The Swaledale Festival takes place over two weeks in May and June each year, in churches, chapels, castles, ‘Literary Institutes’, pubs, fields and village halls scattered around Swaledale , Arkengarthdale and Wensleydale . The largest venues seat about 400 people; the smallest venues as few as 40. The main focus of the Festival is on small-scale classical chamber music. Choral music, folk music, brass bands and jazz also feature, as do talks, films, exhibitions, poetry readings, workshops and guided walks. Among others, the festival has featured the Royal Northern Sinfonia, Natalie Clein, Nicholas Daniel, Don Paterson, Emma Johnson, Julian Perkins, Martin Simpson, Martin Taylor and the Navarra Quartet.
29-587: In 2011, the Festival was described by The Guardian as one of the 10 best classical music festivals, and by the Daily Telegraph as one of the 25 opera and classical festivals of the season. The Guardian again featured the Festival in its 2012 and 2013 Festival Guides, in a short list which included Aldeburgh, the BBC Proms, Bath, Cheltenham and Glyndebourne. The Festival attracts around 7,000 visitors
58-494: A county borough , exempt from county council control, from 1889. Richmond and Scarborough had been incorporated as municipal boroughs in 1835, with Thornaby-on-Tees added in 1892. The urban districts in 1894 were Eston , Guisborough, Hinderwell, Kirkleatham, Kirklington cum Upsland , Loftus, Malton, Masham, Northallerton, Pickering, Redcar, Saltburn and Marske by the Sea , Scalby, Skelton and Brotton and Whitby . In 1922 Redcar
87-731: A British composer of his generation, he went to East Berlin to study with Arnold Schoenberg 's pupil, the Marxist composer Hanns Eisler , as a Meisterschüler of the GDR Akademie der Künste ( Academy of Arts, Berlin ). During this time, he composed the first of his acknowledged compositions – the Variations for Piano and the String Quartet No. 1. In 1963, he was awarded the Granada Arts Fellowship at
116-988: A fundraiser concert for the Sunday School in Fremington. In 1981 Woolston ran an expanded series (ten events, most in St Andrew's Church, Grinton ) “as part of the Richmondshire Festival”. This included concerts by the Lindsay String Quartet and the Yorkshire Baroque Soloists, who would become regular visitors. There is no primary evidence that the concerts of 1980 and 81 took place under the Swaledale banner. However, there being no Richmondshire Festival in 1982, as Trevor Woolston wrote, "a Swaledale Festival
145-776: A new Teesside county borough was created, taking in Middlesbrough and parts of the administrative areas of Durham and North Riding councils. From the North Riding came the Redcar Borough and Saltburn-Marske Urban District, Thornaby-on-Tees Borough (formerly part of the Stokesley's rural district) and Eston's urban district. Tees-Side also included parts north of the River Tees historically in Durham. The area
174-455: A post she would hold until 2002; Trevor Woolston stepped down, though he would continue to appear at the Festival as a performer. Also in 1993, the Festival became a registered charity with a formalised constitution and a board. The first recorded chairman was the composer David Blake , a professor at York University and a resident in Askrigg; and the first board members included Katherine Carr,
203-470: A year. A key feature of the Swaledale Festival is the commitment to new commissions and recently composed works; commissioned pieces by Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, Michael Brough and Heather Fenoughty received their premières in 2012, and the 2013 Festival included premières of works by Sally Beamish, David Blake, Stephen Goss, Tim Garland, Roland Dyens and Graham Coatman. The early history of
232-815: Is an English composer and founder member of the Department of Music at the University of York . Blake was born in London . Following national service , he learnt Mandarin Chinese and spent one year in Hong Kong. He went on to read music at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge , where his teachers were Patrick Hadley , Peter Tranchell and Raymond Leppard . He was awarded the Mendelssohn Scholarship for Composition in 1960, and, uniquely for
261-533: The "Hon. Organiser", and the Marquess of Zetland as Patron. There are no known records for the next decade. In 1969 the Richmondshire Festival moved to a May date, and by 1978 Dr Bull had started to look for a successor. Early records of the Swaledale Festival are patchy, and as recently as 2012 it was still believed that the Festival had been established in 1980. It now appears that the Festival
