listening 0708

I'm a bit listened out after the Festival, and I've been reading to clear my head a bit. While I'm half way through a few non-fiction books in preparation for our Literature Weekend, the books I have devoured in the last fortnight include:

• Ken Follett - The Pillars of the Earth
• Neil Gaiman - American Gods
• Maurice Dantec - Babylon Babies
• Charlie Higson - Hurricane Gold
  
• Nicholas Shakespeare - Secrets of the Sea
  

behind

despite my 19 June post detailing the amount of work to get done before the 2008 Festival that had nothing really to do with the 2008 Festival, I have both the September Literature brochure and Abbotsholme Arts Society brochure still to do. At least the Abbotsholme brochure is at the printers (proofs available tomorrow) and the website has already been proofed and is just waiting for a green light to go live, the September Literature brochure is further behind than all the plans and schedules (and best of intentions) should allow. This is due to the planning of events only. I've been caught out slightly by the fact that we've brought the event forward a fortnight (otherwise I wouldn't be as behind as I'm feeling), and programming Literature events requires a slightly different way of thinking than normal performance events, especially when we aren't in daily conversations with publishing houses. I'm still learning the subtleties of dealing with literary agents, publishers' marketing departments, and directly with authors. Sometimes I get things very wrong. All the time I am trying to build up this wee event from nothing with no other history than what the Festival and the City can offer. The proximity to the main Festival is also awkward on a purely organisational level, but I only have myself to blame for that...
On top of that, the Festival's excellent designer, yellow, has just had twins.

after a weekend in london

back in the office after a few days off and a weekend in London seeing stuff, including the BP Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery, Noel Coward's Brief Encounter by the brilliant Kneehigh Theatre, National Theatre of Scotland's Black Watch at the Barbican, and Muzsikas performing with the London Sinfonietta at the free Folk Prom yesterday afternoon. At the Barbican I bumped into Tim Sutton, a composer that the Festival is commissioning for 2009, fresh back from performing in NTS's The Bacchae in New York. So fantastic to finally hear Muzsikas live, having listened repeatedly to their Bartok cds with Marta Sebestyen. Their performance in the Royal Albert Hall and interspersing their music in between Bartok's Romanian Dances was a definite highlight. Unfortunately had to leave afterwards so missed Prom 5, but really enjoyed listened to Bellowhead in the car journey home.
Posts will revert to one or two a week or one whenever I have something of interest to share...

the debrief

traditionally, the wednesday afternoon after the festival has finished is when the team gathers around to discuss what went wrong, what we could fix for future years, and how best to go about it all. We generally divide the meeting into events in and around the cathedral, events in and around Lichfield Garrick Theatre, all other venues, then education, sponsors and volunteers. All in all things seem to have all gone rather well, except for the occasional improvement that could have been made to the presentation of a handful of events.

the round up

immediately after recent festivals we've tried to get a festival round up out to sponsors. It is early days yet, and we're still sifting through audience, artist and press response, but this is what we've come up with so far...

Our Highlights…

A Grand Opening concert featuring American Marin Alsop’s farewell performance as Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Russian pianist Alexei Volodin playing an American/Russian programme.

Sell-out performance by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain in Lichfield Cathedral, including Wuthering Heights, Teenage Dirtbag, and Kiss’ God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll to You.

The specially formed Lichfield Festival Chorus performing The Traveller, the latest in a series of Lichfield Festival commissions by Alec Roth and Vikram Seth, with Mark Padmore and the Britten Sinfonia.

100 young people from across the West Midlands reading their own poetry on stage at the Garrick Theatre, following workshops with professional poets Polarbear and John Berkavitch as part of the Choices education project.

Full houses for The Hairy Bikers and The Puppini Sisters, dancing in the aisles for Los de Abajo, the first performance by Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis of Schubert’s Winterreise, and British concerto debuts by Marie-Elisabeth Hecker and Alexei Volodin.

Facts & Figures…

• 75 events over 10 days with over 400 artists from the UK, America, Mexico, Finland, Denmark, France, Russia and Germany
• 11,868 attendees at ticketed events
• 8,800 visual arts exhibitions attendees (excluding footfall from concert attendees)
• 498 participants in education projects
• 228 attendees at schools performances
• 40,000 people attended free events including the Medieval Market and Festival Fireworks
• Rosie Kay Dance Company, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia and Acoustic Triangle all Pick of the Week for dance, classical and jazz in the Guardian Guide.
• Lichfield Festival was listed as one of the Top 5 Events, Top Five Classical and Top Five Jazz in The Times’ The Knowledge
• Lichfield Festival listed in the Five best talks & festivals in The Independent’s The Information
• 4-star review in The Guardian for the newly formed Lichfield Festival Chorus performing Alec Roth and Vikram Seth’s The Traveller with the Britten Sinfonia.
• 4-star reviews in The Birmingham Post for Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Mark Padmore’s Die Winterreise
• National, Regional and local press coverage providing over 11.5million opportunities to see or hear about the Lichfield Festival

