Creation – The Award-Winning North York Moors Chamber Music Festival Celebrates Its 18th Birthday With Six Premieres

The North York Moors Chamber Music Festival celebrates its 18th consecutive year this August with the premieres of six brand new compositions from some of the UK’s finest contemporary composers.

Aptly named Creation, the festival will feature freshly written works by Thomas Adès, Huw Watkins (both of whom will also perform at the festival), Charlotte Bray, Tom Coult, Isabella Gellis and Helen Grime. Charlotte Bray’s powerful piece for horn and string quartet will be accompanied by a collaborative artwork by Caroline Burraway which will be exhibited on stage at St Hedda’s, Egton Bridge during the performance, as well as at two further concerts on 14 and 15 August.

Festival director Jamie Walton says: “We’ve commissioned works from five of arguably the UK’s finest composers, and are premiering the work of a sixth,all to represent the six days to create the universe, forming part of the overall theme of creation.

“Thomas Adès is widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest living composers, so it’s a real coup to have him both write for us and premiere the piece himself. And we’re really proud of the fact that, alongside these six outstanding composers, we have such a stellar line-up of international artists.

“We’re also continuing to champion local visual artists from the moors in the brochure, pairing their work with concert titles. We have done this for the past two years and it’s a wonderful way to cross-pollinate and collaborate with more artists.”

The festival will take place from 8 to 22 August in four historic moorland churches: St Hilda’s, Danby; St Hedda’s, Egton Bridge; St Michael’s, Coxwold, and St Mary’s, Lastingham, and for the majority of concerts in the grounds of Welburn Manor, near Kirkbymoorside, in an acoustically-treated venue which has been enlarged this year to reflect the festival’s increasing popularity.

The festival was recently named a Best of British Fund Winner 2026 by Airbnb, representing Yorkshire as part of the North York Moors Beacon for the Arts.

The event continues to attract international artists, many of whom commit to the entire fortnight by taking up residencies.

This year, these include Alena Baeva, Benjamin Baker, Oliver Cave, Oliver Heath, Alessandro Ruisi and Charlotte Scott (violin); Sascha Bota, Meghan Cassidy, Elliott Perks, Emma Wernig and Simone van der Giessen (viola); Rebecca Gilliver, Barthomolew LaFollette, Tim Posner and Jamie Walton (cello); Will Duerden (double bass); Thomas Adès, Katya Apekisheva, Joseph Havlat, Roman Kosyakov, Daniel Lebhardt and Huw Watkins (piano); Ben Goldscheider (French horn); Nicholas Daniel (oboe); Matthew Hunt (clarinet); Jonathan Davies (bassoon); James Gilchrist (tenor). Completing the line-up is the festival’s award-winning featured Young Artists, The Davidoff Trio, and and composers Helen Grime, Charlotte Bray, Isabella Gellis and Tom Coult.

Simon Tandree & Claude Frochaux Photo: Matthew Johnson©

Tickets for individual concerts are £18; a season ticket for all 13 costs £190. As ever, under-30s get free entry to any of the concerts. To book, please email bookings@northyorkmoorsfestival.com, call 07722 038990, or visit www.northyorkmoorsfestival.com