Major Coup for North Wall Arts Centre as Summer Festival Hosts Launch of Sir John Tavener UK Premiere

01 May 2009

Two works by world famous composer Sir John Tavener will make their debut at this year’s North Wall Festival in Oxford. Song for Athene, for violin solo and strings performed by award winning violinist Ruth Palmer and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and the UK premiere of Dhyana will launch the Festival, which takes place from July 1 –11. Sir John Tavener will be attending the Festival in person, subject to availability.

The North Wall Festival brings together some of the country’s finest performers from across the arts. The music programme also includes the Oscar-nominated, BAFTA award-winning composer George Fenton, who has written the scores for Planet Earth, Cry Freedom, Gandhi, Bergerac and the theme for BBC’s Newsnight. He and his band will be performing new songs and music from his films. Schoolchildren from across the county will also be singing folk songs from around the world (conducted by Nicolas Cleobury) as part of the national programme Sing Up.

Following last year’s success with leading playwright Mark Ravenhill’s Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat, celebrated theatre company Paines Plough returns with a brand new work,Traces, created by six emerging young playwrights and showcasing at The North Wall before going on to Latitude Festival. And hot from new-writing company Nabokov, is Is Everyone OK? a dramatic experience that blends theatre with sensational stand-up. Some of the most talented performers from this year’s National Student Drama Festival will get a chance to hone their skills at a series of workshops hosted by accomplished professionals, where they will rehearse and perform in public a new play, Touched, by Chris Thorpe, before transferring to Latitude. The North Wall also presents The Oxford Comedy Festival as part of the schedule, with three nights of top-rate comedy from some of the UK’s most innovative stand-ups, including Russell Kane, Sarah Millican, Rhod Gilbert and Isy Suttie, best known for playing IT geek Dobby in Channel 4’s Peep Show .

Tickets go on sale in May. For further information on The North Wall Festival, and to see the full programme of events go to www.thenorthwall.com or pick up a leaflet from libraries or information centres.

Editor Notes

For more information and interviews contact:
Cath Nightingale, 01865 513969, mobile 07798 665629 cat@studionightingale.com or
Sarah Lacey 01865 319450 laceys@thenorthwall.com

Pictures may be downloaded from www.thenorthwall.com/pressgallery

The North Wall Arts Centre,
South Parade
Summertown, Oxford
OX2 7NN
Tel: 01865 319450
Web: www.thenorthwall.com

The North Wall and its Festival
The North Wall Arts Centre, in Summertown, Oxford, was opened in 2007 and has won major architectural awards for the quality of its design. The North Wall aims to offer an alternative to the mainstream, programming work that doesn’t normally come to Oxford. Programme director Dan Danson says: “We aim to deliver an ambitious programme that will attract a wide audience, but with young people at its heart, and which is also accessible to audiences that might not have come to the theatre before. For me the key to achieving this is by offering a diversity of the highest quality work - full of skill, daring, innovation and depth.” This is the third North Wall Festival. Previous Festivals have included Sir Richard Attenborough and Dame Judi Dench – but the focus is strongly on new, innovative work, with a special emphasis on the talents of young people. The North Wall Festival is programmed by Jane Carter (music) and Holly Kendrick (drama), who is also director of the National Student Drama Festival.

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