Free pop-up performances will kick off Cheltenham Music Festival

Three roaming bands will give free pop-up performances on Cheltenham’s High Street, Promenade and Imperial Gardens to celebrate the opening weekend of Cheltenham Music Festival on 9 and 10 July. The bands are presented in partnership with Cheltenham BID.

BLOCO B will get the party started on Saturday morning from 11am to 1pm with some Rio de Janeiro Carnival style samba tunes, blending percussion & drumming with singers, cavaquinho players and dancers.

Saturday afternoon from 2 to 4pm sees the Rajasthan Heritage Brass Band perform vibrant music and colourful dancing in a fusion of Indian roots sounds from North Indian classical melodies to popular Bollywood songs and Bhangra beats.

And on Sunday morning from 11am to 1pm, Unswung Heroes take to the streets with danceband and New Orleans jazz as well as pop, soul and funk covers in a vintage swing style.

The eagerly awaited Cheltenham Music Festival will bring nine days of performances and events by leading international artists, new talent and innovators from 8 to 16 July. Performers include London Mozart Players, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Anoushka Shankar with the Britten Sinfonia, Brodsky Quartet, Ingrid Fliter, Sheku & Isata Kanneh-Mason and Samuele Telari. Two new commissions by Laura Bowler and Conor Mitchell examine the nature of relationships and the BBC New Generation Artists give four lunchtime broadcasts. There’s dance from New English Ballet Theatre, talks, walks and mindfulness sessions, ending with a performance of Mahler’s 8th Symphony in Gloucester Cathedral.

For more info and updates visit www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/music

2022 Cheltenham Music Festival - Programme of ticketed events

The Festival opens on 8 July with the Kanneh-Mason Duo, siblings Sheku and Isata at the Pittville Pump Room and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in Cheltenham Town Hall performed by Sergei Dogadin and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Vasily Petrenko.

Spanning the worlds of classical, contemporary, acoustic and electronic music, the sitar-playing star Anoushka Shankar performs with Manu Delago and the strings of the Britten Sinfonia [9 July].

For a unique Festival experience, ‘Music and Mindfulness’ hosted by Will Crawford [9 July] will link meditation and the power of music to help to manage stress. Later in the day guests can enjoy champagne afternoon tea in The Daffodil as they watch contralto Hilary Summers and pianist Andrew West take a romp through the wild world of opera where absurd plots and gender fluidity come under light-hearted scrutiny in ‘What’s So Great About Opera?’ [9 July].

New English Ballet Theatre perform at the Everyman Theatre, celebrating the work of six female choreographers [10 July].

Classical Mixtape [11 July] tears up the concert-going rule-book, with audiences asked to pay whatever they can for their tickets and encouraged to stand, sit or lie down to experience music in the stunning setting of Gloucester Cathedral. The Manchester Collective, the Choir of Merton College, Oxford, accordionist Samuele Telari and organist Jonathan Hope will perform on separate stages dotted around the Cathedral, each short piece followed seamlessly by another.

One of the UK’s leading choirs Tenebrae performs a special programme of music and spoken voice for its 20^th anniversary with the actor Juliet Stevenson. The wide-ranging programme will celebrate love and freedom in the face of adversity, including Poulenc’s Figure Humaine, composed in response to the occupation of France in World War II [12 July].

The award-winning London Mozart Players perform with Martin James Bartlett, Ben Goldscheider and Ben Johnson at Cheltenham Town Hall [13 July].

London of the 1720’s is vividly brought to life by The English Concert and soprano Anna Dennis who examine the fierce rivalry between Handel and Bononcini – the original “Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee” [15 July].

The 2022 Cheltenham Music Festival concludes with Mahler’s monumental Symphony No.8, often referred to as the ‘Symphony of a Thousand.’ Performed in the majesty of Gloucester Cathedral by the British Sinfonietta, Choristers of Gloucester Cathedral, multiple local choirs and leading soloists conducted by Adrian Partington [16 July].

For full details visit - www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/music

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