Speak to an expert
020 7593 2288
Open 9 - 6 Mon to Thu, 9 - 5:30 Fri & 9 - 1 Sat
Speak to an expert
020 7593 2288
Open 9 - 6 Mon to Thu, 9 - 5:30 Fri & 9 - 1 Sat
Speak to an expert
020 7593 2288
Open 9 - 6 Mon to Thu, 9 - 5:30 Fri & 9 - 1 Sat
Our annual visit to the beautiful and verdant island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples is a highlight in the Kirker calendar. Each year we travel with a group of distinguished musicians who play in a series of private concerts exclusively for our guests in the music room at La Mortella. Sir William Walton and his wife Susana lived here for many years. Lady Walton created what is today one of the world’s most famous gardens. Today La Mortella is a foundation, expertly managed by Alessandra Vinciguerra and her devoted team who ensure that the Walton’s legacy thrives today.
Our base for the week is the 4* Hotel Tritone, located right on the Bay of San Francesco. The hotel is family owned and surrounded by beautiful gardens overlooking the sea. There are two bars, a restaurant, sun terraces and a luxurious spa offering a wide range of treatments. There are a number of indoor and outdoor swimming pools and guests have direct access to the beach from the pools. Within a few minutes’ walk are a number of restaurants and cafés, and the centre of Forio is about twenty minutes’ walk along the beach. There you will find the historic old town with shops, restaurants and cafés such as Maria’s Bar, a favourite of W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman. Hydrofoil services operate to Ischia Porto, Naples and Procida from Forio port. For those who might want to make additional visits to La Mortella, you can walk up the hill from behind the hotel which leads steeply up to the gardens. Descending is easier and affords a panoramic vista. Bedrooms are simply furnished but comfortable, and we can recommend upgrading to superior rooms overlooking the gardens or the sea. Please ask for details.
There will be an included half day tour of Ischia, a private tour of La Mortella in the company of the gardeners and a visit to a winery for to taste their local Ischitano wines and produce. During our visit to La Mortella, created by the celebrated garden designer, Russell Page, we will learn how Lady Walton’s ideas and foresight inspired its creation and continued to develop the garden right up until her death in 2010. There will be an optional tour to Naples where we will enjoy a walking tour and a guided visit to the Teatro San Carlo, one of Italy’s most historic and beautiful opera houses.
...when you travel with Kirker
Flights with British Airways:
Depart from London Heathrow at 10.10, arrive Naples at 13.55
Depart from Naples at 14.45, arrive London Heathrow at 16.40
Optional room supplements:
Side sea view: £224
Front sea view: £350
Superior park view: £252
Superior sea view: £490
Date |
Status |
Price From |
Single Supplement |
|
11 Oct 2023 | Limited | £2,920 | £392 | Call 020 7593 2284 |
Date |
Status |
Price From |
Single Supplement |
|
09 Oct 2024 | Available | £2,976 | £395 | Book Now Enquire |
barry.cheeseman@kirkerholidays.com
Barry Cheeseman has been the Manager of the Kirker Cultural Tours & Music Holidays programme for over 10 years.
Barry has been an opera lover for more than 40 years and has seen and heard every major singer during this period. He loves the challenges of organising complex arts events and working closely with the musicians. Out of the office, Barry manages to fit in time to organise his own Chamber Music Festival in North Norfolk where he lives
The Maxwell String Quartet was internationally recognised after winning First Prize in the 9th Trondheim Chamber Music Competition in 2017. They very soon started to appear in leading chamber music venues throughout the United Kingdom and Europe, with performances in Copenhagen, Stavanger and Amsterdam. The quartet is comprised of players who grew up together and who played both classical music and Scottish folk music across Scotland.
They studied with the Endellion String Quartet and have been mentored by current and former members of the Belcea Quartet, Krysztof Chorzelski and Alasdair Tait. They have a very busy performing schedule planned for the 2018/9 season with performances in Trondheim, throughout Scotland, and nine concerts on a tour of the United States. At the start of 2019, they perform at St. John’s Smith Square and at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge.
"Performer, editor, composer and teacher, Simon Rowland-Jones has always led a very busy, all-embracing musical life. He was founder violist of the Chilingirian Quartet, in which he played for a total of ten years, and subsequently performed with many other leading chamber groups.
His solo CDs, on the Meridian and Etcetera labels, include the first-ever complete version of the Bach Cello Suites on viola. Peters Edition published his viola transcription of the suites shortly after the recording was made and he then went on to make a new critical/performing edition of the Haydn String Quartets. His many works include pieces for viola, four string quartets, a string trio, a piano quartet, songs and ‘A Turn Outside’, a musical adaptation of a play by Stevie Smith commissioned by Dame Josephine Barstow. He teaches viola and chamber music at the Royal College of Music and is co-director of the North Norfolk Music Festival."
