2022 Festival Archive

The Festival opened in Chagford Church, where rising-star soloists Sofia Kirwan-Baez, Matthew McKinney and George Clark were joined by pianist Harry Baker and the Festival String Quartet to present a beautiful programme of English song. Closely-related poetry readings were interwoven amongst music by Samuel Barber, Amy Beach, Rebecca Clarke and Ralph Vaughan Williams. The programme concluded with one of Vaughan Williams’s greatest chamber works, the song cycle On Wenlock Edge for tenor, string quartet and piano, as a special tribute to the composer’s 150th year.

In the lovely setting of Throwleigh Church, the acclaimed Ferio Saxophone Quartet performed music from the Baroque to the present day. The programme featured music from ‘Revive’, their acclaimed 2018 album of Baroque transcriptions, by Purcell, Bach and Handel, as well as 20th-century works for saxophone quartet by Eugène Bozza and Hugo Reinhart. They also performed contemporary works by saxophonist-composer Guillermo Lago, including two of his Wordsworth Poems, commissioned specially by the Ferios for their debut commercial album ‘Flux’, and the poems were read alongside the music by Festival Director Freddie Crowley.

In the Festival’s first visit to Moretonhampstead Church, we celebrated one of chamber music's greatest masters with a rich and varied programme of solo songs, partsongs, string quartets, and music for solo piano. Young star baritone George Clark performed a selection of Schubert’s greatest Lieder with pianist Harry Baker, who also presented a solo piano movement with a special improvisatory twist. Members of the Corvus Consort showcased how expertly Schubert wrote for small choir in his partsongs, and our very own Festival String Quartet performed two of Schubert’s most powerful chamber works.

Our "Music & Coffee Morning" in Endecott House offered an opportunity to meet our brilliant young musicians over a relaxed coffee, with musical performances from our resident artists. Attendees enjoyed short sets from our Corvus A Cappella group, Ferio Saxophone Quartet, and the Festival String Quartet who played extracts from new commission Tithonus and the Dawn by Composer-in-Residence Anna Semple, who was also there to talk about her new work.

In a completely sold-out Drewsteignton Church, Corvus Consort and Ferio Saxophone Quartet performed music from their exciting new CD 'Revoiced', as well as their special Vaughan Williams arrangement. The repertoire featured a selection of Baroque and Renaissance works re-imagined for voices and saxophones, as well as contemporary works composed and arranged for the same forces, including the world premiere live performance of Owain Park’s Miserere after Allegri. In celebration of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s 150th year in 2022, the concert rounded off with Freddie Crowley’s arrangement of RVW’s cantata In Windsor Forest, commissioned specially for Corvus and Ferio earlier in the year by Chiltern Arts Festival with the support of the Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust.

Hailed as the “future of jazz” by Jazz FM, pianist Harry Baker appeared with his talented young Harry Baker Trio, featuring Oren McLoughlin (drums) and Conor Chaplin (double bass), both leading lights on the London jazz scene. The trio performed a diverse collection of music, from the American Songbook to arrangements of folk melodies, along with original compositions by the band. They were also joined by vocalists Sofia Kirwan-Baez and Freddie Crowley, as well as the Festival String Quartet, for a set of one-night-only collaborations specially conceived for WAF.

Back in Chagford Church, our "Festival Finale" concert opened with a special tribute in memory of the late Queen Elizabeth II: John Tavener’s Song for Athene, performed by Corvus Consort with the help of our Come&Sing choir. Pianist Harry Baker then joined Corvus to perform Jonathan Dove’s The Passing of the Year, a thrilling seven-movement work for 8 voices and piano, atmospherically setting a selection of texts which reflect on the changing seasons. After songs from our Come&Sing choir and Children’s choir, Composer-in-Residence Anna Semple introduced her brand new work Darting, a large-scale work for choirs and piano, in which Corvus and Harry were joined by our Children’s Choir and Come&Sing Choir, to conclude the Festival with an exciting collective performance. As an encore, everyone joined together to perform Harry Baker’s song When We’re A Team, first written for the Children’s Choir to perform in our inaugural Festival in 2021.

The final event in WAF 2022 was our meditative choral Compline service, in the beautifully-atmospheric setting of Gidleigh Church, lit only by candles. After a specially-commissioned instrumental prelude from Composer-in-Residence Anna Semple, performed by the Festival String Quartet, the Corvus Consort sang medieval plainchant as part of the liturgy, as well as music by John Sheppard, Robert White, and Henryk Górecki.

Rehearsal shots and other images from the Festival weekend...