-residential event (such as the London Choral Day) we will return the full amount if you notify us 22 or more days before the event. We will retain 50% if cancellation is made within three weeks and 100% if within 3 days.

We take as the day of cancellation that on which we receive written confirmation of cancellation.

If we cancel the tour. We may decide to cancel a tour if there were insufficient bookings for it to be viable (though this would always be more than eight weeks before departure). We would refund you with everything you had paid us.

Safety and security. Cancellation may also occur if civil unrest, war, natural disaster or other circumstances amounting to force majeure arise in the region to which the tour was due to go. If the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office advises against travel, we would either cancel or adjust the itinerary to avoid risky areas. We would also treat sympathetically a wish to withdraw from a tour to a troubled region even if the FCO does not advise against travel there. In the event of cancellation before the tour began we would give you a full refund; costs incurred due to curtailment after the tour had started should be covered by your individual insurance policy.

Health and safety. We subscribe to the health and safety legislation of the countries in which the tours operate. The generally high standards of the UK are not found everywhere; regulations may diverge in particular in the areas of accessibility, handrails and seatbelts. However, with rare exceptions, all the hotels we use have undergone a safety audit, by our staff or by independent consultants on our behalf.

The limits of our liabilities. As principal, we accept responsibility for all ingredients of a tour, except those in which the principle of force majeure prevails.

Our obligations and responsibilities are also limited where international conventions apply in respect of air, sea or rail carriers, including the Warsaw Convention and its various updates.

Passports and visas. British citizens must have valid passports for all tours outside the United Kingdom.

For many countries the passport needs to be valid for six months beyond the date of the tour. If visas are required we will advise UK citizens about obtaining them; nationals of other countries should ascertain whether visas are required in their case.

If we make changes. Circumstances might arise which prevent us from operating a tour or event exactly as advertised. We would try to devise a satisfactory alternative, but if the change represents a significant loss to the tour we would offer compensation. If you decide to cancel because the alternative we offer is not in your view an adequate substitute, we would give a full refund.

If you cancel. If you have to withdraw from a tour on which you had booked, there would be a charge

Financial protection. Any money you have paid to us for a tour which includes an international flight

Financial protection: the official text. We are required to publish the following. We provide full financial protection for our package holidays which include international flights, by way of our Air Travel Organiser’s Licence number 3622.

When you buy an ATOL protected flight inclusive holiday from us you receive an ATOL Certificate. This lists what is financially protected, where you can get information on what this means for you and who to contact if things go wrong. Most of our flights and flight-inclusive holidays on our website and in our brochure are financially protected by the ATOL scheme. But ATOL protection does not apply to all holiday and travel services listed. Please ask us to confirm what protection may apply to your booking. If you do not receive an ATOL Certificate then the booking will not be ATOL protected. If you do receive an ATOL Certificate but all the parts of your trip are not listed on it, those parts will not be ATOL protected. In order to be protected under the ATOL scheme you need to be in the UK when you make your booking and/or one of the flights you take must originate or terminate in the UK with the group.

We provide full financial protection for our package holidays that do not include a flight, by way of a bond held by ABTA The Travel Association.

We will provide you with the services listed on the ATOL Certificate (or a suitable alternative). In some cases, where we aren’t able do so for reasons of insolvency, an alternative ATOL holder may provide you with the services you have bought or a suitable alternative (at no extra cost to you). You agree to accept that in those circumstances the alternative ATOL holder will perform those obligations and you agree to pay any money outstanding to be paid by you under your contract to that alternative ATOL holder. However, you also agree that in some cases it will not be possible to appoint an alternative ATOL holder, in which case you will be entitled to make a claim under the ATOL scheme (or your credit card issuer where applicable). If we, or the suppliers identified on your ATOL certificate, are unable to provide the services listed (or a suitable alternative, through an alternative ATOL holder or otherwise) for reasons of insolvency, the Trustees of the Air Travel Trust may make a payment to (or confer a benefit on) you under the ATOL scheme. You agree that in return for such a payment or benefit you assign absolutely to those Trustees any claims which you have or may have arising out of or relating to the non-provision of the services, including any claim against us (or your credit card issuer where applicable). You also agree that any such claims maybe re-assigned to another body, if that other body has paid sums you have claimed under the ATOL scheme.

English Law. These conditions form part of your contract with Martin Randall Travel Ltd and are governed by English law. All proceedings shall be within the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

Privacy. By signing the booking form you are stating that you have read and agree to our Privacy Policy, which can be found online at www.martinrandall.com/privacy.

Telephone +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | info@martinrandall.co.uk | www.martinrandall.com

23

Martin Randall Travel Ltd Voysey House Barley Mow Passage London W4 4GF, United Kingdom Tel +44 (0)20 8742 3355 Fax +44 (0)20 8742 7766 info@martinrandall.co.uk Martin Randall Australasia PO Box 1024, Indooroopilly QLD 4068, Australia Tel 1300 55 95 95 New Zealand 0800 877 622 Fax +61 (0)7 3371 8288 anz@martinrandall.com.au North America 1155 Connecticut Avenue NW Suite 300 Washington, DC 20036, USA Tel 1 800 988 6168 usa@martinrandall.com

www.martinrandall.com ATOL 3622 | ABTA Y6050 | AITO 5085