Czech music celebration

01 May 2008

A CELEBRATION of Czech music takes place in Leamington over the first May Bank Holiday weekend from May 2 to 5.
The Leamington Czech Music Festival Weekend will feature 11 concerts, a talk and a walk for the visitors and the enthusiastic audience that supports events promoted by Leamington Music.
All but one of the concerts will be at the Royal Pump Rooms, where the talk will also be given by Graham Melville-Mason, the leading expert on Czech music in Britain. The walk will be to sites connected with the Czech Free Army which had its HQ in Leamington 1940-42.
The one concert away from the Royal Pump Rooms is across the road and river at All Saints Church. The annual Bank Holiday Monday organ recital will be given on May 5 by top Czech organist Jaroslav Tuma. He will be playing a programme of Czech music which climaxes in a Concert Fantasy by Klicka on Smetana’s Vysehrad, one of the movements from his popular Ma Vlast. The recital starts at 11am. Admission is free with a retiring collection.
Three leading Czech groups are involved in five of the concerts - the Skampa and Martinu String Quartets, both regular visitors to the area, plus the world famous Guarneri Piano Trio - all playing works by Dvorak and Martinu.
Four soloists from the Czech Republic are also coming specially for the festival - pianist Martin Kasik, young violinist Jana Novakova accompanied by her brother Petr Novak on May 5, and she will perform with her husband and bassoonist Vaclav Vonasek on the following day.
Three of the concerts involve British musicians - the Schubert Ensemble of London, solo pianist William Howard and Ensemble 360.
Tickets for the Leamington Czech Music Festival Weekend are available from the Tourist Information Centre in Leamington or the Bridge House Theatre Warwick on 01926 776438 or online at www.bridgehousetheatre
• LOVE will be in the air when Village Voices perform their Spring Concert, in aid of the Parkinson's Society, at Northgate Methodist Church in Warwick on Saturday (April 26), starting at 7.30pm.
The choir will sing a range of songs from shows, popular music, ballads and sacred songs, all with the theme of Love - and it will be their first concert since the appointment of new Musical Director, Bea van der Kaaij, the choirmaster at Leamington's All Saints Parish Church.

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