Innocence – Family Concert

Four kinds of innocence: Ravel‘s gorgeous and moving celebration of childhood innocence, written for children to play, and based on tales such as Tom Thumb or Beauty and the Beast; Vivaldi’s ever-fresh sounds of Nature reborn; a mock-innocent musical joke for a friend of our composer-in-residence, Thomas Adès; and one of the funniest pieces ever written, including a slow can-can danced by tortoises, a waltzing elephant, various donkeys (some as fast as racehorses), bounding kangaroos and dancing skeletons in Saint-Saëns‘ famous carnival. Fun for children of all ages!

Vivaldi Spring
Ravel Mother Goose Suite
Adès Sola for solo cello
Saint-Saëns Carnival of the Animals

Artist: Roy Amotz, Julian Arp, Alena Baeva, Reto Bieri, Sascha Bota, Claude Frochaux, Tetiana Lutsyk, Priya Mitchell, Annette Walther

Every year the Oxford Chamber Music Festival brings together some of the most exciting classical musicians in Europe to live and play together for a week. Creative sparks fly as the players exchange musical partners and tackle the widest variety of sound-worlds.

“a musical miracle” – Daily Telegraph; “world-class by any standards” Time Out

With this year’s special 25th anniversary festival we hope to create a musical Eden in an increasingly troubled world. We celebrate in sound the glories of nature’s garden; explore the music of innocence and of human desire; and offer works which suggest the drama of the Fall, and the journey back to a state of spiritual grace.