Welcome to the 2020 Swaledale Festival!

We’ll open the Festival with three days of family fun in Reeth where a giant tipi, kites, quoits, musicians and clog dancers will light up the picturesque village green and there will be a range of events in the Memorial Hall. 

We’ll welcome three former BBC Young Musicians of the Year: pianist Freddy Kempf, oboist Nicholas Daniel and cellist Laura van der Heijden. VOCES8 and Baroque violin supremo Rachel Podger will present their exquisite Guardian Angel programme, and four string quartets will make appearances. 

The fabulous EU Chamber Orchestra will perform Mozart and Vivaldi with violin soloist Fenella Humphreys, and thirty local children will make a guest appearance with the orchestra alongside the extraordinary composer and turntable artist Shiva Feshareki. 

There will be a wealth of folk and world music, with performers from Africa, China, India, Japan, Australia, the Middle East, mainland Europe and the Americas, as well as comedy theatre from the People Show and musical fun from the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. 

Jazz will be well represented this year, with solo guitar maestro Martin Taylor, the Jazz Spivs and Acoustic Triangle as well as a screening of the 1958 Oscar-nominated film A Great Day in Harlem. 

More will be revealed by the end of January!

Malcolm Creese, Artistic Director

World music explorers Kabantu performed in the 2019 Festival at St. Andrew's Church, Grinton