Upcoming Events

Stringfever is an entertaining group of talented musicians that have lived and breathed music since a young age. Composed of three brothers and a cousin, this internationally acclaimed quartet has performed 1000+ Shows in 33 countries since 2004, from private performances for the British Royal family to a packed audience at Madison Square Gardens!

Stringfever’s selections range from inspiring classics to popular music; every performance engaging audiences with humour and energy.

Suitable for all ages

• Adults £25 Under 14s £18

Through a diverse repertoire arranged and curated by the BBC Big Band’s conductor Barry Forgie and Claire, the concert celebrates the music of the 20th century’s quintessential vocalists and big bands - whose legacy and influence continues to define a classic era of music.

Featuring music from the leading ladies of big band, such as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Peggy Lee, alongside iconic bands and composers including the likes of Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Benny Goodman. A truly unique evening of world-class music, performed by one of the finest jazz orchestras!

“A wonderful band!”

Tony Bennett

“They brilliantly continue the tradition of Big Band music.

As such they are important, as well as marvellous!”

Michael Parkinson

“World-class musicians … a brilliant musical force”

The Telegraph

Claire Martin OBE

“Our finest jazz singer”

The Times

“She ranks amongst the four or five finest female jazz vocalists on the planet”

Jazz Times USA

“A consummate jazz singer with old-school virtues … she wins plaudits everywhere she works”

The Guardian

Suitable for all ages

• Tickets from £30

The programme opens with some more Scandinavian music, 'Finlandia', in which Sibelius gave voice to his country's ever increasing desire to shake off the Russian yoke, and ends with Dvorak's Symphony No.9 'From the New World', written in America but showing how his homeland remained close to his heart.

Hemsted Park is supporting this concert. All profits to Catching Lives

Joanna MacGregor CBE is one of the world's most innovative and exciting musicians, and much in demand as a professor and competition jury member. As a solo pianist she has appeared with leading orchestras, performing in over eighty countries, with eminent conductors including Pierre Boulez, Colin Davis, Simon Rattle and Michael Tilson Thomas.

Joanna is Dame Myra Hess Chair of Piano at the Royal Academy of Music and a Professor of the University of London,  and runs two annual piano festivals for young musicians; she has been Artistic Director of Dartington International Summer School, Bath International Festival, and Deloitte Ignite at the Royal Opera House, as well as a curator for festivals around the world. She has released over forty solo recordings - many of them on her own award-winning record label SoundCircus - ranging from Chopin and Piazzolla to Bach and John Cage. Joanna has commissioned and premiered many landmark works and is a regular broadcaster on TV and radio. Her collaborative and composition projects encompass jazz, film, visual art, contemporary dance and electronica. 

From 2015-2021 she chaired the Paul Hamlyn Composers Awards and has been a Booker Prize Judge. Joanna MacGregor has five honorary doctorates in music; a regular conductor, she is Music Director of Brighton Philharmonic. 

‘Joanna MacGregor is a brilliant light in the music world’ Classical Review

‘Joanna MacGregor seems incapable of giving performances that are not at once extremely intelligent and entertaining’ Sunday Times

‘Her performances have drive, wit and glittering precision’ The Guardian

‘Joanna MacGregor’s career built on a reinvention of the star virtuoso tradition’ BBC Music Magazine

‘It was the effusive spirit of British pianist Joanna MacGregor that stole the limelight’ The Australian

Suitable for all ages

• Tickets from £6

Let yourself be whisked away on a thrilling journey to the most magical of forests and meet star-crossed lovers, playful fairies, and hilarious travelling players. Beautifully designed Elizabethan costumes, a wonderful musical score and enchanting woodland creatures come together to make this an evening of unmissable summer garden theatre, and one of Chapterhouse’s most popular shows.

Picnic with family and friends in the picturesque surroundings of some of the UK and Ireland’s most stunning open-air venues for the perfect evening of magical theatre in magical surroundings.

“Don’t miss…the perfect evening” The Daily Express *****

“Combining enthusiasm, impeccable voicing and devastating use of visual humour, Chapterhouse bring Shakespeare to life in an exhilarating and raucously entertaining fashion” Edinburgh Evening News

“Chapterhouse Theatre Company really do know how to engage an audience of all ages, their excellent adaptations are creative and entertaining” Derbyshire Times
 

'A triumph” The Stage

Please note: This is an open air performance taking place in the beautiful setting of the Rose Gardens of Hemsted Park, overlooked by the stunning Centenary Hall.

Doors open at 5.30pm and the show starts at 7.00pm. Please bring your own picnic blankets or low-backed seating.

Generally all tickets are non-refundable and in the event of cancellation due to bad weather alternative arrangements shall be made.

