Events at The Bushell Hall,
Birkenhead School

ENSEMBLE EPOMEO string trio
Clare Hammond piano
Peter Davison narrator

Friday 8 February at 7.30pm

Mahler, Movement for piano quartet
Traditional sea shanties sung by BarLine
Melissa Dunphy, Captain Samuels speaks to the sea!
Andrew Keeling, piano quartet – Reclaiming Eros
Beethoven, Serenade op.8

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JAMES GILCHRIST tenor
ANNA TILBROOK piano


Thursday 7 March at 7.30pm

A tribute to Benjamin Britten
Programme includes:
Songs by Purcell (arr. Britten and Tippett)
Britten, My beloved is mine, Winter Words
as well as works by Berkeley, Vaughan Williams,
Quilter, Warlock, Gurney & Bridge

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NORIKO OGAWA piano

Friday 26 April at 7.30pm

    

Programme includes:
Debussy: Estampes, Two Preludes, The Joyous Isle,
Images (Book II) & selection from Twelve Studies
Fujieda, Gamelan Arabesque Takemitsu, Closed Eyes II
Kanno, A Particle of Rainbow for piano and kabuki bells
From 18.30-19.25 and during the interval, Yukiko Ayres
will demonstrate the art of shodo (Japanese calligraphy)

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PETER DAVISON narrator/lecturer

ALAN MILLS piano

Saturday 18 May at 7.30pm

From Mendelssohn to Einstein:
An extraordinary tale in words, music and pictures,
including Preludes and Fugues for piano by
J.S. Bach, Mendelssohn & Shostakovich

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Welcome to the Two Rivers Festival 2013.......

We are delighted once more to introduce the programme of the Two Rivers Festival. In 2013 you will find a mixture of familiar faces and new ideas. The American chamber group, Ensemble Epomeo returns to open the series on Friday 8 February with a programme which includes the European premiere of Captain Samuels speaks to the sea! for string trio and narrator. Co-commissioned by this festival with the Newburyport Chamber Music Festival in the USA, the work tells the story of Samuel Samuels who skippered the Dreadnought, which made the fastest ever transatlantic crossing by a sail-ship between New York and Liverpool in 1859. We are pleased also to welcome tenor, James Gilchrist, on Thursday 7 March to perform songs by English composers in dedication to Benjamin Britten, whose Centenary falls in 2013. Gilchrist is probably the finest interpreter of music from this tradition, which includes Vaughan Williams, Ivor Gurney, Roget Quilter and Britten himself.

For our third concert on Friday 26 April, we are delighted to welcome back Japanese pianist, Noriko Ogawa, whose profile has continued to rise following her vivid celebration of Debussy’s music at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall in 2012. She brings more Debussy to the Two Rivers Festival, as well as a varied selection of recent Japanese music by Takemitsu, Fujieda and Kanno, in which the sound of bells can be heard. The concert will be preceded by a demonstration of Japanese calligraphy. Finally, on Saturday 18 May, the festival’s Artistic Director, Peter Davison, is joined by Irish pianist, Alan Mills, in a lecture-recital telling the story of Mendelssohn’s visit to North Wales and its unlikely connection to the turbulent history of the last century.

Please use our on-line booking facility. If you go to the booking page and click on the link, it will take you through to the box office. As ever, we remain grateful to the Headmaster of Birkenhead School for providing the magnificently refurbished Bushell Hall as the venue for the festival in 2013, and we look forward to seeing you and your friends at many of our events during the coming season.

Click here >>> to download a brochure for the 2013 festival.

Andrew Thomson and Peter Davison introduce
  the first concert of Two Rivers Festival 2013

Watch the video here >>>