News — Gŵyl Beaumaris Festival

As we celebrate the 35th anniversary of the first Beaumaris Festival in 1986 it is hard to think that there hasn’t been a live festival since May 2019. Many parts of the world’s economies have endured hardships since the pandemic took hold and the arts have shown their vulnerability to the ensuing disruption. The Arts Council of Wales have shown a continuing commitment to support those whose livelihoods have been put in jeopardy and we are grateful that their support has allowed us to hold a 2021 festival albeit at a different time of the year. Starting with a celebration of Welsh folksong in the Bulkeley Hotel ballroom, where the notion of a Beaumaris Festival took place, and then an orchestral concert which includes a new work based on Welsh folksong is a perfect way to go back to the roots of the festival. Young students from Canolfan Gerdd William Mathias perform and Cantorion Menai appear in the programme for the first time with two young Welsh singers as soloists. The Monteverdi Singers will continue their long association and sing in the Festival Service and a Gymanfa Ganu in Capel y Drindod will bring back memories to festivalgoers from the early years. Rufus Adams’ enthusiasm for and extensive knowledge of Lloyd George will be illustrated with a talk at the Festival Lunch and world-renowned guitarist, Adrian Legg, can be heard in cabaret. Shan Eccles is the featured artist and an exhibition of her colourful work is in the foyer of the Canolfan. The festival committee have been resilient and include several new members who have been of significant help in putting the festival on this year. The committee wish to extend their thanks to the Festival Friends who have remained supportive while activities have been suspended. Floreat Beaumaris!

Anthony Hose
Artistic Director

Congratulations to Hannah Retallick who has been shortlisted in the International Writing Competition for this year's Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival. Her story is one of twelve, chosen from over 200 entries, and she has been invited to read excerpts at the awards ceremony which will be hosted by Ian Rankin in Glasgow on May 22nd. We wish Hannah the best of luck! Below is another short story by Hannah which was inspired by a visit to Gŵyl Beaumaris Festival.

du Pré

by Hannah Retallick

We sat on the front row. Who was this Greatest Cellist? I flicked through the Beaumaris Festival brochure until I found the name. I pointed at the words and asked Mum how.

‘Jacqueline du Pré,’ she said. And again, slowly, letting me hear the foreign sounds. ‘du Pré.’

I nodded, my lips and tongue trying it out, silently. My brothers were the other side of me, dressed in shirts and smart black trousers, heads already in their red notebooks. Mum bought them for us so we could take notes at the Festival, or doodle if we began to fidget. I always stuck the tickets in mine and wrote the talk title and description in tiny neat writing. Sometimes I drew the speaker.

We clapped as she walked out from behind the curtain, across the stage-less floor, and past the projector screen. She had grey waves around her face, a checked shirt, blue jeans, and well-worn trainers. Hilary.

How strange to give a talk about your own sister! I couldn’t imagine David and Jonathan doing that for me. And what would they talk about? Would I ever be a Greatest Something? A Greatest Writer? A Greatest Pianist? A Greatest…what?

As Hilary introduced herself, I glanced down at Jacqueline. Strawberry blonde, with pale blue eyes that almost disappeared into the whites, looking with soft focus as though she was in another place entirely, hand resting unnaturally on her temple, around the cello’s fingerboard. Silent.

Hilary walked back and forth, hands clasping and opening. She spoke about the person in the shiny picture. The person who could no longer speak for herself. She called her Jackie. How can the Greatest Cellist be called Jackie?

Two sisters. How different it could have been if multiple sclerosis hadn’t stolen Jacqueline at forty-two. Maybe they would have been here together. The cellist and the flautist. Now, one was on the screen, in black and white; one was watching with us.

Jacqueline du Pré began to play.

My hands tingled. The feeling ran up both my arms and down through my body until it reached my feet. Had somebody opened the fire door? No, there was no breeze, no movement from the audience. It was her. Woman and cello, two halves of a soul, inseparable. Elgar and du Pré, a perfect union. She could speak after all.

After washing my hands, ripping off my shoes and throwing them onto the full shoe rack, I ran to the piano. It was habit. I played the same piece as always, from memory. I had once even attempted to play it backwards. The phrase ‘I knew it back to front’ turned out to be a slight exaggeration. Nevertheless, I knew the piece well. I’d thumped the life out of it. But that day was different.

The music drew Mum away from the half-washed dishes. She peered around the doorframe, tea towel scrunched in her hand, mouth open. She told me I was playing more musically, more passionately, more like…

‘Jacqueline du Pré’.

Du Pré was a cellist, of course, not a pianist, but I knew what Mum meant. I felt it too. I smiled, turned back from the hovering tea towel, and placed my tingling hands on the ivories.

Hello, Jackie. I’m Hannah. It’s very nice to meet you.