| Tamsin Waley-Cohen announces this year’s Two Moors Festival, featuring Benjamin Appl, I Fagiolini, Michael Morpurgo, Albion Quartet, Fretwork, Orsino Ensemble & Consone Quartet |
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| The Two Moors Festival 2022: Friendship |
| Wednesday 5 – Sunday 9 October Dartmoor I Fagiolini, Fretwork Elisabeth Brauss, Albion Quartet Jess Dandy, Nathanial Boyd, Ann Beilby Benjamin Appl, James Baillieu | Thursday 13 – Sunday 16 October Exmoor National Opera Studio Jess Dandy, Orsino Ensemble Michael Morpurgo, Ben Murray Consone Quartet, Alice Zawadski |
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| Tamsin Waley-Cohen Artistic Director |
 | Celebrating the theme of friendship in music, Artistic Director Tamsin Waley-Cohen announces the 2022 Two Moors Festival this October, looking at the friendships surrounding Schumann, Schubert, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Brahms. Acclaimed violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen returns to curate her third Festival in the area, in which she has strong family ties. |
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The internationally-renowned Festival takes place over two extended weekends in October: Dartmoor is the focus for 5-9 October 2022, while concerts taking place from 13-16 October 2022 centre around Exmoor, with concerts held in close proximity to each other in beautiful venues from rural arts centres to cathedrals around the vast and arresting wilderness of the moors of the South West. Highlights of the 2022 Festival include performances of two song cycles – Winterreise with Benjamin Appl and James Baillieu, and Dichterliebe with Anna Dennis and the Consone Quartet – and anniversary celebrations for Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Matthew Locke, in the building where he once carved his name. As part of the opening Dartmoor weekend, the Festival organises a day out to the stately home of Great Fulford for three house concerts “At the Schumanns'”, while celebrated author Michael Morpurgo reads from War Horse in the Exmoor weekend. Tamsin Waley-Cohen, Artistic Director said: “This year I have chosen the theme of “Friendship”. The extended lockdowns and isolations that we have all experienced over these last two years have highlighted ever more indelibly how vital a lifeline our friendships are to us all. John Donne said “No man is an island”, and as usual, he knew what he was talking about. We are exploring this theme throughout the Festival, visiting the home of the Schumanns’, looking at Beethoven, Mozart, and Schumann, Dvorak, Janacek, and Haas, as well as celebrating anniversaries of Vaughan-Williams and Matthew Locke.” Further visiting artists include I Fagiolini, the Albion Quartet, Fretwork, the Orsino Ensemble, Jess Dandy, Elisabeth Brauss, Alice Zawadski and members of the National Opera Studio, and the concerts are interspersed with talks from Laura Tunbridge and Katy Hamilton. |
 | As well as visiting Great Fulford, concerts over the first weekend are held in Exeter’s magnificent medieval Cathedral and in churches in Tavistock and Chagford, local towns in and around Dartmoor National Park, a vast moorland of crags, forests, rivers, wetlands and granite tors. The Park is home to the wild Dartmoor ponies, the temperate rainforest Wistman’s Wood, and has a rich history, from ancient Neolithic tombs to picturesque market towns. |
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| The second weekend’s performances take place in and around Exmoor National Park, with remote landscapes from spectacular coastal views and high sea cliffs to wooded valleys. Many historic and listed churches are found around the moor, which also has a great diversity of wildlife, from lichen to wild red deer. Performances take place in Churches in Dulverton, Dunster, and Wiveliscombe. Dartmoor: Wednesday 5- Sunday 9 October 2022 The Two Moors Festival opens in Dartmoor on the evening of Wednesday 5 October in From Pub to Pulpit, a concert in Exeter Cathedral celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Ralph Vaughan Williams through the folk songs the composer collected and would later arrange as well-loved hymns in The English Hymnal, which Vaughan Williams edited in 1906. Across the moor in Tavistock, the Festival continues on Thursday 6 October in Re-Wilding the Waste Land, as I Fagiolini and director Robert Hollingworth