Norfolk & Norwich Festival Announces 2016 Programming

Norfolk & Norwich Festival, one of the biggest arts festivals in the UK, has today announced further events for its 2016 Festival. With the full programme still to be announced, further highlights revealed today include a brand new production of William Shakespeare's The Tempest directed by Artistic Director of Norfolk & Norwich Festival William Galinsky at the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome - Britain's only surviving purpose circus building erected in 1903 and Wild Life, an extraordinary collaboration between CAMPO's Artistic Collaborator Pol Heyvaert and young singer-songwriters from across Norfolk. Wild Life developed organically from the lives of the performers, and focuses on the songs they have written and what science tells us about how teenagers' brains work. The Festival have also announced Fierce Light, the world premiere event and exhibition from 14-18 NOW bringing together poets of international standing with contemporary film makers and visual artists to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the First World War, Chris Thorpe's acclaimed plays Confirmation and Am I Dead Yet? about political extremism and what happens when we die respectively, an evening of French song and poetry with the powerful and unconventional ensemble troupe, I Fagiolini, a one-night only performance by the sensational singer-songwriter and political activist Billy Bragg and the English indie band Tindersticks.

The line-up join the previously announced ground-breaking UK premiere from contemporary circus cabaret troupe Race Horse Company, the world premiere of a major new commission from one of the UK's foremost young composers - Kemal Yusuf, excerpts from electro-acoustic polymath Max Richter's intensive investigation in the power of the human brain - SLEEP, Aurélien Bory's industrial robot's dance with acrobats Sans Objet, Twenty Feet From Stardom's Lisa Fischer's first ever solo UK concert, an epic staging of Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand by Norwich Philharmonic and a revival of Rona Munro's critically acclaimed The James Plays.

The Festival runs 13 - 29 May 2016 with full line up still to be announced.

The flagship arts organisation for the East of England, Norfolk & Norwich Festival showcases some of the world's most renowned international artists alongside regional talent, drawing audiences from across the UK.

Full information on all Norfolk & Norwich Festival events at www.nnfestival.org.uk.

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For more information contact Maisie Lawrence at The Corner Shop PR on 020 7831 7657 or email maisie@thecornershoppr.com.

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NOTES TO EDITORS

Norfolk & Norwich Festival 2016 will run from Friday 13 - Sunday 29 May.

Tickets are on sale to the public from 9.30am 11 November with priority booking opening at 9.30am on 5 November.

Box Office 01603 766400, online www.nnfestival.org.uk or in person at Norwich Theatre Royal Box Office.

Concessions and Under 25s discounts available

THE TEMPEST
Directed by William Galinsky
UK Premiere
Friday 13 May - Saturday 21 May, 7.45pm
Saturday 14 - Saturday 21 2pm
Great Yarmouth Hippodrome
Tickets £15 £12 £10 £8

Norfolk & Norwich Festival's very own Artistic Director William Galinsky, in collaboration with some of British theatre's most original talents: designer Laura Hopkins (Black Watch NNF 2013), lighting designer Mikes Brookes and composer Nick Powell, will transform Great Yarmouth Hippodrome into a magical island in a production full of wonder and surprises that will bring one of Shakespeare's greatest plays to life for a modern audience.

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Co-commissioned and co-produced by Norfolk & Norwich Festival with CAMPO
WILD LIFE
Thursday 19 May - Sunday 22 May, Friday 27 May - Saturday 28 May, 7.30pm
Saturday 21, Saturday 28 & Sunday 29 May, 2.30pm
Norwich Playhouse
Tickets £12

When you are feeling sad, do you listen to cheerful music, or indulge your emotions?

Wild Life is an extraordinary collaboration between Pol Heyvaert of Belgian theatre company CAMPO and ten young singer-songwriters aged 14 - 24 from across Norfolk. Developed organically from the lives of the performers, the songs that they write and what science tells us about how teenagers' brains work, this startling piece of theatre uses original music and everyday sound bites as a backdrop to expose the stark truths about life as a teenager.

This World Premiere follows scratch performances at the Festival in 2015

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Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, Norfolk & Norwich Festival and Writers' Centre Norwich.
FIERCE LIGHT (Event)
World Premiere
Friday 13 May, 7.30pm
Norwich Playhouse
Tickets £18

A World Premiere event and major national co-commission from 14-18 NOW, Norfolk & Norwich Festival and Writers' Centre Norwich opens the 2016 City of Literature programme.

