Music set to blow for the Roman River Festival (From Gazette)

Music set to blow for the Roman River Festival

8:40am Friday 30th September 2011 in Leisure By Neil D'Arcy-Jones

LEADING classical musicians will be filling north-east Essex churches with beautiful music from this weekend.

The 12th Roman River Music Festival begins on Saturday and once again, churches including St Mary’s, Peldon, St Andrew’s, Fingringhoe and St Barnabas, Great Tey, will play host to concerts offering works ranging from Mozart’s clarinet quintet, to Bach cello suites and a Beethoven string quartet.

Cellist Orlando Jopling, the festival’s artistic director, says: “This year the festival touches on ideas of heaven and hell, setting heavenly inspiration by Mozart, Allegri, Bach and Howells alongside fire and brimstone from Beethoven, Bartok and others.

“We are thrilled to be performing for the First time in the beautiful church at Great Tey, the source of the Roman River.

“Other highlights will include Juliet Jopling’s exciting new quartet from Oslo, the Engegard Quartet, well-known musicians Ian Brown and Adrian Brendel, and my favourite clarinettist, Matt hew Hunt.”

New for this year is the Opera in a Weekend event, which runs this Saturday and Sunday at Firstsite Gallery, in Colchester, and three family concerts.

The concerts are all on on October 8 and can be enjoyed at Nayland Village Hall at 11.30am, in Greenstead Community Centre at 2pm and Abberton and Langenhoe Village Hall at 4pm.

Before that, the festival opens with a performance by a choral group which is widely regarded as one of the UK’s best, the Armonico Consort, directed by Christopher Monks.

The consort will be singing Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere Mei, Deus as well as works by Henry Purcell and Thomas Tallis.

The opening concert is at St Barnabas Church, Great Tey, on Saturday at 6pm.

The festival will close on October 9 with a performance of Handel arias at St Edmund’s Church, East Mersea, and a jazz evening at Abberton Village Hall.

For full details of the festival, go to www.romanriver music.org.uk