Queen’s College Taunton Hosts Quartz Festival 2014

This year is the 10^th anniversary of Taunton’s Quartz Festival held at Queen’s College and it promises to be one of the region’s artistic highlights of the year. The programme of activities and events was launched by Festival Director Simon Ross earlier this week and he hopes that it will offer opportunities to engage with the arts, be it Shakespearean theatre, classical music, outlandish comedy, jazz, rock music or art and sculpture. This is the most ambitious programme yet and places the Quartz Festival at the very heart of cutting-edge arts provision in the south-west.

This year’s headline acts include a rare appearance by one of the world’s most renowned soprano singers Dame Emma Kirkby (Tuesday 7^th October). Performing alongside Jakob Lindberg on the lute, Dame Emma will present a programme entitled ‘The English Muse’, comprising work from the famous and the less well known composers of English song from the seventeenth century.

Two prolific bands from the 1970s will be rolling back the years. On Saturday 4^th October The Acoustic Strawbs featuring Dave Cousins will present their own blend of folk/rock (remember ‘Lay Down’ and ‘Part of the Union’?) and on Saturday 11^th October the Quartz Festival will welcome John Lees’ Barclay James Harvest, the melodic rock band that brought us hits such as Mocking Bird, Hymn and Child of the Universe.

This year’s Comedy Night (Friday 3^rd October) celebrates the 10^th anniversary by featuring a double bill. The Gloucester-based magician Andi Gladwin, who performed at the inauguration of President Obama in 2013, kicks off the evening followed by the time travelling Victorian magicians Morgan and West, who recently appeared at the Edinburgh Festival and the Royal Albert Hall. This promises to be a fantastic night’s entertainment.

A significant initiative this year involves the introduction of new musical acts specifically but not exclusively aimed at a younger audience, featuring up and coming acts that are just breaking through on the national music scene. The Warrington-based band Man and the Echo will be appearing on Thursday 2^nd October and the wonderful Cornish singer Kezia will be supporting The Acoustic Strawbs on Saturday 4^th October. A special New Music Festival Night, with discounted tickets for students, will feature Manchester-based singer Sukh, whose songs reflect influences from Bob Dylan and Sigur Ros, and Winter Mountain, a wonderfully talented duo from Cornwall and Ireland whose melodic folk songs have enthralled audiences on the festival circuit.

Other events at the Quartz Festival include a Parisian themed jazz night featuring Paris nightclub singer Liv Monaghan (Monday 6^th October), a music and words tribute to the life of Claude Debussy performed by Lucy Parham and actor Henry Goodman (Thursday 9^th October) and a drumming extravaganza performed by the incredible Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers, who have performed over 1,000 shows across Europe and the Far East. The Festival starts off with a return of the Shakespearean travelling theatre company The Lord Chamberlain’s Men whose all-male cast will be performing the classic Romeo and Juliet on Monday 29^th September, the last night of their 10^th anniversary tour.

Running alongside the evening events, is the art and sculpture exhibition atmospherically displayed in the Performing Arts Studio at Queen’s College and in the school grounds. Curator Sara Dudman, fresh from the success of last year, has put together an enthralling collection of work from established alongside work from emerging local practitioners featuring mesmerising landscapes, sculptural ceramics and surreal sculptures together with an outstanding array of contemporary crafts and silver-smithing. Sara describes this year’s exhibition as “a fabulous and exciting celebration of art and culture”. Alongside the displays, there will be a number of Artists in Residence and evening workshops. The ever-popular Red Field Kitchen will be providing catering throughout the Quartz Festival fortnight, this year featuring a Moroccan-themed menu.

The usual Quartz Festival fortnight will be followed this year by the Quartz Festival of Dance (Monday 13^th – Friday 17^th October). The brainchild of Queen’s College dance teacher Jo Elliott, the aim of the Quartz Festival of Dance is to provide intimate workshops for local children to work with some of the leading dance companies and choreographers in the country. Britain’s Got Talent runners-up Twist and Pulse visit the festival on Monday followed by the English National Ballet (Tuesday), Tim Noble – choreographer to Kylie Minogue amongst others – (Wednesday), Motionhouse (Thursday) and Birmingham Royal Ballet (Friday). Places on these workshops are limited and they are expected to sell out very quickly.

The Quartz Festival 2014 Box Office is open now. Further information on the Quartz Festival can be found at www.quartzfestival.org.uk where online tickets can be purchased. Tickets can also be purchased by phone on 01823 340829 or in person at Queen’s College Finance Office. Companies interested in future sponsorship of the Quartz Festival should contact Jan de Caux at jdc@queenscollege.org.uk (01823 340880). Simon Ross (Festival Director) can be contacted at sr@queenscollege.org.uk (01823 272559).