Latvian soprano Laura Lolita Perešivana started her operatic journey when she was only nineteen years old covering Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi) at the Latvian National Opera House. She is a recent graduate of Guildhall School of Music & Drama Opera Course, where she was recipient of the Derek Butler Trust Scholarship and The Mercers’ Company Scholarship. This year Laura was one of four finalists selected for the Guildhall School’s most prestigious music prize, The Gold Medal, and performed on the stage of the Barbican Hall.
During the summer Laura performed with great success as Berenice (L’occasione fa il ladro) with the British Youth Opera at Opera Holland Park with Laura described as ‘her tone pearly, her coloratura purling’ (Opera Magazine) and called ‘a superb singer and actress’ (Opera Today). Laura Lolita has participated in many competitions, receiving awards including the Second Prize at the Kathleen Ferrier Awards, the 54th Tenor Vinas International Singing Contest Extraordinary prize, as well as the Musicians’ Company Award, and was selected as a 2021 City Music Foundation Artist.
Laura Lolita is Georg Solti Accademia di Bel Canto alumna and has worked with conductor Richard Bonynge and she has joined the famed National Opera Studio in London for the 2021/22 season.
Laura Lolita will be joining the Young Artists' programme at La Scala, Milan immediately after her performances in Ischia.
A multiple-prize winning and critically acclaimed conductor and accompanist, William Vann is equally at home on the podium or at the piano and is particularly renowned for his revival performances and recordings of lost and lesser-known works of vocal and choral music by British composers. Gramophone, reviewing Purer than Pearl, Albion Records’ 2016 disc of Vaughan Williams song, reserved “a special word of praise for William Vann’s deft pianism”; his recent revival of Hubert Parry’s oratorio Judith at Royal Festival Hall “was an unalloyed triumph for William Vann…he had complete command of the score and evident belief in the music” (Seen and Head International). His studio recording of Judith was released to critical acclaim on Chandos Records in March 2020 and was subsequently shortlisted in the 2020 Gramophone Awards. William is the founder and Artistic Director of the London English Song Festival, the Director of Music at the Royal Hospital Chelsea and the Music Director of Dulwich Choral Society.
Born in Bedford, he was a Chorister at King’s College, Cambridge and a Music Scholar at Bedford School. He subsequently read law and took up a choral scholarship at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was taught the piano by Peter Uppard, and studied piano accompaniment at the Royal Academy of Music with Malcolm Martineau and Colin Stone.
William has collaborated across the world with a vast array of orchestras, singers and instrumentalists, among them the Academy of Ancient Music, Britten Sinfonia, London Mozart Players and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Thomas Allen CBE, Roderick Williams and the Benyounes and Navarra String Quartets. Recent performances have included appearances at Royal Festival Hall, the Royal Opera House, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, Sage, Gateshead, St John’s, Smith Square and the Holywell Music Room, at the Aldeburgh, Edinburgh, Oxford Lieder and Machynlleth Festivals, the Northern Ireland Festival of Voice (broadcast on Radio 3) and abroad in France, Germany (on live ZDF television), Ireland, Nigeria, South Africa (National Arts Festival) and Sweden.
Born in November 1998, Thomas Kelly started playing the piano aged 3, and in 2006 became Kent Junior Pianist of the Year and attained ABRSM Grade 8 with Distinction. Aged 9, Thomas performed Mozart Concerto No. 24 in the Marlowe Theatre with the Kent Concert Orchestra.
After moving to Cheshire, he regularly played in festivals and competitions and has claimed a string of awards and prizes including 1st prize at the Pianale International Piano Competition 2017, Kharkiv Assemblies 2018, Lucca Virtuoso e Bel Canto festival 2018, RCM Joan Chissell Schumann competition 2019, Kendall Taylor Beethoven competition 2019, BPSE Intercollegiate Beethoven competition 2019 and the 4th Theodor Leschetizky competition 2020. In 2021 Thomas was a finalist in the Leeds International Piano Competition. Most recently, he was awarded 2nd prize and special prize for best semi-final performance at Hastings International Concerto Competition 2022.
Between 2015 and 2021 Thomas studied with Andrew Ball, firstly at the Purcell School of Music and then at the Royal College of Music. Thomas has also gained inspiration from masterclasses with musicians such as Vanessa Latarche, William Fong, Ian Jones, Tatiana Sarkissova, Valentina Berman, Boris Berman, Paul Lewis, Mikhail Voskresensky and Dina Yoffe. Thomas began studying with Dmitri Alexeev in April 2021, with whom he will continue whilst studying Masters at the RCM.
Thomas has been chose as the recipient for the 2023-24 Benjamin Britten Fellowship at The Royal College of Music. It is awarded to pianists with exceptional talent, and provides financial assistance and help for further studies with the world's leading pianists. The Fellowship is awarded every two years.
He has performed in a variety of venues, including the Wigmore Hall, the Cadogan Hall, St John’s Smith Square, Steinway Hall London, Holy Trinity Sloane Square, at the North Norfolk Music Festival, Paris Conservatoire, the StreingreaberHaus in Bayreuth and separately at the Teatro Del Sale and the British Institute in Florence.
Thomas is supported by the Kendall-Taylor award. He has been generously supported by the Keyboard Charitable Trust since 2020, and Talent Unlimited since 2021.
