Audiences are preparing for dazzling orchestral and vocal performances as the opening weekend of the 2025 Prescot Festival approaches.
The landmark 21st Annual Prescot Festival of Music & the Arts begins on Friday 20 June with a return visit from Festival favourites Wingates Brass Band of Westhoughton, in a concert of well-known brass classics. The Opening Night audience in the 400-year-old, Grade I listed Prescot Parish Church will also enjoy Festival anniversary cake to mark the occasion.
Day two continues with the brand-new show ‘A Night at the Musicals’ featuring local professional vocalists Annamarie Newton and David Lee, with Rose MacPherson on the piano. The evening promises a cornucopia of hit songs from classic Hollywood, Broadway, West End productions, and more.
On Sunday, Liverpool Bach Collective will sing the music of JS Bach in the majestic surrounds of Prescot’s Parish Church of St. Mary, providing a free, traditional service of Choral Evensong. Fittingly, this Bach Canata of general praise will feature a festive, ceremonial ensemble that includes strings, winds, organ, trumpets and timpani, as well as solo voices and choir.
The festival then continues through to Sunday 29 June, ending with a special 25th anniversary concert featuring Liverpool’s Phoenix Concert Orchestra directed by Festival Director Dr Robert Howard, after a 10-day programme that includes the 100-strong Prescot Festival Chorus in Mozart’s Requiem, local a capella group Hope Street Consort, classic film Our Day Out (approaching 50 years old!), afternoon opera excerpts, school choirs and instrumentalists, a one-act one-woman play, a jazz orchestra, historian Ken Pye, a barn dance with live ceilidh band, and much more.
Artistic Director Dr Robert Howard said: “We’re confident that this year’s special 21st Festival, which also includes musical and dramatic performances at Prescot’s Shakespeare North Playhouse, will provide the most fitting and thrilling fanfare possible for this new era in Prescot’s cultural life. And with so much local talent on show it’s a great opportunity to celebrate over 20 highly successful years of this local, grassroots and volunteer-run Festival.”
The 21st Annual Prescot Festival of Music & the Arts takes place from Friday 20 to Sunday 29 June 2025. The full schedule is online at prescotfestival.co.uk, and tickets are on sale via the website or in person (cash only) from Poco Bar & Cafe at 30 Eccleston Street, Prescot, L34 5QJ.
Tickets for the two Festival events being held at Prescot’s Shakespeare North Playhouse can be obtained directly from the venue.
Photo: South Liverpool Orchestra under the direction of Dr Robert Howard (credit: Colin Edwards)
