Tuesday 29th July - Friday 8th August 2025

For our 2025 festival, we have a Shakespearean theme. Our opera is Verdi’s comic masterpiece Falstaff which will be conducted by Paul Daniel and features a stellar cast including Darren Jeffery, Roderick Williams, Mark Padmore, Elin Pritchard, Frances Bourne,Thomas Elwin, Carolyn Dobbin, Andrew Slater, Peter Hoare and Jessica Hopkins. We are absolutely delighted that Cornish resident and comic genius Bill Bankes Jones will direct a glittering production as the centrepiece of our Summer programme.

This year we will be opening our Festival with the beautiful Chaminade Flute Concertino played by Daniel Pailthorpe followed by the huge splash of Vaughan- Williams Sea Symphony - conducted by Olivia Clarke and featuring baritone Roderick Williams and Joint Artistic Director soprano Rachel Nicholls alongside our choir and orchestra. There will be two opportunities to enjoy this programme as we expect it to be very popular.

Our final symphonic concert will be conducted by Jonathan Berman-  he joins us for the first time to lead the choir and orchestra in Brahms Schicksalslied, Sibelius Symphony number 3 and Wagner Forest Murmurs and Prelude to Tristan und Isolde and Liebestod, featuring Rachel Nicholls.

Our late-night and chamber concerts will include contributions by Mark Padmore, Susan Bullock and Richard Sisson. We are also delighted to be programming another family-friendly Carefree Classical Concert with In the Woods as our theme. We are also programming what I hope will be a truly magical evening of British Music - This Sceptred Isle will feature the Elgar Piano Quintet.

In the second week of the Festival we will be offering a single late-night candlelit performance of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. Seb Gillot will direct a chamber ensemble from the Harpsichord in a new semi staged production by festival favourite Victoria Newlyn. Rachel Nicholls leads the cast which will feature many of our emerging artists who we believe are rising stars of future years. And we are delighted that Lewis Edney will be continuing his fantastic work with young Cornish musicians who will be providing music for our Friends Events.

We are so grateful for the continued support of St Endellion church and clergy and are planning some beautiful liturgical musical contributions to church services in 2025, chosen by our choir masters - Frances Cooke and Quintin Beer. This spiritual aspect of the festival is hugely important to me personally and I hope that audience and performers alike can join me in celebrating this dimension to our festival.

Tickets

Tickets will go on sale on Satuday 14th June for Festival Friends and on Saturday 28th June for general public. If you would like to join our Friends and Patrons scheme, follow the link to find out more.