We are delighted to announce the programme for the 2025 May EMF. This year, all our events will once again be held in Dorchester-on-Thames, with the concerts taking place in the glorious surroundings of Dorchester Abbey and the talks in the historic Village Hall.
The full programme, with details of venues, works and artists, is given below. Booking for EMF Friends will open on 1 March; general booking opens on 15 March.
If you are not already a member of the EMF Friends’ Scheme and would like to know more about how you can support the work of the Festival in this way, please visit this page for a description of the tiers and their benefits, together with information about how to join.
Recording British Music — Remembering fifty years of researching and recording British music, illustrated with recordings and session photographs
LEWIS FOREMAN
A NIGHT OF BLISS
WILLIAM ALWYN: The Innumerable Dance: An English Overture
FREDERICK DELIUS: The Walk to the Paradise Garden
SIR ARTHUR BLISS: Cello Concerto
RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Heroic Elegy and Triumphal Epilogue
STANLEY BATE: Symphony no. 2
WORLD PREMIÈRE PERFORMANCE
BBC CONCERT ORCHESTRA
MARTIN YATES | conductor
RAPHAEL WALLFISCH | cello
MUSIC OUT OF SILENCE
NORMAN O’NEILL: Suite in B minor for Violin and Piano
FIRST PUBLIC PERFORMANCE
FREDERICK DELIUS: Sonata in B major for Violin and Piano
ALAN RAWSTHORNE: Sonata in A major for Violin and Piano
FIRST PUBLIC PERFORMANCE
HERBERT HOWELLS: Cradle Song
WORLD PREMIÈRE PERFORMANCE
HERBERT HOWELLS: Lento, assai espressivo
WORLD PREMIÈRE PERFORMANCE
RUPERT MARSHALL-LUCK | violin
PETER CARTWRIGHT | piano
NIGHTS BRIGHT DAYS
ROBIN MILFORD: Daybreak ; The Colour ; So Sweet Love Seemed ; If It’s Ever Spring Again ; Love on My Heart
JOHN JEFFERYS: Otterburn
JOHN IRELAND: The Land of Lost Content
RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: The Sky above the Roof ; How Can the Tree but Wither? ; The Water Mill
COLIN ROSS: The Cherry Hung with Snow
HERBERT HOWELLS: Merry Margaret ; King David
C. W. ORR: Into My Heart an Air That Kills
TRAD., arr. HERBERT HOWELLS: I Will Give My Love an Apple ; Full Moon
PETER WARLOCK: The Night ; Candlelight ; Cradle Song
JOHN JEFFREYS: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
ROGER QUILTER: Music When Soft Voices Die
IVOR GURNEY: All Night under the Moon
SIR ARTHUR BLISS: Simples
C. W. ORR: Bahnhofstraße
MAUDE VALÉRIE WHITE: So We’ll Go No More A-Roving
BEN ALDEN | tenor
ANDREW PLANT | piano
The Celtic Warlock
DR RHIAN DAVIES
THE ENGLISH AYRE
CHARLES AVISON: Concerto for Strings in E minor
JOHN DOWLAND: Dance Suite
OSBERT PARSLEY: Perslis Clocke
ANON: Six English Tunes ; Six Italian Dances
ROBERT PARSONS: Je File ; Galliard
ROBERT JOHNSON: A Knell
CLEMENT WOODCOCK: Hackney
PETER WARLOCK: Capriol Suite ; Four Folksong Preludes
DAVID LANE: Fantasy on a Theme of Edwardes
CECIL ARMSTRONG GIBBS: Almayne
ROBIN MILFORD: Miniature Concerto for String Orchestra
ROYAL BALLET SINFONIA
JOHN ANDREWS | conductor
FROM PRELUDE TO NOCTURNE
JOHN DOWLAND: Praeludium ; Fantasia in G major; Forlorne Hope Fancy
CYRIL SCOTT: Sonatina for Guitar
JOHN GARDNER: Pavan for Guitar
DANI HOWARD: You Don’t Have to Tell Me Twice
BENJAMIN BRITTEN: Nocturnal after John Dowland
JACK HANCHER | guitar
A CELEBRATION OF ENGLISH WIND MUSIC
JOHN IRELAND: A Maritime Overture
GORDON JACOB: An Original Suite
PERCY GRAINGER: Lincolnshire Posy
GUSTAV HOLST: Second Suite in F
RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Fantasia on Greensleeves
PERCY GRAINGER: Lincolnshire Posy
MARTIN ELLERBY: Wessex Dances
UK PREMIÈRE
ST CAT’S ENSEMBLE
Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears at The Red House: Shared Lives, Shared Legacy
CHRISTOPHER HILTON
THE GOLDEN SKEIN
RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Festival Te Deum
HERBERT HOWELLS: Like as the Hart
