A highlight of the new White Horse Festival will be on Saturday evening, 4 October, a unique performance of the Ghost of Paganini, performed (or led) by Robert Dukes as the ghost of the great violinist himself with Korean star pianist Seonghyeon Leem in her UK solo debut. A rare opportunity to hear an artist of this calibre outside of the world’s grandest stages, here in the splendour of the newly restored Wick Bottom Barn in Rockley.
Audience hysteria didn’t start with the Beatles, and stage pyrotechnics didn’t start with the Stones or Beyonce. The original rockstar was an Italian violinist, Niccolo Paganini, whose talent was so prodigious it made people believe he must have sold his soul to the devil.
On the Festival Saturday the ghost of Paganini, played by actor Robert Dukes, will tell how composer-performers like Chopin, Liszt and later Rachmaninov stole all his ideas. Their music will be brought to you by pianist Seonghyeon Leem.
This unique evening of drama and music takes place in Wick Bottom Barn near Marlborough, as part of the new White Horse Festival.
The concept of the Ghost of Paganini was created and written specially for this event by John McLaren, a novelist, businessman and former diplomat who founded a global prize for composers and wrote the words and music of ‘November Sunday’ for HM The King.
Beyond the Wick Bottom Barn and the ghost of Paganini is the rest of the first White Horse Festival. Starting with Jazz on Thursday (2 October) – ‘The Harvest Moon’ with Jo Harrop and her band at the Ridgeway Barns, ‘Reflecting on Conducting’, a talk by renowned conductor and Festival Artistic Director Hilary Davon Wetton at Eastmanton House, Sparsholt on the Friday through to the Festival Finale at St Mary’s, Great Bedwyn where trumpeter Crispian Steele-Perkins will be performing alongside Hilary Davan Wetton with a performance of ‘Trumpet Fireworks’. And much more in between as well.
To find out more about the White Horse Festival – click here – or to book tickets for one or more of the events – click here.
Charley’s Aunt at The Watermill Theatre
