Music at Plush is a concert series which takes place each summer in the village of Plush, situated in the county of Dorset, South West England. The festival runs over selected weekends from June to September and features programmes of classical, contemporary and jazz music.

History

Music at Plush was founded in 1995 by William Lacey

William Lacey

William Lacey is a British conductor. He studied at King's College, Cambridge and privately with Alfred Brendel and György Kurtág. He began his career in 1995, conducting modern operas in London, at Almeida Opera and elsewhere...

 and Music Director Adrian Brendel. Starting as an informal chamber music performance, it has since developed into an concert series. Concerts take place in the former church of St John the Baptist, restored from dereliction in 1992 and transformed into a concert hall and recording studio. The musicians live and rehearse in the manor house nearby. Over the past fourteen years the music of some 80 composers have been performed by over 100 musicians from around the world, including notable premieres from Harrison Birtwistle

Harrison Birtwistle

Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have...

 and Kit Armstrong

Kit Armstrong

Kit Armstrong is a British-Taiwanese classical pianist and composer. At 10 he had composed more than 15 works, graduated from Los Alamitos High School, and studied sciences at the University of Utah. At 12 he studied at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Royal Academy of Music and the Imperial...

.

Programmes

Recent seasons have included premieres from Harrison Birtwistle and George Kroell (2006); Lieder programmes from Mark Padmore

Mark Padmore

Mark Padmore is a British tenor appearing in concerts, recitals, and opera.Born in London 8 March 1961, and raised in Canterbury, Kent in England. Padmore studied clarinet and piano prior to his gaining a choral scholarship to King's College, Cambridge...

 and Till Fellner

Till Fellner

- Biography :Pianist Till Fellner was born in Vienna and studied at the Konservatorium der Stadt Wien with Helene Sedo-Stadler, and subsequently with Alfred Brendel, Meira Farkas, Oleg Maisenberg and Claus-Christian Schuster. He won first prize in the Clara Haskil International Piano Competition...

; appearances from the Kuss, Vertavo String Quartet

Vertavo String Quartet

The Vertavo String Quartet is a Norwegian string quartet, founded in Hamar in 1984. The four women forming the quartet are violinists Øyvor Volle and Berit Cardas, violist Henninge Landaas, and cellist Bjørg Lewis....

 and Szymanowski Quartets; piano recitals by Paul Lewis

Paul Lewis (pianist)

Paul Lewis is an English classical pianist. His father worked at the Liverpool docks and his mother was a local council worker; there were no musicians in his family background....

, Aleksandar Madzar, Nicholas Angelich

Nicholas Angelich

Nicholas Angelich is an American pianist.Born in the United States, he began to study the piano with his mother at the age of five. He gave his first concert at the age of seven, with a chamber orchestra in the United States, when he performed Mozart's piano concerto in C major, K.467...

 and Alfred Brendel

Alfred Brendel

Alfred Brendel KBE is an Austrian pianist, born in Czechoslovakia and a resident of the United Kingdom. He is also a poet and author.-Biography:...

 (in his final performing year, 2008); and concerts by the John Taylor Trio, Ensemble Raro, and the resident Plush Ensemble.

Several performances have been recorded for the live music label Plushmusic (http://www.plushmusic.tv) which features performances of classical, jazz and world music from venues including Glyndebourne Festival Opera

Glyndebourne Festival Opera

Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an English opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England.-History:...

, Wigmore Hall

Wigmore Hall

Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...

 and Kings Place

Kings Place

Kings Place is a building in London’s Kings Cross area, providing music and visual arts venues combined with seven floors of office space, a home for The Guardian newspaper since December 2008 and the headquarters of Network Rail...

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