Chiltern Arts Festival Strings Concert

The Instrumentalist | A journey through colour & music…

Harriet Constable author & reader
Lucy Russell violin
Musicians from the Purcell School

Read by the author herself, excerpts from Harriet Constable’s debut novel, The Instrumentalist, are woven together here with music by Vivaldi, Correlli and Tartini to tell the story of young Anna Maria, a musical prodigy studying under Vivaldi at the Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage for girls in Venice in the 1700s. When Anna Maria hears music, she sees colour: this representation of what we now call synaesthesia is told beautifully and sensitively through Harriet’s writing — and has inspired us to bring colour into this musical event, too. Featuring extracts from The Four Seasons and Tartini’s The Devil’s Trill, we also hear new music from Deborah Pritchard — a synaesthetic composer herself — commissioned especially for the event and created through work with colour and sound with local primary school children and composers from The Purcell School. 

Before the concert (6.30pm), join Harriet and Deborah for a rich discussion about words and music, synaesthesia, and women in music and history (included in ticket).

Tickets for the concert are £35, £28, £25 and £15 (free for U16s) and can be purchased here : https://chilternarts.com/event/the-instrumentalist-a-journey-through-colour-music/?ref=%2Fwhats-on%2F#tribe-tickets__tickets-form