Ryedale District Council supports the Ryedale Festival.

Ken Overton, Ryedale Festival Chairman.

It has been a magical and happy Ryedale Festival 2008. We explored all the four elements in music, song and poetry but all the time the weather was good to us..

We had the magnificence of York Minster with the BBC Singers and Guy Johnston playing cello through to our technical team performing as music students along with Kirkbymoorside Junior Brass Band at St Mary’s Church, Farndale.  They all responded to the encouragement given them by the Festival.

From the idea of giving performances in their own kitchens to those unable to attend the Festival, to the Galaxy Big Band playing Glenn Miller to many dancing patrons in Terrington Village Hall, this was an innovative Festival > > > > > > > >

The Three Concerts in One at Castle Howard where the audience is split into three, and promenades to various parts of this beautiful stately home to take in three different performances, was repeated to all round acclaim and will now be a regular feature of that venue.  The Opera, Handel's Orlando, played to packed houses at Hovingham Hall, has been voted by all to have been a quality performance in the tradition of the Ryedale Festival.

Praises have been given to the Festival for the exciting community opera presentation The Wedding Ghost, a reworking of the Sleeping Beauty, with over 100 local people involved in the performance aged from 10 to 80.  Our resident international orchestra, Harmony of Nations, gave us such happy baroque music that the audience just would not leave, giving applause after applause.

Ampleforth Abbey was packed for the Haydn Creation and our artistic director, Justin Doyle gave us the most moving performance with the Chapter House Choir and the Manchester Chamber Choir.  The Doric String Quartet at Sledmere House will be remembered for a long time to come and all the special soloists, James Barralet, cello, Mathew Sprange, baritone, Alexandra Wood, piano, and Huw Watkins,piano, have been praised by all the festival goers to whom I have spoken.

The event which took everyone by surprise was however the RyeCrawl - a magical musical mystery tour that kept everyone guessing and inspired with the results.  We all met in Pickering to join one of six coaches and were taken to each of 8 different venues, all being gems of Ryedale but more so because they each came alive with music specially chosen to suit the location and acoustics of the building.  Imagine a brass fanfare from the top of the Pickering Castle Battlements, a lute and bagpipe duet in the large Cruck House of the Ryedale Folk Museum and then after many other experiences concluding in the ruins of Rievaulx Abbey again resounding to all the massed musicians of choir, brass and bagpipe with the arrangement by Justin Doyle of Amazing Grace. A very moving and fulfilling experience for all the 200 people present.

The Gala Concert on the last night in Hovingham Hall was broadcast again to a giant screen in the garden of the Worsley Arms Hotel swelling the audience to nearly 500 happy patrons.  The music was performed by soloists and orchestra under the baton of Justin Doyle the artistic director.  This was the conclusion of Festival 2008 but also an introduction to what will be in store for us all in the Ryedale Festival 2009, the provisional dates for which are 17th July to 2nd August.

Ken Overton,
Ryedale Festival Chairman..

Ryedale Festival cover picture:- ‘Empedocles Roots’ by Harriet Mackenzie. This image of the Four Elements was commissioned by Ryedale Festival. The greek philosopher Empedocles identified Earth, Air, Fire and Water as the four ‘roots’ of which everything is made; Plato seems to have been the first to call them ‘Elements’.