These musicians offer the bliss of seemingly effortless virtuosity coupled with a deeply based feeling for effective style in Spanish music of the renaissance and baroque periods. But the rhythmic spirit of her singing is bright and exact, as is the guitar and the orbo playing of Rolf Lislevand, the harp playing and well-schooled singing of Arianna Savall and, of course, the majestic brilliance of Jordi Savall himself on treble and bass viola. The solution of the performance group Crying In Public Places has been to devise, with the help of playwright John Romeril, a public exploration of identity and relationship under the title Skin and to present it in the Festival Centre's small Space Theatre. Facing their audience unflinchingly, Jane Bayly, Anni Davey, Maude Davey and Karen Hadfield begin with speech and move into song and movement when it suits them. Festivals inevitably generate heady idealism and a tendency to lose touch with everyday realities.
Skin is an honest and enjoyable corrective to festival vapour.