Music

Can women have it all? What does it mean to be a woman and a mother in the modern age? Passionate, funny and fierce, BRIT Award-winning Paloma Faith delves deep into the issues that face women today, from battling through the expectations of patriarchy to the Supermum myth.

She tackles the challenges of IVF and the early years of motherhood with characteristic humour and raw honesty. From questions about identity and motherhood, to how we need to embrace imperfection and the pleasures of being ‘selfish’, Paloma invites us into her own story, to explore how our bonds with our children evolve into adulthood.

Listen to Tree Oh! and become re-enchanted with nature. The Swedish music collective bring new music from their debut EP Our Urban Nature to Hay Festival, with roots in Swedish folk. Influences ranging from classical to Americana, pop and jazz blend with three voices singing in harmony to tell stories about our relationship with nature.

Alongside viola, flutes, ukulele and Celtic harp, this trio sings about nature in cities, enchanted gardens, mighty trees, the climate crisis, rising oceans, the legacy of colonialism and the need for new dreams. Tree Oh! comprises Anna Jonsson, Sara Nilsson and Nina Wohlert, musicians and environmentalists. They’re accompanied by readings from lyricist Andrew Simms of the New Weather Institute – an environmental campaigner and regular speaker at the Festival.

Cellist Cara Berridge and music critic Kate Kennedy present an evening of storytelling and music, looking at the lives of remarkable cellists who suffered persecution, and discussing their own relationships with the cello.

Berridge is a founder member of the Sacconi Quartet, who have won prizes at many international competitions. Author Kennedy’s latest book weaves her own complicated relationship with the cello together with interviews with contemporary cellists and the stories of cellists throughout history, including Lise Cristiani, the first female professional cello soloist, who undertook an epic and ultimately fatal concert tour of Siberia in the 1850s, taking with her one of the world’s greatest Stradivari cellos.

An evening of traditional music and song from one of the most prolific performers and recording artists on the English folk scene. John Kirkpatrick is a singer and instrumentalist who has played in various bands, and is currently in Kirkophany, where he plays with his four sons.

In 1975 Kirkpatrick started the first group to concentrate exclusively on the Morris dances of the Welsh Border. With a radically different approach to the dancing, the Shropshire Bedlams caused quite a revolution in the Morris world, and nearly 50 years later, Kirkpatrick is still dancing and driving the team onwards.

In this live concert, he fills the room with an irresistibly joyful noise, topping his sparkling squeezebox playing with lusty vocals, all presented with lashings of wit and humour.

Get your groove on with British soul and R&B legend Billy Ocean as he performs all his greatest hits and fan favourites. Ocean is one of the biggest recording stars Britain has ever produced, and has just released his 40th anniversary album, Suddenly.

Born in Trinidad and moving to London’s East End when he was just seven, Ocean has sold more than 30 million records and won awards including a Grammy and an Ivor Novello. In 2020 he was made an MBE for services to music.

When Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason’s eldest daughter, Isata, made her solo debut at the BBC Proms in 2023, she could not have been prouder. But it all fractured when her younger daughter came to her in tears a few days later, having read online abuse about her sister. Isata, it was declared, did not deserve to be there.

Kanneh-Mason explores what it’s like to come of age in these turbulent times, when Black artistic self-expression is so often met with disparagement and abuse online – and offers a hopeful, powerful way through. She has seven children, all of whom are world-class classical musicians, who have performed together and solo at major concert halls around the world.

Enjoy this twenty-minute open air performance between events. The Decis are an a capella women’s group from Hay-on-Wye and the surrounding villages. Singing together since 2014, the Decis perform a variety of songs including blues, folk, early music, and anything else they fancy.

Enjoy this twenty-minute open air performance between events. Got 2 Sing Choir perform uplifting songs from top of the charts to golden oldies, with plenty of fun and laughter.

Enjoy this twenty-minute open air performance between events. Got 2 Sing Choir perform uplifting songs from top of the charts to golden oldies, with plenty of fun and laughter.

