BBC ANY QUESTIONS? TO KICK OFF COOKHAM FESTIVAL

BBC Radio 4’s flagship programme Any Questions? chaired by Jonathan Dimbleby is coming to Cookham on April 24th to kick off the biennial Cookham Festival 2009. Hosted by The Odney Club it will get the Festival off to a flying start. Tickets are free and available through the Festival Box Office www.cookhamfestival.com and other local organisations. The BBC will also be in Cookham on Sunday 26th April at Holy Trinity for its regular Sunday radio service BBC Sunday Worship. The full Festival Programme was announced at a reception for more than 100 invited guests at Moor Hall on Friday January 30th.

The twelve day Festival from April 24th to May 4th goes from strength to strength and this year’s programme of music, arts, poetry and literature has something for everyone. All musical tastes are covered with concerts from jazz to opera, baroque to rock! And for those who like singing Cookham Sings! is for you, come and perform opera choruses ‘from scratch’ under the Direction of Ralph Allwood, the Director of Music at Eton College on Saturday 25th April. Rehearse in the morning and afternoon and perform in the evening.

New events this year include Another Cookham Resurrection a new drama by Michael Johnson which asks us to imagine what would actually happen if people came back from the dead. Michael has assembled a cast of enquiring Cookham people to consider the proposition with music sung by members of the Cantorum Choir.

Modern Jazz comes to the Festival for the first time, with rising tenor saxophone star
Vasillis Xenopoulos and his quintet,as well as the Festival’s first Cookham Comedy Club. The BBC Youth Choir of the Year,the Taplow Choir, will be performing alongside some exceptional young musical talent at the Festival Concert.

The programme of arts events is wide ranging with workshops, talks, walks and exhibitions. A first for the Festival is a Sculpture Garden in the beautiful grounds of The Odney Club. The popular Artists’ Open Studios is again a key attraction with a record number of twenty three artists participating.

The Festival will close with a family May Day on The Moor featuring local bands in the afternoon followed in the evening by Let’s Rock The Moor! headlined by Nick Heyward.
Michael Copland Chairman of the Festival said “We are delighted to welcome back the BBC to Cookham to launch the Festival. The programme offers something for everyone and reflects once again the enormous talent in the area.”

For full details of the Festival programme and booking form see www.cookhamfestival.com . Programmes available from The Stationery Store, Station Hill, Cookham. You are advised to book early as some events are limited.

Issued on behalf of Cookham Festival Committee for more information please contact Judith Diment on 07860 162313

A FEAST FOR ARTISTS AT THE COOKHAM FESTIVAL 2009

The twelve day Art and Music Festival will be a feast for artists! The Festival is a celebration of the talent that exists across the community and features many new events for 2009. More than twenty local artists will be participating in the popular Artists Open Studios. The Festival is also planning Art Workshops on clay modelling, charcoal drawings, drawing from a live model, and embroidery. There will be a Demonstration by Howard Birchmoor of landscape painting in acrylic, with sound amplification and enhanced viewing via projector screen. Local artists are also invited to a painting day in the beautiful riverside gardens of the Odney Club, in the company of Cookham Arts Club.

Art Exhibitions featuring the work of Frederick Walker and Ralph Thompson will also be the subject of two talks. The first by Jean Hedger explores the life and work of Frederick Walker a great artist who died young and is buried in Cookham Churchyard. The times he spent in the village and the paintings he produced in and around Cookham are little known to the residents of today. Jean's talk will expand on the works which will be shown in Fred Walker's Cookham, one of the exhibitions in the festival.

The exhibition Animal Magic: the paintings of Cookham Dean artist Ralph Thompson provides a rare opportunity to see a large number of original paintings by the famous painter, Ralph Thompson, friend of Stanley Spencer and illustrator of books by Gerald Durrell. Ralph also appeared on a series of BBC television programmes demonstrating his remarkable skills as a painter of animals. His work is the subject of the second talk called An Extremely Rare Creature which was Gerald Durrell's opinion of a good animal artist and the special tribute he paid to the distinguished animal artist, Ralph Thompson. Wyn Reilly, Ralph's stepson and close friend, will talk about his life and work, assisted by Ralph's artist friend, Chris Tyrrell. There will be plenty of time for questions, discussion and contributions from people who knew him.

There will also be a talk on Stanley Spencer by Unity Spencer, as well as a guided walk around Spencer’s Cookham.

If you thought embroidery was cross stitch and tablecloths, you will be amazed at the art and creativity of the Windsor & Maidenhead Branch of the Embroiderers Guild. Their work will feature in a special exhibition throughout the Festival.

A Sculpture Garden featuring twenty five sculptures by leading sculptors, in the gardens of the Odney Club will be a highlight of the Festival.. This new event , by kind permission of the Odney Club, is being curated by Bridget Fraser of the Barn Galleries, Henley on Thames. The Sculpture Garden will feature a collection of twenty five outstanding sculptures from leading local sculptors and others, including Lydia Karpinska, the late Ken Court and Eunice Goodman. Festival visitors will be able to follow the trail under the ancient cedar trees, across the gracious lawns and discover sculptures hidden in the herbaceous borders.

Bridget Fraser said” It is a great pleasure for me to be curating the first ever Sculpture Garden for the Cookham Festival. For me, it is like a homecoming. I lived in Cookham – the Dean, the Rise, the Dean again – from 1972 until 1986. It was in Cookham that my children spent their early years and, like me, forged some of their firmest friendships. Cookham is a community like no other and it is an honour and a pleasure to be associated with the Cookham Festival, to celebrate all that is so vibrant, so wonderful and so welcoming: everything that is Cookham. Some of the sculptors’ names you will recognise, others will be new to you. Enjoy it all as you explore the perfect grounds of the Odney Club. Beautiful gardens, amazing sculpture: what a treat in store.”