The Bath Festival is offering its audience the chance to enjoy highlights from the May 2021 festival of music and books with The Bath Festival At Home, a digital broadcast for people to watch at home.
The 2021 programme features a diverse range of events from talks and discussions to poetry, concerts and theatre. A dozen of these has been chosen for The Bath Festival At Home digital offering, which will showcase Bath for a global audience and will, be available from Friday 28 May to Friday 11 June.
The series of concerts and author talks will be filmed in some of the city’s most historic and glorious historic buildings, including the iconic 18th century Assembly Rooms, Bath Abbey, the Roman Baths and The Forum. Home audiences will be able to enjoy The Bath Festival At Home selection of events at their own leisure with a feast for the eyes, ears and minds.
Enjoy some of the brightest talent from the worlds of music and books, along with discussions about the big issues of our time. Listen to best-selling authors and experts in their field sharing their experiences.
The Bath Festival At Home 12 events are:
- Bestselling author, health campaigner and palliative care doctor, Rachel Clarke’s new book, Breathtaking: Inside the NHS in a Time of the Pandemic is an unflinching insider’s account of medicine in the time of coronavirus. She talks to Max Porter about how it feels to confront a pandemic from the inside. Amid all the tough questions, this event will also consider the courage of patients and NHS staff alike, people who rose to their best while facing the worst. This is a searing account and one critical for our times.
- The Gesualdo Six, Britain’s leading choral consort perform a programme of Sorrowful Songs beside the waters of the Roman Baths.
- The Time Traveller’s Guide to Regency Britain. Journalist Ian Mortimer lifts the lid on what life would have been like in Regency Bath. With the city being one of the most important centres of social life outside London, parties and balls taking place beneath the glittering chandeliers of the Assembly Rooms, the Pump Room and the grand houses of the Royal Crescent, expect tales of extravagance and unchecked bad behaviour.
- Comedian Tez Ilyas talks about his life as a young British Muslim growing up in a time of race riots, fear and prejudice. He will be chatting about his new book The The Secret Diary of a British Muslim Aged 13 ¾, his hilarious and searingly sad teenage memoir.
- Sit back and join Kate Mosse (The City of Tears, An Extra Pair of Hands), award-winning author and founder director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and Neema Shah (Kololo Hill), shortlisted for the Bath Novel Award and the winner of the First Novel Award, as they explore the remarkable power books have to inspire, comfort and delight, with journalist and bestselling author Cathy Rentzenbrink (Dear Reader: The Comfort and Joy of Books).
- Join professional blue badge guide Fred Mawer on a journey of historic discovery through the streets in the footsteps of the Netflix sensation Bridgerton and learn some of the insiders’ tales from behind the scenes of the popular Regency romp.
- Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason, mother of seven young classical musicians, the Kanneh-Masons, brings two of her celebrated offspring to perform as she talks about what it is like to raise such a remarkable family, following the release of her memoir The House of Music.
- Much-loved entertainer Mel Giedroyc talks to Fran Beauman about her debut novel The Best Things, a big-hearted story of a family on the brink, that’s as warm and witty as Mel herself.
- The Bath Festival Orchestra, created to foster emerging talent in classical music, will play in Bath Abbey and at Green Park Station. The orchestra’s concert will be the first live performance in the abbey, which has been closed for major refurbishment for two years. This performance will be recorded by BBC Radio3.
- The Sunday Times No1 bestseller Caroline Hirons, Skincare Queen and beauty blogger with over one million social media followers, will be sharing some of the billion-pound beauty industry’s secrets as she explores the facts, the myths and the best way to get good skin on any budget.
- How to Look After Yourself in a Chaotic World An inspiring conversation between two women who embody the strength and resilience we’ve needed to get through the past 12 months. Daily Telegraph columnist Bryony Gordon (No Such Thing as Normal) and award-winning author Poorna Bell (Stronger) talk to Fran Beauman about their latest books, their mental health journeys and the power that can be found in exercise, talking and sharing. Equip yourself with practical tips and advice on how to navigate through testing times.
- The Life of Music with Nicholas Kenyon, former director of the BBC Proms and current MD at the Barbican Centre, has been immersed in music for much of his life. As a writer, broadcaster and concert presenter, he has long championed composers and performers. His new book The Life of Music: New Adventures in the Western Classical Tradition uncovers the stories that make up the classical tradition and foregrounds those which are too often overlooked. This inclusive and engaging event highlight the achievements of those who bring music to life.
- As part of the festival’s series of concerts featuring the complete cycle of Beethoven’s String Quartets The Heath Quartet’s filmed concert features Op 18 No 3 in D major and Op 130 in B flat major. The dynamic and charismatic Heath Quartet are fast earning a reputation as one of the most exciting British chamber ensembles of the moment.
Each of the At Home events will be introduced by presenter Francesca Beauman. Francesca is a writer, historian and bookseller. She is the author of seven books, including a history of the pineapple and a history of personal ads; her latest book, The Literary Almanac, will be published in September.
All of events in The Bath Festival at Home are FREE to watch but please consider donating to Bath Festivals, a registered charity. All donations will support future festivals and creative learning projects with young people in the local community.
The Bath Festival At Home has been filmed by Mechanical Mouse, a Bristol based video production company which works all over the world.
Find out how to watch at: www.thebathfestival.org.uk .