Enjoy this twenty-minute open air performance between events. Love To Sing Choir was created in January 2024. Their first public performance saw them win Gold at the Herefordshire Performing Arts Festival, only six weeks after they formed! The choir has performed at many events including Ludlow Fringe Festival and Applefest in Hereford, and in the musical Make Good: The Post Office Scandal.

Come and experience the magical, progressive sound of Cerys Hafana, from Machynlleth, Wales, where rivers and roads meet on the way to the sea. She’s won over audiences from Green Man to the Eisteddfod and from BBC 6 Music Festival to Celtic Connections.

Hafana is a Welsh triple harpist and composer who mangles, mutates and transforms traditional music. She explores the creative possibilities and unique qualities of the triple harp, and incorporates found sounds, archival materials and electronic processing.

Edyf, her second album, is inspired by material found in the National Library of Wales archive, including fragments of Psalm tunes, hymns about doomsday and philosophical musings on the length of eternity, and was selected as one of the Guardian’s Top Ten folk albums of 2022. Her latest EP The Bitter is an innovative exploration of some dark English and Scottish ballads.

Come for an infectious journey through pop melodic hooks and thumping dancefloor orchestrations, overlaid with stream of consciousness vocals, set against the backdrop of pounding kick drum and club-ready synths.

It’s been a wild few years for Szmierek, self-taught poet and producer from Manchester, from self-publishing novels to honing his performance skills on the spoken word scene and gaining notoriety for his seamless flow skewering everything from the hardships of contemporary British life to finding unexpected beauty in the everyday.

His single ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Fallacy’ kicked off his meteoric ascent, finding its way onto BBC 6 Music, which named him an Artist of the Year 2023. Later… with Jools Holland and triumphant Glastonbury sets led to a flurry of comparisons to The Streets, John Cooper Clarke and Jarvis Cocker. But with his banger-filled, dancefloor-focused debut album Service Station at the End of the Universe, Szmierek cements his own distinctive sound.

See also Antony Szmierek’s book event on Sunday 25 May.

For Antony Szmierek, sincerity is everything. “I’m not being ironic, using a persona or wearing a mask, my music is just me expressing myself honestly,” he says. “There’s nowt to hide behind. It’s sincerity on overdrive – a space where people can connect with each other.”

In this event the Manchester-based poet, writer and producer presents his debut book Roadmap, featuring lyrics from his debut album, with additional poems, sketches and stories.

Szmierek’s debut album Service Station at the End of the Universe is a nod both to the service stations that he spent much of the past year in while gigging around the UK, as well as an homage to Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s sequel. A tongue-in-cheek tale of “punks, weirdos and Manchester characters” all stationed at a mythical rest stop, it’s also Antony’s own exploration of his life today.

Enjoy a twenty-minute open air performance between events, of traditional and modern songs from the sea with big harmonies. Hay Shantymen have been performing since 2018, at international shanty festivals such as Falmouth and Port Isaac, and have raised over £15,000 for their chosen charity, the RNLI. Under a new Musical Director, Grant Olding, their arrangements and harmonies are stronger than ever – always sung with engaging wit, warmth and friendship.

A two-piano concert by husband and wife pianists Maki Sekiya and Ilya Chetverikov in the fine setting of St Mary’s Church. The programme includes Ravel, on the 150th anniversary of his death, as well as the world première of a piece by the Oxford-based composer Jeremy Arden.

Programme:

Maurice Ravel Daphne and Chloe suite

Jeremy Arden Passacaglia (world première)

György Ligeti Three pieces for two pianos: Monument, Self-portrait and Movement

Dmitri Shostakovich Concertino

Enjoy a twenty-minute open air performance between events, of traditional and modern songs from the sea with big harmonies. Hay Shantymen have been performing since 2018, at international shanty festivals such as Falmouth and Port Isaac, and have raised over £15,000 for their chosen charity, the RNLI. Under a new Musical Director, Grant Olding, their arrangements and harmonies are stronger than ever – always sung with engaging wit, warmth and friendship.

