Supporting the Mayfield Festival

We are proud to, once again, be sponsoring one of the concerts at the Mayfield Festival of Music and the Arts. This biennial event takes place this year from Sunday 26 April to Sunday 10 May and will feature dance music, gospel, film, choral music, chamber music, symphonic music and, for the first time in the history of the Festival, opera.

Mayfield Festival was originally founded in 1970 by Kenneth Pont, the then director of music at St Dunstan’s Parish Church. Over the years, programmes have included performances by names such as James Galway, Evelyn Glennie, Victoria de los Angeles, Dame Janet Baker and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.

Tester & Jones is sponsoring Gian Carlo Menotti’s one-act radio opera, ‘The Old Maid and The Thief’, on Thursday 30 April at St Dunstan’s Church. This is the centrepiece of an evening of American music curated by musicians of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, under the baton of Tom Hawkey-Soar.

Written as the first opera specifically for radio in 1939, this witty tale of small-town intrigue, gossip and deception, will be paired with Barber’s radiant ‘Knoxville: Summer of 1915’, Gershwin’s ‘Three Preludes for Piano’ and more, to complete an evening of transatlantic mid-century elegance and charm.

To book tickets or for more information.