bring to life T.S. Eliot’s ground-breaking poem, which celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2022, in a programme mixing Renaissance music, choral works from Eliot’s time and new works by Joanna Marsh and Shruthi Rajasekar. The Festival returns to Exeter Cathedral on Friday 7 October as Fretwork give a special homecoming for Baroque composer and local chorister Matthew Locke on his 400th Anniversary. As a child in 1638, he graffitied his name into the Cathedral’s organ loft in a carving which was recently rediscovered. He is considered to have written music to some of the earliest English opera – before his pupil Purcell – and would later work in the employ of King Charles II. Canon Precentor James Mustard gives a pre-concert talk. On Saturday 8 October, the Festival recreates a full day of musical life “at the Schumanns'”, with three chamber concerts taking place at the historic estate Great Fulford, the Tudor mansion house which has been the private home of the Fulford family for over 800 years. Following an introductory talk by Laura Tunbridge, Professor of Music at Oxford University, Tamsin Waley-Cohen, cellist Nathanial Boyd and pianist Elisabeth Brauss open the day with Clara Schumann’s Romances for Violin and the Piano Trio No. 2 by Mendelssohn, who had encouraged Clara in her composition. Jess Dandy returns to the Festival alongside Boyd and violist Ann Beilby to bring to life music by Brahms, their younger contemporary, who greatly admired the couple’s music and who would later become close to Clara Schumann. The day draws to a close with Schubert’s intimate Winterreise song cycle performed by Benjamin Appl and James Baillieu in a concert also featuring Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E flat major, performed with the Albion Quartet. The Dartmoor weekend concludes in Chagford as Tamsin Waley-Cohen’s Albion Quartet survey Beethoven’s friendships, joined by Laura Tunbridge, as they pair his String Quartet No. 15 with Schubert’s Quintet in C major of the same decade, his final and finest chamber work. Exmoor: Thursday 13- Sunday 16 October 2022 The Festival resumes in Exmoor on Thursday 13 October as the emerging young artists of the National Opera Studio bring to life a huge variety of operatic extracts in Wiveliscombe. On Friday 14 October, the Orsino Ensemble perform Dedications, a programme of works for wind instruments by Beethoven and Janáček. The members of the Orsino Ensemble, formed in 2018, include the five outstanding wind players: flautist Adam Walker, oboist Nicholas Daniel, clarinettist Matthew Hunt, bassoonist Amy Harman, and horn player Alec Frank Gemmil. Musicologist Katy Hamilton introduces the concert. The closing weekend of the Festival gets underway with four concerts in two towns on Saturday 15 October bringing chamber music, jazz and theatrical music together with performances from the young artists of the annual Young Musicians’ Competition Concert. The day begins in Dunster as local author Michael Morpurgo celebrates the 40th Anniversary of his remarkable best-selling novel War Horse, which has since been turned into an award-winning West End show and film directed by Steven Spielberg. The morning concert sees Morpurgo read from the book with songs from the National Theatre production performed by Ben Murray, who performed in the original run. A pair of unusual string quartets performed by the Consone Quartet form the early evening concert in Bampton: the last movement of Haydn’s “Joke” Quartet leaves the ending hanging in mid-air several times, whereas the opening of Mozart’s “Dissonance” Quartet in C Major starts with a jarringly chromatic theme. Haydn and Mozart were great friends, and the “Dissonance” Quartet is the last of six that Mozart dedicated to the composer. The Consone Quartet specialise in classical repertoire and were the first period instrument string quartet to be selected as BBC New Generation Artists. The day closes in Dulverton with late-night jazz from the multi award-winning vocalist, instrumentalist and jazz star Alice Zawadski. The Festival closes on Sunday 16 October as Anna Dennis joins the Consone Quartet in Schumann’s Dichterliebe, arranged for string quartet and soprano. Schumann’s cycle, written when he was fiercely in love with Clara, tells of a young man rejected in love, who comes to terms with his loss through reconciliation and forgiveness. |
| Dartmoor |
