Events
Autumn Festival 2025
Day One
St Mary’s Church
Coffee concert
It Ain’t Necessarily So
Mozart: Violin Sonata No 22 in A major K305 | Beach: Romance Op 23 | Zwilich: A Little Violin Music in Memory of Elijah McClain | Boulanger: Nocturne | Ravel: Violin Sonata No 2 in G major | Gershwin arr. Heifetz: Summertime, It Ain’t Necessarily So
Fêted violinist Sophie Rosa makes a welcome return to Beverley and joins Artistic Director Libby Burgess for our opening concert. Ravel’s jazz-infused Violin Sonata – in his anniversary year – is set alongside the shimmering Nocturne by his younger contemporary Lili Boulanger, and true jazz by George Gershwin.
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich was the first female composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music and the first woman at Juilliard to earn the degree of doctor of musical arts in composition: her A Little Violin Music in Memory of Elijah McClain responds to the killing of that young man at the hands of police in 2019. Sunnier music by Mozart and Beach completes the line-up.
“Finely judged detail, expansiveness and lots of heart” (The Guardian on Sophie Rosa)
Sophie Rosa (violin) | Libby Burgess (piano)
Talk
Cello: Through Silence to Sound
Featuring author and broadcaster Kate Kennedy alongside festival favourite Cara Berridge, this performance is a love song to the cello – weaving together spoken word, live music and accompanying images. Based on Kate’s internationally acclaimed book Cello: A Journey Through Silence to Sound (2024), it explores a player’s intense and personal relationship to their instrument, and tells stories of cellos through history – those that survived shipwrecks and concentration camps, those that have been reinvented even as beehives, and those that offer hope for future generations.
Featured music includes Bach’s Cello Suite No 2 in D minor, and responses to these stories composed especially for the project by Cheryl Frances-Hoad.
“Strikingly original” (The Times on Kennedy’s book)
Kate Kennedy (speaker) | Cara Berridge (cello)
Teatime concert
Colours of happiness
Bach: Sonata in C after BWV 1027 / 1039 | Gow: Lament on the death of Margaret Urquhart | Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on Greensleeves | Telemann: Fantasia No 1 | Sieg: Illuminated Inside | Bowen: Sonata for Recorder and Piano
Featuring recorders of all sizes and pitches, this programme for recorder and piano flows from the music of Bach (Sonata in C BWV 1027/1039) and Telemann (Fantasia in A minor), to Vaughan Williams and York Bowen – nicknamed in his lifetime ‘the English Rachmaninoff’.
Drawing on recorder virtuoso Ian Wilson’s Scottish heritage, the programme includes Niel Gow’s Lament, one of the most haunting and beloved tunes from Perthshire: contrasting this melancholy is music from Sören Sieg’s African Suite Imibala yenjabulo (‘The Colours of Happiness’).
The concert will open with short performances by local teenage musicians who have been selected for this year’s New Paths Voyagers Scheme.
Ian Wilson (recorders) | Libby Burgess (piano)
Evening concert
Notes of Old
Schumann: Kerner Lieder | Songs by Schubert, Ravel, Hahn, Semple, Charpentier, Monteverdi and Bach
Winner of the 2023 BBC Music Magazine Vocal Award, Helen Charlston joins pianist Sholto Kynoch in a programme that weaves together music from across the centuries. Music by Bach, Monteverdi and Sweelinck resonates in unexpected ways with songs by Schubert, Hahn, Viardot and Semple – highlighting the enduring tapestry of human experience that transcends temporal boundaries.
The pair then perform Schumann’s Kerner Lieder, an extraordinary cycle of love and loss, that also owes much to music of the past.
“Charlston’s voice is little short of miraculous… a true star.” (The Evening Standard)
Helen Charlston (mezzo-soprano) | Sholto Kynoch (piano)
Coffee concert
Fingal’s Cave
Mendelssohn: Hebrides Overture | Brahms: Waltzes from Op 39 | Chaminade: Six pièces romantiques | Larsen: Gavel Patter | Ravel: Mother Goose Suite
Pianists Sholto Kynoch and Libby Burgess join forces for a coffee concert of piano duets. Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture (‘Fingal’s Cave’) is filled with adventure and crashing waves, inspired by the composer’s travels to the Hebridan Isle of Staffa, fifty miles off the Scottish coast. Meanwhile Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite paints children’s stories in charming music, from Beauty & the Beast to Tom Thumb and Sleeping Beauty.