What the press said:

“…… the performance was very fine indeed, with Roth conducting the Britten Sinfonia and the Lichfield Festival Chorus, which was founded especially to perform this work and acquitted itself marvellously”
The Guardian 4-star review for The Traveller

“Close on ten million people watched the Dr Who season finale on Saturday. Paul Groves was one of the lucky ones. He was at Lichfield Cathedral watching the wonderful Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain”
The Birmingham Post, LifeStyleBlog

“On Monday night the Lichfield Festival presented a moving, memorable account of this finest work in the genre from two of our finest young artists….The Lady Chapel, with its natural unforced acoustic was packed with rapt listeners”
The Birmingham Post 4-star review of Die Winterreise with Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis

“Festival Director Richard Hawley is to be congratulated for bringing such popular international artists to the Garrick, thus widening the appeal of The Lichfield Festival to audiences who have not previously visited the theatre”
Lichfield Mercury on The Puppini Sisters

“Everyone knows the script; contemporary classical music is complex, intimidating and elitist. It’s scored for impractical forces, deals with obscure philosophical concepts and sounds so unpleasant that the words ‘world premiere’ on a programme guarantee an empty hall…. In which case, the Lichfield Festival is singing from a completely different hymn sheet”
Birmingham Metro on The Traveller

And the participants:

“Best thing I’ve ever sung in and Vikram Seth signed my score”
Julia Beech, Festival Chorus member on performance of The Traveller with the Britten Sinfonia

“I LOVED the workshop. It was a really good idea to get us all to do a little rhyme at first. I liked my poem and I love writing. It’s really inspiring and I loved it.=) I can’t wait to perform…I’m nervous but excited. “
India, Kettlebrook PRU on education project Choices

“The Lichfield Festival is a veritable oasis: charming, majestic, intimate and moving”
Marin Alsop

“It’s always such a pleasure to come to Lichfield. The Festival has the highest artistic standards, wonderfully varied programming and an exceptionally friendly atmosphere – a winning combination”
Alec Roth

And the audience:

“The combination of the film and the music was brilliant, exquisite, fantastic. We were enraptured throughout…”
Susan May on Shiraz

“…I shall certainly no longer switch off whenever Messiaen’s music comes over the air-waves. Thank you, Lichfield Festival…””
Marjorie Callow on Thomas Trotter’s Messiaen organ recital

the day after

post-festival blues won't kick in until next week probably, but it is such an odd feeling to have had an intense run of days come to a screeching halt. The Festival boards and banners are already down, the marquees are at ground level already, and the visual arts is slowly coming out of the cathedral. By tomorrow it will look as if there wasn't a festival at all, and we start the whole process of informing people about the Festival again. 360 days until we start next year's...
The team are all in, as are most of the runners. We're trying to sort through tickets numbers and box office income, collate critical feedback and artist comments, and try to make sense of it all...

day eleven.three

back home after a bash for the volunteers in the knowledge that the festival production team have several hours of work still to do before they are out of the cathedral this evening. the work the volunteers do it priceless, although we do try to allocate a cost to it for when we discuss it with funders. It is important to thank them all somehow, but I wonder whether the sit down meal we have might be replaced by something event more appropriate - not certain what at this stage...
we'll have a full house of runners in the morning to help with cleaning everything up, but for the moment, I am one g&t down already, and it won't be long before I collapse in a small heap.
Marie-Elisabeth Hecker came to the bash and it took very little convincing to entice her back to Lichfield. Watch this space - I think we might be seeing more of her here very soon.

day eleven.two

so nice to wander down and see Minster Pool full of fishermen competing in the Lichfield Fishing Festival. This wonderfully random event umbrella-ed by the Lichfield Festival rasied important funds for a local charity. Brilliant!

day eleven.one

last day of the Festival... It's a perfectly sunny day (finally) and the cathedral seems pretty clear of the Festival's equipment with both the Festival and cathedral teams working immediately after last night's concert to turn things around for the Festival Service.
And what a concert - Marie-Elisabeth's Dvorak was fantastic, and Alexander Shelley brilliantly contained the energy of the Rimsky-Korsakov. The performance was a big deal for both musicians, being Philharmonia debuts for both, and I remain a little surprised that no one from MEH's management were here to support her. In amongst sponsor meals and being present front-of-house for a few audience enquiries, I did not even have the opportunity to say hello to Jackie, Liane and Sara of The Passion. I knew that they were here and happy, and I have heard from people who were there how brilliant their event was (I went to Bristol to see it last year) but I regret not having the chance to go and say hello.
After starting the fireworks around 10.20, we then went for a late meal with Alexander Shelley, piling back to the Close in the wee hours.
We've had no email since about 5pm yesterday so there may be things yet that I'm not aware of...

