Traditionally, May Day celebrates the beginning of summer and the weekend-long Thrive Festival at the Dartington Estate seeks to harness the joy, sunshine and hope this represents.
Taking place Friday April 29 to Monday May 2, Thrive offers a programme of live music, family shows and a variety of workshops around the themes of Indian music, bird song and nature.
Indian music runs through the heart of Dartington; the vision of its founders – Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst – was inspired by Rabindranath Tagore, the estate has enjoyed visits and performances over the years by Indian artists such as Ravi Shankar, and Indian music was studied at the former Dartington College of Arts led by Imrat Khan and Sharda Sahai.
Thrive weekend includes concerts in the Great Hall, craft and music workshops for children and adults, music on the lawn and a shadow play.
The central themes come together on May Day with both a classical Indian dawn raga performance and Soundart Radio streaming REVEIL - the international project marking international Dawn Chorus Day.
Renowned tabla player Sanju Sahai has programmed a series of three main evening concerts as well as the dawn raga performance and a workshop on demystifying Indian music.
Sanju has entertained audiences at Dartington many times and originates from a long line of tabla players stretching back 250 years. He came to live at Dartington as a teenager when his father Sharda Sahai was a teacher at the former college of arts.
Sanju said: “This feels like a very important festival which is re-igniting Dartington’s passion and long history with Indian music and bringing this music to more people.
“Music is beautiful as it has no boundaries, it is a common language that we all understand, and can bring everyone together. We need this now more than ever.”
Sanju has brought together a talented group of musicians, both Indian and western, including, Matthew Barley, Nikki Wells, Sanjukta Mitra, Kirpal Singh Panesar, Jaymini Sahai, Giuliano Modarelli, Preetha Narayanan, Adrian Freedman and Jason Singh for a cross-culture collaboration, as well as an Indian classical concert and a contemporary fusion project.
Dartington’s creative director Emily Hoare said: “Dartington is a place where music and nature sit side by side, bird song is all around us, and Indian music is part of our heritage.
“It has been a real pleasure to work with Sanju Sahai again. He is a rare musician whose collaborators span the best in both Indian classical, and western classical, jazz, folk and contemporary music.
“Arts and learning are at the heart of Dartington’s mission and they come together over this weekend with craft and music workshops and the chance for a new generation of Dartington audiences to discover Indian music.”
Across the weekend children can make bird boxes and bee hotels, join a wild birds singing workshop and take part in bird painting workshops, with their artwork forming part of a mural at the Green Table cafe against a backdrop by the artist Alison Conway.
Family music workshops are taking place with Balladeste, along with nature beatboxing workshops led by sound artist, producer, DJ and performer Jason Singh - the estate’s artist in residence.
Jason will also be leading two of his very popular Land:scape listening walks around the gardens, hosting a DJ set, and joining Sanju for a night of contemporary Indian fusion.
The festival will also include workshops for adults with Holly Ebony and Lucky Bird, while Clockwork Moth will present two versions of their new show ‘The Owl Who Was Afraid of The Dark’ - a shadow play based on the novel by Jill Tomlinson.
There will also be free music performances by indo baroque alt-folk duo Balladeste, the multitalented Holly Ebony and a DJ set.
A variety of outlets will be serving food and drink throughout the weekend.
For more information and to book concerts and workshops visit Dartington.org/thrive