Outpost Drive, where the American South meets the British Isles, features the talents of Willow Robinson and Mary Bragg Robinson. Mary Bragg, a native of Mobile, Alabama, tells tales of her homeland with honey sweet vocals, while Willow, hailing from the English Countryside, brings his powerful voice and guitar playing to their harmonious blend of American Country and British Folk.

A BBC Radio 3 lunchtime concert series marking the 150th anniversary of Maurice Ravel’s birth. This first of three recitals recorded for broadcast explores the music of Ravel and others. Danny Driver (piano) performs a programme including Ravel, Debussy and Fauré.

Programme:

Claude Debussy Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir

Thomas Adès Darknesse Visible

Gabriel Fauré Barcarolle No 4 in A flat

Gabriela Lena Frank Nocturnoe Nazeueño

Maurice Ravel Gaspard de la Nuit

Recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Please arrive in good time.

Enjoy a twenty-minute open air performance between events. Singing is fun with Hay Community Choir – good for mental health, feeling you’re part of a whole. Come along and have a listen as the Choir share their joy in music.

A BBC Radio 3 lunchtime concert series marking the 150th anniversary of Maurice Ravel’s birth. This second of three recitals recorded for broadcast explores the music of Ravel and others. The Mithras Trio – Ionel Manciu (violin), Leo Popplewell (cello) and Dominic Degavino (piano) – perform a programme including Ravel, Bonis and Tailleferre.

Programme:

Mélanie Bonis Soir et Matin, Op 76

Germaine Tailleferre Piano Trio

Maurice Ravel Piano Trio

Enjoy a twenty-minute open air performance between events with Feast of Fools, an a cappella quartet from the South West of England singing traditional and contemporary folk songs.

Enjoy a twenty-minute open air performance between events with Feast of Fools, an a cappella quartet from the South West of England singing traditional and contemporary folk songs.

Grab a backstage pass to Britpop’s Greatest Hits. When Miranda Sawyer interviewed Noel Gallagher in 1995, his gag wishing Damon Albarn would die of AIDS became front-page news. The journalist and author explores that mid-90s moment when British music suddenly meant everything, when Jarvis Cocker became a national hero, Trainspotting was a global hit and fire-starting seemed like a good night out.

Travel back to the beating heart of the 1990s and relive the mad exhilaration of what it was like to hear Britpop – Oasis, Blur, Tricky, Pulp, Underworld, Manic Street Preachers, The Prodigy, Suede, Chemical Brothers, Garbage, Supergrass, Radiohead, PJ Harvey and more – for the very first time.

Sawyer discusses Uncommon People with writer and Guardian literary critic Chris Power.

Enjoy a twenty-minute open air performance between events with Feast of Fools, an a cappella quartet from the South West of England singing traditional and contemporary folk songs.

A BBC Radio 3 lunchtime concert series marking the 150th anniversary of Maurice Ravel’s birth. This last of three recitals recorded for broadcast explores the music of Ravel and others. The Kleio Quartet – Juliette Roos (violin), Katherine Yoon (violin), Yume Fujise (viola) and Eliza Millett (cello) – perform a programme including Ravel and Alice Smith.

Programme:

Alice Smith String Quartet in E ‘Tubal Cain’

Maurice Ravel String Quartet in F

Enjoy a twenty-minute open air performance between events with Feast of Fools, an a cappella quartet from the South West of England singing traditional and contemporary folk songs.

The Breaks are Herefordshire’s most vibrant band, a collective of musicians, all hailing from the ‘Wild West’ of Hereford HR2. They’re a band on fire with a mission to build community and inspire action for positive change through the energy and vibes of their self-described ‘anarcho-soul’.

Playing in various combinations, with sometimes as many as ten musicians on stage – horns, multiple vocalists – The Breaks conjure up a potent brew of jazz-infused hip-hop and funk that draws on influences as diverse as Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Fugazi, Wu-Tang Clan, Sun Ra, Herbie Hancock, Ganja Krew, Minor Threat and Azalea Banks.

The Breaks have been kicking out the jams and cutting a blaze across the county, lifting audiences and carrying them along as they forge ever forwards. Transition, Community, Growing Local and the Abolition of Oppression are the pillars of The Breaks’ manifesto. ‘No pasarán’ (‘they shall not pass’) is their clarion call, joining them down the decades with the anti-fascists of the Spanish Civil War, raised fists aloft.