290-739: The 1970 Leeds Festival ; the Violin Concerto for the 1976 BBC Proms ; Toussaint , an opera in three acts for the English National Opera , first produced in 1977 (and revived 1983); Rise Dove (solo bass and orchestra) for the BBC ; The Plumber's Gift , an opera in two acts for the English National Opera, first produced in 1989 with libretto by John Birtwhistle ; and the Cello Concerto, commissioned by
319-507: The BBC for the 1993 Cheltenham Festival . He also went on to found the University of York Music Press – known as UYMP – in 1995 with Bill Colleran, with a purpose to promote new and established composers with a range of aesthetic backgrounds. He retired from the University of York in 2001, but remains on the board of UYMP. His extensive output, which includes operas and orchestral works,
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#1732790587548348-612: The Festival gained an 'Autumn Encore', half a dozen events in October and November. Performers that year included the Fitzwilliam Quartet , which would become a Festival regular. By 1991, part-time staff and volunteers had been recruited to look after administration and publicity, and the Woolstons were preparing to retire. The last Autumn Encore took place in 1992. In 1993 Elizabeth Carter was appointed artistic director,
377-499: The North Riding predominantly supported the royalist cause, while other areas of Yorkshire tended to support the parliamentarians . The County of York, North Riding administrative county was formed in 1889. In 1894 it was divided into municipal boroughs, urban districts and rural districts under the Local Government Act 1894 . Middlesbrough had already been incorporated as a municipal borough in 1853 and formed
406-481: The Startforth Rural District came under County Durham. Most of the former riding is now represented by the larger North Yorkshire District . The boroughs of Middlesbrough and Redcar and Cleveland are wholly inside the former North Riding's area. They are also some parts of the former area in the council areas of Stockton-on-Tees , York and County Durham . On three occasions a re-use of
435-531: The Swaledale Festival is in several strands, which merged in the 1980s. The biennial Richmondshire Festival was founded in 1965 by Dr A J Bull, the retired music organiser for the North Riding of Yorkshire . A week of music and drama in and around Richmond, it was initially scheduled for September in order to attract motorists on their way south from the Edinburgh Festival. Musical highlights of
464-524: The administrative county and the North Riding of Yorkshire lieutenancy were abolished, replaced in most of the riding by the non-metropolitan county and lieutenancy of North Yorkshire , and in the north-west by County Durham . Archives from 1808 record that the " north-riding of York-shire " had once consisted of "fifty-one lordships" owned by Robert the Bruce . During the English Civil War ,
493-518: The daughter of the late Dr Bull - a nice piece of continuity. The current artistic director is Malcolm Creese, and the chairman is Peter Denison-Edson. 54°22′52″N 1°55′49″W / 54.3812°N 1.9304°W / 54.3812; -1.9304 North Riding of Yorkshire The North Riding of Yorkshire was a subdivision of Yorkshire , England, alongside York , the East Riding and West Riding . The riding's highest point
522-681: The first Richmondshire Festival included a recital at Aske Hall by the Melos Ensemble , with Gervase de Peyer , Cecil Aronowitz and Emanuel Hurwitz , and a concert at the County Modern School by the Northern Sinfonia Orchestra, as it was then known. There were also performances by local school, amateur and scratch groups, tea-dances, talent contests, and military bands beating the retreat. The 1967 Richmondshire Festival programme lists Arthur Bull as
551-484: The name of the North Riding for local government purposes has been considered. During the 1990s UK local government reform , the Banham Commission suggested uniting Richmondshire , Hambleton , Ryedale and Scarborough districts in a new unitary authority called North Riding of Yorkshire. Later, the government proposed renaming the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire the North Riding of Yorkshire. This
