THE biennial Mary Wakefield Westmorland Music Festival made a glowing return to Kendal this week for another remarkable mix of competition and performance.

The 2015 gathering opened with an excellent Westmorland Orchestra concert and concludes on Saturday with the creme de la creme of the region's choral societies performing at St Thomas's Church.

The Westmorland Gazette rounds up the first two days' action.

SATURDAY

The 2015 Mary Wakefield Music Festival got off to an exciting start on Saturday morning at the Queen Katherine School with the inaugural Rock, Pop and Jazz Fun Day in partnership with the QKS Community Music Centre and sponsorship from the Kendal Millennium Youth Choir.

In excess of 30 children of all ages, making up 20 different groups, duos and soloists, performed in front of a large, enthusiastic audience of family, friends and fellow musicians who were entertained by a kaleidoscope of vocalists, guitarists, percussionists, keyboard players and drummers.

The day was led by Ben Farmer who is an experienced teacher and workshop leader, working for Lancashire Music Service and More Music In Morecambe on a wide variety of projects and workshops. At the end of each session Ben gave positive and constructive feedback to all the musicians taking part and to conclude the day he awarded medals to some of the most promising players: Emelie Beston, Cameron Richardson, Bernadette Dixon, Matthew Maguire and Hannah Wenzel and awarded the Greenside Choir Cup for the most promising performance of the day to Jack Boles, Sam Mason, Stevie Wilson and Mikey McVey for their excellent group and self-penned composition.

Michael Atkinson

MONDAY

AMONG the first classes of the Festival were piano solos in three age groups. Winner of the Jubilee Cup for the youngest group, school years 7-9, was Chloe Lauren Martin with a piece by Chinese composer Mingxin Du. Other piano successes were Alistair Burton in the years 9-10 age group and Olivia Smith, years 11-13. Winners of the string solo classes were Joshua Lucas (years 7-8), Alistair Burton (years 9-10), and Molly Faulkner, who gave a virtuoso performance of a Smetana violin piece in the years 11-13 class, winning her the ornate Agnes Argles trophy. Second was Rachel Coombs, who played an Elegie for cello by Fauré, with Viktoria Balzer third on the harp.

Jean Robinson

HAD Mary Wakefield herself returned to Kendal on Monday evening, she would have felt entirely at home listening to the eight groups assembled to sing, brought together by a shared love of singing from a wide variety of locations ranging from Satterthwaite to Windermere, and from Burton to Bowness. Some of the groups were derived from choirs founded in her time, and still running, while others were more recently founded, and the choice of music was even wider, covering everything from Tudor madrigals to songs from the shows, including an unusual Finnish folk song. Adjudicator Margaret Smith gave encouragement, advice and positive comments, and the choirs all appreciated and supported each other’s efforts. Tracy Penwarden-Allan’s group Ottovoce won the Lady Fletcher Cup. The evening could not have more perfectly exemplified the ethos of the original Festival, in bringing groups together from local communities to share and enjoy their love of music.

The classes earlier in the evening were for the younger generation, with the Kendal Millennium Youth Choir winning the class for non-school based youth choirs, and Windermere School Choir (the only entry) winning the Staveley Cup for a school choir covering years 7-13.

Rosemary Howell

TUESDAY

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SATURDAY

The excellent concert presented by the Westmorland Orchestra as part of the Mary Wakefield Westmorland Music Festival deserved to be better supported. Given the fact that the three works on the programme - by Beethoven, Brahms and Mendelssohn - were from the mainstream orchestral repertoire, the number of empty seats in Kendal Leisure Centre's Westmorland Hall was disappointing.

The concert began with a confident performance of Mendelssohn’s stormy Hebrides Overture. The players captured the brooding atmosphere of the work very effectively with the lower strings producing a rich tone in their melodic line; the upper strings, however, sounded a little weak in comparison. Throughout, the ensemble playing was tight with lovely expressive playing in the quieter sections and impressive climaxes.

In Brahms Piano Concert No 2, the players were joined by soloist, Ian Buckle. This is a huge work, demanding great strength from the soloist who needs to balance his part with the sound of a full orchestra playing fortissimo at times. Ian showed that he could do this but his playing revealed weakness in the state of the piano in the Westmorland Hall which clearly needs some attention in the upper register; the sound is hard and brittle suggesting perhaps that the hammers are worn.

There were some lovely contributions from individual members of the orchestra: horn and woodwind soloists stood out and Vivienne Pooley’s solo cello melody at the opening of the slow movement was beautifully played, earning her an accolade from conductor, Richard Howarth. He obtained some impressive pianissimo playing by the string section in this movement.

Finally, came Beethoven’s seventh symphony, once described by Belioz as 'the apotheosis of the dance' because of the strongly marked rhythms which are such a strong characteristic of this work, even in the slow movement. The energy and volume of sound required makes this a very demanding work for an orchestra and it is to the great credit of players and conductor that the Westmorland achieved this. There were some minor blemishing in tuning from time to time, but these did not detract from the overall performance which was energetic yet disciplined. Among particular highlights were, the sustained crescendo at the beginning of the slow movement, the many woodwind solo passages, so expertly played, and the energy released in the finale.

Clive Walkley