Actor and young performer to take part in this year’s Elgar Festival

An actor and young performer will take centre stage at this year’s Elgar Festival.

Hamish Macaulay – who has starred in Macbeth and is also a participant in the Elgar Festival/Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Young Performer Showcase Programme – will be part of Elgar’s Wind Quintets ‘Notes from the Organ Loft’ performance on Tuesday 27 May.

The event – which costs £12 per ticket – will take place at 7.00pm at St George’s Roman Catholic Church in Worcester.

Kenneth Woods, Artistic Director of the Elgar Festival said: “This new event will offer a window into the inner world of a young genius.  We are delighted to bring Elgar’s seven pieces of ‘Harmony Music’ to this year’s festival; in addition to playing bassoon in a woodwind quintet with his brother Frank, he wrote these pieces for his young friends who met regularly for music on Sunday afternoons in a garden shed behind his father’s shop.”

Hamish will read a narrative derived from Elgar’s youthful letters which paint a picture of a young man of great talent looking for his voice and path in life, alongside the very music he was writing at the time he served as the organist at his beloved St George’s Church where this performance will take place.

The Elgar Festival takes place from Saturday 24 May until Sunday 1 June this year.

Themed ‘Celebrate with Elgar’, this year’s Festival will bring together world-class professional musicians and artists alongside local choirs and ensembles placing the music of Worcester’s most famous son alongside that of his contemporaries and some of today’s leading composers and arrangers.

Set in the composer’s hometown and surrounding areas, the festival is an annual celebration of Elgar’s music spanning symphonic and string orchestra concerts by the resident and world renowned English Symphony Orchestra.

Other highlights this year include Elgar’s Symphony No. 2 and John Ireland’s oratorio ‘These Things Shall Be’ performed by the ESO and joined by the 2025 Festival Chorus on Saturday 31 May in Worcester Cathedral. There are further performances by English String and Chamber Orchestras, recitals by world renowned performers Raphael Wallfisch, David Briggs and April Fredrick, several participatory events including ‘Come and Play Elgar 1’ and a Young Singers Masterclass. The ever-popular family concert returns hosted by Classic FM’s Zeb Soanes including the winning pieces of the Festival’s Young Composers’ Competition; the event will also celebrate the work and 70^th birthday of Worcester’s finest living composer Ian Venables. 

There are several free events, relaxed concerts, an exhibition, choral events, a film screening, Q and As, a guided walk and a new performance partnership with students from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

Since its inauguration in 2018, when it was a Critic’s Pick in both The Guardian and The Times, the festival has doubled in size and scale and continues to grow annually through an innovative development programme of appealing and accessible events, working with hundreds of both internationally renowned professional artists and amateur musicians and performers of all ages to ensure Elgar really is for everyone.

For further information and to book tickets please visit www.elgarfestival.org