| Wednesday 5 October, evening Exeter Cathedral Ralph Vaughan Williams 150th Anniversary Concert: From Pub to Pulpit Broomdasher Coracle St Peter’s Singers Thursday 6 October, evening St Eustachius’ Church, Tavistock Re-Wilding the Waste Land Byrd, Joanna Marsh, Shruthi Rajasekar, Victoria, Leighton, Vaughan Williams I Fagiolini Robert Hollingworth director Friday 7 October, evening Exeter Cathedral 400th anniversary of Matthew Locke Purcell, Locke, Gibbons Fretwork Choir of Exeter Cathedral Sunday 9 October, morning St Michael the Archangel’s Church, Chagford Children’s Interactive Concert Albion Quartet Sunday 9 October, afternoon Endecott House, Chagford Talk: Laura Tunbridge on Beethoven’s Friendships Sunday 9 October, afternoon St Michael the Archangel’s Church, Chagford Beethoven String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132 Schubert Quintet in C major Albion Quartet Hannah Roberts cello Exmoor Thursday 13 October, evening St Andrew’s Church, Wiveliscombe National Opera Studio Gala Night Programme to include music by Bellini, Bizet, Mozart and Strauss Friday 14 October, afternoon Town Hall, Dulverton Cave Meditation: interactive film Jess Dandy contralto Friday 14 October, evening All Saint’s Church, Dulverton Pre-concert talk with Katy Hamilton Friday 14 October, evening All Saints Church, Dulverton Dedications Beethoven Quintet in E Flat Major, Op. 71 (arr. Rechtman) Reicha Adagio for Cor Anglais and Wind Quartet in D Minor Haas Wind Quintet, Op. 10 Dvořák Romance, Op. 11 for Violin and Wind Quintet (arr. Kay) Janáček Mládí Orsino Ensemble Saturday 15 October, morning All Saints Church, Dulverton 40th anniversary of War Horse Michael Morpurgo author Ben Murray accordion and voice | Saturday 8 October, morning Great Fulford, Dunsford At the Schumann’s: Clara Schumann Three Romances for Violin and Piano, Op. 22 Robert Schumann Selections from ‘Kinderszenen’ (Scenes from Childhood), Op. 15 Mendelssohn Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor, Op. 6 Tamsin Waley-Cohen violin Nathanial Boyd cello Elisabeth Brauss piano Saturday 8 October, afternoon Great Fulford, Dunsford At the Schumann’s: Brahms Cello Sonata No. 1 Songs by Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann and Brahms Jess Dandy contralto James Baillieu piano Ann Beilby viola Nathanial Boyd cello Saturday 8 October, evening St Michael’s Church the Archangel’s Church, Chagford At the Schumann’s: Schumann Piano Quintet in E flat major Schubert Winterreise Albion Quartet Benjamin Appl baritone James Baillieu piano Saturday 15 October, afternoon St Michael and All Angels Church, Bampton Young Musicians’ Competition Winners Concert Emmaline Feast-Michael cello Jemima Price voice Cole Craggs trumpet Annie Banks flute Saturday 15 October, evening The Tithe Barn, Dunster Night Muisc Alice Zawadzki vocalist Saturday 15 October, evening St Michael and All Angels Church, Bampton Haydn String Quartet in E flat, Op. 33, No. 2 Mozart String Quartet in C Major, K. 465 Consone Quartet Sunday 16 October, afternoon All Saints Church, Dulverton Schumann Dichterliebe Anna Dennis soprano Consone Quartet |
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| Two Moors Festival |
 | Since 2001, the Two Moors Festival has welcomed outstanding international artists and the rising stars of the next generation to perform for our large and enthusiastic audiences in one of the most beautiful and unspoilt corners of the UK. |
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| The Festival was founded by the visionary John and Penny Adie in the wake of the Foot and Mouth crisis, which was devastating to the area. They not only started the festival, but maintained it over a nearly 20-year period, developing it with great expertise and imagination into a greatly loved festival in one of the most rural parts of the UK, with an international renown. Performances are given in beautiful and historic venues, including country houses, village halls, rural arts centres, museums, churches, cathedrals, pannier markets and even Nissen huts and railway stations across Devon and West Somerset. Since its foundation, the festival has won widespread acclaim for innovative commissions of operas, song cycles and chamber pieces, and for its work with hundreds of children and adults from local communities. The festival has also helped scores of young musicians and emerging professional artists to take the next step. twomoorsfestival.co.uk |