Preview: Music at Paxton 2025
Preview: Music at Paxton 2025
This year’s Music at Paxton Festival was launched in the Picture Gallery of Paxton House on Sunday 5th April. Angus Smith, the quietly spoken Artistic Director and his team have again brought together a star cast of musicians in a series of imaginative programmes, with some off-beat surprises.
Helen Charlston’s Lieder recital with the Consone Quartet last year was so good that Angus Smith says he immediately asked her to come back. She presents a wide ranging song recital with pianist Sholto Kynoch, and also a shorter morning concert with Toby Carr, the accompanist on her CD, on theorbo. The Consone Quartet’s three concerts bring them to the end of their three-year residency, distinguished by characterful playing and unexpected choices. This year they premiere a new work by Oliver Leith and, with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s Principal cellist, Philip Higham, play Schubert’s last work, his String Quintet in C.
The Carducci String Quartet marks the 50th anniversary of Shostakovich’s birth and the 150th anniversary of Ravel’s birth in their concert, while the London Handel Players on original instruments play works by JS Bach, CPE Bach and Telemann.
Angus Smith has cherished an ambition to replicate a salon recital in the Picture Gallery, and this year he and the Chloe Piano Trio work with actor Maggie Steed to do just that. She plays the role of the US Singer heiress, who became the Princess de Polignac, and she introduces French music of the 1920s and 1930s. Another concert celebrates Asian music from 1970s Southall led by tabla player Kuljit Bhamra MBE, Shahid Abas Khan singer and Jonathan Mayer on sitar. We’re promised classical Indian music and east-west collaborations.
Two exceptional piano recitals bookend the 10 day festival. On Friday 18th July, Yevgeny Sudbin’s programme ranges from J S Bach to Prokofiev. Pavel Kolesnikov – last seen at Paxton in piano duets with Samson Tsoy – returns with works by Mozart and Ravel on Sunday 27th.
Music at Paxton is keen to expand its links with the community, and Live Music Now Scotland continues to play a major role. They present three concerts in the Marquee during the Festival, and, before the main Festival two free concerts on 4th May and 1st June at Paxton House by the Troppos Quartet and the JKL Duo. There’s also a family concert at the Straw Yard Berwick-upon-Tweed on 22nd June. A project with Duns Primary School was very successful last year and will be repeated. Two of the concerts from the main programme will take place in local churches: St Cuthbert’s Church, Norham, hosts a lute concert by Toby Carr on 23rd July at 5pm and the following morning he takes up the theorbo to accompany Helen Charlston at Duns Parish Church.
After Angus Smith introduced the programme the audience in the Picture Gallery were treated to a short recital by harpist Mary Reid. Originally from Edinburgh she returned there recently and currently works with Live Music Now Scotland, as well as continuing her career as a harpist with major orchestras in the UK. She begins, purely coincidentally she assures us, with a Bach sonata originally written for the lute, and from the golden age of harp music she plays Debussy’s ‘Clair de lune’ and works by his harpist-composer contemporaries. An exciting modern commission by Caroline Lizotte introduces us to parts of the harp we don’t usually hear, and Mary Reid finishes by playing her own version of a traditional tune given to her on Mull where she and her family spent childhood holidays -she insisted that the harp came too.
For full details of Music at Paxton 2025, see the online programme: musicatpaxton.co.uk. Friends’ booking begins on 14th April, and public booking opens on 22nd April. Tickets are reasonably priced, with shorter concerts costing only £10, and evening recitals priced between £26 and £32. Children go free to many performances, and the Cavatina Chamber Music Trust is funding free tickets for under 26 year-olds for some concerts.
