Swaledale Festival premieres the work of FRSA composer

A new work by composer and RSA Life Fellow, Adrian Rickard, will be premiered at the Swaledale Festival in North Yorkshire.

The Swaledale Festival is a popular music, arts and walking festival held in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales at one of the loveliest times of the year.  

This concert forms part of the Festival’s Young Artists Platform, which consists of a series of concerts by young musicians early in their careers, offering valuable performance experience and helping to raise profiles and build audiences. 

The concert will consist of two works: Home Field – Five Songs for the Dales (music by Adrian Rickard, based on poems by Ann Pilling) and Dvořák’s much-loved ‘American’ Quartet. It will take place at 4.00 pm on Sunday 28^th May 2017 at St Mary and St. Alkeida’s Church, Middleham DL8 4PQ. 

Home Field – Five Songs for the Dales is a setting by Adrian of five poems by the Dales-based poet Ann Pilling. Ann Pilling is a prize-winning poet and writer.  Her poems capture landscape vividly, both in its grandeur and its intimate corners, and depict compassionately the human lives within it. 

The work will be performed by the Behn Quartet and Friends.  The Quartet, Cavatina Chamber Music Fellows this year at the Royal Academy of Music, are joined by two-fellow RAM woodwind players and a talented soprano from Royal Holloway College.

Adrian’s music, unlike some contemporary classical music, is immediately accessible and enjoyable for audiences.  It is characterized by a melodic lyricism, rich harmonies, and constantly shifting tonality. 

When not writing music, Adrian leads the RSA’s Driving Ambition programme in Surrey.  The aim of Driving Ambition is to help prepare young people in education for the world of work.

Further details of the concert are available here.

Online booking opens at 09:00 on 27 March 2017.  Tickets: adults £8, under 25 £3.

Do come along and enjoy music played by highly talented young performers.