NEWS: LYRA HAVE HAD TO CANCEL THEIR UK TOUR DUE TO COVID-19. WE HOPE THEY WILL RETURN IN 2021.
Friday 1 May at 7:30 pm, St Michael's Church Shute
Lyra Vocal Ensemble: A mixed concert of Russian Church and Folk Music
Lyra is a small, mainly a cappella vocal ensemble who also perform some solo songs with piano accompaniment. Founded in St Petersburg, Russia, they sing the sacred music of the Russian Orthodox Church, including pieces by famous composers such as Tchaikovski, Tchesnokov, Rachmaninov and Gretchaninov. They also perform examples of ancient church music, as well as Russian folk songs. Lyra are back in the UK by popular demand having had a hugely successful tour in 2019 with packed audiences and rave reviews. Shute Festival is thrilled to be part of their 2020 tour.
Friday 1 May at 7:30 pm, St Michael's Church Shute
Lyra Vocal Ensemble: A mixed concert of Russian Church and Folk Music
Lyra is a small, mainly a cappella vocal ensemble who also perform some solo songs with piano accompaniment. Founded in St Petersburg, Russia, they sing the sacred music of the Russian Orthodox Church, including pieces by famous composers such as Tchaikovski, Tchesnokov, Rachmaninov and Gretchaninov. They also perform examples of ancient church music, as well as Russian folk songs. Lyra are back in the UK by popular demand having had a hugely successful tour in 2019 with packed audiences and rave reviews. Shute Festival is thrilled to be part of their 2020 tour.
Friday 22 May at 7:30 pm, St Michael's Church Shute
Sophy Roberts on The Lost Pianos of Siberia
Sophy is a British writer whose work focuses on the wild places from Papua New Guinea to the Congo. She began her career assisting the writer Jessica Mitford, and trained in journalism at Columbia University in New York. She regularly contributes to the Financial Times and the US edition of Condé Nast Traveler, among others. The Lost Pianos of Siberia, which Sophy will be discussing, is her first book. In the summer of 2015 Sophy was sitting in a tent in Mongolia talking to a musician who expressed deep sadness at not having a piano. This prompted Sophy's quest and a tale of months of travel across the remotest parts of Siberia in search of an historic piano meeting individuals - musical and otherwise. Her newly published book has already received great acclaim with rave reviews including in The Times.
Sophy Roberts on The Lost Pianos of Siberia
Sophy is a British writer whose work focuses on the wild places from Papua New Guinea to the Congo. She began her career assisting the writer Jessica Mitford, and trained in journalism at Columbia University in New York. She regularly contributes to the Financial Times and the US edition of Condé Nast Traveler, among others. The Lost Pianos of Siberia, which Sophy will be discussing, is her first book. In the summer of 2015 Sophy was sitting in a tent in Mongolia talking to a musician who expressed deep sadness at not having a piano. This prompted Sophy's quest and a tale of months of travel across the remotest parts of Siberia in search of an historic piano meeting individuals - musical and otherwise. Her newly published book has already received great acclaim with rave reviews including in The Times.
Saturday 23 May at 7:30 pm, St Michael's Church Shute
James Crowden on The Frozen River - Seeking Silence in the Himalaya
James is an author and poet living in Somerset. In 1976-77 James gave up what might have been a promising career in the army, and he spent a winter on the northern side of the Himalaya, in the remote Zangskar Valley in Ladakh. This is the story which he tells in The Frozen River, his newly published book written over forty years later. There will be slides of the Zangskar valley in winter plumage and the story of the chadar, the rather dangerous trade route where the Tibetan Buddhist Zangskaris carry butter down a frozen river in the depths of winter. Temperatures hover around –30C and winter lasts for 6-7 months. Since his stay there he has returned to the valley several times. With the effects of global warming and glacier retreat, their precious way of life is changing fast. Avalanches and wolves were only a few of the problems encountered...The Frozen River has had stunning reviews in The Spectator, Western Morning News among others.
