64 of 80 Behind the Baton with Alastair Elliott The Musical Month \ Bewdley Bridge Community Magazine - October 2025
Well, it’s good to be back after a little summer break from the Baton and this month there is plenty to write about. First of all of course, October is Festival month in Bewdley… and I am delighted to say that the three main live music nights have pretty much all sold out. However, there are still tickets available for Mark Bebbington’s piano recital at St Anne’s church on Saturday 25th at 6pm. If you haven’t already seen it, the full programme is as follows: Beethoven: Sonata in C minor op. 13 Pathetique Cesar Franck: Prelude, Chorale and Fugue Interval John Ireland: Three Pastels A Grecian Lad The Boy Bishop Puck’s birthday Poulenc: Improvisation no 15 Homage a Edith Piaf and Suite Napoli Liszt/Wagner: ‘Liebestod’ from Tristan and Isolde Liszt/Verdi: Concert Paraphrase on ‘Rigoletto’
The other evening that might well appeal to music fans is with Joe Boyd on Tuesday 14th. Boyd has been a record producer for 40 odd years including producing albums for Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, Taj Mahal and many others across a real spectrum of global music. He was also founder of the influential Transatlantic Record Label. These intimate evenings are always extremely insightful, so expect a fascinating selection of anecdotes and stories. I know many of you have been enjoying the Music for Sanctuary series on Sunday afternoons and October sees the final concert of this series with Anna Downes and Tony Bridgwater (The Himley Duo) completing the programme with a selection of English music from Andrew Downes, Stanford and Arnold. On top of that, on Friday 24th, you’ve got a choice of the folk options - either Banter in St George’s Hall or the next Shire Folk o ff ering with Robbie Cavanagh at St Anne’s. October is going to be a busy month! Looking a little further ahead into November, on Saturday the 8th, Bewdley Choral Society will be performing Karl Jenkins “The Armed Man - a Mass for Peace” in St Anne’s. We last performed this in November 2019 to a sellout audience. We augmented the music with lighting and imagery and we shall be doing the same again this time. Now more than ever, a work which recounts the horrors of descent into war and yearns for peace instead is alarmingly relevant and on the 80th anniversary of the end of the 2nd world war, it will be a privilege to perform this exceptionally poignant and moving work once again.
So, a super programme with plenty of variety and a real blockbuster finish. To have a pianist of Mark’s standing playing in Bewdley is really quite special.
tickets from: https://tickets.thehall-bewdley.org.uk/
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