Another Festival underway

 

On the final day of the inaugural Three Rivers Festival, Fiona - one of our trustees - was struck by a possible title for this year's Festival. We had just been moved, delighted and inspired by Anna Michels’s and Orla Stevens’s improvised Art and Piano collaboration. Amidst a wash of vibrant colour and evocative sound-painting, it had been become very clear to us that we would be firmly taking cross-disciplinary concerts forward in the years to come. Fiona's idea stuck.

 

This year's Festival is entitled Bridges

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Bridges encapsulates our desire to create connections and expresses our

vision in a strikingly simple way. In a world where we are surrounded by polarisation, it can be tempting to put ourselves in a box and put our blinkers on. For reasons we all understand, it is easy to feel powerless, lose hope and retreat into ourselves. 

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In a fractured world, music and art are a call to connect

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Interconnectedness. This word has been echoing in my mind as I work

alongside this year’s talented and energised artists to curate a programme for

our second festival year. The interconnectedness of stories, of places, of

histories, of humanity's connectedness with our natural environment, and of shared experiences.

 

Music has a beautiful way of bringing together seemingly diverse expressions and creating a sound that represents something of our common humanity. As the pianist and writer Stephen Hough wrote, "The vibrations that fill an auditorium have no passports, and they unite ears when hearts may be divided." 

 

There are no boundaries, only bridges

 

And so this, the interconnectedness of people, the sense of unity and shared humanity, will be at the heart of this year’s festival experience. ​

 

Let me mention just a few of the exciting and galvanising connections which

will make up our programme:

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• Our first ‘side-by-side’ performance will involve exceptional school-aged string players playing alongside our resident festival professionals, after two days of workshopping together and being coached by the violinist Benjamin Shute. 

• I am thrilled to announce our cross-disciplinary project, Poetry in Song. Local poet, Nalini Paul, and composers Eva Smeddle, Gregory May, and Jennifer Barker are collaborating on our Festival commission. It will take the form of a song cycle and performed for the first time at Camphill Blair Drummond. 

• International connections with a performance in Kippen Parish Church by Italian pianist Paolo Vergari.

• Our drive towards bringing music to people of all ages and contexts includes not only a range of musical genres but also community workshops: a performance for the participants of Dementia Friendly Dunblane’s Memory Café, and 2 interactive sessions for pre-schoolers after last year’s sold-out children’s workshop.

• And, before the Festival, an informal pop-up week will bring music and performance opportunities to Stirling’s Thistles shopping centre!

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Across the programme, every concert has been carefully planned with our

theme in mind. Each artist has taken their own approach to the concept of

‘Bridges’; be it thematic links, historical connections between composers,

geographical meeting points, or literal bridges. Together they will present a week filled with connection: connecting musicians and composers, poets and painters, those coaching and those absorbing newfound knowledge. And most importantly, of connection with those who will complete the circuit – you, our audience. 

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Please come along to help us create a wonderful week of community and

connection – of building bridges.