The Lake District festival kicks off today

5 months ago 01st Aug 13:55

The 24th Lake District Summer Music International Festival is aiming for a top three festival rating again this year as it reveals the programme which Festival organizers will paint on the canvas of the Lake District across 17 days this August, starting today.

LDSM is affectionately known as the “friendly festival” by more than 10,000 festival-goers each year. This year’s International Festival will bolster its reputation of hosting thrilling concerts in inspiring settings, by staging 52 events, in 12 different locations, across the breathtakingly beautiful county of Cumbria.

Rugged fells, shimmering lakes, and sun-drenched dry stone walls, will provide the backdrop in which the strains of chamber music will be heard across the valleys.

LDSM 2008 launches a new theme of “The Architecture of Music” which will be explored over the next three Festivals.

Artistic Director, Renna Kellaway, says: “The architecture of music must be one of the oldest sciences civilization has forged. From deep in the aeons of time sounds and rhythms have been gathered into recognizable forms. From religious celebrations to secular inspiration, the high peaks of European music have been established in an architecture of sound, texture and rhythm in which we can all participate.”

LDSM has always had its heart in chamber music and the 2008 International Festival again presents great chamber music performed by leading international ensembles. Quatuor Ebène, now BBC New Generation Artists, return to LDSM which gave the young quartet their UK début and their first BBC broadcast.

The Gould Piano Trio return to perform Beethoven and Ravel as well as a new work by composer Benjamin Wallfisch commissioned by the group. The Razumovsky Ensemble perform Schubert’s Octet and Beethoven’s lesser-known Septet.

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