Norfolk & Norwich Festival

Norfolk and Norwich Festival has announced the first shows for 2025’s Festival ahead of the full programme announcement in February next year. They include the first concerts from each of this year’s resident artists; Lotte Betts-Dean and Sean Shibe, along with a return for Britten Sinfonia and author Val McDermid and an exhilarating circus show set for the Adnams Spiegeltent.

‘Who will be the new face of circus?’ That’s the question posed in the Adnams Spiegeltent headline show – Showdown. Part talent contest, part beauty pageant… with a little touch of Hunger Games, six contestants battle it out to reach the top in the latest show from circus company Upswing. As the unwritten rules of the game emerge, who makes sure the winner is the right winner.

In the first of two music residencies, guitarist Sean Shibe will perform a number of  distinct concerts at the Festival. In the first, announced here, he explores some ‘forgotten’ works including Frank Martin’s Quatre Pièces Brèves, which lay unplayed until Julian Bream championed the suite in the 1960s. He also performs Bach’s Cello Suites, reworked for guitar, the first recorded performance of which took place over 100 years after they were likely written. Alongside these, Thomas Adès’ Forgotten Dances invoke composers and artists of bygone times.

In the second music residency, Mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean explores the full, colourful range of the human voice. In this first concert, she sings works for solo amplified voice with electronics, from groundbreaking 20th century works by Scelsi, Feldman, and Schwitters, to contemporary pieces that draw on medieval plainchant, experimental electronica and techno, including works by Mathis Saunier, Stuart MacRae and new additions to the Voice Electric programme by Sara Glojnarić, Georges Aperghis and Cassandra Miller.

In a rearranged visit from 2024’s Festival, one of the country’s most accomplished novelists, Val McDermid, celebrates the legacy of the remarkable 19th century Norwich-born essayist, writer and thinker, Harriet Martineau. McDermid will deliver the Harriet Martineau Lecture as part of the City of Literature Weekend, presented in partnership with the National Centre for Writing.

Britten Sinfonia’s Principal Trumpet Imogen Whitehead will perform Hummel’s beloved 1803 concerto. The orchestra will also perform Beethoven’s sparkling first symphony, Wagner’s stunningly beautiful Siegfried Idyll, a ‘symphonic birthday greeting’ for his wife Cosima, and the haunting work Fratres by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, who is 90 this year.

The Norwich Nine is a touching and humorous collaboration between Bootworks Theatre and local nine-year-old children. They’ve witnessed Donald Trump, Minecraft, and COVID-19, but what do they remember and what is important to them for the future? At the midpoint between birth and adulthood, the show explores how a group of nine-year olds see the world and what their vision of the future might look like.

Presented in partnership with Norwich Theatre, the internationally renowned Gandini Juggling brings a new show, Heka to Norwich Theatre Playhouse. The production is infused with a blend of humour and philosophy. Drawing inspiration from the intricate connection between juggling and magic, audiences discover that all is not as it seems.

Full dates for Norfolk & Norwich Festival are Friday 9 to Sunday 25 May 2025. Join the Festival mailing list at nnfestival.org.uk for regular updates.

Tickets for these first shows go on sale to the public on Tuesday 12 November 2024. Priority booking available for Supporters from Thursday 7 November. From www.nnfestival.org.uk or on 01603 531800.