This year there is a special festival theme: ‘A Celebration of the Human Voice’. The celebration encompasses singing in many different styles and also the spoken word. Two famous vocal ensembles will appear at the Festival: The King’s Singers and Tenebrae Consort. We welcome LYRA - a tremendous vocal quartet from St. Petersburg, and one of the great jazz vocalists - Liane Carroll. Local community choir the Swale Singers will give a concert, and two other regional amateur choirs - Werca’s Folk from Morpeth and Northern Voices from Darlington - will share an evening event. Royal Northern Sinfonia will bring the superb tenor James Gilchrist to give a concert of songs by English composers, and north east soprano Rowan Pierce will give a recital as part of the Festival’s Young Artists Platform. Rowan’s is definitely a name to watch for the future.
The spoken word is represented by Adam Hart-Davis, who will give this year's Reeth Lecture and poet David Scott, who will read his own poetry. The Yorkshire Film Archive will screen a selection of film clips which contain some fascinating examples of Yorkshire dialect, and local folk group Fourum will sing their own songs about the life and history of the Dales.
The programme contains lots of non-vocal items, of course. Look out for violinists Magdalena Filipczak and Harriet Mackenzie, Black Dyke Band, double bass virtuoso Leon Bosch, pianist Michael Brough, the Skampa String Quartet, guitar wizard Stuart Masters, Kathryn Tickell and the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. As always, there is plenty for everyone!