day ten.four

managed to catch the first 20 minutes of Stone City Voices, the culmination of a two project working with Lichfield Poets and David Calcutt. Sounded really good to hear all these different interpretations of people throughout history and the personalities behind the various sculptures around town, and it had a healthy poetry audience.
Alexander Shelley is coming toward the end of his Sheherezade rehearsal and it's sounding excellent in the cathedral space...

day ten.three

great to have Alina Ibragimova back in Lichfield. Slightly weird for her though. She has been on tour all week with the Philharmonia Orchestra and performed last night in Tewkesbury. Arriving this morning she saw the Philharmonia truck outside the cathedral and freaked out slightly that she was going to play Bruch violin concerto again...
Her concert with Cedric is up and away and sound really nice, although there is about half the audience I expected because in between Mozart and Beethoven she's performing Szymanoswki - repertoire that is still slightly off piste for audiences here...

day ten.two

James Trollope has just won the 10th Festival dash with a time of 58.56

day ten.one

and suddely in blogland its a new day. Raining heavily and full of people running around the cathedral close. Today is the 10th Festival Dash, which is modelled on the Chariots of Fire race against the noon chimes.
Last night's events were fantastic. Humph Remembered was a really moving occasion, seeing Humph's band playing to a packed cathedral. Apparently people kept coming up to them at breakfast in their hotel saying what a great night they had...
Los de Abajo took the Garrick audience by storm, and within minutes people were up in the aisles dancing. Such a high energy gig - they ended right in amongst the audience before piling out into the Green Room bar and continuing to jam out there.
And then the extraordinary contrast of Ensemble 360 performing Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time in a darkened Lady Chapel. Such a profound piece and I think it was their first performance of it in a church. Ensemble 360 are now off on their holiday (the first one left this morning at 5am for Italy).
Anna Pavord is currently on stage talking about her latest book The Naming of Names and Alina Ibragimova and Cedric Tiberghien are rehearsing in the Lady Chapel for their lunchtime concert. The Philharmonia truck turned up at 7 this morning in readiness for this afternoons rehearsal. Despite it being pretty much the last day, things are still manic.
...and Alexander Shelley has just walked in...

day nine.four

Brian Perkins is safely in Lichfield...

day nine.three

Los de Abajo came to the cathedral and were caught in the rush of cars picking up students from the school. They were noticed by one of the Festival team and redirected to the Garrick where they are due to have a meal before sound checking in about 40 mins.
The Humphrey Lyttelton Band are also here and happy and are sounding great in the cathedral. Brian Perkins though is still stuck on a train somehwere between Northampton and Birmingham.

day nine.two

the Badke Quartet and Marie-Elisabeth Hecker did such a great job on the Schubert, and the capacity audience in the Lady Chapel seemed really, moved by the performance. Second time for MEH, and first time for the Badke, so it did have that slightly on edge energy that I had been hoping for. It was a first class concert.
Managed to pop into the school's screening of Shiraz at the Garrick trying to catch the half of the performance that I missed last night. Great to see so many kids in watching a film that they would otherwise never have watched. Both Sabri and I have been getting positive feedback from last night's performance - I really hope that we are able to get this up as a performance tour.
Ensemble 360 are currently in the Lady Chapel rehearsing Quartet for the end of Time, but they are only three quarters here - Matthew Hunt arrived home after weeks on the road to find his cellar flooded, so he's coming for the later rehearsal patch...

day nine.one

this morning includes a four-star review from the Guardian for The Traveller.
'...the performance was very fine indeed, with Roth conducting the Britten Sinfonia and the Lichfield Festival Chorus, which was founded especially to perform this work and acquitted itself marvellously.'
Well done to all involved.

day eight.five

yet another incredible evening here in Lichfield despite the insessant rain. Firstly we had a comfortably packed St Michael's church for the Elias Quartet (great to see them all again since their first performance here a year ago - two have left Lichfield already, while the other two are staying for tomorr'w Ensemble 360 performance).
Then we had the world premiere of the Festival commission Shiraz - I managed to see the first 40 mins, and I thought Sabri had done such an excellent job on bringing the film to life. We also had several venues and a few film festivals in, so maybe we'll be able to resurrect the touring plans after all (we've also had interest from Istanbul and Dubai).
and from my office, I can hear the second half starting up of Acoustic Triangle and the Sacconi Strings who are performing to another larger audience than I had expected - we've turned the cathedral so they ar performing in the round, and it sounds spectacular.
And the really nice thing is that everyone has been going to everyone else's gigs. Badke and Sacconi players were at Elias. Elias are at Acoustic Triangle. and the audiences have been running from event to event as well. A good night...

day eight.four

just back from my interview with BBC Asian Network for the Nikki Bedi show (although in Nikki's absence, I was interviewed by Noreen). Had a 10 minute opportunity to talk about Shiraz and the Sabri Ensemble and gave tonight's event a bit of a plug. The BBC very kindly sent a car which meant that I coul prep on the way in and sleep on the way back. A small but vital gesture that really, really helped make a big difference.
Back in the Close, things are weirdly quiet - most of our runners have been sent home because there is apprarently nothing really to do.