As we approach 100 years since the Battle of the Somme, Fierce Light brings together outstanding international poets with filmmakers and visual artists to explore the war and its legacy in the 21st century. Simon Armitage, Paul Muldoon and Daljit Nagra will give live readings of their poems alongside work by Yrsa Daley-Ward, Jackie Kay and Bill Manhire and excerpts from a series of specially commissioned short films.

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Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, Norfolk & Norwich Festival and Writers' Centre Norwich.
FIERCE LIGHT (Exhibition)
World Premiere
Monday 9th May - Saturday 28 May (excluding Sundays & Mondays) 12-5pm
FREE ENTRY

A World Premiere exhibition as part of a major national co-commission from 14-18 NOW, Norfolk & Norwich Festival and Writers' Centre Norwich. The exhibition will feature specially commissioned poetry from international writers including Jackie Kay, Bill Manhire, Paul Muldoon and Daljit Nagra alongside short films reflecting on the Battle of the Somme and its modern legacy.

The exhibition will also feature Simon Armitage's collection of six poems Still each beautifully engraved onto aerial photographs of WWI battlefields to create a poignant visual image.

Readings of the commissioned poems, along with extracts from the short films, will take place at a special event at Norwich Playhouse (see above FIERCE LIGHT Event).

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Chris Thorpe and Jon Spooner present
Unlimited Theatre present Am I Dead Yet?
Written and performed by Jon Spooner and Chris Thorpe
Developed in consultation with Dr Andy Lockey
Directed by Amy Hodge
Thursday 19 May, 8pm
NAC
£12, £10 or both nights £18 £15

Two friends, talking (and singing) about what happens when we die, how we think about dying and most importantly, how some of us might be brought back.

Performed by Unlimited founding members Jon Spooner and Chris Thorpe, Am I Dead Yet? is filled with stories and songs about death and dying and about how we don't talk about it enough.

Am I Dead Yet? is the new show from Unlimited Theatre inspired by research into contemporary developments in resuscitation science and made in collaboration with Emergency Care professionals.

Supported by the Wellcome Trust and Arts Council England.

Confirmation
Commissioned by Northern Stage and Battersea Arts Centre

If you pinned me against a wall, I'd probably admit to being a liberal.

Of course, pinning me against a wall is exactly what I'd expect from someone like you.

Confirmation is a show about the gulfs we can't talk across, and about the way we choose to see only the evidence that proves we're right.

Working with research into the phenomenon of Confirmation Bias, Confirmation attempts to have an honourable dialogue, real and imagined, with political extremism. From multiple award winning Chris Thorpe (Unlimited, Royal Exchange, Hannah Jane Walker) and Rachel Chavkin (The TEAM).

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I FAGIOLINI
Monday 16 May, 7.30pm
Norwich Cathedral
Tickets £25 £20 £15 £10

I Fagiolini return to Norfolk & Norwich Festival after the huge success of Howl Like an Angel in 2012 to celebrates its 30th anniversary with an indulgent wallow in the sensuous sparkle of French song and poetry. They will present French choral delicacies including Satie's mysterious Gnossiennes for piano, Poulenc, Milhaud and pieces by Fauré and Saint-Saëns. The centrepiece of their production is a new arrangement by Roderick Williams of the slow movement from Ravel's jazz-flavoured Piano Concerto in G major.

Renowned for bringing innovation and brilliance to a wide-ranging repertoire, I Fagiolini is accompanied by Anna Markland, who was named BBC Young Musician of the Year in 1982 and has sung with the ensemble since its first concert in 1986.

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BILLY BRAGG
Friday 27 May, 8pm
Great Yarmouth Hippodrome
Tickets £25 £20 £15

As well as producing 15 studio albums over the past 30 years, Billy Bragg has been a tireless live performer and a committed political activist. Among the former Saturday boy's albums are his punk-charged debut Life's a Riot With Spy Vs Spy, England, Half-English released during the Queen's Jubilee and his stripped-down tenth, Tooth and Nail. Just last year Bragg published A Lover Sings, a volume cataloguing a selection of his celebrated and poetic lyrics.

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TINDERSTICKS

tindersticks released their first album in 1993, an audacious self-produced seventy-nine minute double album that paid little attention to supposed rules of how albums should be made at the time. It was released to huge critical acclaim and established the band on a path of musical adventure that they are still feeling their way down today.

They continue to explore and develop their sound, touring the world, often playing with orchestras, scoring 7 films by renowned film director Claire Denis. They have written and recorded many duets, singing with, amongst others, Lhasa de Sela, Mary Margaret O'Hara and Isabella Rossellini and have created soundscapes for museums and music for art installations.

