Second Success for Northumberland Music Festival
PRESS RELEASE
Second Success for Northumberland Music Festival
Hundreds of ticket buyers were treated to one of the best celebrations of music the county has seen to date at the 2nd Northumberland Music Festival. The festival included 10 concerts over as many days and featured a real mix of classical, chamber and operatic music, as well as a visit from the renowned Reg Vardy Brass Band. Held at three of Northumberland’s most elegant country houses concert goers were treated to truly magical evenings they would never forget.
Opening the festival at Eshott Hall was the internationally renowned Opera North playing in Northumberland for the very first time. They produced two flawless concerts over two evenings, with four international stars performing a selection of the very best of the companies repertoire. This year each concert was paired with an equally magnificent meal produced by the hotels award winning chefs, ensuring that the evenings would be both a culinary and musical success.
A real highlight of this year’s festival was the Remembrance Sunday concert by the Reg Vardy Brass Band. The award winning band performed hymns and music in the first half of their concert, synonymous with Remembrance Sunday concerts country wide. Following a brief interval the band returned to perform some of the very best hits from musicals, the odd television theme tune, Ghostbusters and Michael Jackson’s Thriller, all of which livened up Doxford Hall’s Edwardian ballroom.
The week continued with a concert from London based Liquid Architecture, Chetham’s School of Music ran a workshop for budding young pianists followed by an evening concert by International Murray McLachlan himself and three of his star pupils. The traditional Northumbrian evening showcased the counties home grown talents with performances from Andrew and Margaret Watchorn and harpist Janet Bennett.
Injecting some youthful enthusiasm into the festival for a second year were the Northumbrian Ranters. A group formed from extremely talented young musicians between the ages of ten and eighteen years old. Close your eyes and you could have been transported to an orchestra with five times the year’s experience, ensuring that these were young musicians with incredible futures ahead of them. They performed flawlessly and the concert was a complete sell out.
Concluding the festival was the return of Much Loved Productions performing Gilbert and Sullivan. These well practiced opera singers performed at both Doxford Hall and Guyzance Hall and bought fun, frivolity and joy to all those who attended. Their concluding performance drew the festival to a close which once again received positive feedback from concert goers.
Robert Parker, owner of the three houses and the brainchild behind the Northumberland Music Festival commented on the second success;
“I was absolutely delighted with the response to the second Northumberland Music Festival. The performers we secured were some of the elite in their respective fields and they really took the festival to the next level. We were once again supporting three charities close to everyone’s hearts and I look forward to putting the foundations together for the 2013 festival”.
Event organizers are starting to put together plans for next year’s event, so look out for details or check the website www.nmfestival.com for details as they emerge.
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Media Contact:
Barbara Huddart
T. 01668 283 044
