Julian Bliss Quintet: Pioneers of Jazz
Thursday 7 May Learn More
Surrey Hills International Music Festival
SURREY HILLS INTERNATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL 5-16 May 2026
Join us for another wonderful season with the world’s finest musicians, in beautiful venues across the Surrey Hills. Among the highlights, award-winning vocal group Tenebrae perform a stunning programme of music from across the centuries and we return to RHS Garden Wisley – the perfect setting for Julian Bliss and his quintet to delight us with jazz classics. Festival favourites, the Sitkovetsky Trio, play Schubert’s radiant Trout Quintet and the four pianists from the 2024 Piano Extravaganza are back to perform virtuosic magic with Prokofiev’s Cinderella and more!
We are thrilled that Festival Patron, Dame Sarah Connolly will give a recital of exquisite songs from the romantic era in an additional evening concert for 2026, and we celebrate the 3rd edition of the Young Composer Competition with a separate concert for the prizewinners. Guided walks and talks complete the line-up in what promises to be another exceptional year.
2026 Programme
Tuesday 5 May
Flutes and Frets: Concert with talk by Kate Williams and guided walk
West Horsley Place, 10.30am walk, 12.30pm talk and concert
Thursday 7 May
Julian Bliss Quintet: Pioneers of Jazz
The music of Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Herbie Hancock and others
RHS Garden Wisley, 7.30pm
Saturday 9 May
Tenebrae: A Celestial Gift
Sacred choral music including Allegri’s Miserere, Rachmaninov, Holst and Gibbons
Holy Trinity Guildford, 7.30pm
Monday 11 May
Menuhin Students’ Concert with guided walk
St Michael’s Church Betchworth, 10.30am walk, 12.30pm concert
Thursday 14 May
A Fairytale in Paris
Music for two pianos, including Prokofiev Cinderella and works by Ravel and Mozart
Katya Apekisheva, Charles Owen, Juho Pohjonen, Wu Qian
The Menuhin Hall, Stoke d’Abernon, 7.30pm
Friday 15 May
Songs of Love and Longing:
Dame Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano) and Julius Drake (piano)
Brahms, Schumann, Debussy, Duparc, Mahler and Mozart
Holy Trinity Guildford, 7.30pm
Saturday 16 May
Vienna
Chamber music to include Schubert ‘Trout’ Quintet, and works by Mozart and Mahler
Sitkovetsky Trio with musicians from the Yehudi Menuhin School
The Menuhin Hall, Stoke d’Abernon,
6.15pm Young Composers Competition concert and presentation;
7.30pm concert
General booking opens Wednesday 7 January 2026
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