The Burton Agnes Jazz and Blues Festival returns for its sixth year set in the award winning grounds and Elizabethan Hall of Burton Agnes, East Yorkshire, YO25 4NB. Organised by the Hall’s sax-playing owner, Simon Cunliffe-Lister, the festival runs over three days showcasing some of the UK’s hottest jazz and blues acts in the most stunning and serene of surroundings.
“Possibly the most enjoyable jazz concert I’ve ever attended.” The Independent
Grammy nominated and multi award winning Stacey Kent, including the British Jazz Award and BBC Jazz Award for ‘Best Vocalist’, is a sublime singer, rightly famed for her peerless interpretations of the Great American Songbook, but equally adept singing in French or Portuguese. Her beautiful tone and wonderful phrasing bring a fresh beauty to everything she sings and she sings from the soul. She tells us her stories with faultless phrasing and a lucid, enchanting voice and it is her beautiful version of Hushabye Mountain that has bewitched TV viewers on the recent Dreams Bed campaign. After eight studio albums, her current album Dreamer In Concert is her first live album and the first album that captures her magical onstage persona.
Burton Agnes Jazz and Blues Festival are delighted to announce that Stacey will headline their festival on the main stage – Saturday 7th July.
“Stacey Kent is a revelation. There is nobody singing today who can compare with her. She has the style of the greats, like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. And she sings the words like Nat Cole – clean, clear and almost conversational with perfect phrasing. And that’s as good as it gets.” Three-time Oscar-winning songwriter, Jay Livingston
“Devastatingly stylish…a beauty in any circumstances” The Observer
“A delight” The Guardian
More artists are to be confirmed over the coming weeks.
Held over three days, with performances both inside the stately Elizabethan Hall and outside in the Hall’s beautiful grounds, the Burton Agnes Jazz & Blues festival presents a varied line up of funk, traditional jazz, hard blues, dreamy vocals and everything in between.
“Tis the musical equivalent of a Sunday stroll through the grounds of a stately home… you won’t find more beautifully serene surroundings this side of Woodstock for such an experience” All Gigs – Festival review
The main stage on the lawn hosts the festival’s headline acts. With rolling fields behind and pristine woodland to the side, you couldn’t ask for a more stunning setting for some of the UK’s top Jazz and Blues artists to perform. Inside the Hall, intimate acoustic performances mix with original Elizabethan carvings and French Impressionist art to create an inimitable festival experience.
On Friday and Saturday evening the Wolds Top beer tent plays host to the Beverley Arts Trust’s late night sessions of folk, jazz and rhythm ‘n’ blues.
Local food and drink feature heavily at the festival. At the tea tent and food lawn, festivalgoers can indulge in home-baked treats, barbecued local meats, freshly prepared curries, and salads grown in the neighbouring walled garden. In the beer tent award winning Wold Top beer is on tap, brewed just five miles away from the festival site.
A campsite in the field adjacent to the Hall offers welcome hot showers and panoramic views of the Yorkshire Wolds for those wishing to pitch a tent for a night or the whole weekend.
Burton Agnes Jazz & Blues Festival welcomes families of all ages with its safe, easy-going vibe. There is plenty on offer for children including a Children’s Corner with play area, 15 acres of magical gardens to explore including a walled garden with maze, jungle garden and giant games and a woodland walk with forest creatures to find. Free face painting and balloon artistry caps off the entertainment.
Built between 1598 and 1610 by Sir Henry Griffith, Burton Agnes Hall is an Elizabethan stately home that has stayed within the Cunliffe-Lister family for more than four hundred years. Fifteen generations have filled the Hall with treasures, from magnificent carvings commissioned when the Hall was built to French impressionist paintings, contemporary furniture, tapestries and other modern artwork in recent years.
The charm of the house is that it is clearly a loved and lived in home and visitors are welcomed openly by the family in joining them to spend many enjoyable hours at Burton Agnes Hall.
‘Burton Agnes Hall ranks among the finest, and best presented, houses in England. It is the perfect English house, embodying the climax of the final great age of domestic architecture’
Simon Jenkins, Chairman of the National Trust, journalist and author of England’s Thousand Best Houses
2012 Festival Tickets info:
Weekend Advance Ticket
Friday 6pm – midnight, Saturday 11am – midnight, Sunday 11am – 6pm
£40 before 1st June / £50 after 31st May (Concessions £38 / £48)
Concessions: OAP’s, Season ticket holders, students, children 12-15 years
Children under 12: FREE with an adult
Day Ticket: Saturday 11am – midnight
£30 before 1st June / £35 after 31st May (Concessions £28 / £32)
Day Ticket: Sunday 11am – 6pm
£25 before 1st June / £30 after 31st May (Concessions £23 / £28)
Evening Ticket: Friday 6 pm – midnight or Saturday 6pm – midnight
£20 EACH DAY before 1st June / £25 EACH DAY after 31st May (Concessions £18 / £23)
Camping Voucher: Camping open Friday 3pm – Monday noon
£30 before 1st July / £35 after 31st May
Available online at www.burtonagnes.com and from the Festival Ticket Office Tel: 01262 490 324
Or Visit Burton Agnes Hall and its courtyard shops.
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