Come and join us in the late Georgian-Gothic setting of St Mary’s Church for a special screening of Anthony Asquith’s great 1929 classic silent movie A Cottage on Dartmoor, with live organ accompaniment by Father Richard Williams. The film is a psycho-thriller replete with obsession and jealousy, much influenced by German Expressionism, and is one of British cinema’s most highly regarded silent films, the last to be made in the silent period.

Father Richard’s film nights are renowned. The former Hay parish priest trained as a professional musician at Trinity College of Music, London. Don’t miss this chance to see him perform a live accompaniment on the Bevington organ.

Funk it up to the unique sound of North Yorkshire’s only contemporary New Orleans-inspired brass band. Their energetic and interactive performance style has wowed audiences at Glastonbury, Notting Hill Carnival and Rio de Janeiro, and their music packs a powerful punch.

From full-on party, pop, reggae, ska and funk to thrilling New Orleans jazz, these guys use their arsenal of percussion, sax, trumpets, trombones and sousaphone to really fire up the party!

“A must see genre-splitting band” – The Guardian.

Father Richard Williams, organist, composer and former parish priest of St Mary’s Church in Hay, performs his stunning live accompaniment to FW Murnau’s classic, silent Dracula film Nosferatu, using the church’s outstanding Bevington organ.

Released in 1922, Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror) is a German Expressionist adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, starring Max Schreck as the vampire. Unauthorised by Stoker’s heirs, the filmmakers at the time were sued over the adaptation, and a court ruling ordered all copies to be destroyed. However, with a few prints surviving, it went on to be regarded as an influential masterpiece of cinema. The film’s original music by composer Hans Erdmann was lost and never recovered.

Enter: Father Williams, bringing one of cinema’s forgotten classics to life in the atmospheric setting of St Mary’s Church. A moody evening of gothic horror to bring us into a weekend of wonders.

Enjoy a twenty-minute open air performance between events. Julia Hammersley and Anna Lockett of harp duo Harper Gardeners play professionally in classical orchestras. They’re passionate about how nature and music can promote well-being, and they also work in therapeutic settings, using music to support people. As Harper Gardeners, they have transcribed traditional tunes from Scotland, Ireland and England into their own arrangements. They’re also delighted to share their own compositions.

Enjoy a twenty-minute open air performance between events. Julia Hammersley and Anna Lockett of harp duo Harper Gardeners play professionally in classical orchestras. They’re passionate about how nature and music can promote well-being, and they also work in therapeutic settings, using music to support people. As Harper Gardeners, they have transcribed traditional tunes from Scotland, Ireland and England into their own arrangements. They’re also delighted to share their own compositions.

In 1995, the London Review of Books posed a question, which caused a brouhaha that made international news: was Jane Austen gay? Terry Castle, the literary critic whose essay about Austen’s letters to her sister Cassandra led to the uproar, didn’t actually ask the question directly, but examined the subject of “the primitive adhesiveness – and underlying eros – of the sister-sister bond”. So hang on, the readers responded: incest too?

To mark Austen’s 250th birthday, the LRB returns to this infamous episode in its history to tell the story of what happened when an American professor examined our most beloved novelist’s unconscious impulses and found… something.

Readings by actors from Austen’s letters and novels, and the diaries of Anne Lister, her unambiguously lesbian contemporary, reveal how Castle’s analysis still speaks to the culture war debates of the present moment. A live musical counterpoint accompanies the readings, arranged by Isobel Waller-Bridge, the celebrated composer whose works include the score for the 2020 film Emma starring Anya Taylor-Joy.

One of Wales’ best-known musicians, Jamie Morrison, talks about turning his hand to fiction with his semi-autobiographical novel Wonderboy and The Life & Times of Drewford Alabama.

The book follows Andrew ‘Pop’ Morrison, who hits the big time with his band. But when his partying lifestyle takes a dramatic downward turn, the only thing he finds comfort in is the personal diary of Drewford Alabama. With only a name and mysterious messages on an empty page, will he ever find him?

