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Iford Arts Festival

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Iford Arts Festival

Iford Arts Festival is an annual summer festival of opera and jazz, which takes place at Iford Manor near Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire, England. Operas are produced by Iford Festival Opera. It also features the Iford Jazz Proms, as well as other concerts and performances.

The festival is set in the manor's Italian gardens, which were designed by Harold Peto. Opera productions are small-scale. The operas take place in the Cloisters, an Italianate garden feature built by Peto in 1914, which is now a grade II* listed building. Open to the sky, its central courtyard is surrounded by a cloister arcade, providing an intimate theatre in the round for an audience of just 90. Other concerts use both the Cloisters and the Casita, a pavilion built by Peto around 1910 using 13th-century marble columns from Verona.

The festival's founder was Judy Eglington, the artistic director of Iford Arts. Annual concerts in the cloister started in the 1980s; the first opera was given in 1993, and the first fully staged opera in 1995. Touring opera companies which have been particularly associated with the festival include Opera della Luna, Opera Project, and Early Opera Company.

References

Iford Arts Festival Wikipedia