Top performers for West Meon
Full details of the full Festival programme can be found on the Festival's website.
Leading the line-up of special guest performers at this year’s West Meon Music Festival – to be held from 15th to 17th September – will be world-famous clarinettist Michael Collins who will be performing the Brahms Clarinet Quintet with members of the Primrose Piano Quartet. “We are delighted that Michael will be performing with us again this year,” says Andrew Fuller, the Primrose’s cellist and Festival’s musical director. “He enjoyed himself so much last year, when we played the Mozart Clarinet Quintet together, that he made it very clear he wanted to make a return visit.”
This year the Primrose, who founded the festival in 2011, have invited more of their well-known musical friends to join them. Mezzo-soprano Louise Winter, a celebrated soloist with the Royal Opera and Glyndebourne Festival, will be performing songs by both Robert and Clara Schumann and Brahms in the Festival’s final concert – which will also include Schumann’s exciting Op 47 Piano Quartet – while the award winning Vickers-Bovey Guitar Duo will be be taking the stage on Saturday afternoon (16 September) at the nearby Church of Our Lady in Warnford.
While the Primrose Quartet is regarded as one of the country’s leading ensembles, its individual members are all highly-respected as soloists in their own right and at the Coffee Concert on Sunday morning (17 September) will each be demonstrating their skills. Pianist John Thwaites will be playing a Brahms Intermezzo as well as accompanying violist Dorothea Vogel in Schubert Arpeggione Sonata, Andrew Fuller in Shostakovich’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, and violinist Susanne Stanzeleit in Enescu’s scintillating Romanian Rhapsody No. 1, arranged for violin and piano.
As in previous years, the Festival’s opening candle-lit concert focuses on Viennese favourites and this year includes Brahms’ G minor Piano Quartet: a recording of which by the Primrose, has featured on Radio 3’s 'Building a Library'. There will be the usual children’s concert on Saturday morning with a 'Witches and Wizards' theme that will also be raising funds for the Festival’s chosen charity: The Rosemary Foundation, which provides a hospice at home service in Hampshire.
Last year both the concerts on Saturday evening with Michael Collins and Saturday afternoon at Warnford were completely sold out, so would-be concert-goers are advised to book early to avoid disappointment. The box office opens on 1st June.
The Primrose Piano Quartet is one the country’s leading ensembles. Their acclaimed discography includes favourites such as Brahms’ G minor (recommended on Radio 3 'Building a Library') and British repertoire featuring major commissions from Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Anthony Payne. The quartet appears regularly in London at King’s Place and the Conway Hall and has recently toured Denmark, Germany and Bulgaria.
Named after the great Scottish violist William Primrose, who himself played in the Festival Piano Quartet, the Primrose has been selected for the Making Music Concert Promoters' Network in 2004/5, 2011/2012, 2014/2015 and again for 2017/18.
“…music making at its most engaging, and the enthusiastic and protracted applause created the distinct impression that the audience was, like me, somewhat reluctant to leave the auditorium” – See and Hear International, February 2015