Haddo Arts Festival 2019

5-12 October 2019

We start our three year Song for Haddo schools’ music project and include St. Machar’sCathedral, Aberdeen, among the Festival venues.

2019-haddo-arts-festival-cover

The 8th Haddo Arts Festival programme included events and activities in Haddo House, Hall and Chapel and, for the first time, St. Machar’s Cathedral in Aberdeen.

The programme ranged from the now traditional Opening Concert by Haddo house Choral & Operatic Society to the welcome return of Scottish Opera, via chamber music from the Maxwell Quartet, a poetry reading by Jackie Kay, Jamie MacDougall’s one man show celebrating the life and music of Harry Lauder, a cello recital by Angela East and an evening of Baroque music from Red Priest.

We commissioned Music Co-OPERAtive Scotland (McOpera) to create 4 songs and 3 orchestral interludes taking Haddo as the starting point and inspiration. McOpera worked with some 100 pupils from New Deer, Rayne North, Tipperty and Udny Green primary schools and 21 academy students string players to rehearse the new music and reprise the original Song for Haddo, for two performances on the Thursday evening of the Festival, attended by 233 audience members. This was the first year of a three year project to create a complete cycle of new songs for young voices and three instrumental suites, all inspired by Haddo. Read more on our Song for Haddo pages by following the links at the top of this page.

Building on the success of the art exhibition in 2018, Haddo Arts were delighted to welcome back artist curators Roderick Scott and Margaret Preston on this year’s exhibition: Experimental Use of Space: Connections. This was staged in the South Wing and the private garden and incorporated a performance piece which took place on the opening Saturday. Leila Kleineidam, a BP Prize winning graduate artist who had taken part in the 2017 Our Bodies, Our Imprint exhibition, displayed some of her latest work in the Mobil Room during the Festival.