The complete programme for Fitzfest 2018 has been announced, with many of the events taking place at the Fitzrovia Chapel. Fitzfest is the annual celebration of London’s Fitzrovia with all its musical heritage from past generations together with the contemporary diversity that thrives today.

With a programme of music made entirely by musicians who have lived or worked in Fitzrovia over the centuries – and often played on historical instruments made in Fitzrovia – the festival is grounded in the local community.

It offers a diverse array of community concerts, workshops, social and fitness events to draw the local people into the festival and to celebrate the current community alongside the historical culture of the area. This year, FitzFest is proud to welcome international performers Griff Rhys Jones and Robert Bathurst to the festival.

The events are either free or £5 or £10 when indicated. Please pay cash on the door to keep ticket prices as low as possible.

Here’s the programme for 2018:

FitzFest 2018

Wednesday 30 May

Opening Night Concert and Reception ‘Fitzrovian Fantasy’ (Private Event for Sponsors)
Fitzrovia Chapel 19.30 to 21:30
Musicians wearing clothes designed by Andy Sotto
Daniel Bates oboe, Beatrice Phillips violin, Laura Lutzke violin, Adam Newman viola, Hanna Sloan ‘cello
Programme includes works by Fitzrovian composers:
Britten Phantasy Quartet
Boughton Songs Without Words
Moeran Fantasy Quartet
Mozart Oboe Quartet

Late Night Candlelight Concert ‘Jazz at Bedtime’ (private event for sponsors)
Fitzrovia Chapel 22:00 to 22:45
Mervyn Fletcher and his Jazz Band
£5, cash on the door

Thursday 31May

Coffee Concert ‘The Fitzrovian Flute’
Rebecca Hossack Gallery, 2A Conway Street W1 11:00 to 12:00
Juliette Bausor flute, Daniel Bates oboe, Beatrice Phillips violin, Laura Lutzke violin, Adam Newman viola, Hanna Sloan ‘cello
Programme includes works by FItzrovian composers:
Bliss Conversations
Mozart Flute Quartet
£10 cash on the door

Walk about the Music and Musicians of Fitzrovia
12:00 to 13:30, meet outside Rebecca Hossack Gallery, 2A Conway Street W1
A free guided walk around Fitzrovia, focusing on the music and musicians of the area. Led by ‘Mr Fitzrovia’- Mike Pentelow.

Afternoon Event ‘Music and the Brain’
Sainsbury Wellcome Centre 16:30 to 18:30
An afternoon of interactive workshops and events exploring the subject of music, cognition and the brain. With live scientific experiments and performances and improvisation based on brain data. Hosted by research scientists of the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre

Utopia – Baritone Saxophone Country
Rebecca Hossack Gallery, 2A Conway Street 20:00 to 20:45

This event explores the repertoire of the jazz baritone saxophone, while offering a historical overview of the instrument’s evolution, often amid controversy, even scurrilous propaganda. An end result is you leave with the keys to a better world; a world of fun, all round pleasantry and occasional grooves orchestrated by the glorious metal tube, the baritone saxophone.

Mervyn Fletcher – Baritone Saxophone/ Narrator

Guitarist – Diego Sampieri

This concert is £5 per ticket, cash on the door. Our policy is cash only to keep ticket prices low and accessible to as many people as possible.

Friday 1 June

Morning: Free Yoga and Meditation at Fitzrovia Chapel
Fitzrovia Chapel: 9.30am (yoga) and 11am (meditation)

Lunchtime Concert ‘Mindfulness at Middlesex’
Fitzrovia Chapel 1pm-2pm
A concert of relaxing music by Fitzrovian composers prefaced by a short, guided meditation.
Katharine Spencer clarinet, Daniel Bates oboe, Beatrice Phillips violin, Laura Lutzke violin, Adam Newman viola, Hanna Sloan ‘cello
Programme includes music by Bach and Mozart
£10 cash on the door

Evening Concert ‘Pure Bliss’ compered by comedian, writer, actor and television presenter Griff Rhys Jones
Fitzrovia Chapel 7.30pm-9.30pm
Katharine Spencer clarinet, Daniel Bates oboe, Beatrice Phillips violin, Laura Lutzke violin, Adam Newman viola, Hanna Sloan ‘cello
Programme includes Sir Arthur Bliss Clarinet Quintet and String Quartet
£10 cash on the door

Late Night Candlelight Concert ‘Echo Chamber’
Fitzrovia Chapel 10pm-10.45pm

That figure who echoes again and again through history – the man with great power, whose vanity towers over an abyss of fear – what dreams
resonate though the chamber of his sleeping mind?