EDGAR BAINTON: The Golden Skein
JOHN GARDNER: Three Amorous Airs
SIR EDWARD ELGAR: Good Morrow
FREDERICK DELIUS: To be Sung of a Summer Night on the Water
SIR GEORGE DYSON: Morning and Evening ; Hymn for a Musician ; Hymn to the Stars
HERBERT HOWELLS: Magnificat from Gloucester Service
RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Three Preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes
GUSTAV HOLST: Nunc Dimittis
RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: The Dark-Eyed Sailor ; The Springtime of the Year ; Just as the Tide Was Flowing
GUSTAV HOLST: Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence ; Turn Back, O Man ; A Festival Chime
GODWINE CHOIR
HILARY DAVAN WETTON | conductor
JONATHAN KINGSTON | organ
ALL A GREEN WILLOW
Stef Connor presents a suite of songs exploring stories of human compassion and resilience. Finding solace in connecting with voices from the deep past, Connor sets mediaeval lyrics, folksongs and poems from Britain’s deep past which speak of empathy, connection, love and loss. Her selection embraces the messy complexities of human responses, with folk ballads like The Maid of Occram and Silver Dagger tapping into the painful misjudgements and mistakes that are inevitable parts of all loving relationships, while Middle English lyrics Worldes blis, Wynter wakeneth and For al is turned to yusterday bring a stark reminder of the transience of earth’s pleasures and achievements and Shakespeare’s words of defiant remembrance in Sonnet 60 inspire belief in love’s capacity to outlast separation.
STEF CONNER | singer / composer / researcher
THE BUTTERFLY AND THE TOAD
SIR GEORGE DYSON: Primrose Mount ; Bach’s Birthday
CECIL ARMSTRONG GIBBS: The Gates of Sleep ; Four Preludes
LORD BERNERS: Le poisson d’or ; Dispute entre le papillon et le crapaud ; Three Funeral Marches
THOMAS PITFIELD: Arietta and Finale ; Humoresque, Prelude, Minuet and Reel
DOREEN CARWITHEN: Four Preludes
CAROLINE REINAGLE: Sonata in A
HIROAKI TAKENOUCHI | piano
DOROTHY HOWELL’S WORLD
JOHN BLACKWOOD McEWEN: Nugae — Seven Bagatelles for String Quartet
FRANK BRIDGE: Miniatures for Piano Trio
DOROTHY HOWELL: String Quartet in D minor
HERBERT HOWELLS: Elegy for Viola and Piano
SIR EDWARD ELGAR: Piano Quintet
BERKELEY ENSEMBLE
SIMON CALLAGHAN | piano
Mystic Moderns: The Forgotten Lives of Cyril Scott and John Foulds
MATTHEW MADELEY
“MY SPIRIT SANG ALL DAY”
CECIL ARMSTRONG GIBBS: Five Elizabethan Lyrics
ALAN RAWSTHORNE: A Rose for Lidice
GERALD FINZI: Seven Poems of Robert Bridges
ROBIN MILFORD: Songs of Escape
HERBERT HOWELLS: Creep Afore Ye Gang ; A Croon ; The Shadows
JOHN IRELAND: There Is a Garden in Her Face ; May Flowers ; In Summer Woods ; Evening Song
EDGAR BAINTON: Three Songs: In Youth Is Pleasure ; Abou ben Adhem ; Behold,My Love, How Green the Groves
SIR EDWARD ELGAR: Lullaby
EXCALIBUR VOICES
DUNCAN ASPDEN | director
THE EMF RESERVES THE RIGHT TO CHANGE THE PROGRAMME DETAILS IN ANY WAY WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE.
We are delighted to announce the programme for the 2025 English Music Festival, which can be viewed in full on this page. This year, all our events will once again be held in Dorchester-on-Thames, with the concerts taking place in the glorious surroundings of Dorchester Abbey and the talks in the historic Village Hall. EMF Friends’ booking will open on 1 March, general booking opening two weeks later, on 15 March.
We have recently introduced a new tier to our Friends’ Scheme for Corporate Friends — so, if you own, or help to run, a company or a similar organisation, and would like to enjoy the special benefits that this tier offers, please do consider joining at this level. For more details about our Friends’ Scheme, please follow this link for a description of the tiers and their benefits, together with information about how to join.