Blackeyed Theatre in association with South Hill Park Arts Centre
presents
The 60th Anniversary tour of

Joan Littlewood's Musical Entertainment

Oh What A Lovely War  

 by Theatre Workshop, Charles Chilton, Gerry Raffles and members of the Original Cast

 Director - Nicky Allpress
 Musical Director - Ellie Verkerk

More than a century on from the Armistice, Oh What A Lovely War remains a classic of the modern theatre and a powerful reminder of the atrocities of a war that cost twenty million lives. A journey from joy to despair and back again, it’s a deliciously satirical attack on the military incompetence and inconceivable disregard for human life the First World War has come to represent and a chilling reminder of man’s inhumanity to man.
 

Wildly satirical, visually stunning and deeply moving, Oh What a Lovely War is a theatrical experience like no other; a fusion of live music, movement, songs and sketches bringing to life the folly, farce and tragedy of the First World War. Now, more than ever, it holds a mirror up to the world and speaks to us all.

Reviews of Blackeyed Theatre’s 2011 production of Oh What A Lovely War:

 “A splendid revival that does the original production proud”
 Brian Murphy, from the cast of the original 1963 production of Oh What A Lovely War
  
“Magnificent...Extraordinary...As haunting as it is harrowing...Astonishing power... Any assumption that Oh! What a Lovely War is a period piece is shot to shrapnel. Forty years on, we need Littlewood’s vision more than ever. Blackeyed Theatre restore it to us with astonishing power. Catch it if you can”
The Stage
  
 “One of the most innovative, audacious companies working in contemporary English theatre” The Stage

"Fast, energetic and immaculately choreographed. Joan Littlewood would have been delighted by this production... A remarkable evening”
Hexham Courant

Suitable for age 11 upwards
Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes approx (including interval)

Crossing between the past and present, Babi travels across Europe; from bon bons in Germany to the smell of the sea in Margate, she discovers how tiny acts of kindness can change the course of a person’s life. 

Joyful, moving and poignant, Kinder features beautiful table top puppetry and cinematic shadow play, as Babi tries to assemble the parts of her broken identity, to find peace in her future. 

Kinder is a multi-award winning show, from puppetry and visual theatre company Smoking Apples. Inviting you to take a seat inside an immersive set, the story unfolds through a series of playful hatches and openings. 

“Unmissable” – ✮✮✮✮✮ Everything Theatre 

Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and Enterprise Arts Trust.

Let's All Dance is delighted to return with this much-loved ballet for the whole family. Dazzling dancers, Tchaikovsky's sumptuous score and gorgeous costumes bring this glittering classical ballet to life.
 
A good fairy turned evil by jealousy casts a bad spell on a young princess. But an act of pure love will undo her magic, restoring her heart and bringing peace and harmony to the whole kingdom. 
 
From the company who brought you Alice in Wonderland, The Nutcracker, The Ugly Duckling and many more, this shortened classic introduces children to the wonder and magic of live dance. Character and narrative led stories engage boys and girls from start to finish and are loved by all ages.
 
Photo opportunity with the dancers on stage after every show!
 
Suitable for: perfect for the whole family, especially 2-14 year olds
Running time: 50 minutes
 
A superb introduction to ballet. It was my little girl’s 5th birthday and it was the perfect way to celebrate and with a chance to meet and get a photo with the dancers.
 
Absolutely loved it!!
 
An absolutely beautiful and magical performance. 
 
Delightful enchanting ballet.
 
Lovely!
 
Perfect.
 
This is the third Let’s All Dance show we’ve been to and our favourite so far!
 
We loved it!
 
What a beautiful introduction to ballet for young children! My daughter was enthralled from start to finish and then begged us to take her to see Alice in Wonderland in February!
 
Wonderful ballet productions for younger children. It makes the art form accessible in it's scale and duration. So happy they return to the Marlowe regularly with new productions, my daughters love it.
 
Audience members, Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, 2018

As part of its tour in the UK the prizewinning Czech piano trio, Trio Bohémo, will perform at Hemsted Park on Thursday 16 November at 7.30pm.

In 2021 Trio Bohémo won the International Parkhouse Award in London at Wigmore Hall and have since won the Haydn Competition in Vienna, plus a special prize for the best interpretation of a work by Haydn. 

Tonight you can hear them perform Haydn’s Piano Trio in C major, Hob XV:27 together with Dvořák’s Piano Trio known as the ‘Dumky’. 

Both works are a celebration of their Czech heritage that they interpret so well and with such deep understanding. 

The programme ends on a completely different note with Café Music by Paul Schoenfield. Born in Detroit, he is known for combining folk, popular and classical music forms all of which are evident in this brilliant heart-lifting piece.’

In September 2016, Hewitt began her Bach Odyssey, performing the complete keyboard works of Bach in a series of 12 recitals. The cycle was presented in London’s Wigmore Hall, New York’s 92nd Street Y, and in Ottawa, Tokyo and Florence, concluding in 2022. After her performances of the complete Well-Tempered Clavier at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival, the critic of the London Times wrote, “…the freshness of Hewitt’s playing made it sound as though no one had played this music before.”

