Music and Politics; Baroque, Folk and Creative Writing

Week 2 dazzles with politics, alongside folk music, Shakespeare and Ovid. Laurence Cummings directs the Dartington Choir in Handel‘s Saul, a wildly exciting oratorio with witches, bad kings, battles and huge choruses. Robert Howarth and Richard Williams direct Handel‘s opera Agrippina, a show-stopping satire on Nero’s scheming court, with the original Tiger Mother. The gorgeous contralto Hilary Summers lends her warmth and wisdom to the vocal masterclass; stylish Andrew Watts directs vocal workshops.

There’ll be masterclasses and workshops with Adrian Butterfield, Richard Tunnicliffe, Gail Hennessey, Andy Watts, Bukolika Piano Trio and Jill Kemp; Steven Devine runs early keyboard classes, and Joanna MacGregor a piano workshop on Baroque dance and Chopin Mazurkas.

There’s a full week of folk courses led by renowned teacher Alistair Anderson, folk singer, song writer and concertina player Emily Portman, and fiddler Alexis Bennett; Harbottle & Jonas direct Dartingon’s Folk Choir. James Runcie leads Creative Conversations, and examines the complete Shakespeare Sonnets; Katrina Porteous creates the poetry of place; we’ll read Ovid late night. All this and our traditional ceilidh, too!