Fishguard Festival of Music launches feast of live classical music next week

This year’s Fishguard Festival of Music/Gŵyl Gerdd Abergwaun concerts will open next week with a concert at Newport Memorial Hall by the Young Music Makers of Dyfed.

The concert on Thursday 18 July at 7.30pm is co-presented with Newport Music Society and showcases some of the finest young musicians in the area.

17 further events will be staged at multiple venues in Pembrokeshire from 19 to 31 July, with the popular Welsh National Opera Orchestra returning to the festival to perform at St David’s Cathedral on Friday 19 July.

Conductor Tomas Hanus will lead a programme that will include Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony and the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with soloist Thomas Verity.

For this concert a return Festival bus service will call at Cardigan (Finch Square), Newport Square, Dinas, (Kiel House), Fishguard Bus Station and Goodwick Square. Bus tickets can be purchased when booking concerts tickets.

Coveted lineup

Other artists performing during the first week of the festival include the Marmen String Quartet, the Welsh National Opera Chamber Orchestra, violinist Braimah Kanneh-Mason with pianist Jâms Coleman and the Bute Wind Quartet.

On Wednesday the 24 July, Fishguard Festival of Music will welcome back its Patron and former Artistic Director Peter Donohoe to give a piano recital at Neuadd y Dderwen, Rhosygilwen.

One of the foremost pianists of our time and winner of the 1982 International Tchaikovsky Competition, Peter will play music by Chopin and Albeniz and the Variations on a Theme of Chopin by Busoni and by Rachmaninov.

Recently, Peter has performed as a soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra and Simon Rattle with four performances of Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie in London, Edinburgh, and Bucharest.

In January, he returned to Philadelphia for performances with the Ama Deus Ensemble and then travelled to Dubai to adjudicate at the 3rd Classic Piano Competition 2024.

Gillian Green MBE, Artistic Director of the Fishguard Festival of Music, said: “The Fishguard Festival has been a showcase for world-class music in West Wales for over fifty years.  We have an excellent line-up this year and will be taking music to a range of venues around Fishguard and St Davids.  There is something for everybody.”

The full programme is available to view on the festival’s website and tickets can be booked via www.fishguardmusicfestival.com