James Crowden on The Frozen River - Seeking Silence in the Himalaya
James is an author and poet living in Somerset. In 1976-77 James gave up what might have been a promising career in the army, and he spent a winter on the northern side of the Himalaya, in the remote Zangskar Valley in Ladakh. This is the story which he tells in The Frozen River, his newly published book written over forty years later. There will be slides of the Zangskar valley in winter plumage and the story of the chadar, the rather dangerous trade route where the Tibetan Buddhist Zangskaris carry butter down a frozen river in the depths of winter. Temperatures hover around –30C and winter lasts for 6-7 months. Since his stay there he has returned to the valley several times. With the effects of global warming and glacier retreat, their precious way of life is changing fast. Avalanches and wolves were only a few of the problems encountered...The Frozen River has had stunning reviews in The Spectator, Western Morning News among others.
Friday 26 June at 7:30 pm, St Michael's Church Shute
Peter Fiennes on Footnotes: A Journey Round Britain in the Company of Great Writers
Peter is the author of Oak and Ash and Thorn, a Guardian Best Nature Book of the Year. As publisher for Time Out, he produced city guides, as well as books about Britain’s countryside and seaside. He lives in South London. Peter will be discussing his latest book, Footnotes: A Journey Round Britain in the Company of Great Writers. In this highly acclaimed book Peter follows in the footsteps on twelve inspirational writers tracing paths recorded in their books and journals, looking for the country they once knew. His fellow travellers include Enid Blyton, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, JB Priestly and many more. Blending travel writing, history and biography, wide-ranging in its subject matter and deeply personal, Footnotes is a fascinating quest to discover Britain anew. Footnotes has amazing reviews including in The Observer and Financial Times.
Peter Fiennes on Footnotes: A Journey Round Britain in the Company of Great Writers
Peter is the author of Oak and Ash and Thorn, a Guardian Best Nature Book of the Year. As publisher for Time Out, he produced city guides, as well as books about Britain’s countryside and seaside. He lives in South London. Peter will be discussing his latest book, Footnotes: A Journey Round Britain in the Company of Great Writers. In this highly acclaimed book Peter follows in the footsteps on twelve inspirational writers tracing paths recorded in their books and journals, looking for the country they once knew. His fellow travellers include Enid Blyton, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, JB Priestly and many more. Blending travel writing, history and biography, wide-ranging in its subject matter and deeply personal, Footnotes is a fascinating quest to discover Britain anew. Footnotes has amazing reviews including in The Observer and Financial Times.
Saturday 27 June at 7:30 pm, St Michael's Church Shute
Robert Twigger on Walking the Great North Line
Robert has written mostly about adventurous travel sometimes disguised as memoir, fiction or self-help. He has published award-winning and acclaimed titles on a variety of topics from modern masculinity, micromastery, studying aikido in Japan, to taking a polymathic look at the river Nile. He also writes poetry and won a rare and distinguished prize called the Newdigate for a poem judged by Peter Levi. His published books include Micromastery, Angry White Pajamas, The Extinction Club, Big Snake, Lost Oasis and Voyageur. He practises martial arts although adventurous expeditions are his favourite thing. He also loves taking street photographs, looking at fires, unplanned picnics, reading poetry aloud, driving down steep hills with the engine switched off and other small and unpretentious adventures...Robert will be discussing his new book, Walking the Great North Line.
Robert Twigger on Walking the Great North Line
Robert has written mostly about adventurous travel sometimes disguised as memoir, fiction or self-help. He has published award-winning and acclaimed titles on a variety of topics from modern masculinity, micromastery, studying aikido in Japan, to taking a polymathic look at the river Nile. He also writes poetry and won a rare and distinguished prize called the Newdigate for a poem judged by Peter Levi. His published books include Micromastery, Angry White Pajamas, The Extinction Club, Big Snake, Lost Oasis and Voyageur. He practises martial arts although adventurous expeditions are his favourite thing. He also loves taking street photographs, looking at fires, unplanned picnics, reading poetry aloud, driving down steep hills with the engine switched off and other small and unpretentious adventures...Robert will be discussing his new book, Walking the Great North Line.