day eight.three

Division Flute is up and running and sounding really good in the Lady Chapel space. Managed to overhear the Badke Quartet rehearsing Schubert String Quartet with Marie-Elisabeth Hecker - tomorrow will be very special I think...

day eight.two

Alec Roth is just leaving Lichfield. It is always so nice having him around. I showed him some of the photographs of the rehearsal - Mike Barr has actually managed to capture the moment when Alec met the Lichfield Festival Chorus. Mike was also there at the performance two nights ago, so there are bound to be some intriguing photos coming through over the next few days.

day eight.one

the players for today's Division Flute have all finally arrived. Richard Campbell stayed at my place last night. Emma Murphy has come up by train, surprised at how quick and easy it was from London. No idea how Arngeir got here, but he is, and Bill Lyons drove up about 20 minutes ago. David Gordon stayed overnight after his ZUM performance. I've also spotted Martin Perkins so I know the harpsichord is here.

day seven.eight

back in the office briefly after clocking Polarbear's performance of If I Cover My Nose You Can't See Me... This is such a great event. Really, really brilliant. I'm thrilled that I've brought this to Lichfield. We had a really wide ranging audience, from core festival attenders trying something out to young punters I've never seen before at a Festival event. Really great. House was probably half full, which for a 10pm poetry event is pretty good (this is also according the Sarah and Natasha from Apples & Snakes who are far more adept at gauging poetry audiences than me). The team has long days right to the end of the Festival now, so I'm off to where I am staying where I'll hopefully catch a few musicians still up...

day seven.seven

Funny how things work out. I caught the first half of the fantastic ZUM tonight at the Garrick - brilliant musicians with excellent comic timing. Malcolm Creese, who was depping for regular bass player Jani Pensola, leads tomorrow's Acoustic Triangle. David Gordon, the pianist and composer behind ZUM, is performing harpsichord for tomorrow lunchtime's Division Flute. I met a violinist from the Britten Sinfonia who stayed overnight to play this evening with La Serenissima. These are little things, but are indicative of what a Festival should be about.
We have three quarters of the Elias Quartet fresh up from Cheltenham and Marie-Elisabeth Hecker has just arrived into Lichfield Trent Valley.
La Serenissima's repertoire is sounding glorious in the cathedral, despite the relatively small audience. So great to see the wonderful Roger Montgomery playing natural horn up the back. I remember Adrian Chandler's and my original discussions about La Serenissima's performance at this year's festival, and the date was fixed around Roger's Royal Opera House schedule over a year ago. I haven't seen Roger since we worked together at the Australian National Academy of Music nearly a decade ago.

day seven.six

walked into the main office to find that we finally have a new photocopier, dragging us ever closer to the 21st century. It's smaller, it's faster, and it can even be networked as a printer. For an organisation based in a 15th-century building in an 8th-century cathedral close, even things as bland as photocopiers remain thrilling additions to our everyday life...

day seven.five

I've just had a link sent through for a Rachel Harrison's blog. Rachel, who is Audience Development Manager for Audiences Central, was at the Puppini's gig last Friday and from all accounts had a really great night.

day seven.four

two interviews for tomorrow's Shiraz have been confirmed. BBC Asian Network are sending a car for me tomorrow afternoon to pop into the BBC Mailbox Studios for an interview all about the background to the film and the commission, as well as what else is going on for the last days of the Festival. Ruchi Tandon from BBC Local Radio Asian is coming to interview Sabri and me as well as review the actual performance for a small audio piece which will be sent out after the event to 12 local radio stations.

day seven.three

review just in for Monday evening's Winterreise. Five stars from the Birmingham Post - "The Lady Chapel, with its natural, unforced acoustic, was packed with rapt listeners" - nice!

day seven.two

just heard from Chris Grist of ZUM who have turned up for our 2pm gig at Hoar Cross only to find a funeral going on... our team is heading out to catch them...

day seven.one

back to reality now. I've been in the office for a few hours gearing up to start to deal with the (very few) formal complaint letters we've had so far. Just gone through the day with a few members of my team, and this is my first chance to hear how yesterday's FEAST events out at Brewood and Barlaston went with ZUM3. I think we've set a new record for the smallest audience with 18 people at Brewood (in a chuch that seats 250+) and Barlaston had just over 40 people. However, I feel that this is the first time, certainly since I've been here, that we are going to places that are just slightly beyond where the current Lichfield Festival audience would think to go (Brewood being 20 miles west and Barlaston being 27 miles northwest of Lichfield), so the people that did go are pretty much new audiences for us, and need nurturing and developing. Part of doing this is trying to link content in Lichfield to stuff that we are taking out to these rural communites, and it all culminates with ZUM playing the Garrick Theatre this evening - thankfully to more than 18 people.
Professor Brian Hurwitz arrived from London this morning and is currently doing his soundcheck for his lecture Literary Imagination in Medical Practice - should be fascintating.