Completing the lineup are Chaminade’s charming Six pièces romantiques, a selection of waltzes from Brahms’ lyrical Op 39 collection, and a firecracker from Libby Larsen, inspired by the patter of auctioneers: Gavel Patter.
Sholto Kynoch (piano) | Libby Burgess (piano)
Afternoon concert
Farewell to Stromness
Beethoven: Sonata for Piano and Horn | Schumann: Mary Stuart Songs | Maxwell Davies: Sea Eagle | MacMillan: Duo | Maxwell Davies: Farewell to Stromness | Macmillan: Lament of Mary Queen of Scots | Schumann: Adagio & Allegro
Celebrated French horn player Richard Watkins visits New Paths for the first time, sharing Beethoven’s effervescent early horn sonata and Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro.
Schumann’s Mary Stuart Songs set words by Mary Queen of Scots – whose tragic life story also resonates in MacMillan’s Lament of Mary Queen of Scots, showcasing soprano Aoife Miskelly and tenor David De Winter. We stay with MacMillan for the second ever performance of his Duo for horn and piano, and hear more from Scotland with Peter Maxwell Davies’ Sea Eagle, written for Watkins, and his much-loved Farewell to Stromness.
Richard Watkins (horn) | Aoife Miskelly (soprano) | David De Winter (tenor) | Sophie Rosa (violin) | Cara Berridge (cello) | Libby Burgess (piano)
Evening concert
From the Homeland
Dvořák: Piano Trio No 4 in E minor ‘Dumky’ | Songs and miniatures by MacMillan, Schubert, Coleridge-Taylor, Casals, Wallen, and Pärt
Dvořák’s show-stopping ‘Dumky’ piano trio forms the centre-piece of this concert: the music is filled with the drama of Slavic folk ballads – exuberant, passionate and soulful by turn.
Set alongside this are songs and miniatures inspired by other ‘homelands’, or the loss of them: MacMillan, Schubert, Coleridge-Taylor, Casals, Pärt and Wallen all feature. Soprano Aoife Miskelly returns to Beverley and joins Sophie Rosa, Cara Berridge and Libby Burgess.
The concert will open with short performances by local teenage musicians who have been selected for this year’s New Paths Voyagers Scheme.
Sophie Rosa (violin) | Cara Berridge (cello) | Aoife Miskelly (soprano) | Libby Burgess (piano)
Late night event
Royal Rivals
The royal rivalry between Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I of England affected many aspects of their reigns and, although they never actually met, it coloured their relationship to the end. Ultimately, Mary’s ambitions for the English crown would see her imprisoned and executed for plotting against Elizabeth.
Interspersed between readings of letters from the queens and those around them, recorder quartet The Flautadors explore music of the period. From Scottish and English dance music, to sacred music of Christopher Tye and William Byrd – synonymous with the ‘Golden Age’ – the programme concludes with John Dowland’s famous ‘Pavan Lachrymae’, perhaps one of the finest examples of Elizabethan melancholy.
“Beautifully balanced consort playing” (Gramophone)
The Flautadors: Catherine Fleming (recorders) | Celia Ireland (recorders) | Ian Wilson (recorders) | Thomas Pickering (recorders)
Breakfast concert
Breakfast with Schubert
Schubert: Four Impromptus D899
Festival Artistic Director Libby Burgess opens the day with Schubert’s Four Impromptus D899. Lyrical, profound, and ultimately optimistic, these glorious gems of the piano repertoire are the perfect way to start your weekend.
“The warm, sensitive pianism of Libby Burgess” (The Observer)
Libby Burgess (piano)
Coffee concert
Ein Traum
Schumann: Liederkreis Op 24 | Butterworth: Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad | Wolf: Selection from Mörike Songs | Grieg: Six German Songs Op 48
Baritone Benjamin Appl is one of the most globally celebrated song singers of our time. Named BBC New Generation Artist in 2014 and Gramophone Award Young Artist of the Year in 2016, Benjamin has sung across the world.