Hewitt’s award-winning cycle for Hyperion Records of all the major keyboard works of Bach has been described as “one of the record glories of our age” (The Sunday Times). Her discography also includes albums of Couperin, Rameau, Scarlatti, Mozart, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Fauré, Debussy, Chabrier, Ravel, Messiaen and Granados. The final CD in her complete cycle of Beethoven Sonatas (Op.106 and Op.111) was released in February 2022, and the first of three Mozart albums, dedicated to the composer’s complete sonatas, is released in November 2022. A regular in the USA Billboard chart, her album Love Songs hit the top of the specialist classical chart in the UK and stayed there for months after its release. In 2015 she was inducted into Gramophone Magazine’s ‘Hall of Fame’ thanks to her popularity with music lovers around the world.

Conducting from the piano, Hewitt has led the Toronto and Vancouver Symphony orchestras, the Hong Kong and the Copenhagen Philharmonic orchestras, the Lucerne Festival Strings, the Kammerorchester Basel, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Britten Sinfonia, the Swedish and Zurich Chamber orchestras, the Salzburg Camerata, the orchestra of RAI Torino, the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa in Japan, and in 2019 made her debut playing and conducting Bach with the Vienna Tonkünstler Orchestra in Vienna’s Musikverein. The upcoming 2022/23 season sees her performing with orchestras in Finland, Denmark, Montreal, Ottawa, Victoria BC, Prague, Germany, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in New York. Recitals take her to, among others, Barcelona, San Francisco, Seattle, Vienna, Amsterdam, Cambridge, Leipzig, and the famous Teatro La Fenice in Venice. She is also an artist-in-residence at London’s Wigmore Hall.

Born into a musical family, Hewitt began her piano studies aged three, performing in public at four and a year later winning her first scholarship. She studied with Jean-Paul Sévilla at the University of Ottawa, and in 1985 won the Toronto International Bach Piano Competition which launched her career. In 2018 Angela received the Governor General’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2015 she received the highest honour from her native country – becoming a Companion of the Order of Canada (which is given to only 165 living Canadians at any one time). In 2006 she was awarded an OBE from Queen Elizabeth II. She is a member of the Royal Society of Canada, has seven honorary doctorates, and is a Visiting Fellow of Peterhouse College in Cambridge. In 2020 Angela was awarded the Wigmore Medal in recognition of her services to music and relationship with the hall over 35 years.

Angela lives in London but also has homes in Ottawa and Umbria, Italy where, eighteen years ago, she founded the Trasimeno Music Festival – a week-long annual event which draws an audience from all over the world.

@HewittJSB

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Angela-Hewitt/201013549988366

Featuring
 

The Lindy Hop Dance Company

&

The Harry Strutters Hot Rhythm Orchestra

Take a step back into 1920s & ’30s New York City and through the doors of Harlem's hottest nightclub, 'The Cotton Club'!

‘Swinging at The Cotton Club’ is the action-packed show celebrating the music and dance of the Cotton Club – New York’s most celebrated nightclub of the 1920s and ‘30s. 

Performances by Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Fats Waller would have had the club swinging - whilst dancers such as Bojangles Robinson and the Nicholas Brothers lit-up the stage with their breathtaking routines.

In the show the exhilarating dance and music of the Cotton Club is recreated by the fabulous Lindy Hop Dance Company, alongside The Harry Strutters Hot Rhythm Orchestra, featuring American vocalist Marlene Hill and compere/vocalist Megs Etherington.  

Nothing says Christmas like Bing Crosby, Michael Bublé and the classic sound of a big band. 

This year, the Len Phillips Swing Orchestra is back to celebrate in style. A seasonal family favourite show, it's packed with some of the best loved Christmas tunes of all time like Jingle Bells, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer and many more.

The LPSO’s Christmas Sky TV concert was a big hit last year, with special guest Mica Paris. It followed on from their much celebrated “100 Years of Big Bands” Sky Arts show, live from Cadogan Hall. 
The band’s diary over the last two years has included the Royal Albert Hall, Blackpool’s Tower Ballroom, an appearance in Dubai and the first ever live-streamed big band concert from Abbey Road Studios. Their 2021 single made the top 40 in the UK Singles Chart and number 1 in the iTunes Jazz Chart.

Star of the West End’s “Rat Pack”, Gary Williams has performed worldwide, from New York's Carnegie Hall to Buckingham Palace, Birdland Tokyo to The Royal Albert Hall. Described as "The UK's leading standard bearer for the supercool era" by the London Evening Standard, he wrote the performers’ bible ‘Cabaret Secrets’, has recorded at Abbey Road, presented for BBC Radio 2 and was profiled in the Sunday Times' ‘Fame and Fortune’ section.

This really is the most wonderful time of the year, so get your friends together and bring in the holiday season with the Len Phillips Swing Orchestra. - Dame Joan Collins