The 2024 Leamington Music Festival returns early May, offering five days of classical favourites at the Royal Pump Rooms.

Czech music dominates the programme as the festival celebrates the bicentenary of the birth of Bedřich Smetana, the first nationalist composer of Czech music, and also the fiftieth anniversary of The Dvořák Society.

The music not only includes works by the four best known Czech composers - Smetana, Dvořák, Janáček and Martinů - but also Eben, Kalliwoda, Kofroň, Stich and Suk, plus Jewish composers Haas, Klein, Korngold, Mahler, Schulhoff, Tauský and Ullmann.

Johann Wenzel Stich was better known as Giovanni Punto and wrote works for Mozart and Beethoven whose works both feature at the festival. The five day event also includes works by Chopin, Hummel and Schubert, making clever links with Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia. An Oboe Quintet by Sylvie Bodorová has been commissioned by The Dvořák Society.

The Dvořák Society for Czech and Slovak Music, which has always supported Leamington’s festivals, will hold its AGM on 4 May, followed by a talk from David Beveridge on Dvořák in Britain. This leads up to the première in the evening of the Oboe Quintet.

Czech musicians in residence for the festival include pianist Martin Kasík, oboist Vilém Veverka, and the Martinů String Quartet (pictured). The latter is well known in Warwickshire, having given over thirty concerts in the county since 1998. The Guarneri Piano Trio make a welcome return for an evening concert, and the Kukal String Quartet makes its UK debut in a Coffee Concert on the morning of 3 May.

British based musicians involved in the festival include barritone Simon Wallfisch; trumpet player Imogen Whitehead, horn musician Ben Goldscheider and viola player Elizabeth Wallfisch. Raphael Wallfisch and Gemma Rosefield will showcase their skill on cello. Pianists Piers Lane, Iain Farrington and Richard Uttley also feature. The eminent French violinist Philippe Graffin returns to Leamington for the first time since 2005.

The festival, which always takes place over the first bank holiday weekend in May, dates back to 1990 and there have been five festivals since 1995 that have had a Czech theme. The Leamington connection is that the Czechoslovak Free Army was based in the town and surrounding area from 1940 to 1942 and the Assembly Hall of the Royal Pump Rooms was used for the Army Choir rehearsals, many taken by Vilém Tauský, who was to come to two of the festivals and whose work for string quartet, Coventry, will be given a further performance on 6 May. He wrote this work after visiting the ruined cathedral days after the blitz in November 1940 which destroyed much of the city.

Composer Sylvie Bodorová will also be present at the festival - not just for the première of her Oboe Quintet, but to hear Terezín Ghetto Requiem, one of five commissions given to her by Warwick Arts Society. The work which premièred at Holy Trinity Church Leamington in July 1998 will be performed as part of the festival programme by the Martinů Quartet with Simon Wallfisch on 6 May. 

The concert on 6 May will mark the retirement at 83 of Festival Director Richard Phillips MBE. Since 1977, Richard has created or directed 108 festivals - probably more than anyone else in Britain. The majority of these have been in the Midlands but it was his idea, after a sabbatical in 1976, to start the York Early Music Festival and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. He was also responsible for making the Norfolk & Norwich Triennial Festival, which dated back to the 1770s, into an annual festival. Richard was also involved in festivals in King’s Lynn and Oundle. Recognition of his achievements over the years has included the British Arts Festivals Association giving him the Outstanding Contribution to British Arts Festivals Award in 2010 - an award previously given to festivals in Edinburgh, Brighton and Glastonbury. In 2016 he was made an MBE for services to music and the arts.

The Festival plans include further talks and a walk visiting sites associated with the Czechoslovak Free Army’s time.  The Leamington Music Artist-in-Residence, Jane Williams, will have an exhibition of her pictures from the Czech festivals and there will be further displays from the Friends of Czech Heritage, the Friends of the Czechoslovak Memorial Fountain and The Dvořák Society.

Full details of the 2024 Leamington Music Festival can be found here.