Ripon businesses are preparing to host events across the city as part of the second theatre festival.
Across a five-day period, Ripon Theatre Festival will hold over 50 events, with a variety of pop-up performances, plays and music.
The festival reported audiences of more than 2,500 people at its inaugural event last year. Now, the organisation aims “to build on the incredible first year response” this year.
Fountains Abbey and The Old Deanery are among the larger spaces that will hold performances, while the Market Place, Minster Gardens, and Ripon Spa Gardens will be transformed into festival zones to bring attendees a range of activities, from street theatre to circus acts.
The event aims to cater for a range of ages, with The Little Ripon Bookshop and the Crypt in Ripon Cathedral putting on puppet shows and storytelling.
Katie Scott, festival director, previously told the Stray Ferret:
“A key aim is to make the festival as affordable and accessible as possible with a wide range of free entertainment popping up at locations across the city centre.”
In line with the festival’s aim, pop-events will be free of charge or “pay what you can”. The festival will also include ticketed theatre performances with many taking place in Ripon Arts Hub.
Ms Scott added:
“The festival is also working with charity Ripon Dementia Forward to provide a sensory theatre show brought directly to two local and friendly community spaces.”
The event will take place from June 7 to 11.
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Ripon orchestra returns for first concert of the year
Ripon’s St Cecilia Orchestra returns to Holy Trinity Church this month with a programme featuring music for dance, drama and romance.
Following the success of their Rachmaninov festival weekend with pianist Peter Donohoe in October, the orchestra is looking forward to a change of pace with this varied programme of chamber orchestra gems.
The first concert of the year will be held at 7.30pm on Saturday, January 28.
Conductor Xenophon Kelsey said
“It’s pretty rare for us to do a concert without a soloist. This is a glorious opportunity for all the players to develop the sense that, in a smaller, chamber-sized orchestra, everyone is a soloist – at least some of the time!
“We all need to listen to each other, react to musical shapes and ideas and not simply ‘follow the conductor.’ That is what makes it such a delight to conduct concerts like this and to really feel you are part of the team, not just the boss at the front.”
The concert will open with Richard Strauss’ Serenade for 13 Wind Instruments, a single-movement piece completed when the composer was just 17 years old and the first work to gain him recognition as a composer outside his native environment.
The serenade makes strong use of the French horn, having in the ensemble line-up – perhaps evidence of his father’s musical influence (Franz Strauss was principal horn player of the Munich Court Orchestra).
Next on the programme, is Sibelius’ Pelléas and Mélisande suite, written in response to a commission by the Swedish Theatre in Helsinki as incidental music for Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1892 play of the same name.
The play inhabits a medieval world of dream and fantasy and tells of Pelléas’ love for Mélisande, who is unhappily married to his brother, Golaud. The story has inspired several more musical works, including an opera by Debussy.
After the interval the orchestra will play Bartók’s energetic Romanian Folk Dances in the chamber orchestra version. Originally written for piano, and based on tunes that would have been played on violin or a shepherd’s flute, the work consist of six short movements that should according to the composer take just four minutes and three seconds to perform.
The concert concludes with Mozart’s rarely-played symphony 25. In the key of G minor, the symphony is written in the sturm und drang style, characterised by emotional extremes and sudden changes in tempo and dynamics – a piece sure to leave the audience feeling energised!
Tickets for the concert, priced at £15 for adults and free for under 18s, can be obtained online at www.ticketsource.co.uk/st-cecilia, from the Little Ripon Bookshop and on the door, or can be reserved by calling 01423 531062.