Hexham Abbey Festival is an old stager among North East cultural festivals but it’s a sprightly one, as you’ll see by the programme for this year’s 74th edition which runs from September 23-27.
It might seem odd to begin at the end and with an event that’s due to take place not in the historic abbey but in the Forum Cinema nearby.
But the eye is drawn to the screening on the 27th (it’s a Sunday, 2pm) of South: Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Glorious Epic of the Antarctic.
The recently restored film, telling of Ernest Shackleton’s daring but ill-fated 1914 expedition to Antarctica, is billed as one of the greatest survival stories in the history of exploration.
It owes everything to the footage of pioneering photographer and film-maker Frank Hurley who was with Shackleton’s team and recorded both the landscape’s stark beauty and the endeavours of the crew who miraculously survived.
The same can’t be said of their vessel, Endurance, which became frozen in pack ice and eventually sank (its wreckage, remarkably intact, was found on the seabed in 2022).
The pioneering documentary will be shared with Hexham Abbey Festival customers with accompaniment by pianist Jonny Best, founding artistic director of Northern Silents.
Tickets from the Forum Cinema or call (01434) 601144. As you’d expect, they have been selling fast.
The festival opens on the Wednesday with the combined Hexham Abbey choirs singing choral evensong (6pm, no ticket required).
On the Thursday (1pm) guitarist Ian Watt will give a lunchtime recital in the abbey’s north transept of music from the UK and South America, including the dramatic La Catedral by Paraguayan composer Agustin Barrios Mangoré (1885 to 1944).
Another highlight comes in the evening on the same day (7.30pm) when classical pianist Danny Driver performs Bach’s Goldberg Variations.
The Friday lunchtime attraction (1pm) is Singing Truth to Power in which Oskar Cox-Jensen, Nancy Kerr and Vic Gammon will celebrate songs that have given voice to protest and dissent in the North East and beyond
Returning to the festival in the evening (September 25, 7.30pm) will be the singers of APOLLO5 with Crossings, described as a choral journey along the pilgrim route from Canterbury to Rome.
The group last performed here in 2022.
Billed as the festival centrepiece (Saturday, September 26, 7.30pm) is the concert by Hexham Abbey Festival Chorus & Orchestra featuring Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy and Mass in C.
David Murray will direct and the soloists will be Kate Symonds-Joy (mezzo-soprano), Robert Anthony Gardiner (tenor) and Andrew Greenan (bass).
Pianist Martin Roscoe will also perform Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 23, ‘Appasionata’.
Sunday’s festival programme will begin at 10am with festival choral eucharist featuring the abbey’s combined choirs (no ticket required).
The festival finale (7.30pm) is in the hands of the celebrated Ayoub Sisters – Laura on violin, Sarah on cello - who celebrate their Arab heritage and Scottish upbringing through folk melodies from Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and, of course, Scotland.
Guest programmer Svend-Einar McEwan-Brown said that as a schoolboy in the 1980s Hexham Abbey Festival had provided him with many musical experiences.
“To me, this is what festivals do best – give us happy and strong memories of special performances in a special place.
“Hexham Abbey certainly is that and I am delighted to have the chance to offer a nicely eclectic mix of things this year.”
Tickets can be booked via the Hexham Abbey Festival website or by calling the Queen’s Hall on (01434) 652477.