FROM Beethoven’s 5th to Wonderwall and Parklife, Ilkley Literature Festival is inviting audiences to shuffle through a mega playlist of music events this October.
Festival guests including John Suchet and Carol Ann Duffy will explore the power of music and the legacy of composers, songwriters and musicians.
Festival director Erica Morris says: “Music takes so many different forms, yet the power it has to transform our moods is universal. We’re looking forward to exploring a huge variety of musical expressions under the guidance of some extraordinary experts.”
In an age of call outs, cancellation and scandals, award-winning slam poet Vanessa Kisuule will discuss the moral conundrums that come with fandom. In what looks to be a bracingly honest, witty, and lively discussion, Kisuule explores how, or if, we can hold famous figures to account while loving them at the same time and whether we can, or should, ever separate the art from the artist.
Richard Morton Jack discusses his book Nick Drake, exploring the singular talent who passed almost unnoticed during his brief lifetime. Drake produced several albums that went on to sell in the millions in the decades after his death.
Richard Morton Jack draws from new interviews with Drake’s family and exclusive access to deeply personal archive material to explore his enigmatic life.
Beethoven is the focus of a talk by journalist, bestselling author and Classic FM presenter John Suchet. The former ITN newscaster traces the composer’s footsteps from his early years in Bonn to his dying days in Vienna.
Drawing on his own life and career, Suchet will take his audience on a personal journey, discussing how Beethoven’s music has accompanied him through the best and worst of times, and demonstrating the life-changing power of great music.
Journalist and broadcaster Miranda Sawyer takes us back to the beating heart of the Nineties in her new book Uncommon People: Britpop and Beyond in 20 Songs. Sawyer will explore the story of Britpop and the influence of key artists from the era, from Oasis and Blur to The Prodigy and Radiohead.
Kate Kennedy, Director of the Museum of Music History and Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, offers a homage to the cello. Discover the fascinating history of the cello and hear stories of four remarkable cellists and their experiences of persecution, dramatic escape, and misfortune.
The festival also presents a special evening with former Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy and her long-time collaborator, multi-instrumentalist John Sampson. Poetry and music unite at this event, as Sampson - who plays everything from the trumpet to the lesser-known crumhorn - provides a musical backdrop to Duffy’s performances of her best-loved poems, alongside selected modern and classic poems on the wonder of nature from her new anthology Earth Prayers.
Ilkley Literature Festival, nationally renowned for its artistic excellence and diverse programming, is produced by Word Up North, a year-round writing development organisation that provides opportunities for mentoring and talent development in the north of England.
The two-week festival brings literature and poetry to audiences of more than 22,000 each October, as well as showcasing new work by emerging and established writers. Headline acts this year include Kate Atkinson, Julian Clary, Susie Dent, Alan Hollinghurst, Jodi Picoult, Prue Leith and Carol Ann Duffy.
When Ilkley Literature Festival began in 1973, JB Priestley praised the organisers, noting the difficulty of a literary festival in that, “Authors have little to show and are no treat as a spectacle.”
He was proven wrong in 1975, when Ted Hughes read Cave Birds. It was reported that “a blood curdling scream pierced the heart of Ted Hughes’ new poem sequence at its world premiere in Ilkley...It came from a member of the audience. Shortly afterwards a woman vomited and was led out.”
Over the last half century, the festival has weathered recessions, funding cuts and the pandemic.
In 1977, when a huge bronze statue of the Minotaur by sculptor Michael Ayrton was unveiled in Ilkley for the festival, it boasted “commensurately large genitalia” resulting in petitions to protect the young and the elderly, and a headline in the Daily Express: ‘Beefing over 7 foot of Bull.’
As well as supporting emerging poets and new voices, Ilkley has long attracted literary ‘big guns,’ with guests over the years including Maya Angelou, Alan Bennett, Margaret Atwood, Hilary Mantel, Fay Weldon, Harold Pinter, Tony Benn, Sebastian Faulks, Timothy and Prunella West, Michael Palin, Beryl Bainbridge, Benjamin Zephaniah, Blake Morrison, VS Naipaul, Tom Courtenay, Willy Russell, PD James, Alice Sebold, Michael Ondaatje, Donna Tartt, David Suchet, Jamie Oliver and Richard Dawkins.
Ilkley Literature Festival has had a number of special commissions, most notably, in partnership with Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, the creation of the 50-mile Stanza Stones Poetry Trail across the Pennines from Marsden to Ilkley.
* Ilkley Literature Festival runs from October 4-20. Call (01943) 816714 or visit ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk
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