Written by Dr Rhian Davies

"The triennial Gŵyl Peter Warlock Festival was founded at Llandyssil, Montgomeryshire, in 2002. I organised the first Festival on behalf of the Peter Warlock Society and am directing the second in partnership with Montgomery Civic Society.

I work as a music historian and my area of special interest is 20th-century British musicians and their Welsh connections. I believe in the practical application of musicology and have devised and presented programmes in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia to highlight the music of composers including Joseph Parry, Frederick Kelly and Morfydd Owen.

I grew up in Newtown, ten miles from Montgomery, and have known of Peter Warlock's connections with the area since childhood. I am preparing an illustrated life of Warlock for publication and was invited by Montgomery Civic Society to give their annual Christmas lecture on the subject of the composer.

Looking for a suitable date, I realised that the 75th anniversary of Warlock's death - 17 December 2005 - fell the week-end before Christmas, and so the idea for the second Festival was born. Those who attended the first Festival, including many visitors from London and one from as far away as New York State, had also been asking me to organise another as they so enjoyed the special atmosphere and serenity of Montgomeryshire.

This year's events take place in historic buildings which the composer himself would have known. The Festival will open with an illustrated lecture on Peter Warlock in Montgomeryshire (Friday, 16 December, 7.30pm), outlining latest research discoveries as well as rare photographs to be published in the Illustrated Life of the composer.

Saturday begins with a walking tour of Warlockian sites (9.30am) and the official opening of the Festival exhibition in the Old Bell Museum (10.30am). Then, at 11.30am - 75 years exactly after Warlock was pronounced dead on 17 December 1930 - the crime writer and retired Home Office pathologist, Professor Bernard Knight CBE, will re-examine the evidence surrounding the discovery of the composer's body in his gas-filled Chelsea flat (Peter Warlock's death: a mystery or not?).

Also on Saturday, Professor M. Wynn Thomas of Swansea University discusses the creative writing of Warlock's son (Nigel Heseltine: forgotten border writer, 2pm), and Dr Brian Collins considers the composer's Christmas music (4pm).

The Saturday evening concert (7.30pm) will be given by the outstanding young British tenor Andrew Kennedy, making his first major appearance in Wales since winning the Rosenblatt Recital Prize at this year's BBC Cardiff Singer of the World.

Andrew is a truly exciting artist destined for a meteoric international career and the Festival is fortunate indeed that he and his accompanist Simon Crawford-Phillips are free to perform on the day of the 75th anniversary itself. We are also delighted to announce that this recital will be recorded for future broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Sunday, 18 December includes a reconstruction of one of the choral services at which Warlock 'presided at the grand organ' in 1921, led by Quindici and Tim Mills (organ) (Llandyssil Church, 9.30am), and a workshop for young singers directed by Michael Pilkington (back in Montgomery, 11.30am).

John Worthen, Emeritus Professor of D. H. Lawrence Studies at the University of Nottingham, considers the composer as the model for Halliday in Lawrence's Women in Love (D. H. Lawrence, Philip Heseltine and the 'inner life', 2.30pm), and the Festival finishes with A Wreath of Carols for Peter Warlock (4.30pm), a programme of Christmas music performed by Guilsfield Singers (Suzanne Edwards, director), with up-and-coming soloists Zoë Challenor (soprano), Paul Carey Jones (baritone) and Seth Williams (piano).

Tickets are available from Paul and Louise Hodgson, telephone 01686 668838; e-mail: warlockfestival@hotmail.co.uk, with information updates on www.oldbellmuseum.org.uk
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Early booking is strongly advised for these unique events."

Written by Dr Rhian Davies