The Musicians
MAXWELL QUARTET
THOMAS KELLY, piano
LAURA LOLITA PEREŠIVANA soprano
WILLIAM VANN piano
SIMON ROWLAND-JONES viola
Thursday 12 October
Maxwell Quartet
Haydn: String Quartet in F, Op.77 No.2
A selection Scottish folk music arranged by members of the Maxwell Quartet
Beethoven: String Quartet in C sharp minor, Op.131
Friday 13 October
Thomas Kelly, piano
Scarlatti: Sonatas
Schumann: Kinderszenen
Rachmaninov: Sonata No.1
Saturday 14 October
17.00 Thomas Kelly, piano
Clementi: Sonata
Chopin: Ballade No.1
Ravel: Sonatine
Liszt: Rigoletto Paraphrase
Liszt: Mephisto Waltz No.1
NB This concert is being given as part of La Mortella’s own autumn concert series, Incontri Musicali. We have arranged for Thomas Kelly to give this recital. The performance will be available to the public and seats for the Kirker party will be reserved at the front of the concert hall.
After this concert, our party will stay on for the Kirker exclusive event concert.
18.30 Maxwell Quartet and Simon Rowland-Jones, viola
Bridge: Three Idylls
Britten: String Quartet No.2
Mozart: String Quintet in C, K515
Sunday 15 October
Laura Lolita Perešivana, soprano
William Vann, piano
Dvořák: Gypsy Songs, Op. 55
Arensky: Five Romances
Walton: Three Songs
Emīls Dārziņš Songs
Arias by Puccini and Rossini
Monday 16 October
Maxwell Quartet
Thomas Kelly, piano
Walton: Passacaglia for solo cello
This short piece was first played by Rostropovich, for whom it was composed, at the Royal Festival Hall on 16 March 1982, two weeks before William Walton's 80th birthday.
Haydn: String Quartet in C, Op.20 No.2
Franck: Piano Quintet in F minor
Camille Saint-Saens took part in the first performance at the Société nationale de musique on 17 January 1880. The pianist was also the work’s dedicatee, but he was far from impressed and swept off the platform at the end leaving his music behind on the stand. Nevertheless, Franck’s passionate and thrilling work is much loved today by audiences and musicians alike.
Tuesday 17 October
Laura Lolita Perešivana, soprano
William Vann, piano
Thomas Kelly, piano
Maxwell Quartet
Boccherini: String Quartet
Walton: Siesta - the composer’s own arrangement for piano 4 hands
Walton: Beatriz’s Song – version with Quartet
Caroline Shaw: “Punctum”
Busoni: Sonatina № 6 "Fantasia da Camera super Carmen"
Neapolitan songs including Torna a surriento & Santa Lucia
Laura Lolita will end with a selection of arias, including the glittering showpiece 'Bel raggio lusinghier' from Rossini's opera Semiramide.
All but one of the concerts included in the tour are private recitals for Kirker clients and are held in the Sala di Musica at La Mortella. There will one additional concert given as part of La Mortella’s own series of public concerts for young musicians given throughout the summer. Transfers are provided for each concert between the hotel and La Mortella. The programme will include quartets by Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Walton and Smetana. Arias will feature pieces by Handel, Mozart, Gluck and Monteverdi, and recitals with work by Schubert, Debussy and Duparc. Simon Rowland-Jones, viola, will also perform alongside the other musicians for pieces across the festival.
By Barry Cheeseman, 18 November 2016
I hope you enjoy viewing our film documenting the 2013 Kirker Ischia Music Festival. As the person who is fortunate enough to organise and attend them all, I would like to share my own reasons why I think Ischia is such a rewarding week’s holiday. I have just finished leading one of our opera tours to Vienna and instead of flying home to London I travelled onward to Malta to join the Baroque…
View DetailsBy Mrs C, Norfolk, 04 February 2019
The hotel was excellent and cannot be faulted and all the Kirker arrangements were as expected, and again, could not be faulted. It was such a privilege to be in the company of such talented musicians, and to hear them in the surroundings of the lovely garden of La Mortella added to the pleasure. The music was superb - often challenging but always a joy.
View DetailsCultural Tours Senior Executive
Barry Cheeseman has been the Manager of the Kirker Cultural Tours & Music Holidays programme for over 10 years.
Barry has been an opera lover for more than 40 years and has seen and heard every major singer during this period. He loves the challenges of organising complex arts events and working closely with the musicians. Out of the office, Barry manages to fit in time to organise his own Chamber Music Festival in North Norfolk where he lives
The hotel was excellent and cannot be faulted and all the Kirker arrangements were as expected, and again, could not be faulted. It was such a privilege to be in the company of such talented musicians, and to hear them in the surroundings of the lovely garden of La Mortella added to the pleasure. The music was superb - often challenging but always a joy.
Mrs C, NorfolkOur expert reservations team regularly travel to a wide range of destinations to explore new cities, visit hotels and to research museums, galleries and restaurants so that we can offer the most up-to-date advice and recommendations.
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