Sound and vision

As an accomplished musician, violinist, fiddler and composer, it is hard to imagine Adam Summerhayes adding another string to his bow. But as well as performing at this year’s Swaledale Festival, he is Artist in Residence with his debut photographic exhibition ‘Under Northern Skies’.

Adam has performed chamber music for more than 20 years, recorded more than 20 CDs and toured worldwide - now visitors will also get to see his flair for photography.

Although he lives in the Peak District, he has strong links with the North-East. His mother and grandfather were both from Whitby (his grandfather owned Whitby Inshore Fisheries) and Adam has a studio on the North-East coast where he has spent summers for the past 20 years. The studio in Kettleness is in an old Methodist chapel belonging to the Earl of Mulgrave and has views stretching over the North Sea.

“It’s an amazing open space,” he says. “It’s inspiration for photography, but also a place where I can sit and have time and space to write music. A lot of the music I do there I’ll have ideas for when I’m out walking the cliffs with a camera.”

He has had an interest in photography ever since his dad gave him a camera at the age of eight, but it is only in the past five years – since his success as a violinist enabled him to afford to buy more professional kit - that he began to take it seriously.

“I was sitting with a friend at a pub on the Moors and a couple walked past who I knew from Derbyshire,” he recalls. “We said hello, then two weeks later the guy was dead. He was only in his forties. They’d been talking to us about all the plans they’d had for the future and it made me think. I thought, all this photographic equipment I’m planning to buy at some point, what if there is no future and it spurred me to do it.”

He spent £20,000 (including a Canon 5D Mark 111 camera) and in 2014 he was featured in the prestigious Take A View – Landscape Photographer of the Year competition. “I try to capture the mood and feel of a place rather than just how it looks, so you can imagine how it felt being there,” he says.

The exhibition in Swaledale features around 35 images including his love for Northern landscapes with striking images of the old iron works on Wensleydale and lead mines in Swaledale. He also captured the ancient stone circle at Callanish in the Outer Hebrides. “I’m fascinated by ruins and what man was doing there 100 years ago,” he says.

He draws a parallel between music and photography as a lot of his musical influences date back to ancient times. Amongst other projects, he performs with baroque super group Red Priest, who re-imagine music from the 17th and 18th century and he has recently been recording with Freeman’s Yard exploring ancient folk melody from the 13th century. “It’s this idea that you can recreate something ancient using modern eyes or ears, without worrying about the kind of log-jam of traditions that have built up in between,” he says.

Adam started violin lessons at the age of seven, but had been ‘scraping away’ for a couple of years before that. His grandfather was also an accomplished violinist and they would sit and play duets for four or five hours. Adam later learnt from Yfrah Neaman, one of the 20th century’s greatest pedagogues and at college, he would practise for up to 13 hours a day. “He was phenomenal at looking at the way you played,” says Adam. “I spent three of four years taking the whole thing apart which probably made my playing go backwards and I became less fluent, but when I’d done that for long enough, it came back a thousand times better.”

His playing has been described as ‘heady stuff’ by Gramophone. ‘A riveting, dramatic and even sexy listen’ by the BBC. He is obsessed with music from Tchaikovsky to baroque, to bluegrass to Bulgarian copanitza. Add in Jimi Hendrix and Seasick Steve and you get an idea of his eclectic tastes. He has performed in Russia, Germany, France, Spain, the Czech Republic and the US. Adam’s own music also featured in the Guy Ritchie film, A Game of Shadows, which he performed dressed as a 19th century fiddler under a tree.

As well as the violin and other instruments, he plays the mandolin, mandola, baroque violin, a Hammond 44 (a keyboard harmonica), baroque guitar and a strange looking medieval instrument called the Gemshorn. “The sound is absolutely beautiful, but it looks as if you’ve cut the horn off a cow and are blowing down it,” he says. “It is a bit strange.”

It is the violin, however, that moves him the most. He has 12 in total, including one from 1790 made by Lockey Hill - one of the last violins he made before he was hanged for horse theft.

“It’s so haunting and rich and such a flexible sound compared to most instruments,” he says. “You can go from something that sounds like blowing across the top of a bottle to wildly powerful to incredibly beautiful stuff to hideous hacky stuff, if you wanted, it’s so adjustable. There is just something about the sound itself and the pleasure of feeling the thing respond that I really love.”

Despite playing at Swaledale for more than 12 years, he says it still retains its magic. “It’s an amazing festival,” he says. “I probably shouldn’t say it, but it’s my favourite, partly because of the scenery, it’s such a lovely part of the world and it’s incredibly friendly.”

Adam Summerhayes ‘Under Northern Skies’, Hudson House Gallery, Reeth, until 11 June, 10am-4pm. Admission free.

Swaledale-festival.org.uk/whats-on/art-exhibitions

ADAM SUMMERHAYES AT THE SWALEDALE FESTIVAL

Deadmen's Folk

Tues 7 June, 4pm, St. Agatha's Church, Easby. Authentic 15th and 16th century folk melodies vibrantly brought to life by violin magician Adam Summerhayes and master accordionist Murray Grainger.

Niamh Ní Charra with Strings - 'The Island Lullaby'

Wed 8 June, 4pm, Influence Church, Richmond: The Island Lullaby (Suantraí na hInise) is a suite composed by Colm Ó Foghlú in 2013 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the evacuation of the Blasket Islands off Co. Kerry, Ireland. It is a haunting combination of classical form and traditional instruments. This first UK performance features internationally renowned musicians Niamh Ní Charra (solo concertina) and Tríona Marshall (harp) with an all-star string section which includes violinist Adam Summerhayes and double bassist Malcolm Creese.

Adam Summerhayes and his Orchestra - The Magic of Vienna

Thur 9 June, 7.30pm, St. Andrew's Church, Grinton: A special concert featuring the spectacular playing of violinist Adam Summerhayes and the romance of Viennese music. Waltzes such as The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss, Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers, and gems by Franz Lehár and the legendary Viennese violinist Fritz Kreisler.

21st Century Baroque with Charlotte Barbour-Condini

Fri 10 June, 7.30pm, St. Andrew's Church, Grinton: Charlotte Barbour-Condini - recorders, Adam Summerhayes, Jo Parker & Naomi Burrell - violin, Virginie Guiffray - viola, Natasha Kraemer - cello, Malcolm Creese - double bass, David Gordon – harpsichord. The former BBC Young Musician of the Year finalist returns with the all-star period instrument group which began life at the Swaledale Festival in 2013. Exciting compositions by David Gordon and Adam Summerhayes and a newly-commissioned piece by Naomi Burrell complement the works of Gibbons, Tallis, Bach, Lully and Telemann.

For further info and tickets visit swaledale-festival.org.uk/Whats-On/2016-Programme