day six.seven

post-The Traveller... we've done it. Lichfield Festival Chorus has just done its very first performance and it deserves to be exceptionally proud. It felt really great to be singing on stage actually, and such a privilege to be performing that music setting those words in that space. I honestly feel it was a privilege to be singing with all those people as well. I've been involved right from the very first rehearsal and seen a group of people with different backgrounds, different singing experiences, and different parts of the community all grow and come together into its own community. This is very much down to Jeffrey Skidmore from Ex Cathedra. I've worked with Jeffrey since I arrived in the West Midlands in 2001, but this is the first time that I've really been able to follow his process from the inside. He's really extremely good (as is his team of vocal tutors from Ex Cathedra Education). I feel really proud to have been part of the inaugural Lichfield Festival Chorus.
I was one of the last people off stage, and was caught side of stage chatting to members of the Britten Sinfonia and the BBC crew, so completely missed the buzz in the chorus dressing room immediately after the show. I managed to pick up a strong wish to do something next year (which is good, because that is what I have been planning to do) and to keep the momentum going.
Alec Roth seemed really, really thrilled, and Vikram was also busy talking to members of the choir and signing programmes.
Off for a meal now with Alec and Vikram and a few others...

day six.six

just out from a pre-concert talk with Vikram Seth and Alec Roth. We had the rare privilege of hearing Vikram spontaneously reading the complete Six Ages - the poems that he was commissed to write for this evening's The Traveller along with millions of translations based on the ages of man. Really nice comment from the audience about how projects like this, where it is fundamentally about bringing otherwise disparate age groups together (Lichfield Festival Chorus comprises ages 7 to 80+ for instance), have the power to heal communities. Someone else pointed out that both Winterreise and The Traveller were journey's, the former one their own (except for the crow) while the second was with The Companions (we in the chorus). Really nice to have that programming link noticed finally...
Vikram's mum and dad have come up to Lichfield as well, and its really great to see them again...

day six.five

Rainer Hersch is here and happy. How do I know this? Well aside from hearing that from my team, I've just bumped into Russell and Matt, two of our runners, walking his dog, Ted. Very random...

day six.four

finished the choir rehearsal but have remembered that I'm yet to have lunch so I'm about to go off in search of some food before my 6.15 talk with Vikram Seth and Alec Roth (and whoever else turns up). It is a very different experience singing finally in the performance venue with the fab Britten Sinfonia. Alec has been changing things a littl here and there - some of which the chorus found out about on Sunday, and some of which I'm only really hearing because I saw the first performance. There is huge additional solo added for Philippe Honore just before the Milonga at the end. I plan to ask Alec about this at the talk, because I have a sneaking suspicion that he's responded to The Times crit from Salisbury. I guess we'll find out.
The rehearsal was spent surreptitiously fielding interview requests for the Shiraz screening on Thursday, and hearing about the end of the Badke performance which was 'stonking' according to the report I heard...
food now...

day six.three

we had a sudden rush on tickets for the Badke Quartet performance at Swinfen Hall Hotel so it felt really full when they came on to perform. I stayed for the first half (which was a little shorter than I had anticipated - probably due to the changes I asked for in the original programme offerings) but it was great stuff. I really enjoyed finally hearing Winter's Edge by Ian Wilson - really, really bleak but such a wonderful atmosphere.
I'm about to go into the choir warm up for The Traveller - this is the first time that the Lichfield Festival Chorus will go into the cathedral. BBC Radio 3 have been in since 9am, so we should all be ready to go.

day six.two

well, just had breakfast with Andrew Ellis, Mark Padmore, and Johnathan Byers and Francesca Hunt from the Badke Quartet. Everyone seems chipper and Andy has headed off to do a sound check for his 10.30 event. and the boys from Lichfield Trent Valley Kwik-Fit have just been to replace the new tyre that was flat. Oh, happy morning...

day six.one

can't really explain why I find myself in the office at this time... guess I just couldn't sleep beyond 6.30. this is the half way point, the push toward the final day, and there are around 38 events remaining. I know that the Andrew Ellis from the Public Catalogue Foundation arrived last night in time to see the Strong lecture. For all I know he's in the bedroom next to mine, but I have yet to see him. We also have one half of the Badkes staying with us, but they crashed just before I walked in.

day five.six

the other saga of the day is that my car has had four new tyres put on (at some expense) and one of them is already flat. Normally this would not be that much of an issue, but I need to be able to get to the Badke Quartet's performance out at Swinfen Hall tomorrow lunchtime...

day five.six

wow...what a day. Finally at the half way point of the Festival and the two events I managed to watch were stunning. Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis' Winterreise was really, really special. There was a moment in the very last movement, Der Leiermann, where the audience was suddenly completely still - almost not breathing - and it was a shivers up the spine moment. Paul and Mark will be performing it again at Buxton Festival (14 May-SOLD OUT) and Cheltenham Festival (19 May-according to their website not yet sold out). Do not hesitate - go to this if you can.
And we've just finished up in the cathedral with the uplifting Baltic Crossing performing for 95 mins right across their repertoire. Apparently they are off to the pub in their hotel to keep playing (which is what they did last night). I would join them but I've pretty much been up for 18 hours, and I have to sing tomorrow. I may yet pop in for a quick pint... we'll see. They are playing this weekend at the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival in Finland if anyone wanted to see them again. I would really recommend it. Sadly their profile remains undeservedly low in the UK, mainly because of the investment required just to bring them all to the one place.