Morrison is a musician, songwriter and producer, best known as the drummer in Welsh band Stereophonics. In his teens, he formed the band Noisettes and had worldwide success. Since 2017 he has been part of a new project called 86TVs, featuring The Maccabees siblings Hugo, Felix and Will White.

A chance to see an unprecedented collaboration between BBC Radio 3’s award-winning Delia Stevens and three-time BBC Radio 2 Folk Musician of the Year nominee Will Pound, as they follow the creative evolution of the classical composers inspired by folk.

The pair combine the traditional instruments of Pound’s melodeon and harmonica with the dizzying array of Stevens’ percussion, and then let their imaginations run riot while paying homage to their respective musical roots.

Stevens’ work ranges from reimagining Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with percussion for Sky Arts, presenting her own BBC Radio 3 series Music and Machines and performing Avner Dorman’s prolific 360° percussion concerto at Prague’s ‘Last Night of the Proms’ with the Beethoven Academy Orchestra.

Pound has created touring projects questioning Brexit, featuring a traditional tune from every EU state, and has explored the history of Morris Dance with Martin Simpson and storyteller Debs Newbold in ‘Through the Seasons’.

Expect roaring swing, sassy vocals, fabulous funk and delicious Latin flavours from one of the UK’s finest big bands, teeming with first-call players and appearing under the musical directorship of award-winning band leader Pete Long. The band’s exciting brew of virtuoso ensemble playing with killer solo contributions from across all sections has been delighting jazz fans right across the board.

Their shows have made national press for their ability to change style and genre while maintaining that big band power. Settle in for an evening of first-class arrangements of classic hits from the likes of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, the Rat Pack and Benny Goodman!

Jump up and get down with the turntable master at our Friday night party! DJ legend Vertigo’s seamless mixes create an irresistible energy on the dance floor. Influenced by house, acid house and rave culture, his own unique sound mixes infectious basslines, deep beats and soulful melodies. His sets are a tribute to the golden era of house music, blending classic tracks with fresh takes on the genre. Grab a drink and lose yourself in the original rave ethos of unity, freedom and joy.

Enjoy this twenty-minute open air performance between events. Got 2 Sing Choir perform uplifting songs from top of the charts to golden oldies, with plenty of fun and laughter.

Following last year’s sell-out scratch choir session, Juliet Russell returns to create a beautiful sound with 200 strangers. She has led choirs for Paloma Faith, Alt-J, Greenpeace, the Olympic Torch project, Channel 4 and Glastonbury. As a singer, music creative and vocal coach on The Voice and Netflix new flagship music show Building the Band, Juliet will guide you to use your voice in a whole new way.

No experience is needed. This session is for singers, secret singers and ‘I’ve never sung in my lifers’. Uplifting, engaging and a perfect way to start your day.

Enjoy this twenty-minute open air performance between events. Got 2 Sing Choir perform uplifting songs from top of the charts to golden oldies, with plenty of fun and laughter.

Hay Music presents an afternoon of music with one of the country’s leading contemporary classical and electric guitarists. Woodrow trained at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, and performs regularly as soloist and ensemble player with the London Chamber Symphony, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, BBC Symphony Orchestra and more. He was a founder member and co-composer of the group Just East of Jazz, and is a longstanding ​​member of both the Gavin Bryars Ensemble and Icebreaker.

Enjoy this twenty-minute open air performance between events. Come along and join Cantorion Y Gelli for some good old-fashioned Welsh hwyl! Cantorion Y Gelli is Hay’s mixed-voice, Welsh-language choir set up by musical director Gemma Woolford.

The majority of members are either learning Welsh or passionate about the language, with three first-language Welsh-speakers keeping a strict ear on pronunciation. They have a varied repertoire of traditional folk songs, hymns, male voice choir classics and even a football anthem.

Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood’s book How to Disappear has been two decades in the making. Taking us from the stage to the rehearsal room, it illuminates the creative process of one of the 21st century’s most influential bands.

