Llandeilo Festival of Music

For one eventful week in every summer a small hill-top town in Wales comes alive with the sound of music as some of the world’s top international artists gather to perform in what is now a major event in the musical calendar.

Delightful, rural Llandeilo with its twisty streets and quaint country appeal has found itself thrust onto the world stage as a first-class Festival venue, attracting some of the biggest classical names in the business.

Every July instrumentalists, singers and choirs of truly international repute appear on the bill for the Llandeilo Fawr Festival of Music, drawing crowds in their droves and re-affirming the town’s new standing as the Musical Mecca of the west. Now in its twelfth year the following for this attractive mix of music, magnificent floral displays and first-rate concert venues is such that the event has become a permanent fixture on many a music-lover’s calendar. Musical Opinion, Britain’s oldest and most highly respected musical publication, said “Llandeilo’s Festival has grown steadily year by year and concerts of this quality will help make it a must in the Welsh musical calendar.”

This year’s event, which will take place from the 14^th – 22^nd July, will emphasise even further the Festival’s international standing, nowhere more so than the Opening Concert (at St.Teilo’s Church) for which one of the world’s leading violin virtuosi, the New York-based Russian-American Alexander Markov, will have flown in from Italy , at the same time as his pianist, Heike Doerr, arrives from her home in Germany. Markov is an artist who regularly fills the illustrious Carnegie Hall in his native New York and his appearance in Llandeilo emphasises the strides which the Welsh festival has made in a comparatively short time.

Following such an exciting beginning the Festival truly gets into gear the following day (Sunday 15^th) when there will be a Festival Service at 11.00am and an open-air performance of Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutte in the Inner Courtyard of the National Trust’s Newton House (7.30pm). Newton House was for centuries the ancestral seat of the Dynevor family and Festival organisers are particularly pleased to be associated with it in this way. Some 40 years ago Lord Richard Dynevor, the first Patron of the Festival, was still living in the house and for three years he masterminded a wonderful annual Festival event of his own, featuring the cream of Britain’s instrumentalists and singers, and even going as far as to commission a new opera from the then Master of the Queen’s Music, Malcolm Williamson, in which four of the leading singers of the day took part. When Lord Dynevor died, some three years ago, his son, Hugo, succeeded to the title and he graciously agreed to be the new Patron. He has been an enthusiastic supporter of the event ever since and it seems particularly appropriate therefore to preserve the link with his ancestral home in this way.

The pace now quickens even more, with regular evening concerts and Lunchtime and Coffee recitals during the day. The first of three consecutive concerts in St.Teilo’s Church, will see the visit on the Monday of the renowned Allegri Quartet, who will be joined by four other eminent string players in a performance of Mendelssohn’s Octet Op.20, one of the most sublime works in the chamber music repertoire, which will be played for the first time in the Festival. The following night the Festival will welcome a very familiar figure when Charles Hazelwood gives a talk which he will illustrate himself from the piano and on the Wednesday the “quite stunning” (Classic FM) Armonico Consort, one of the country’s leading chamber choirs, make a return visit to the Festival in company with the leading baroque soprano, Elin Manahan Thomas, and trumpeter Crispian Steele-Perkins. It is then the turn of Llandeilo’s famous old coaching inn, The Cawdor, where the Geoff Eales Trio will present an evening entitled Jazz Piano Legends on the Thursday. The festival returns to St.Teilo’s, the following evening, for one of its most eagerly awaited events, a Lieder Recital to be given by international soprano, Rebecca Evans, with pianist Malcolm Martineau, and the final Saturday concert, the traditional Welsh Choral Evening, will also be held in St.Teilo’s.

That is not all however! This year, for the very first time, the Festival is extended to the second Sunday, so that a very special Big Band jazz evening can be held in the inner courtyard of Newton House. This will feature The Humphrey Lyttelton Band, with singer Tina May.

Running in conjunction with all these evening events will be the usual series of morning concerts, including this year recitals by two of Wales’s leading organists, Huw Tregelles Williams and Meirion Wyn Jones, and it seems that this, the twelfth Llandeilo Festival, will be one of the most memorable of all.