day five.five

due to Winterreise running for 15 minutes longer than we had expected, we're delaying the start of Sir Roy Strong's talk by a bit. Sir Roy arrived earlier this afternoon, and has been wandering around Lichfield because I don't think he's actually managed to visit here before. I have not yet had the opportunity to go and say hi, due to helping sort out the knock on effect that the delay will potentially have on everything else.

day five.four

our Shiraz Project was excellent with performances just finishing up from the four schools involved. Everybody seemed delighted with the work presented, and there was a surprising number of parents and peers that turned up to watch. Miguel Mera, Sabri and Carl Peberdy gave a performance to start things off (with Miguel's debut as a master tampura player). I can only blame me for the terrible photograph of the three of them pre-show...

day five.three

My concert manager Mike Buckley has just come over from the cathedral after Mark and Paul finished up rehearsing Winterreise saying that the audience tonight will struggle to keep their eyes dry. The event is sold out and we have a waiting list for returns, and this is the first performance of Winterreise with Mark and Paul together in the long road of performances leading to a december recording. This is one of those events where I will turn off my phone and sit still for 75 minutes (an extremely rare occurance) - I predict a peak festival experience for all those luck enough to have got a seat.

day five.two

Birmingham City Organist Thomas Trotter has just finished rehearsing for his 12noon event, and we are expecting the imminent arrival of both Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis who will be rehearsing when Thomas finishes. Reports from the Education team at the Garrick show that all is OK down there for the Shiraz Project performance at 2.30pm. Busy day, and knackered already. Baltic Crossing finishing at 11.20pm feels a very long way off...

day five.one

after setting three alarms to be up for 6.30 to drive Tim West to the train station, I've managed to snatch a few more hours sleep until Sophie Yates needed to collect her unsold cds from the Festival Office before driving back to the deep West of England. She and Andrew have just left the close, and I'm in checking emails. We are getting through some fantastic images from Michael Barr who is our Festival photographer this year. Once we've sorted through them all, we'll get some up on the site...

day four.five

the Bryan Corbett Quartet has just finished up. The entire first half was new content, which is much more than I had anticipated, and while the audience was smaller than it perhaps should have been, everybody seems to have loved it. Just in the office prepping for tomorrow's busy day - we have the culmination of one of our major education projects based on the Shiraz silent film. One of tomorrow's six events...

day four.three

today has disappeared. After a great lunch with the Lichfield Festival Association where I spent a few hours with the many people that beaver away behind the scenes raising money for the Festival, I managed to say hello to Sophie Yates and Andrew Garlick (who built her harpsichord) just before clocking Martin Bell side of stage before his 3.30 event. Since then I've been in a chorus rehearsal - our first with Alec Roth who arrived earlier this morning. From that I raced to catch the final bit of Bryan Corbett's rehearsal and said hi to the Band. We have a surprisingly small house in for the Bryan Corbett Quartet, which is really odd considering how brilliant all four of them are. Just heading to catch the last part of Casanova in the cathedral's Lady Chapel, then I'm off for another meal with the individuals who have supported that event.

day four.two

just been told that the lead actor of MDCC's outdoor production of Henry V has been taken ill. Sadly this afternoon's FEAST event at Dunstall Hall will need to be cancelled, but our box office isn't open until 2.30 so we are unable to get the data of the bookers to inform everybody in time. The tean that were manning the performance have gone out any way to inform the audience when they arrive...

day four.one

last night was busy. nearly 1,000 people saw the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain rock the cathedral ending in standing ovations and encore after encore. I was fortunate to have the chance to chat to them all in a pre-concert talk, and discovered that their most bizarre gig was providing live backing music for camel dressage (george hinchcliffe was very particular about the type of camel and the key they played in).
and the Rosie Kay Dance Company were brilliant performing The Wild Party, and judging by the number of people who stayed for my post concert discussiong with them, Lichfield rose to the occasion. Fuzzy, the RKDC tech manager, (thankfully) arrived in time for the show, having landed at Birmingham Airport from South Africa at about 5.30pm...

day three.five

just clocked Ian Stephenson and Andy May doing a gig outside the cathedral. They are performing tomorrow as part of our FEAST events, and on Monday 7 July as part of Baltic Crossing. after eight minutes after this photo was taken, it finally started bucketing down...

