Welcome to Beaumaris Festival 2024!

// 22nd May - 29th May //

2024 PROGRAMME

Wednesday
22/05/2024

Jazz:
Ben Creighton-Griffiths

19:30, Bulkeley Hotel Ballroom
£15

A thrilling evening of Inspirational jazz on a harp in the evocative ballroom of the Bulkeley Hotel. Ben’s versatility and musical imagination using the sound colours of this angelic instrument are unparallelled. A perfect opener to the 2024 festival!

bjcg.co.uk


Thursday
23/05/2024

Festival Talk:


Remembering Will

10:30, Canolfan Beaumaris
£7.50

As the Beaumaris Festival celebrates the 90th anniversary of his birth, Rhiannon Mathias reflects on the impact her father, William Mathias, had on musical Wales.

In conversation with Geraint Lewis. All 3 were together at the first festival in 1986!


Art Exhibition:
Eluned Grant

Opening at 12:00pm

Canolfan Beaumaris

Admission Free

Eluned Grant is the 2024 Festival Artist.

elunedgrant.com


Mewn Cymeriad

13:30, Canolfan Beaumaris
£3 per child

A production in Welsh for children.

In this show Thomas Telford returns to Wales once again after hearing that his masterpiece – the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct – has won a World Heritage Site award.


Seindorf

Beaumaris
Band

19:30, Canolfan Beaumaris

£10


The brilliant, highly regarded Welsh band conducted by Bari Gwilliam plays music from Glenn Miller to Johann Strauss, from Sosban Fach to Mood Indigo.

beaumarisband.org.uk


Friday
24/05/2024

Young Artists Recital 1:
Iyad Sughayer

10:30, Canolfan Beaumaris
£10

(3 Young Artists Recitals £20)

Nominated as a 2022 Rising Star Artist by Classic FM, Iyad Sughayer was a prize-winner at the YCAT International Auditions in 2021. His second recording for BIS with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Andrew Litton was released to critical acclaim in autumn 2022. 

Mozart, Adagio in B minor, K. 540

Mozart, Piano Sonata No. 18 in D major, K. 576

Mozart, Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major, K. 331

iyadsughayer.com


Festival Talk:
Shakespeare On Love

15:30, Bulkeley Hotel Ballroom
£7.50

David Crystal and Ben Crystal present Everyday Shakespeare: Lines for Life....and there’s quite a bit of love in it!

 

Choral Concert

19:30, Canolfan Beaumaris

£20

MENDELSSOHN’S ELIJAH

One of Wales’ foremost choirs, Cantorion Menai, under the baton of Gwyn L. Williams sing one of the greatest of all oratorios joined by Steffan Lloyd Owen – Elijah, Meinir Wyn Roberts – soprano, Jenny Pearson – mezzo, Bryn Roberts – tenor, with Cerddorfa Menai Orchestra.


Saturday
25/05/2024

Young Artists Recital 2:
Tomos Boyles

10:30, Canolfan Beaumaris
£10
(3 Young Artists Recitals £20)

The highly talented Welsh pianist Tomos Boyles performs a richly Romantic programme of works by Chopin, Clara Schumann and Ravel

Clara Schumann, Three Romances Op. 21 Frédéric Chopin, Sonata No. 3 in B minor Op. 58 Maurice Ravel, Miroirs

 

Young Artists Recital 3:
The Bute Wind Quintet

15:00, Canolfan Beaumaris
£10
(3 Young Artists Recitals £20)

The multi-award-winning ensemble from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama make their festival debut. The young virtuosos play music by Brahms, Puccini, Mathias, Nino Rota and Grieg.

 

Jazz Cabaret: The Will Barnes Quartet

19:30, Canolfan Beaumaris
£20

A cornucopia of jazz standards displaying Will Barnes’ formidable guitar technique along with his own compositions.

willbarnesmusic.co.uk


Sunday
26/05/2024

Evensong

17:00, St. Mary’s & St. Nicholas’s Church

Choral Evensong led by the Rev. Lesley Rendle. The Monteverdi Singers conducted by Graeme Cotterill sing Mozart, Ave verum corpus - Mathias, Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis - 0p.53, Tippett, Spirituals from ‘A Child of our Time’

Pre-performance Talk

18:30, Canolfan Beaumaris
Admission Free

Composers Paul Frehner and Claire Victoria Roberts introduce this evening’s performances.

