Welcome to Pinner Music Festival 2024
I am pleased to outline our plans for the forthcoming PMF, which will take place from 10th to 15th June 2024. You can look forward to a week of lovely music performed by fine musicians, many with local connections. We are delighted that Pinner estate agent Rawlinson Gold is our new Main Sponsor.
We shall open with a Seminar on Monday 10th June to introduce the week through interviews with some of our artists. This will be chaired by Petroc Trelawny (BBC Radio 3), who has been a skilful and popular facilitator in previous years. The panel comprises Skaila Kanga, Amber Emson, George Strivens, and Madeleine Mitchell.
Concerts will start on Tuesday 11th June with Pinner Parish Church Choir, directed by Martin Singleton, with anthems by Stanford – a major composer of British choral music and teacher (100th anniversary of his death) – and by his pupils, including Stanford’s Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis. There will also be instrumental/vocal solos by choir members.
On Wednesday 12th lunchtime, we are delighted to host the Royal Academy of Music Harp Ensemble in a dance-themed programme Dances with Harps, including works by Tchaikovsky, Delibes, Liszt, and Massenet. This will be a great opportunity to witness the next generation of harpists working together.
Our Wednesday (12th) evening concert will be by the locally based Boyle String Quartet, in a popular programme that includes short works, among others, by Mozart (String Quartet in C, K 157) and Borodin (Nocturne from 2nd String Quartet), as well as Dvořák’s glorious American Quartet.
The Thursday (13th) lunchtime concert will be by young musicians, Amber Emson (violin) & Leah Nicholson (piano), who will perform Violin Sonatas by Beethoven (Op. 12 #1 in D major) and Franck – his luminous A major Sonata (what a wedding present for Ysaÿe!), as well as Ravel’s dramatic Tzigane.
For our Friday evening (14th) concert, we are delighted to welcome back George Strivens in the Mera Horn Trio with Alexandra Lowe (soprano). The programme will include George’s recent published arrangement of Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, as well as his song Alphorn, Andante for horn & piano, Allegro from Violin Sonata, Clara Schumann’s Three Romances for violin & piano, Brahms’s Horn Trio and Martin Bussey’s The Rites Observed for solo horn, elaborated from A Brother Abroad, commissioned for PMF2021.
The last concert on Saturday 15th will be performed by the Pinner Festival Chorus, Soloist & Orchestra, directed by Paul Jeanes, who takes on this role for the first time this year. The concert will comprise three of Handel’s four wonderfully varied Coronation Anthems (incl. Zadok the Priest) & Haydn’s marvellous Nelson Mass.
We shall gradually add more concert details in the coming months. Tickets will go on sale in early May via this website; with details to follow about the box office in Pinner.
We look forward to seeing you in June at this local Festival of superb music.
Yours,
Professor Anthony J Pinching
Director, Pinner Music Festival