day three.four

just managed to have a wee quiet moment with a hot pork roll. Didn't quite manage the half pint that normally goes with it from the Parson's Nose, a garage converted into a pub for the day. out my window I can see knights in armour beating each other senseless. ... and the sun is still shining. So far this year's Medieval Market is a complete success, while will make next year's Georgian Market (a first for us) linking into the West Midlands' 2009 anniversary celebrations, including Samuel Johnson.

day three.three

despite rain earlier, the close is now full of people enjoying... wait for it... sunshine. Incredible. Popped down to the Garrick Theatre to say hello to Rosie Kay and her dancers and all was going to plan down there. So great to finally have Rosie here in Lichfield. I had wanted to book The Wild Party for the 2007 Lichfield Festival, but Rosie unfortunately injured her leg. I've been waiting over a year and a half to bring her here, and she finally is.
Also just had a brief meeting with Jeffrey Skidmore about seating for tomorrow rehearsal for The Traveller. The Festival Chorus is being joined by reinforcements - Young Voices from Lichfield Cathedral who have been working with the fab Cathy Lamb, and a few people coming from Salisbury Festival Chorus who performed in the world premiere at the end of May and jumped at the chance to perform again.
Alec Roth has also been using his time since the Chelsea Festival performance in June to best effect and has revised orchestrations of several patches and added a bar here and there. He arrives later tonight. One of the wonderful things about the four-year Confluences project, is that Alec has been a regular visitor to Lichfield Festival since 2006, staying for alomst the entire ten days last year. It will be great for audiences to have him around once again for several days...

day three.two

another saturday, another chance to see how we fare in the national listings. Lichfield Festival is Top Five Classical, Top Five Jazz and Top Five Events in the Times' The Knowledge; Acoustic Triangle (10 July), Britten Sinfonia (8 July) and Rosie Kay Dance Company (tonight) are Picks of the Week for jazz, classical and dance in the Guardian Guide. Our listings are dotted throughout The Information too.
It is worth pointing out the brilliant Supersonic Festival that takes place in nearby Birmingham from 11-13 July (clashing with Lichfield Festival's last weekend). I will be trying to make their final night after everything finished up here next sunday.

day three.one

the rain has arrived. the festival has been up and running since before 6am setting up for our major free event, the Medieval Market, and for the first time in Festival history, it is raining for the set up. Sound gear for this evening performance by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain came in on schedule and is on track to be set up ahead of schedule, which is fab. This will allow us to have all the doors open to the cathedral for when it rains throughout the day.

day two.five

...and I've just found out that this evening's performance is the Russian Chamber Philharmonic St Petersburg's UK debut. Nice...

day two.four

i'm about to go and do the first of our pre-concert talks (not including the one I gave yesterday with Marin). Interview Lena, Sacha, Michel and Juri from the RCPStP... I haven't been able to find a lot about them online other than generic biographical stuff, so we'll see where the talk leads...

day two.three

they left germany at 8am yesterday, stopped off in france for a rehearsal, missed their ferry from calais to dover, and arrived in lichfield several hours later than expected, but the Russian Chamber Philharmonic St Petersburg is finally here and rehearsing in readiness for their performance tonight. The Puppini Sisters (who stopped off in Birmingham on their way to chat to Radio WM) are also here and sound checking. Very much looking forward to hearing Mahler's arrangement of Schubert's Death and the Maiden live as I've only ever heard it off cd before. Once again, two very exciting events for night two, and the Puppini's sold out several weeks ago - its been returns only for ages... I was too tied up to make it to the culmination of our Choices Project, as I've been trying to sort out a few scheduling clashes that have risen upexpectedly, but by all accounts it was brilliant. I managed to clock some of the rehearsal this morning, and the brief bit I saw blew me away...

day two.two

with about 25 minutes to go before the end of her event, Anna Beer's book, Milton's World, has arrived from the publishers for us to sell. Boxes have been thrown into cars and raced down to the venue to try and catch the end of the event. We are also doing literature questionnaires over the next ten days, trying to help with the collection of data for literature audiences in the West Midlands.

day two.one

today is the culmination of our Choices project with John Berkavitch and Polarbear. They are already at work at the Guildhall prepping for this afternoon's show. The Private View for Geoff Machin and Dennis Westwood starts in about an hour (and work was already starting to sell last night), and Anna Beer, who is giving a lecture about John Milton to mark 400 years since the poet's birth, is due to arrive from Oxford at any minute. The sun is shining, and the team are flushed with the success of our opening day. Oh, and Arngeir Hauksson replaces Dai Miller for The Division Flute on 10 July.

day one.seven

really successful first evening. from my office I can hear the final movement of Dvorak's New World Symphony, I know the Hairy Bikers are nearing the end of their second half, and the team are now gearing up for the opening night reception. I stay and say a few words, chat to a few key people, wave off Marin Alsop and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, then sneak off for a quiet meal with Alexei Volodin probably...

day.one.six

hairys have arrived and are sound checking as I write.
not quite sure where the rain has gone, and maybe it was my press photo with an open umbrella keeping the clouds at bay, but the opening night of the lichfield festival is a beautiful and sunny evening, and with 45 mins to go before our first two sold out evening shows start, things look good.

