Music, literature, film, arts dance
The Ealing Autumn Festival is a new arts Festival with an international flavour yet still firmly rooted in its local community.
The Ealing Autumn Festival will be opening on October 15th in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Liszt and all things Hungarian.
Music, art, literature, film, dance and a smattering of technology are represented, with family friendly events and a programme of half-term activities including Art Games workshops, storytelling and films. The Piano Workshop will dismantle and reassemble (we hope!) a piano and there will be "Journey to the Centre of the PIano", family friendly concert to demonstrate how the piano works.
The second week of the Festival is in support of Cancer Research UK. John Sargeant will be visiting the Festival on Oct 29th as the celebrity guest. Charity Day Tickets are available for this date and also for Oct 22nd which is in support of the Mayor of Ealing's charities.
Contributors from the international circuit include:
Dmitri Alexeev, pianist, who gave such a memorable piano recital last year, and this year is joined by Katrina Sheppeard, soprano of English National Opera
George Szirtes, recipient of the TS Eliot Prize for Poetry 2005
Muzsikás, Hungary's leading folk music ensemble
Kees Wattjes, Dutch artist-in-residence, presenting Art Games
Dmitri Alexeev and Tanya Sarkissova are bringing a line-up of 8 young international virtuosi to play Liszt's Années de Pèlerinage, a cycle of three books of piano music that span almost the entirety of the composer's creative life. They are led by Karim Said, protege of Daniel Barenboim, and are joined by Ben Baker, violin, for a unique combined performance of Liszt's Grandes Études de Paganini and the Paganini Caprices that inspired them.
The Joyful Company of Singers are presenting choral music by Liszt and Kodaly and there is a variety of events showcasing some of the best that Ealing has to offer, including the West London Sinfonia who open the Festival concerts with a programme of Hungarian orchestral music.
There are screenings of rarely seen Hungarian films, classics such as Casablanca and the The Third Man that were made by Hungarian film-makers and ballet on film: Margot Fonteyn and Rudolph Nureyev who dance to Liszt's B minor Piano Sonata with choreography by Sir Frederick Ashton in Marguerite and Armand. Hungarian folk dancing will take place in Ealing Broadway Shopping Centre.
The Hungarian Cultural Centre and the Hungarian Culture and Heritage Society support this year's Festival and the Countess Ilona Esterházy of the British-Hungarian Society will open the Hungarian National Day on Oct 23rd with her "Vision of Hungary in Europe".
As a postscript, Norman Lebrecht picked up on the Festival on August 11th just after the riots in Ealing: see www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc. Last Sunday he announced our Call for Metronomes for a performance of Ligeti's Poème Symphoniques for 100 Metronomes on Oct 29th. Know anyone with a metronome?
On Sunday 30th October at 4:30pm in the Victoria Hall, Ealing Town Hall there will be the world premiere of Bite: a Vampire Rock Opera. Tickets £5 Duration 65 minutes. Written by Kevin Jackson and Colin Minchin (an Ealing resident) www.bitetheopera.com
read more about the festival here
12 October 2011