A fantasy by Jonathan Rees imagining the dreams of Louis XIV the Sun King, using 17th-C french folk tunes, viol music by De Machy, Marais, St
Colombe, Forqueray, compositions by Mal Waldron and John Barber, and words by La Rochefoucauld, La Fontaine and Pascal.

£10 cash on the door

Saturday 2 June

Morning: Free Yoga and Meditation at the Fitzrovia Chapel
Fitzrovia Chapel: 9.30am (yoga) and 11am (meditation)

Afternoon Performance
Rebecca Hossack Gallery, 2A Conway Street 3pm-3.50pm
Robert Bathurst and Sarah Malin perform Christopher Reid’s The Song of Lunch

Robert Bathurst (Cold Feet, Downton Abbey, Toast of London) and Sarah Malin star in this hilarious and poignant drama of a disastrous attempt to rekindle lost love. Set in a Soho Italian restaurant, Costa Award Winner Christopher Reid’s lyrical narrative is a bittersweet tragicomedy of love, loss and chianti. Directed by Jason Morrell. ‘Moving, clever, beautiful, sad and true. Just wonderful’ (Guardian on ‘The Song of Lunch’). ‘Robert Bathurst is a class act and a master of nuance’ (Herald Scotland). The Song Of Lunch is suitable for anyone who has been on a rubbish date.
£10 cash on the door

Afternoon Lecture: Nick Bailey Talk on Fitzrovia through the ages
Royal Society of Musicians, Fitzroy Square 5pm-6.30pm
Nick Bailey is professor of Urban Regeneration at University of Westminster

Closing Event: ‘Fitzrovian Fantasy’
Rebecca Hossack Gallery, 2A Conway Street W1 7.30pm-9.30pm
Musicians wearing clothes designed by Andy Sotto
Daniel Bates oboe, Beatrice Phillips violin, Laura Lutzke violin, Adam Newman viola, Hanna Sloan ‘cello
Programme includes works by Fitzrovian composers:
Britten Phantasy Quartet
Boughton Songs Without Words
Moeran Fantasy Quartet
Mozart Oboe Quartet
£10 cash on the door

Headline Artists

 

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment www.oae.co.uk
The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) is a British period instrument orchestra. The OAE is a resident orchestra of the Southbank Centre, London, associate orchestra at Glyndebourne Festival Opera and has its headquarters at Kings Place. The leadership is rotated between four musicians: Matthew Truscott, Kati Debretzeni and Margaret Faultless.

A group of period instrumentalist players formed the OAE as a self-governing ensemble in 1986, and took its name from the historical period in the late 18th century where the core of its repertoire is based. The OAE does not have a principal conductor, but chooses conductors individually. Having no permanent music director gives the orchestra flexibility to work with some of the world’s greatest conductors and soloists across a wide range of music. The current Principal Artists are Sir Simon Rattle, Vladimir Jurowski, Iván Fischer, John Butt and Sir Mark Elder. Sir Roger Norrington and William Christie are Emeritus Conductors, as were the late Frans Brüggen and Sir Charles Mackerras. Other conductors to have worked with the OAE at its invitation include Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Edward Gardner, Robin Ticciati, Philippe Herreweghe, Gustav Leonhardt, René Jacobs, Harry Bicket, Christopher Hogwood, Marin Alsop, Sigiswald Kuijken, Ivor Bolton, Monica Huggett, and Bruno Weil.

Juliette Bausor (Flute) www.juliettebausor.co.uk
Widely recognised as one of Britain’s leading flute players, Juliette Bausor began her studies with Anna Pope at the junior department of the Royal Academy of Music and Purcell School of Music, before going on to study with Philippa Davies, Paul Edmund Davies and Samuel Coles at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She continued her tuition at the Conservatoire Nationale Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris, with Sophie Cherrier and Vincent Lucas.

Following international success in competitions, including early recognition in reaching the televised Concerto Final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year and winning the Gold Medal in both the Shell LSO Competition and the Royal Over-Seas League Competition, Juliette has appeared as a concerto soloist with orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, Academy of St Martins in the Fields, European Union Chamber Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia and London Mozart Players, with conductors including Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Thomas Zehetmair, Mario Venzago and Sir Neville Marriner.