day one.five

just had a call from Si King from the Hairy Bikers. They are obviously using a tomtom to get from where they are to where they need to be for their sound check and needed the correct postcode. another thing going on behind the scenes is David Miller, the lute play for The Division Flute with Emma Murphy (10 July) has had to have an emergency operation on his eye so will be out of circulation for two weeks. He plays a pretty crucial part in that performance, so Emma and I are considering alternatives while hopefully finding an appropriate lute player at essentially no notice.

day one.four

final preparations on the exhibitions and the sponsor's marquee in the deanery garden are taking up quite a lot of the team's time, but our first rehearsal started 20 minutes ago, and the concert is going to be excellent.

day one.three

one event down - a thoroughly enjoyable hour-long chat with Marin has just finished. We could hear heavy rain from the stage, but have come out into a beautiful sunny day. The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra truck has just arrived as well...

day one.two

the photographer for the local paper turned up half an hour early, so photos for today's express & star have just been finished, complete with Festival brolly and a big smile. we could talk happily about how the weather will turn out ok, or we could just acknowledge that its going to rain... this would be so welcome in my home town of Brisbane in drought-stricken Queensland.

day one.one

first day of the festival, and the photocopier has finally died, after overdramatic death throes for the last ten days...
Just working on final preparations for my interview with Marin Alsop at 11.30am...

polarbear interview

really nice interview with polarbear done by the good folk at Created in Birmingham. he talks about the piece he's performing here on 9 July, and some of the creative team behind it... polarbear has one more day of school workshops, then everyone is on stage together on 4 July. some of the poems and comments came through today - I'm really blown away by the positive feedback and the brilliance of the work done by the students.

at last

marin alsop and alexei volodin have both arrived safely in Lichfield after rehearsing in Poole this afternoon. Finally, the first artists of the 2008 Lichfield Festival have arrived. Happy day...

love summer

summer in this country is bonkers. at this point in time, not only is it raining in Lichfield, rain is predicted for thursday, friday, saturday, sunday, monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, with only the festival's final day having no rain.

visual arts get in

we've had, so far, a car, a van, and a truck bringing in the work of Geoff Machin and Dennis Westwood. The two artists will spend all day getting their work placed and hung in the cathedral's chapter house and the north choir aisle. Noticed for the first time what impact the scaffolding on the south side of the Lady Chapel has had on the natural light inside the building. Its quite dim inside now, so we're bringing in more lights.

west midlands artists

nearly a full page in this morning's Birmingham Post which looks much better in the actual paper than it does online. It is right next to a feature about all the Birmingham artists performing this year, including Rosie Kay Dance Company (5 July), Bryan Corbett Quartet (6 July), Thomas Trotter (7 & 9 July), MDCC Theatre Company (5, 6 & 12 July), Polarbear (9 July), and the Sabri Ensemble (10 & 11 July). Of course, alongside these artists, is the inaugural Lichfield Festival Chorus (8 July), and the culmination of the two year Stone City Voices project with Lichfield Poets and David Calcutt (12 July).

touch down

almost an hour late, alexei volodin has arrived into heathrow airport and has just been collected for his journey south to Poole for a rehearsal with Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra tomorrow afternoon. I'm always slight anxious until I have the performers physically in Lichfield, but physically in the country is a pretty good start. He and Marin Alsop will be driven to Lichfield tomorrow evening in readiness of Thursday's opening night concert. closerer and closerer...

half a camera

another rehearsal for the Traveller to close the day. all still seems on track, although suddenly turning my mind from the rest of the festival to being able to sing again is taking a slight toll on my throat. popped into the cathedral on my way home. stage right lighting rig looked pretty much in already, as did most of the camera towers... this get in is due to go until 4am, so I hope they have a safe night. Much, much easier doing it this way than around the public visiting the cathedral during the day, which has been the case in previous years. My crew have the run of the nave, and they all seemed chipper... Bizarrely though, it seems that the camera positioned for close ups for the CCTV footage we show through the performances (for the audience sitting in seats with sight line issues) was only half delivered - the front half. I imagine it is tomorrow's problem...

overnight...

our overnight get in is about to start and the close is eerily quiet and empty...

classical cd of the week

in another nice coincidence, the classical cd of the week listed in last Saturday's Telegraph is Marin Alsop's recording of Dvořák's Symphony No.9 with her new orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, which is the piece she is performing with her imminent old orchestra, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra...

dance workshops

just finished up a morning of dance workshops with the Rosie Kay Dance Company, looking at the connections between text and movement (tying into their 5 July performance based on a 1928 poem). The excellent Morgan Cloud took the workshop and from immediate accounts it was brilliant. Rosie Kay is in the process of rehearsing up The Wild Party in readiness for Saturday evening. Nick Carter has been struck down by meningitis, and his replacement injured himself last Friday. Jake Nwogu, who has worked a lot with Robert Hylton, has stepped into the breach.