Joining Artistic Director Libby Burgess, in Beverley he presents Schumann’s wonderful Liederkreis Op 24, written in the outpouring of vocal music that was Schumann’s ‘Year of Song’. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad is full of nostalgia, lost love and lost youth – themes which became all the more poignant for the generation that followed him, including Butterworth, whose settings have become indelibly connected to the First World War for many listeners. Songs from the quirky to the heart-melting by Hugo Wolf, and Grieg’s effusive Op 48 songs, complete this magical morning programme.
The concert will open with short performances by local teenage musicians who have been selected for this year’s New Paths Voyagers Scheme.
“An almost infinite range of colours” (Suddeutsche Zeitung on Benjamin Appl)
Benjamin Appl (baritone) | Libby Burgess (piano)
Education event
Inspire! Brass
Young elementary brass players from the local Hub spend the day working with New Paths tutors. Exploring sound, breath and communication, this is a great way for budding musicians to build their skills at the start of the academic year.
The workshop concludes with an informal performance at 1.30pm, open to festivalgoers: come and hear the region’s youngest brass players!
Participation event
In record(er) time
Come and play! Intermediate and advanced amateur recorder players are invited to spend the afternoon working on ensemble music by Dowland, Pärt and more, conducted by popular New Paths artist Ian Wilson. Principal recorder professor at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and conductor of the Scottish Recorder Orchestra, Ian will give hints and tips on playing and style, and is certain to keep the group entertained. Bring your recorders of all shapes and sizes, and come and play! Prior registration essential.
The day concludes with a free informal performance at 5.30pm, across the road in St Mary’s Church, open to festivalgoers.
Family event
The Bestiary of Brilliant Beasts
Knotts: The Bestiary of Brilliant Beasts
From Blobfish to Goblin Sharks, Flying Foxes to Mole Rats, come and meet this crazy cavalcade of critters in a musical show which explores the strange lives of some of the world’s most-endangered species.
Dynamic ensemble CantiaQuorum – featuring instruments from violin to trombone to percussion – presents the world première of this brand-new piece by composer David Knotts and poet John Gallas. Sure to be fun for all the family!
CantiaQuorum (ensemble)
Afternoon concert
L’affaire Ravel
Ravel: String Quartet in F major
The double GRAMMY-award winning Attacca Quartet are acclaimed as one of the most exciting string quartets in the USA: we are thrilled to welcome them to Beverley. This intimate pop-up performance features the shimmering quartet by Maurice Ravel, in his anniversary year.
“They may be a relatively young ensemble, but already they come very close to epitomizing the string quartet ideal: four strikingly individual players with the ability to speak eloquently in one voice.” (The Washington Post)
The Attacca Quartet: Amy Schroeder (violin) | Domenic Salerni (violin) | Nathan Schram (viola) | Andrew Yee (cello)
Evening concert
Mishima
Dowland: Flow my tears | Glass: Quartetsatz | Pärt: Summa | Müller: Drifting Circles | Clemens non Papa: Ego Flos Campi | del Pino: Tu sequere me | Bennett: Weep o Mine Eyes | Glass: Mishima | Pärt: Fratres
To close the festival, the revered Attacca Quartet brings music to life from its 2021 album Of All Joys.
Music of modern minimalists is folded back onto that of the Renaissance – John Bennet, Jacobus Clemens Non Papa, and the master musician of Elizabethan England, John Dowland – creating emotional resonances across the centuries.
Philip Glass’ String Quartet No 3 is based on his film score for the 1985 film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, which dramatises the life of the Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima – and this is set alongside Arvo Pärt’s mesmerising tintinnabuli work, Fratres. A hypnotic way to draw the day, and the festival, to a close.
The Attacca Quartet: Amy Schroeder (violin) | Domenic Salerni (violin) | Nathan Schram (viola) | Andrew Yee (cello)
