Next event: Saturday 11th July 2015 and Sunday 12th July 2015
Saturday’s Evening Concert programme and some information about Sunday for you.
This year is going to be fantastic! Come to Vauxhall, there will be food and drink, pimms, live entertainment, pimms, sports, strawberries and cream, pimms and Wimbledon.
Read all about our 2014 Festival below:
Handel’s Coming Home!
Vauxhall Trust in association with the Friends of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens is pleased to announce the:
Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens Summer Festival
12th and 13th July 2014
Saturday is a celebration of music and dance. The afternoon programme begins at 12 noon and is a mix of Classical, medieval folk, swing and jazz bands, with contemporary dance performances from the National Theatre’s Watch This Space Festival, these National Theatre performers will be on between 4 and 5pm.
We are extremely pleased to be welcoming Etta Ermimi Dance and Joli Vyann from the National Theatre’s Watch This Space Festival.
There will be plenty of food and refreshment and visitors are encouraged to soak up the atmosphere of a picnic on the park while they enjoy the entertainment on offer. Especially during the Long Interval at 7pm.
The evening concert begins at 8pm and features Lambeth Wind Orchestra, conducted by John Holland, performing a varied programme featuring music composed by Arne and Boyce who both performed their works here on the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.
In keeping with this history of new work being presented in Vauxhall there will be a number of more modern pieces on the bill, which promises to have something for everyone.
The highlight of the evening will be the return of Handel’s ‘Music for the Royal Fireworks’ to the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens for the first time in 265 years.
Sunday is a family Sports Day from 12 noon to 6pm with all the classic races including egg and spoon, sack race and three-legged race, for the whole family. The field event component will be filled by welly-wanging and the sports day will finish with the blue ribbon event the dad’s 100 yard dash.
The Vauxhall Village tug-of-war team challenges all comers! Prize: bragging rights for the year. Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.
The sporting challenges of the Sunday continue with the Maureen Johnston Memorial Tea Cup, 5-a-side football tournament. The competition takes place from 1pm. April’s winners Spanish Vauxhall FC will be back to defend their title. On the day of the World Cup Final, this promises to be our best competition yet with the winners receiving the extra title of winner of the Vauxhall World Cup. The winners will also receive a £50 football, kindly donated by KOV Forum.
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About the Musicians:
John Holland
Born in Hastings in 1977, John was raised in Watford. He moved to south London in 2004 with his civil partner, Chris, and is happily settled down in Forest Hill, just around the corner from the world-famous Horniman Museum.
As well as freelance composing, John also conducts Lambeth Wind Orchestra, London Consorts of Winds Clarinet Choir and can be found guest-playing in other bands and orchestras on a variety of instruments, including trombone, clarinet, saxophone and percussion. He is self-taught as a composer and arranger, having worked with ensembles as a collaborative writer and conductor since the age of 15.
His chamber orchestra piece ‘Green Sky’ won the Making Music Award at the British Composer Awards 2008, having been developed with London Contemporary Chamber Orchestra (conducted by Alan Taylor). The world premiere of his ‘Requiem (Opus 15)’ took place in April 2009 (conducted by Penny Whittingham) and oboe/cor anglais concerto ‘The Something In-Between’ in January 2010 (conducted by Lindsay Ryan with Isobel Williams, the dedicatee, as the soloist).
John currently works for RADA and is a member of BASCA, PRS and BASBWE, committed to music-making at all levels and the development of new repertoire for wind ensemble and chamber orchestra. He has recently helped co-commission a new flute concerto by Stephen McNeff, which has already received three premieres and will be published by Maecenas later in 2014.
About the Event:
On Saturday the 27th of July 2013, local businesses set up their stalls to celebrate the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens Summer Festival. We brought back our market of local produce, and Vauxhall City Farm brought over their animals. There were lots of games for kids, and workshops held in the Tent Full of Mysteries featured activities such as arts, crafts and music; and we put on various performances on our outdoor stage. Sunday the 28th featured the Vauxhall Gardens Sports Festival – a day of top sporting competition and physical activities. Young and old people alike came together for sack, egg and spoon and wheelbarrow racing and many others. Of course all eyes were on the dad’s 100 yards dash and the Viking tug of war.
Tea House Theatre also put on a variety of events in the run-up, including a performance of Forget Me Not: the fascinating true story of Keith Douglas, World War II’s greatest poet. The final performance on the 26th was followed by a special poetry reading. We were fortunate enough to receive sponsorship from Adidas, Well London and Vauxhall One.
Vauxhall Trust 