580-543: The newly opened University of York , and the following year, with Wilfrid Mellers and Peter Aston , he founded the Department of Music there. He was Lecturer in Music in the Department until 1976 and then succeeded Wilfrid Mellers as Professor. His first important commission came in 1966, from the York Festival, for his Chamber Symphony. Subsequent commissions included Lumina (soloists, chorus and large orchestra) for
609-515: The other for Ryedale and Scarborough. Yorkshire was divided into wapentakes within each riding. There were 13 wapentakes when the system became disused after the 19th century: In the Domesday Book of 1086 they were eight wapentakes, these were as follows: 54°20′16″N 1°25′43″W / 54.33778°N 1.42861°W / 54.33778; -1.42861 David Blake (composer) David Blake (born 2 September 1936)
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#1732790587548638-729: Was added, with performers from Bolivia and Finland. In 1988 the Swaledale Festival expanded its geographical coverage again, with concerts in Wensleydale. By 1989 the Festival was active from Keld in Upper Swaledale to Bedale in Lower Wensleydale, and Trevor Woolston joked about changing the Festival's name to "The Festival of the Upper Dales, Richmondshire and the Teesside Hinterland". Also in 1989
667-533: Was annual, and went no further down-dale than Marrick. In 1984 drama and crafts were added to the Swaledale Festival. In 1985 the two Festivals again ran in parallel. In 1986 the Swaledale Festival Friends were formed. The Richmondshire Festival folded in 1987, and the Swaledale Festival "took over" several Richmondshire Festival artists, including Northern Sinfonia , and expanded down-dale into Richmond. Also in 1987, an international element
696-498: Was arranged". It now seems clear that over the span of three years Woolston translated his programming across to an already established venture. In 1983, the Richmondshire and Swaledale Festivals ran in partnership over three full weeks. As far as can be inferred from the available programmes, there was strict demarcation between the two: Richmondshire limited itself to odd years and to the immediate area of Richmond; Swaledale
725-512: Was associated with the North Riding for lieutenancy and other purposes. The main towns of the riding (before its authority was abolished) were Middlesbrough , Redcar , Whitby , Scarborough and Northallerton . In 1974 the North Riding authorities were abolished. The majority of its former area became North Yorkshire , with the addition of northern West Riding and north-western pre-1974 East Riding . The former Teesside county borough and areas around it became part of Cleveland county while
754-514: Was at Mickle Fell at 2,585 ft (788 m). From the Restoration it was used as a lieutenancy area , having been previously part of the Yorkshire lieutenancy . Each riding was treated as a county for many purposes, such as quarter sessions . An administrative county, based on the riding, was created with a county council in 1889 under the Local Government Act 1888 . In 1974 both
783-520: Was deemed inappropriate and rejected, after a "chorus of disapprobation". During a further local government review in the 2000s as part of the preparations for the regional assembly referendums , a unitary authority with the name North Riding of Yorkshire, consisting of Richmondshire, Hambleton, Ryedale and Scarborough was again suggested. However, the Commission withdrew this in favour or two unitary authorities, one for Hambleton and Richmondshire,
812-412: Was incorporated as a borough. The rural districts in 1894 were Aysgarth, Bedale , Croft , Easingwold, Flaxton , Guisborough, Helmsley, Kirkby Moorside, Leyburn, Malton, Masham, Middlesbrough , Northallerton, Pickering, Reeth, Richmond, Scarborough, Startforth , Stokesley , Thirsk, Wath and Whitby . County Review Orders reduced the number of urban and rural districts in the county: In 1968
841-643: Was started by members of the Delmé Quartet who were then resident in the Upper Swaledale village of Muker , in September 1972. By July 1973 the Festival was essentially a chamber-music event with a summer-school component. A surviving Swaledale Festival concert programme from June 1978 makes no mention of the Delmé Quartet, though Delmé cellist Joy Hall was among the performers. In 1979, the violinist Trevor Woolston moved to Swaledale. In 1980 he ran
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