St Mary’s Church, Hay-on-Wye, HR3 5EB. Doors open at 5.30pm. Refreshments.
This is a FREE CONCERT with retiring collection in aid of our Outreach Programme (cash or card). No pre-booking required.
Come and hear the fruits of a very special river-themed songwriting project with pupils of Hay-on-Wye Primary School. An enthusiastic Class 5 has collaborated with poet Francesca Kay and composer Robert Peate in writing words for four songs, setting them to music and practising hard to perform them alongside soprano Jessica Summers and pianist Jelena Makarova who are the acclaimed ‘Living Songs’ Duo. Exploring and celebrating the vital presence of rivers in our lives, this performance carries an extra poignancy as our own beloved River Wye is in so much need of protection and support. The children look forward to sharing the results of this ambitious and exciting project with you.
The concert features the four songs written by the children, plus a brief selection of other river-themed works performed by Jessica and Jelena. Please download a programme HERE to print off or follow on your phone. As we won’t know how many audience to expect, and if we have large numbers, there may be a shortage of printed programmes.
Hay Music’s Outreach Programme
Hay Music has been presenting high quality chamber music concerts since 2011. We have also provided outreach musical activities for children in local schools, The Family Place and the HayDay Café. The outreach programme with schools in particular has been expanding in recent years and we provide regular music workshops at local primary schools. The ‘Songs of the River’ project is the first where we have worked with children to develop the written and musical content of a concert, with the children performing their work in public with professional musicians. It is our hope that, for some children at least, this will be a formative experience, particularly at a time when music, and the arts in general, are being largely neglected in state schools.
We are most grateful to The Darkley Trust and The Simon Gibson Trust which have made this project possible.
Poet FRANCESCA KAY spent many years writing poetry with children and adults in schools, libraries, galleries, and even outdoors! Although in recent years she has moved more into the world of letterpress printing and craft, it was wonderful to revisit her songwriting days with the children of Hay School. www.francescakay.co.uk
Born in Hereford and brought up near the village of Dymock, ROBERT PEATE began piano lessons at seven and has always maintained a diverse musical career. He studied composition at Birmingham Conservatoire with Richard Causton and Edwin Roxburgh (BMus: 2006-10), and then at the Royal Academy of Music under Simon Bainbridge (MMus: 2010-12, PhD: 2016-2022), with additional tuition from Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Oliver Knussen. His work has received many prizes, been performed across the UK and abroad, programmed and commissioned by major festivals and broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
Aside from an eclectic variety of musical influences, Robert’s work has always shown a deep connection to the natural world, and in recent years a particular influence from painting, literature, and Japanese culture. Recent works include the orchestral tone-poem To The Wye (commissioned by Hereford Symphony Orchestra), and String Quartet in E ‘Grasses’ based on a series of paintings by Charles MacCarthy (jointly commissioned by the 2026 Presteigne Festival and the 2026 Romsey Chamber Music Festival).
Passionate about music-making at all levels, Robert has worked within many educational and community contexts, such as on a recent song-writing project with army veterans through the Three Choirs Festival, and the ‘Songs of the River’ project with children at Hay-on-Wye Primary School through Hay Music. He also continues to write and arrange music for many young and non-professional musicians.
Based in Ewyas Harold, Herefordshire, Robert maintains a busy life of composing, teaching, piano playing, and parenting. www.robertpeate.co.uk
JESSICA SUMMERS has performed around the UK both in concerts and in opera. An alumna of the Britten-Pears Young Artists Programme, Jessica has performed in a wide range of venues and festivals including the Three Choirs Festival, Holywell Music Room, Oxford (Pierrot Lunaire), St John’s Smith Square, Brighton Festival, York Late Music Festival, King’s Lynn Festival, Dartington Hall, Ripon Cathedral and the St Martin in the Fields New Music Series. In opera, she has sung in several tours for English Touring Opera, for Opera North (Education) and for the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, as well as in unusual settings such at the Natural History Museum and HMP Wandsworth.
Jessica has a project called Living Songs which aims to highlight and promote new song repertoire written by living composers through performances, its website and social media. She started this project in 2013 and, with Jelena Makarova, has given many performances and premieres of new songs around the country. She is passionate about music education and outreach. As an animateur, she has led a wide range of projects for music / community organisations nationally and internationally (Belize and India). She has led workshops for performers and composers at Royal Holloway University, Brunel University and King’s College, London and teaches singing at St Catharine’s College and Girton College at Cambridge University. She is an ardent supporter of refugees and those who have been displaced and is a former orientation volunteer for the Red Cross Refugee Unit in London and continues to volunteer, fundraise and raise awareness of the current global refugee crisis. www.livingsongs.co.uk
London-based Lithuanian pianist JELENA MAKAROVA is a graduate of the M. K. Čiurlionis School of Arts, the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and the Royal Academy of Music, London, where she also participated in masterclasses with Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Paul Lewis, and György Kurtág. She has performed at some of the world's most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall, the Mozarthaus Vienna, and London's Southbank Centre and has appeared at leading festivals and concert series such as the London Contemporary Music Festival, the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe and Kaunas 2022 - European Capital of Culture.
Jelena was pianist with the BBC Concert Orchestra Ensemble for the UK tour of The Paradis Files, an acclaimed opera by Errollyn Wallen and a multi-award-winning production by the BBC Concert Orchestra and Graeae Theatre, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. She has also collaborated with the Albert Hall Orchestra, New London Orchestra, The Belfast Ensemble, the National Youth Wind Orchestra of Great Britain and The Royal Ballet School.
A passionate advocate for contemporary music, Jelena regularly premieres works by emerging and established composers, including Kenneth Hesketh, Richard Causton, Gillian Whitehead, Colin Riley, Angela Slater and Kristina Arakelyan. Her recordings include Night Letters, an album of complete piano works by Stewart Lane. With her chamber group Trio Sonorité, she has recorded Anthony Esland's Aurora Dances (from the album Playing Outside) and Rūta Vitkauskaitė’s The Music Shell in collaboration with Lithuanian National Radio and Television.
In autumn, Jelena recorded new piano and chamber works by Sally Beamish and Philip Lancaster for the forthcoming Winter Trees CD. Her recent Stravinsky-themed recital for the Late Music Concerts York series received a glowing review in Musical Opinion magazine. Forthcoming engagements include recording projects and recitals at London College of Music, the Square Mile Concert Series and a Lithuanian tour.