Week 1: Thursday Events

The festival gets underway at 6.40pm with 'Larvae', a free performance art piece from the weird and wonderful world of London-based Luxembourgish composer Catherine Kontz. Her oversize score features 33 white hexagonal flexagons which initially hide the musical material that the singer (baritone Danny Standing) gradually uncovers and then uses to transform the landscape of white into a palette of colourful shapes. Accompanied by six radios! It is followed at 7pm by 'Love Songs' – Tête à Tête presents Robert Fokkens's meditation on the nature of love, in which a couple struggle to save their marriage and turn in desperation to the experts. Sung by Christopher Diffey, Sadhbh Dennedy and Keel Watson, with Chroma Ensemble. Then, at 7.45pm, 'Fables: A Film Opera'. A chance to see an adaptation of homeless charity Streetwise Opera's film project depicting survival, rebellion, greed and love. Showing 'The Nightingale and the Rose' (filmmaker: Gaëlle Denis; music by Emily Hall) and 'The Hartlepool Monkey' (filmmaker: Tom Marshall; music by Paul Sartin and Andy Mellon). With additional narration for live performance. At 8.30pm 'Closing Schools for the Future'. Aspire Trust's exploration in words and music asking what is lost from a school community once the programme of closure has been agreed. Director Nick Owen's text is derived from verbatim interviews, official documents and ethnographic approaches to data collection; music by Gary Carpenter. The evening ends at 9.30pm with 'Wrong Songs for Summer', in which comedy composer and lyricist Richard Thomas ('Jerry Springer: The Opera' and 'Anna Nicole') presents songs and gags from his 'South London Songbook'. Enjoy some very wrong songs for the stellar voices of Loré Lixenberg and Tim Howar.