Friday 17 July at 7:30 pm, St Michael's Church Shute
Dan Gretton on I You We Them
Dan is a writer, activist and teacher. In 1983 he co-founded the pioneering political arts organisation Platform, in Cambridge where he studied English literature. As well as working with Platform over many years on the human rights and environmental impacts of corporations, he has also developed radical initiatives in adult education and has lectured internationally on the subject of the ‘desk killer’. After more than a decade of research, he embarked on the writing of his newly published and highly acclaimed I You We Them. This is a landmark historical investigation into crimes against humanity and the nature of evil. It is a study of the psychology of some of the least visible perpetrators of crimes, the so-called 'desk-killers' who ordered and directed some of the worst atrocities of the last 200 years. It is also an exploration of corporate responsibility and personal culpability today. Dan currently divides his time between north-west Wales and east London, where he shares his garden with a family of foxes.
Dan Gretton on I You We Them
Dan is a writer, activist and teacher. In 1983 he co-founded the pioneering political arts organisation Platform, in Cambridge where he studied English literature. As well as working with Platform over many years on the human rights and environmental impacts of corporations, he has also developed radical initiatives in adult education and has lectured internationally on the subject of the ‘desk killer’. After more than a decade of research, he embarked on the writing of his newly published and highly acclaimed I You We Them. This is a landmark historical investigation into crimes against humanity and the nature of evil. It is a study of the psychology of some of the least visible perpetrators of crimes, the so-called 'desk-killers' who ordered and directed some of the worst atrocities of the last 200 years. It is also an exploration of corporate responsibility and personal culpability today. Dan currently divides his time between north-west Wales and east London, where he shares his garden with a family of foxes.
Saturday 18 July at 10:30 am, St Michael's Church Shute
Christina Lamb on Our Bodies, Their Battlefield
Christina is Chief Foreign Correspondent at The Sunday Times and one of Britain’s leading foreign journalists. She has been awarded Foreign Correspondent of the Year five times as well as Europe’s top war reporting prize, the Prix Bayeux. She is the best-selling author of Farewell Kabul, The Africa House, Waiting For Allah, The Sewing Circles of Herat and House of Stone. She also co-wrote the international bestseller I am Malala with Malala Yousafzai and The Girl from Aleppo with Nujeen Mustafa. She is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, an honorary fellow of University College, Oxford and was awarded an OBE by the Queen in 2013. Christina will be discussing her latest book, Our Bodies Their Battlefield - What War Does to Women, the first major account to address the scale of sexual assault in modern conflict, which exposes the unheard stories of women in war zones with unfailing care and humanity.
Christina Lamb on Our Bodies, Their Battlefield
Christina is Chief Foreign Correspondent at The Sunday Times and one of Britain’s leading foreign journalists. She has been awarded Foreign Correspondent of the Year five times as well as Europe’s top war reporting prize, the Prix Bayeux. She is the best-selling author of Farewell Kabul, The Africa House, Waiting For Allah, The Sewing Circles of Herat and House of Stone. She also co-wrote the international bestseller I am Malala with Malala Yousafzai and The Girl from Aleppo with Nujeen Mustafa. She is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, an honorary fellow of University College, Oxford and was awarded an OBE by the Queen in 2013. Christina will be discussing her latest book, Our Bodies Their Battlefield - What War Does to Women, the first major account to address the scale of sexual assault in modern conflict, which exposes the unheard stories of women in war zones with unfailing care and humanity.
Sunday 19 July at 10:30 am, St Michael's Church Shute
Jill Butler: Ancient Trees in an Historic Tree-scape
Until recently Jill worked for the Woodland Trust as their ancient tree and wood pasture specialist. She is now a trustee of both the Ancient Tree Forum and the Tree Register of the British Isles. She has travelled extensively to visit important ancient and special trees in many other parts of Europe and the world and from this experience has learnt that the ancient trees of the UK are almost unique. She campaigns for greater recognition for this living heritage and advises on protection and best practice management. One of her favourite ancient trees is the King John's Oak in Shute Deer Park, named after one of her great heroes of the British landscape. Jill be talking about ancient trees and how best to preserve and protect them for the future - and all our benefit.
