October 2025
Paul Daniel, Artistic Director
The 2026 St Endellion Summer Festival will run from Tuesday 28th July to Friday 7th August 2026. I’m delighted to bring you some of the highlights of this, my first Summer Festival as Artistic Director. As always, we are so grateful to the Vicar, Churchwardens and Clergy team of St Endellion for their generous hospitality, and we begin our residency in their wonderful church with sung Evensong. Following the next day, our opening concert will raise the curtain, an introduction to what is in store, with some festival favourites and some surprises!
2026 marks fifty years since the death of Benjamin Britten, a composer who has always been at the heart of the Festival. We are very proud to mark this anniversary with a first - the landmark premiere of a new version of Britten’s War Requiem. It’s a work that is impossible to perform in smaller churches and halls - until now: by agreement with Boosey and Hawkes, we will perform his great choral and orchestral masterpiece for the first time at St Endellion in a new version I have made for single orchestra, and the full Festival Chorus. Roderick Williams, much loved singer and composer and my predecessor as a former Artistic Director, will be joined by the tenor Ed Lyon to sing the poetry of Wilfred Owen, a heart-searching witness to the pity of War.
2026 is also the centenary of the first performance of the opera Turandot, and I’m very excited that we will present three performances of Puccini’s thrilling final opera for the first time at St Endellion, with Rachel Nicholls (another former Artistic Director) in the title role.
Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas was a particular favourite of last summer’s Festival, and I am delighted that we will present highlights from The Fairy Queen in 2026. We may not replicate the 12 foot high working fountains or the six dancing live monkeys of the original 1693 production, but the score’s overflowing musical invention and theatrical comedy, the climax of the great Restoration Spectaculars of the 1600s, will be a showcase for many of our younger singers and musicians.
The early evening of the second Festival Tuesday will be devoted to an enthralling concert given by Roderick Williams and friends, in which his intensely moving performance of Schubert’s ‘Die Winterreise’, performed in the English translation by Jeremy Sams, will be interlaced with other music, solo and chamber.
To round off the inspiring work of our Chorus and Orchestra throughout the Festival, the penultimate evening will be devoted to a concert conducted by Adam Hickox. He leads performances of two transcendent works of Vaughan Williams: his Flos Campi, in which the Chorus will be joined by the orchestra and viola soloist Steve Doman, and his great Fifth Symphony, music that searches for light and serenity in the troubled world leading to the Second World War.
There’s lots more that we are excited to announce very soon. Details to come of the hugely popular Family ‘Wonderland’ performance; the launch of the St Endellion Songbook, a new collection of wholly new, specially minted works for the Festival; and many other much loved singers and instrumentalists to perform recitals, chamber music, showcases of music new and old. Please check back here for further information that will be announced as soon as it becomes available. Meanwhile, here is the provisional outline schedule. Please note that this is provisional and that artists and programmes may yet change - but we wanted to share this as early as possible with you so that you can make plans. We’ll be sure to keep this page updated so do keep checking in.
PROVISIONAL PROGRAMME
Tuesday 28th July 2026 - SUNG EVENSONG
Wednesday 29th July – OPENING CONCERT
Thursday 30th July – BRITTEN WAR REQUIEM
Friday 31st July – CHAMBER MUSIC CONCERT / LATE NIGHT CONCERT
Saturday 1st August – BRITTEN WAR REQUIEM
Sunday 2nd August – SUNG EUCHARIST; WONDERLAND FAMILY CONCERT
Monday 3rd August – PUCCINI TURANDOT
Tuesday 4th August – RODERICK WILLIAMS AND FRIENDS - A WINTER JOURNEY / LATE NIGHT CONCERT
Wednesday 5th August – PUCCINI TURANDOT
Thursday 6th August – ORCHESTRAL CONCERT; PURCELL THE FAIRY QUEEN
Friday 7th August – LUNCHTIME CHORAL CONCERT; PUCCINI TURANDOT
The whole community of the Festival looks forward to giving you a warm St Endellion welcome in 2026.