Ensemble Paramirabo

19:30, Canolfan Beaumaris

£20

Threats to two languages and that of climate change are examined in this new chamber opera.

Madog

Horizon: Madog takes place in a distant future, when the world’s oceans have flooded coastal regions across the globe, and geomagnetic storms have decimated global communication systems, isolating the scant remaining survivors of societal collapse. Humanity is recovering but is still in a fragile state, and once-great nations are now fractured into island states. 

The piece explores the musings of Madog, who believes he is a descendant of the legendary Welsh prince ‘Madog’ who purportedly reached North America centuries before Columbus. This tri-lingual (French, English and Welsh) Elder has been an instrumental founder of the fictional Île-Mont-qui-Tremble, a vibrant trilingual island community situated somewhere in what was ‘Quebec’. Madog and his now-deceased wife Élodie and their descendants are core founders of this ‘back-to-the-earth’ movement that have found a new Way, a mantra, for living in harmony with the environment. 

At the core of their ethos, nothing is created from objects that contribute to further pollution; everything is reused and re-usable. But, Madog’s roughewn “radio” has been transmitting news in Welsh that somewhere east, societies are re-developing. He fears that with the use of build-build-build technology, they will commit the same environmentally destructive errors and desecrate an already fragile-but-healing world. Seeing himself as a Messianic figure, he is making his final preparations before embarking on a solo perilous ocean journey by sailboat to find what remains of his ancestral homeland, and to spread his knowledge of the Way to those he encounters.

Claire Victoria Roberts, Tynged yr Iaith ('The Fate of the Language’)
William Mathias, Sonatina, Op. 98
Claude Vivier, Paramirabo
Paul Frehner, Horizon: Madog (staged opera)

 

Monday
27/05/2024

Canolfan Gerdd William Mathias

10:30, Canolfan Beaumaris
£8

Students from Canolfan Gerdd William Mathias showcase their musical talent.

 

Pre-opera Talk

18:30, Canolfan Beaumaris
Admission Free

Susanna MacRae and Olivia Doutney, founders of Liberata Collective, talk about their historical approach to performing Handel’s opera Orlando.

Opera: Handel’s Orlando

19:30, Canolfan Beaumaris
£20

Have you ever wondered how Handel’s own audiences would have experienced his operas? Come, see and hear this glorious opera performed by the Liberata Collective with Baroque gestures and authentic instruments. Directed from the harpsichord by Petra Hajduchova.

liberatacollective.com

 

Tuesday
28/05/2024

Anniversary Song Recital

11:00, Canolfan Beaumaris

£10

Fauré, La Bonne Chanson (Centenary tribute) - Mathias, A Vision of Time and Eternity. Jeremy Huw Williams, (baritone). George Ireland, (piano).

Fauré wrote this song cycle when in love with soprano, Emma Bardac, who later married Debussy. Mathias’s challenging work for both singer and pianist sets an inspiring text by Henry Vaughan.

jeremyhuwwilliams.com

 

Pre-performance Talk

18:30, Canolfan Beaumaris
Admission Free

Rhiannon Mathias introduces this evening’s masterworks concert.

Orchestral Masterworks Concert

19:30, Canolfan Beaumaris

£20

Tchaikovsky, Andante Cantabile

Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 27 in Bb K.595 “Coronation”

Alex Mills, Night, Sleep, Death and the Stars (First performance)

Mathias, Hobed o Hilion 

Haydn, Symphony No.8 “Le Soir”

Welsh Chamber Orchestra

Conductor - Anthony Hose

Ellis Thomas (piano)

Jeremy Huw Williams (baritone)

 

Wednesday
29/05/2024

Festival Finale:
The Alvor Trio

10:30, Iorwerth Rowlands Centre
£12.50

Sarah Newbold, Flute
Martin Outram, Viola
Imogen Barford, Harp

An imaginative and festive end to the 2024 festival with music by

Mozart, trio “The Magic Flute”
Richard Barnard,  “After You Speak”  1st performance
1. After You Speak
2. The Gallows
3. While the robin sings over again.
Commissioned by the Alvor Ensemble with support from the Tanza Trust.  

Debussy, Syrinx

William Mathias,   “Zodiac” Trio.                   1.Pisces
2.Aries
3.Taurus.                                                             

John Pickard,  “The Gardener of Aleppo”   

Vaughan Williams, Folk Songs

Debussy, Sonate
1.Pastorale
2.Interlude 
3.Final