Founder and Artistic Director Lawrence Power writes:
I'm delighted to welcome you to the 2017 West Wycombe Chamber Music Festival. It's wonderful what a special event this has become for myself and the many musicians who visit each year. Not to mention our loyal and extraordinary audience! The church in West Wycombe is such an atmospheric and magical space to perform in, I genuinely look forward to it every year.
It's always a responsibility and a challenge deciding the programme for the festival and this year has been no exception. I have found it fascinating in previous years how themes started to emerge gradually when putting certain pieces together.
This year's theme will be Voices.
The obvious starting point for this was the selection of sublime Vocal works in the programme by Schubert, Dowland and Monteverdi. These three composers very much defined and shaped western classical music through their writing for the voice.
However its impossible to ignore the importance of Franz Schubert's works relating to the voice and in Concert No 4 we will be performing arguably some of his most important works - 'Death and the maiden' String Quartet and his 2 works for male chorus 'Grave and moon' and 'Song of the spirits over the waters'.
I'm so happy to be joined once again for the Festival by artists who are now familiar to you all, such as Simon Crawford- Phillips, Bjørg Lewis, Stephanie Gonley and Annabelle Meare. But I'm also very excited to welcome for the first time such important artists as the cellist Natalie Clein, soprano Ruby Hughes, pianist / composer Huw Watkins, the multi talented violinist Max Baillie, the double bassist Tim Gibbs and the percussionist Chris Brannick, culminating in our closing concert with the West Wycombe Chamber Music Festival Orchestra and Sam Laughton's Elysian Singers.