In this event, Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood tells stories from his career and guides us through some of the candid photographs he’s taken. Greenwood has played bass in Radiohead since their formation in 1985. He has also recorded and toured with Tamino, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis and has written for publications including the Guardian and the Spectator.

Radiohead has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide. Their many accolades include six Grammy and four Ivor Novello Awards. The group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019 and their 1997 album OK Computer is archived in the US Library of Congress.

PG Wodehouse, best known for creating Jeeves and Wooster, once had a record-breaking five musicals playing simultaneously on Broadway. In Play on Words, devised and directed by Hugh Wooldridge, Wodehouse’s step-great grandson Hal Cazalet and pianist Simon Beck transport us back to the Golden Age of stage and screen through stories, anecdotes and songs.

Wodehouse’s lyrics informed the way he crafted his novels and shaped his inimitable characters, as well as helping define the American musical. Celebrate the birth of the musical, with theatrical writing highlights of the last 120 years from Gershwin, Kern, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim and more.

Cazalet is an opera singer who has created leading roles in world premieres for composers across the world. Beck has been music director and pianist for a number of artists, and for the London debut of the Broadway institution Sondheim Unplugged.

Musicians Cerys Matthews and Arun Ghosh present an extraordinary exploration of the worlds and words of the late, great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.

Welsh singer-songwriter and Thomas fan Matthews – whose Sunday morning show is the biggest single show on Radio 6 – takes us on a tour of Llareggubb, the fictional seaside village of Under Milk Wood, with acclaimed multi-instrumentalist Ghosh accompanying on clarinet and harmonium. In this magical evening, the pair bring to life characters including Captain Cat and Nogood Boyo from Under Milk Wood, celebrating one of Thomas’ best known works through a mix of storytelling and music.

A love of Dylan Thomas has infused Matthews’ career; she composed music for A Child’s Christmas, and among her books are Out of Chaos Come Bliss, a compilation of Thomas’ poetry, and a retelling of Under Milk Wood. Ghosh is a British-Asian clarinettist, bandleader and composer who has twice been awarded Jazz Instrumentalist of the Year at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards.

Mercury Prize-nominated singer Sam Lee has shaken up the music scene. His latest album Songdreaming (a Mojo Album of the Month) breaks boundaries between traditional and contemporary music. It’s rich in musicality and invention, building on the backbone of double bass, percussion and violin with a world of instrumentation including the Arabic Qanoon and Swedish Nyckelharpa.

His lyrical focus on the perilous state of the natural world informs all his work, and his arrangements relate to a modern audience, moving from identifiable acoustic songs to drone soundscapes, electric guitar and gospel choir. He is a co-founder of Music Declares Emergency.

Lee is also a film soundtrack composer and has provided songs for several major feature films, from Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur to The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.

Comedian and musician Rob Deering presents Beat This, the live-music, stand-up comedy game show. Deering delivers mash-ups, megamixes and mayhem, as four great guests from across the Festival compete to win this pop quiz with a difference.

A twenty-first century one man band, Deering creates “a highly impressive one-man soundscape powered mainly by energy and excellent guitar skills” (The Scotsman) at the centre of this fun show. It’s a festival favourite from the Edinburgh Fringe, Green Man, Machynlleth Comedy Festival, Latitude and more, making its Hay Festival debut in 2025.

“As sharp and versatile as a Swiss Army knife” – The Independent.

Academic Simon Baron-Cohen and journalist John Harris discuss the science of neurodivergence, what it means in theory and in practice, and delve into their personal and professional experiences of autism. They look at the ongoing revolutions in our understanding of neurodivergence, and neurodivergence’s deep links to human creativity.

Baron-Cohen is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Autism Research Centre (ARC) in Cambridge. Baron-Cohen’s current research is testing the ‘extreme male brain’ theory of autism at the neural, endocrine and genetic levels.

Harris, a columnist at the Guardian, is author of Maybe I’m Amazed, a book about his autistic son James, and how music and songs became their most precious source of connection. Harris writes regularly for music magazine Mojo and has won awards including the Orwell Prize for Political Journalism and the UK Press Award for Political Commentator of the Year.