Internationally acclaimed pianist Stephen Hough, violinist Tasmin Little and The Galliard Ensemble (previous BBC New Generation Artists) head the line-up at this year’s Hertfordshire Festival of Music, which runs from 10th – 16th June.

On Saturday 15th June 2018 the Galliards join actor Matthew Sharp at the Friends Meeting House to perform the first-ever dramatisation of ‘Heralds Of Good Fortune’. An intriguing, locally inspired tale by HFoM Artistic Director James Francis Brown, ‘Heralds Of Good Fortune’ is a fairy-tale that comes closer to home than one might think. Meet the Roguish Ravens; the Years-old Yew Tree; the Romancing Rose and the Lovers of Lavender’s Blue and find out how an eternal message unites them all in a story that only The Herald knows…

The evening opens with Joseph Haydn’s Divertimento in Bb Major Chorale St Anthony,  chosen because it seems highly likely that the famous Austrian composer entered the building back in the Summer of 1791 during his stay with the Brassey Family in nearby Hertingfordbury. He would have been delighted to hear his Divertimento in B flat, written at the behest of Prince Esterhazy sometime before 1782, performed in a building dedicated to the spiritual and, itself, already redolent of the past.

The event concludes with a rumbustious serving of Ancient Hungarian Dances composed in a folk-derived idiom by Ferenc Farkas in 1959 using tunes that date back to the years when the Friends Meeting House itself was new – the 1670s. And so we come full-circle.

Full details and tickets:
Hertfordshire Festival of Music
Friday 15 June, 7.30 pm – c.8.30 pm
Friends Meeting House, 50 Railway Street, Hertford SG14 1BA
Tickets (£15) can be booked here.
Galliard Ensemble
Matthew Sharp
Joseph Haydn Divertimento in Bb Major Chorale St Anthony
James Francis Brown Heralds of Good Fortune (world première of dramatised version)
Ferenc Farkas Ancient Hungarian Dances (a selection)