Wantage Summer Arts Festival Events
This year the Museum had the pleasure of hosting a number of events as part of Wantage Summer Arts Festival.
We kicked off the festival with ‘An Evening with Wantage Quartet‘ and despite the heat it was a wonderful concert from a group of very talented musicians.
Click here to see a short video from the evening.
Wantage Quartet are part of the Wantage Silver Band and the profits from ticket and programme sales all went to the silver band.
There were a wide range of talks from some very knowledgeable speakers.
Local historian Trevor Hancock told ‘More Wantage Tales‘
Museum volunteer Hazel Townesend told the story of ‘The Richmond 16’ with her talk ‘Conscientious Objectors of the First World War’
Karen Davies from The Letcombe Brook Project gave a fascinating talk all about the ‘Wildlife of the Letcombe Brook’
Museum Volunteer Intern Zara Shoosmith told us all about the rituals of ‘Death and Burial in Ancient Egypt’
Jim Mitchell the director of the Wantage Summer Arts Festival gave a talk about ‘Walter Sickert: First British Impressionist and Ripper Suspect’
Colin Brading told the story of the Wantage Tramway in his ‘Just Along the Road’ talk.
The Friends of the Vale & Downland Museum hosted a sell out Murder, Mystery and Intrigue! evening with profits going towards helping the Museum improve.
Professional musicians Benjamin Copeman and Jack Rowe gave a wonderful flute and guitar recital featuring music by composers JS Bach, Villa-Lobos, Bartok, Debussy, Varese and world premiers from living composers such as James Maunders.
Local Folk and Ceilidh Band Pandemonium performed a concert called “Complete Pandemonium” to represent the many and varied styles of music that they’ve played during their 26 years together as a band.
L to R back row is Pandemonium
Carol Warren-Smith, Anne Churchill Stone, Andrew Churchill Stone, Howard Hill, Wanda Oberman, Lucia Singer, Pam Hale
L to R front row are our guests
Graham Hubbard, Laura Hubbard
Local band The Mad Hatters performed a free Saturday lunchtime concert in the Museum Cafe, entertaining visitors and attracting more people to come in and listen to their relaxing music.
British lutenist and musicologist Lynda Sayce performed a Lute Roadshow where we enjoyed 1,000 years of music performed on 10 beautiful instruments.
Click on the links below to watch short videos from the Lute Roadshow.
Two talented locals Margaret Bateman and Bill Jestico performed two of Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads monologues in the sell out evening ‘A Chip in the Sugar and Lady of Letters’
Local band The Wayfarers performed to a sell out crowd in the Museum with their supporting act Connor Clark warming up the crowd ready to hear the band premier their new original tracks, which we are pleased to say were brilliant and was warmly received by the audience.
Connor Clark
Connor Clark
The Wayfarers
The Wayfarers
The Wayfarers
The Wayfarers
The Wayfarers
Click on an image to enlarge
Click on the links below to see short videos from The Wayfarers gig
We’d like to say a very big THANK YOU to all the speakers, performers and musicians that made all these events possible and supporting the Museum and Wantage Summer Arts Festival.
For the most up to date information on events taking place in the Museum check out our Facebook page here.
