For me, this year’s festival includes a personal highlight: “Contrasts” on Sat 18th July in North Hill, with my dream-team - the Brodsky Quartet plus our guests, pianist Jeremy Menuhin and clarinettist Dimitry Ashkenazy, who are coming over especially from Switzerland.
Let me give you some background. Jeremy’s father, the legendary violinist Yehudi Menuhin, was my teacher and my inspiration. As a teenager I took part in his festival in Gstaad, in the Swiss alps; where as well as encountering other great artists such as Paul Tortelier, Mstislav Rostropovich and Cecil Aronovitz, I would hang out with the young Jeremy Menuhin – in fact, playing the very same Mozart concerto which, 50 years later, we are about play together at St Torney’s.
The idea for this concert was hatched last year over late-night pizza in Bologna. Having just enjoyed performing Brahms’s clarinet quintet with our old partner-in-crime Dimitry, we were discussing our next project together in Switzerland, this time with Jeremy Menuhin, and wishing we could all meet sooner. Messages flew back and forth between Bologna and Zurich; and by the end of the evening, Jeremy and Dimitry had both agreed to join us in Cornwall for the festival.
Mozart’s spring-like piano concerto is paired with Brahms’s autumnal clarinet quintet; and in between, Bartok’s “Contrasts”, premiered in 1938 by jazz clarinettist Benny Goodman and violinist Josef Szigeti, with Bartok himself at the piano. It has hardly ever been played in Cornwall, and we are delighted to perform this unique and exciting piece for you in the majestic setting of St Torney’s Church.
The team of volunteers at North Hill has been working tirelessly to promote this event and help it run smoothly, along with my husband Simon who is physically constructing extra staging so that five musicians plus piano can fit onto the limited performing area. The Yamaha Grand piano is kindly gifted to us for the evening by the Roseland Music Society’s “Piano Circle” project. To learn more and support this piano- sharing service for Cornwall, please visit www.roselandmusicsociety.co.uk
Earlier in the day, the nearby spectacular Trebartha Estate Gardens are open from 2-5, and after the concert you can enjoy a drink at the cosy Old School Inn with entertainment by Trev the pub pianist.
Please note that our opening quartet concert, “Far from Home” is now sold out; so if you want to hear the Brodskys in action, come to North Hill instead!