Jill Butler: Ancient Trees in an Historic Tree-scape
Until recently Jill worked for the Woodland Trust as their ancient tree and wood pasture specialist. She is now a trustee of both the Ancient Tree Forum and the Tree Register of the British Isles. She has travelled extensively to visit important ancient and special trees in many other parts of Europe and the world and from this experience has learnt that the ancient trees of the UK are almost unique. She campaigns for greater recognition for this living heritage and advises on protection and best practice management. One of her favourite ancient trees is the King John's Oak in Shute Deer Park, named after one of her great heroes of the British landscape. Jill be talking about ancient trees and how best to preserve and protect them for the future - and all our benefit.
Friday 18 September at 7:30 pm, St Michael's Church Shute
Susan Owens on Spirit of Place: Artists, Writers, and the British Landscape
Susan is a writer and curator. She studied English at Somerville College, Oxford and art history at the Courtauld Institute and University College London, and pursued a career as a museum curator, becoming Curator of Paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2007. Now freelance, she lives in a medieval house in rural Suffolk. Her books include Amazing Rare Things: the Art of Natural History in the Age of Discovery (co-authored with David Attenborough), The Ghost: A Cultural History (inspired by stories about her house) and Christina Rossetti: Poetry in Art (co-authored with Nicholas Tromans). Susan will be talking about her new book, Spirit of Place: Artists, Writers and the British Landscape, which looks at how people over the centuries have observed and imagined the natural world, and how they have expressed it in legends, maps, tapestries, poems and paintings.
Susan Owens on Spirit of Place: Artists, Writers, and the British Landscape
Susan is a writer and curator. She studied English at Somerville College, Oxford and art history at the Courtauld Institute and University College London, and pursued a career as a museum curator, becoming Curator of Paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2007. Now freelance, she lives in a medieval house in rural Suffolk. Her books include Amazing Rare Things: the Art of Natural History in the Age of Discovery (co-authored with David Attenborough), The Ghost: A Cultural History (inspired by stories about her house) and Christina Rossetti: Poetry in Art (co-authored with Nicholas Tromans). Susan will be talking about her new book, Spirit of Place: Artists, Writers and the British Landscape, which looks at how people over the centuries have observed and imagined the natural world, and how they have expressed it in legends, maps, tapestries, poems and paintings.
Saturday 19 September at 12-4 pm (Workshop) and 7:30 pm (Concert), St Michael's Church Shute
Polina Shepherd: Songs of the Steppes and the Shtetl
Born in Siberia, Polina started her musical training as a child around her Russian Jewish family table where songs were frequently sung after eating borscht and drinking homemade wine. Polina joined Russia's first klezmer band in 60 years and soon became the principal Yiddish choir leader of the former Soviet Union. Whilst living in Russia and studying at the State Academy, Polina toured the dark Soviet theatres, performed to Boris Yeltsin and to the World in 1998-2002. Now living in Britain since 2003 she continues to travel the world performing solo, as a duo with Merlin Shepherd and with many others. With over 20 years of professional experience, Polina now leads several choirs and also works as an educator teaching vocal workshops internationally. Come and learn some songs with Polina in the workshop (no previous experience or Russian or Yiddish language required), stretch your vocal muscles and come along to her evening performance too.
Polina Shepherd: Songs of the Steppes and the Shtetl
Born in Siberia, Polina started her musical training as a child around her Russian Jewish family table where songs were frequently sung after eating borscht and drinking homemade wine. Polina joined Russia's first klezmer band in 60 years and soon became the principal Yiddish choir leader of the former Soviet Union. Whilst living in Russia and studying at the State Academy, Polina toured the dark Soviet theatres, performed to Boris Yeltsin and to the World in 1998-2002. Now living in Britain since 2003 she continues to travel the world performing solo, as a duo with Merlin Shepherd and with many others. With over 20 years of professional experience, Polina now leads several choirs and also works as an educator teaching vocal workshops internationally. Come and learn some songs with Polina in the workshop (no previous experience or Russian or Yiddish language required), stretch your vocal muscles and come along to her evening performance too.
Friday 23 October at 7:30 pm, St Michael's Church Shute
Tracy Chevalier on A Single Thread
Born in Washington DC and a long-time Londoner, Tracy is the author of ten novels, and is best known for the international bestseller Girl with a Pearl Earring. Tracy has loved cathedrals all her life and her latest novel, A Single Thread, which she will be discussing at the festival, chronicles the blossoming of a 'surplus woman' in the 1930s who builds a new life amongst the embroiderers and bellringers at Winchester Cathedral, while society is still recovering from one war and moving irrevocably towards another. A Single Thread is newly published in paperback and has had rave reviews including in The Guardian, The Times and many others.
