Twin towns tune up for festival

Big bands, brass bands, youth bands, quintets and trios from across Europe will be making sweet music in Oxford next month. The musicians are all part of the Oxford International Band Festival 2008 - a four-day programme of workshops and performances featuring great music from Oxford's twin cities. Oxford City Council's international officer May Wylie, who organised the festival, said: "We have bands from Grenoble in France, Leiden in Holland, Bonn in Germany and Perm in Russia - and, of course, here in Oxfordshire - and it's going to be a splendid festival which everyone can enjoy and join in with." The first band to arrive will be a quintet from Perm called Caravai, who will perform a concert with the Oxford-based Pavlova Quintet at Oxford's Newman Rooms on Wednesday, August 6. The concert starts at 7.30pm and tickets are... [read full story]