Ryedale Festival | Looking West

The Ryedale Festival offers great music in beautiful places, with 17 days of inspiring performances in beautiful and historic locations across North Yorkshire.

Looking West is a specially commissioned concert-theatre work to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose music has long been a source of inspiration for composer Julian Philips and writer Rebecca Hurst. It interweaves three voices. The overarching story is of the Celtic Saint Bega, who escaped her father’s house with the help of a magic bracelet, travelled across the Irish Sea, and found sanctuary in Cumbria – an act of personal pilgrimage, a young woman forging life on her own terms. A second strand shifts to a 20th century, through the work of the Cumbrian artist Winifred Nicholson, who painted unforgettable pictures on St Bees Head. The final voice is that of a contemporary Pilgrim, making his way cross country, guiding the audience on a shared journey, and struggling with familiar issues of everyday life in contemporary Britain. Join us for the world premiere of a work that takes key themes from the life and work of Ralph Vaughan Williams – especially the spiritual enrichment we can find in the natural world and the transformative power of music and art – and asks what they mean today.

The performance will last 75 minutes with no interval.