Tracy Chevalier on A Single Thread
Born in Washington DC and a long-time Londoner, Tracy is the author of ten novels, and is best known for the international bestseller Girl with a Pearl Earring. Tracy has loved cathedrals all her life and her latest novel, A Single Thread, which she will be discussing at the festival, chronicles the blossoming of a 'surplus woman' in the 1930s who builds a new life amongst the embroiderers and bellringers at Winchester Cathedral, while society is still recovering from one war and moving irrevocably towards another. A Single Thread is newly published in paperback and has had rave reviews including in The Guardian, The Times and many others.
Saturday 24 October at 7:30 pm, St Michael's Church Shute
Bijan Omrani: The Story of Shute - Tales of the Unexpected
Bijan is an historian and classicist and author. He produced his first major publication, Afghanistan: A Companion and Guide, in collaboration with the seasoned Afghan traveller Matthew Leeming in 2005, and since then has edited and published numerous works, articles and book reviews spanning the fields of classical history, Afghanistan, and Central Asian history including Caesar's Footprints and Asia Overland. He has taught Classics at Eton College and Westminster School and is known as a writer of Latin and English verse. His Latin Horatian Ode on the London 2012 Olympics was endorsed by the mayor of London, with extracts published in the Evening Standard. He has written for a number of publications, including The Telegraph, Spectator, Standpoint, the Literary Review, History Today, BBC History and Geographical Magazine. Based on his new and emerging research Bijan will give a colourful account of the hidden story of some of the most extraordinary characters of Shute House.
Bijan Omrani: The Story of Shute - Tales of the Unexpected
Bijan is an historian and classicist and author. He produced his first major publication, Afghanistan: A Companion and Guide, in collaboration with the seasoned Afghan traveller Matthew Leeming in 2005, and since then has edited and published numerous works, articles and book reviews spanning the fields of classical history, Afghanistan, and Central Asian history including Caesar's Footprints and Asia Overland. He has taught Classics at Eton College and Westminster School and is known as a writer of Latin and English verse. His Latin Horatian Ode on the London 2012 Olympics was endorsed by the mayor of London, with extracts published in the Evening Standard. He has written for a number of publications, including The Telegraph, Spectator, Standpoint, the Literary Review, History Today, BBC History and Geographical Magazine. Based on his new and emerging research Bijan will give a colourful account of the hidden story of some of the most extraordinary characters of Shute House.
Friday 21 November at 7:30 pm, St Michael's Church Shute
The South Country: A folk/classical fusion of traditional English tunes
The South Country blurs the boundaries between arrangement, composition, tradition and experimentation. The result is a unique hybrid: English tunes, old and newly created, in settings which take on influences as diverse as pastoralism, neo-classicism and post-minimalism. The South Country take their name from the eponymous book by Edward Thomas which describes the folk culture, natural history and landscapes he encountered on a journey through southern England. Their music travels through parts of this real and imagined world and attempts to capture something of Thomas’s visceral response to the changing seasons, landscape and peoples. Inspired by his ceaseless wondering and exploration, the South Country confirms and disrupts a sense of place through unexpected musical diversions. All the trio are classically trained professional musicians based in the South West.
The South Country: A folk/classical fusion of traditional English tunes
The South Country blurs the boundaries between arrangement, composition, tradition and experimentation. The result is a unique hybrid: English tunes, old and newly created, in settings which take on influences as diverse as pastoralism, neo-classicism and post-minimalism. The South Country take their name from the eponymous book by Edward Thomas which describes the folk culture, natural history and landscapes he encountered on a journey through southern England. Their music travels through parts of this real and imagined world and attempts to capture something of Thomas’s visceral response to the changing seasons, landscape and peoples. Inspired by his ceaseless wondering and exploration, the South Country confirms and disrupts a sense of place through unexpected musical diversions. All the trio are classically trained professional musicians based in the South West.