Welcome to the Gower Festival

This year will be the debut of some brilliant new international young performers and the distinguished baroque violinist Rachel Podger. In addition to performances by our two Patrons, Catrin Finch and Llŷr  Williams, we will also welcome the return of the Carducci Quartet.

It will be my tenth Anniversary as Artistic Director and to celebrate I will perform with the violinist Keila Wakao, the outstanding 16 year old first prizewinner of the Menuhin Competition 2021.

We will finish in great Welsh style with a Cymanfa Ganu for ALL!

“It is a privilege for me, as President, to be able to welcome you to the Gower Festival, my ‘local’ festival, having been raised on the beautiful Gower Peninsula. There is an exciting programme for you to enjoy, with concerts in the historic churches of Gower.”

“The Gower Festival represents the best of the British summer festival tradition, great music for friendly and appreciative audiences in the most beautiful surroundings. I always look forward to returning with much anticipation.”

“Performing at the Gower Festival on many occasions has always been a special experience for me. I am therefore thrilled to be invited to be a Patron of this outstanding Festival.”

‘The Story So Far ….’ Join Catrin as she journeys through the music that’s most important to her and tells anecdotes of her life as an extraordinary harpist. Debussy’s sublime Clair de Lune, the tangos of Piazzolla, the fiery style of Colombian joropo and the serenity of Welsh folk tunes – all these combine to show the wonderful diversity and range of both harp and harpist.

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Accompanied by Gordon Back, sixteen-year-old Keila Wakao, first prize-winner at the Menuhin Competition 2021, plays Beethoven’s ‘Spring’ Sonata and Bartók’s folk-inspired Rhapsody No. 1. Bloch’s Nigun (one of his Three Pictures of Hassidic Life), Wagner’s early Romance and Szymanowski’s brilliant Nocturne and Tarantella complete an exciting programme.

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Tour of Artists’ Studios in North Gower 10.00 am - 3.30 pm and with lunch break. Transport provided.

A great opportunity to visit the studios of painter Beth Marsden, stained glass artist Catrin Jones and ceramicist Micki Schloessingk in their rural north Gower surroundings. The tour also includes an art display in beautiful Cheriton Church.

Joined by Daniele Caminiti on theorbo, leading violinist Rachel Podger performs Italian masterpieces from the golden age of the Baroque violin.

‘There is an unfailing eloquence to everything Rachel Podger does.’

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With theorbo player Daniele Caminiti, violinist Rachel Podger performs little-known sonatas by Frescobaldi and other Italian masters of the seventeenth century - early music which still sounds new, daring and fantastic.

One of the Gower Festival’s remits is to support the best of local talent.

Come and hear the wonderful Mumbles
A Cappella in a lively and varied programme.

You will be entertained and surprised!

Acclaimed Welsh pianist and Festival patron Llŷr Williams makes a welcome return to Gower with a fine programme of romantic piano music. César Franck’s Prélude, Aria et Final and Brahms’s Seven Fantasies, Op. 116, are followed by Schumann’s Études Symphoniques, Op. 13, one of the composer’s greatest works, and Liszt’s sparkling Hungarian Rhapsody in C sharp minor. A fascinating evening of contrasting styles.

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‘A seemingly unlikely combination of instruments that works real magic.’

Following the enormous success of their appearance at the 2019 Gower Festival, Huw and Oliver embark on a new musical tour, from Albinoni, via Ravel and Tarrega, to the saxophone music of today.

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Local composer and popular lecturer on music Chris Weeks considers the lasting appeal of Gower and of the sea around it to musicians and visual artists.

A firm favourite with Gower audiences, the Carducci Quartet play Haydn’s delightful early masterpiece, the ‘Joke’ Quartet, Op. 33/2, and Dvořák’s popular ‘American’ Quartet, Op. 96.

The Carducci are joined by the gifted young Welsh soprano, Erin Gwyn Rossington, in a performance of Gareth Walters' fine song-cycle Cân y galon (Song of the Heart). Before this we hear Shostakovich’s first quartet and the recently rediscovered ‘Poem’ by Rebecca Clarke.

The evening ends with Beethoven’s Quartet in E minor, Op. 59, the second and most impassioned of the quartets he dedicated to Count Rasumovsky.

Maxim Lando is one of the most brilliant and imaginative young pianists to emerge in recent years. His varied programme takes us from ragtime to ‘Frankenstein’, a new work by Lowell Liebermann here receiving its world premiere. We’ll also hear tunes from Stephen Sondheim’s musical Sweeney Todd, a piece by Florence Price, the first African-American classical composer, plus one of Liszt’s most evocative works, his Reminiscences of Don Juan on themes from Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni.  

A thrilling evening.

Join with church, chapel, male-voice and community choirs for hymn-singing in the spacious acoustic of Capel Y Crwys. Alwyn Humphreys conducts, with soprano soloist Ros Evans and organist William Reynolds.

Everyone is welcome. A rousing conclusion to the 2023 Festival.