Back in March we had the most delightful recital of Beethoven trios with Joana Ly, Dorothea Vogel and Kirsten Jenson. So delightful that I found it really hard to chose just a few clips to include for you – I wanted to give you the whole recital. Such joyous music – and obviously giving as much pleasure to the musicians to play as it was to us to hear.
However, I restrained myself and here are two short extracts.
The reason I have not given them to you before is because I wanted to combine them with news about Joana and Martin’s very splendid Islington Festival in July now, amazingly, in its sixth year.
This year’s festival, The words Beneath the Sound, celebrates the union of music and literature, exploring pieces of music that took inspiration from poems, novels, plays and folk stories. On your journey you will visit the familiar worlds of Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Oscar Wilde, ETA Hoffman and Dante as well as other less well known pieces such as Dora Pejacevic’s Piano Quartet.
Very sensibly, Jo and Martin have gathered all of these offerings into two really packed weekends – 24-26th July and 30th July-2nd August – with two or three events on each day. This means that you can just dedicate a whole weekend (or indeed two) to the festival, starting with a coffee concert in the morning, going on to some jazz in the piazza and ending up at a concert in St Mary’s or a recital in the Little Angel Theatre. Which leaves just enough time to potter around Upper Street getting a delicious snack and do some excellent window shopping. Or, of course, you could also just pick your favourite concerts and go to them.
As always, there is an excellent mix and you can find the full line up here on the What’s On page.
The coffee concerts (my personal favourite as who can resist a cup of good coffee, a chocolate brownie and some Haydn on a Sunday morning) happen on both weekends. And indeed it was at a coffee concert last year that I first heard those Beethoven trios that we played last month.
Full on concerts happen both at St Mary’s in Upper Street and Christ Church in Highbury – Chausson, Mahler and Schubert on 24th July; Poulenc, Mozart, Suk and Pejačević on the 25th; Beethoven, readings from Tolstoy and Janáček on the 2nd August.
Recitals – Intesa with their viols and voice; cellist Miguel Ángel Villeda Cerón with Bach, Kodály and Sollima; Chantefable‘s Edward Elgar meets Oscar Wilde; pianist Dmitrii Kalashnikov with Chopin, Beethoven and Schumann and Martin and Joana themselves with their Matinée Musical.
And in between all of those you could catch up with jazz or swing dancing at the Angel Central Piazza, plus some Folklore with a saxophone and an accordion. Or you could do some yoga accompanied by a harp – or visit an art exhibition! It is just all go……
And if you think all of that is totally irresistible, you could buy yourself a festival pass for a mere £170 which would let you into every one of those events – if you have the energy…… I have just bought one!
For other concerts in and around Highgate see our Upcoming events page.
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