Festival 2010

Performances this year took place on June 8th, 9th & 10th.

Festival 2011 will be on June 7th, 8th and 9th next year.
The artists will be announced in the autumn of 2010.

Tuesday 8th June
Thomas Trotter - Organ,
with his guest Roger Owens - Piano

This programme included Piano and Organ duets by Mozart and Milhaud and also Addinsell’s famous Warsaw Concerto, piano solos by Chopin and Mendelssohn as well as scintillating organ solos by Locklair and Wagner.

Thomas Trotter - President, Bledington Music Festival

British virtuoso Thomas Trotter is the Birmingham City Organist and organist at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster Abbey and visiting Professor of Organ at the Royal College of Music, London. The excellence of his musicianship is reflected internationally in his musical partnerships and he performs as soloist with, amongst many others, the conductors Sir Simon Rattle, Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Chailly and Sir Charles Mackerras. He has performed recitals in Berlin’s "Phil-harmonie", the "Gewand-haus" in Leipzig, both the "Musikverein" and the "Konzerthaus" in Vienna and London’s Royal Festival Hall.

Alongside his weekly recitals in Birmingham, Thomas Trotter regularly performs throughout the world and upcoming engagements include performances in France, Luxemburg, Monaco, Iceland, Switzerland, Germany and tours to the USA and Australia. He is an active and sucessful recording artist.

Roger Owens

Described as “one of the most formidable talents to emerge from the Royal College of Music in recent years” (Western Mail), Roger Owens has established himself as one of the most versatile of pianists. His repertoire is unusually wide and ranges from Gibbons to Hoddinott, whose music he has premiered on several occasions. He is well known for his performances of the larger scale solo concertos in the major musical centres of the United Kingdom playing works by Mozart, Beethoven, Grieg, Schumann, Gershwin, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky.

He has appeared regularly with eminent orchestras including the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Roger studied privately with Peter Gould and then at the Royal College of Music with John Barstow MBE, where he was presented with both the Chappell and Tagore Gold Medals. A placement on the Countess of Munster Recital scheme helped to launch his career. He went on to win the Royal Over-Seas League Piano Competition along with the Bryden Thomson recital prize at the Scottish International Piano Competition.

Wednesday 9th June
Philippa Legge - Flute & Greg Smith - Piano and Organ

An Evening of LOVE, ROMANCE & FASCINATION Music for flute, voice and piano by Schumann, Saint-Saëns and
Handel and a second half of songs from My Fair Lady, The Boyfriend, Porgy and Bess, Gilbert & Sullivan and much more!

Due to unforeseen circumstances, Anna Belward - Soprano who was originally intended to sing at this concert, was unable to do so. An alternative programme was presented.

Philippa Legge

Philippa Legge studied the flute with Sebastian Bell, Peter Lloyd and Kathryn Lukas, after winning scholarships to both the Royal Academy of Music and Indiana University School of Music in America. During her studies, Philippa has won many prizes including first prize at the Thornbury Arts Festival, the Mid-Somerset Festival Premier Award, Harrogate Festival Young Musician of the Year, and she was one of four nominees for the award of most promising woodwind player in the prestigious Shell/London Symphony Orchestra competition.

Philippa regularly appears as a recitalist and chamber musician, including two live recitals, for Classic FM’s Friday Live, the Royal Festival Hall, Barbican centres, Indiana University and Ripon Cathedral, a concert of twentieth century music at St. John Smith’s Square where she performed the premier of Stephen Pratt’s Star and Dead Leaves, and recitals for Thornbury Arts Festival, the Ryedale Festival, and Aske Hall in Richmond. Philippa has also performed Mozart’s concerto in D major for the Bath Georgian Festival, Romsey Abbey and Duncombe Park, and Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos for the Bath Georgian Festival and Ryedale Festival. She and Greg Smith are Yorkshire Arts Musicians in Residence.

"It’s a class act: Philippa brings untold dimensions to the art of flute playing.
An extravaganza…" - Natalie Wheen, BBC Radio 4

"…she is establishing herself as a musician of
considerable calibre… " - Darlington & Stockton Times

Greg Smith

Greg Smith graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music in 1993, where he studied organ, piano accompaniment and conducting. He holds the Associate Diploma of the Royal College of Organists, and is a Licentiate of Trinity College, London.

