Winchfield Festival 2018

Saturday 16 June - Spitfire Sisters - Festival Marquee

The Spitfire Sisters, an internationally acclaimed vintage-inspired band with three-part vocal harmony, opened the Festival with an eclectic mix of songs from the 1940s and modern songs with a vintage twist. The Spitfire Sisters were joined by Steve Christie, a versatile and talented pianist, multi-instrumentalist, session musician, sound engineer and composer. The Sisters, playing saxophones and flutes and with their seven-piece backing group, got the Festival off to a full throttle flying start!

Sunday 17 June - Saxophone, Harp and Organ Recital - St Mary's Church

This performance was a world-first concert of music arranged for saxophone, organ and harp led by the award-winning saxophonist Huw Wiggin, professor of Saxophone at the Royal College of Music. Oliver Wass is the first harpist ever to win the prestigious Guildhall Gold Medal. Timothy End is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, a multiple first-prize winning accompanist who works regularly with Huw.

Programme of Music

Monday 18 June - Dante String Quartet - St Mary's Church

The Dante Quartet has a well-earned reputation as one of the most exciting young chamber groups playing today. The Quartet has won the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Award for chamber music, as well as numerous other awards.

The programme featured three great but very different quartets which all demonstrate the triumph of the creative spirit over adversity. Beethoven’s last quartet was written when he was deaf and nearing death – it was the last complete work he wrote.

Tuesday 19 June - Music in Shakespeare (K’antu Ensemble) - Festival Marquee

The K’antu Ensemble, founded by Ruth Hopkins, performed a concert of lively pre-classical songs and dances featured in Shakespeare’s plays, on an array of beautiful replica instruments. The music was interspersed with speeches and sonnets by the Bard, performed by actor Darren Royston, dressed as an Elizabethan courtier, demonstrating the dances and leading the audience in the Rufty Tufty.K’antu Ensemble lead interactive performances for children with Special Educational Needs and as part of the Festival’s Outreach Programme, they performed for a local group of people living with dementia.

Ruth Hopkins:  Soprano - Baroque Violin - Recorders
Michelle Holloway: Alto - Recorders
Ben Mitchell: Tenor – Plucked Strings
Andrew Hopper: Bass – Viola da Gamba
Tymoteusz Jozwiak: Bass – Percussion

Wednesday 20 June - 'Cello and Piano Recital, performed by CORINNE MORRIS and PETER LIMONOV - St Mary’s Church

Corinne Morris, a highly accomplished 'cellist who started playing at the age of 8, was accompanied by Peter Limonov in a programme which included Beethoven’s sonata No 4 as well as two unaccompanied pieces.

Corinne also took part in the Festival’s Outreach Programme when she visited a local primary school to introduce the ‘cello and its repertoire to a group of Year 5 and Year 6 pupils.

Thursday 21 June - Gilbert and Sullivan: ‘Patience’ - Festival Marquee

New London Sinfonia directed by David Gibson and soloists from the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company.

The semi-staged performance of ‘Patience’, the hit Victorian comic opera written in 1881 by Gilbert and Sullivan, was a concert version directed by David Gibson as a satire on the Aesthetic Movement of 1870's Britain.

Friday 22 June - Piano Recital by Noriko Ogawa - St Mary's Church

Noriko Ogawa, professor of piano at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, appears with all the major European, Japanese and US orchestras.

The first half of Noriko’s programme was devoted to Debussy as a tribute to the one hundredth anniversary of his death in March 1918. Noriko also played two pieces by Japanese composers before finishing with Chopin’s famous Funeral March Sonata.

As part of the Festival’s Outreach Programme, Noriko hosted a 'Jamie's Concert', also in St Mary's Church, for families and carers of autistic children.

Saturday 23 June - The Milestones - Festival Marquee

The 11-piece Milestones band played Motown classics, Disco, Funk, Soul and modern chart hits, ending the 2018 Festival with most of the 500-strong audience on their feet dancing.