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Race Horse Company presents
WHITE NIGHTS
UK Premiere
Wednesday 18 May - Saturday 28 May, 7.30pm and Sunday 29 May, 5pm
(except Thursday 19 & Tuesday 24 May)
The Adnams Spiegeltent, Norwich
Tickets £20
Recommended age 14+.

Race Horse Company presents a sophisticated circus cabaret. White Nights is made of Race Horse blood; classy and edgy with an international cast.

Be led into the night by soulful and mesmerising New York City singer and host Sophia Urista, while Race Horse Company's Finnish circus boys provide danger, fun and fury. Dancer and wild child Iona Kewney completes this ensemble of delicious performers.

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Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
FESTIVAL CHORUS
David Parry conductor
Savitri Grier violin
Jeni Bern soprano
Christopher Diffey tenor
Alexander Robin Baker baritone
Chausson Poème Op. 25
Kemal Yusuf Cain (World Premiere)
Franck Symphony in D minor
Sunday 15 May, 7.30pm
St Andrew's Hall, Norwich
Tickets £37, £32, £25, £20, £10, £7

The World Premiere of an ambitious choral work is flanked by two masterpieces of nineteenth century Romanticism. From one of the foremost young composers today, Kemal Yusuf's Cain recounts the Biblical story of the first-born human in music of breathtaking scope and power. It contrasts exquisitely with Chausson's rhapsodic Poème and Franck's richly textured Symphony.

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MAX RICHTER ENSEMBLE
Thursday 19 May, 8pm
Norwich Theatre Royal
Tickets £28, £24, £20, £15, £8

Hailed as the most influential composer of his generation, British electro-acoustic artist Max Richter is inspired equally by Bach, punk rock and ambient electronica. Richter's sonic world blends a formal classical training with modern technology, with work including scores for the award-winning films Waltz with Bashir and Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island.

Richter and his ensemble will perform selections from SLEEP, his landmark work scored for piano, strings, electronics and voice, which was broadcast as part of BBC Radio 3's Why Music?. Described by Richter as his 'personal lullaby for a frenetic world,' don't miss an astounding night from this leading contemporary classical artist.

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Aurélien Bory presents
SANS OBJET
Tuesday 17 & Wednesday 18 May, 7.30pm
Norwich Theatre Royal
Tickets £22, £18, £15, £12, £7

In the 1970s it made cars. Now transplanted from assembly line to stage, an industrial robot stars with acrobats Olivier Alenda and Olivier Boyer in a spectacular dance between man and machine. By turns friendly and frightening, the robot is the unlikely hero of a remarkable futurist fantasy.

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LISA FISCHER

The star of the Oscar-winning Twenty Feet From Stardom, Lisa Fischer is best-known as the woman who sings her heart out with the Rolling Stones - the YouTube of her Gimme Shelter duet with Mick Jagger has had millions of hits.

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National Theatre of Scotland, National Theatre and Edinburgh International Festival present
THE JAMES PLAYS
By Rona Munro
Directed by Laurie Sansom
Saturday 14 - Sunday 15 May, 11am/3pm/7.30pm daily
Norwich Theatre Royal
Tickets £85, £80, £68, £58, £24
Recommended age 14+.
Running times: James I 2hrs 30 mins, James II 2hrs 22mins, James III 2 hrs 30 mins
(all including interval). The James Plays are only available to book as a trilogy.
Please note these productions contain strong language, flashing and strobe lighting, violent scenes, nudity and are not suitable for children.

Exhilarating and vividly imagined, The James Plays trilogy brings to life three generations of Stewart kings who ruled Scotland from 1406 to 1488. The productions include: James I: The Key Will Keep The Lock; James II: The Day Of The Innocents and James III: The True Mirror.

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Norwich Philharmonic Orchestra & Chorus present
MAHLER'S SYMPHONY OF A THOUSAND
Matthew Andrews conductor
Kirstin Sharpin soprano
Katherine Broderick soprano
Catherine May soprano
Anne Marie Gibbons alto
Anna Burford alto
Peter Wedd tenor
James Harrison baritone
Richard Wiegold bass
Saturday 21 May, 8pm
Norfolk Showground Arena, Royal Norfolk Showground

To celebrate its 175th Anniversary, the massed ranks of the Norwich Philharmonic are joined by eight outstanding soloists and several choirs from across Norfolk for a spectacular staging in the Norfolk Showground Arena of Mahler's epic and rarely-performed Symphony of a Thousand.

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