Born in Folkestone, Kent, his early musical training began at Canterbury Cathedral, and whilst at school, Greg won many prizes as an organist and pianist throughout the country. In 1990, one year after joining the RNCM, Greg was the Under 21 winner of the Paisley International Organ Festival, which led to recitals at Clare College, Cambridge, Coventry Cathedral, Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow, and the Royal Festival Hall, London. Greg has gone on to give recitals as an organist and accompanist at many venues throughout the U.K., including Carlisle Cathedral, Cartmel Priory, Newcastle Cathedral, Ripon Cathedral, Rochester Cathedral, Sheffield Cathedral, St. Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh, and Truro Cathedral.

Having previously taught at Ampleforth Abbey and College, Greg is currently on the music staff at Polam Hall School in Darlington. He is Director of Music at St Gregory’s Minster, Kirkdale, Organist and Choirmaster at Northallerton Parish Church, and Principal Conductor and Chorus Director to the North Yorkshire Chorus. During their 2006/2007 season Greg acted as Accompanist with the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus.

Thursday 10th June
Catrin Finch - Harp, with her guest Juliette Bausor - Flute

Their programme included: JS Bach - Sonata in G Minor, Piazzola - Histoire de Tango, Fauré - Fantasie, Borne and Carmen - Fantasie, as well as flute and harp solos.

Catrin Finch - Vice President, Bledington Music Festival

Described as “The Queen of Harps”, Catrin has delighted audiences with her performances in the UK and worldwide. Inspired to learn the harp at the age of five, her rise to prominence started almost immediately, achieving the highest mark in the UK for her Grade VIII exam at the age of nine. She studied with Elinor Bennett for eight years before entering the Purcell School. Catrin graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in 2002 where she studied with Skaila Kanga and received the Queen’s Award for the most outstanding student of her year.

Her first major competition success came in 1999 winning the Lily Laskine International Harp Competition in France, one of the premier harp competitions in the world. Catrin is the former Royal Harpist to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. Holding the appointment from 2000-2004, she had the honour of reviving this ancient tradition last held in 1873. During her period as Royal Harpist she played regularly at the Royal Palaces and performed to Royalty from around the world.

She has performed extensively throughout the U.S.A., the Middle East, Asia and Europe. She has appeared with many of the world’s top orchestras including the Boston Pops, the New York Philharmonic, the Philharmonia, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields at the Barbican’s Mostly Mozart Festival, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the London Mozart Players, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Charlotte Symphony, the Lake Charles Symphony, the North Carolina Symphony and the Manchester Camerata.

2009 saw Catrin’s recording of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations released by Deutsche Grammophon, followed by a UK concert tour of the Goldberg Variations. 2009 also saw the opening of The 'Catrin Finch Centre' in Wrexham, a new £3M state-of-the-art conference and performance centre at Glyndwr University, named to honour Catrin's contribution to the music industry in Wales.

Catrin has appeared on all the major television and radio networks in the UK and many abroad and as has recorded for most of the major international recording companies, including Universal Records, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI and Sony Classical, both solo and with notable artists such as Bryn Terfel, Sir James Galway and Julian Lloyd-Webber.

Known for her work within the community and with the younger generation, Catrin is committed to promoting the harp and classical music in general to a new and wider audience.

Juliette Bausor

Juliette Bausor is Principal flute of Northern Sinfonia at the Sage, Gateshead and also regularly appears as guest Principal flute with many other leading orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Mozart Players, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Juliette studied flute with Anna Pope at the Purcell School of Music in London before attending the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where her flute professors included Philippa Davies, Paul Edmund Davies and Samuel Coles. She went on to further her tuition at the Conservatoire Nationale Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, with Sophie Cherrier and Vincent Lucas.

Subsequent to a string of prestigious accolades, including winning the Gold Medal in the Shell/LSO Competition, Harrods Bank Prize and Gold Medal in the Royal Over-Seas League Competition and reaching the Grand final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year |Competition, Juliette became highly in demand as a soloist and has since appeared as Concerto Soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, Academy of St Martins in the Fields, and more recently with Northern Sinfonia and London Mozart Players. She also enjoys giving chamber and solo recitals throughout the UK, including numerous Wigmore Hall and South Bank appearances and notable collaborations with the Coull, Elias, Badke and Carducci String Quartets, Ensemble 360 , violinist Thomas Zehetmair, soprano Kate Royal and harpist Catrin Finch. Success on an international scale is reflected in tours around Europe and to places as far away as Thailand, Vietnam, The Untied Arab Emirates, Namibia, Australia and New Zealand.

Juliette plays on a Brannen-Cooper flute that was awarded to her by the Foundation for Sports and the Arts.