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09-25 May

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2025

Shared sparks of creativity and moments of unexpected wonder filled this year’s Festival, bringing a spirit of discovery to streets, stages and hidden corners across Norfolk and Norwich.

 

A memorable opening weekend of outdoor performance set the tone for 17 days filled with curiosity and connection. The 2025 programme was shaped by three threads: Magic and Mystery invited artists to bend reality and explore the power of illusion and the unknown; Coastlines reflected on the landscapes, histories and fluid identities shaped by our coastal region; and Create & Share championed participation, generosity and the joy of making things together. From large-scale spectacles to quiet moments of reflection, the Festival reminded us that art’s greatest power lies in its ability to surprise, unite and transform.

Festival Launch: High Voltage & March Static

We kicked off the 2025 Festival with two joyous community projects.

High Voltage was a dynamic fusion of live music, movement and theatre, created by Australian artist Joseph O’Farrell (JOF) and Sam Halmarack. Musicians, singers and dancers from across the region, including participants from Access Creative College, The Garage, RockavoX, No Limits Norfolk and Thorpe St Andrew School, took to the stage in a joyful, high-energy performance.

March Static re-framed the traditional marching band as a celebration of peace and belonging over military might. Local musicians and Festival volunteers, together with Speak Percussion and All The Queens Men, twice performed a haunting new composition by Thomas Meadowcroft: once at Haymarket and the Forum, then again in Norwich Cathedral.

 

 

 

High Voltage was presented in partnership with Norfolk & Suffolk Music Hub, Arts Council England and Norfolk County Council
March Static was presented in partnership with Norfolk & Suffolk Music Hub, Speak Percussion, All The Queens Men, Arts Council England, CoMA, Creative Australia and British Council

Arooj Aftab

Arooj Aftab gave a luminous performance in the nave of Norwich Cathedral – a setting that felt, like Arooj’s music, both monumental and intimate. Known for a genre-defying fusion of jazz, classical, and South Asian traditions, her voice resonated with rare clarity beneath the vaulted ceilings, each note lingering in the hush of the ancient space. Performing works from her Grammy-nominated album Night Reign, alongside favourites from Vulture Prince, Arooj created a transcendent experience that stilled the audience.

 

Sponsored by Savills

An audience watch a live band, featuring a drummer double bassist, and singer.

Sea Like a Mirror

Sea Like a Mirror was a national partnership programme marking 200 years of the RNLI, celebrating the people and places shaped by the sea. At its core was White Horses, a new touring artwork by Ivan Morison, combining sculpture, 16mm film and music. Shaped by voices from six coastal towns, this  Festival Connect & Create work reflected on our shifting relationship with the sea and the lifeboat crews at the heart of coastal life. It was shown in the memorable setting of a jet-black circus tent on the clifftops of Cromer.

Alongside White Horses, Festival Connect & Create commissioned two companion projects. Kate Munro worked with young people and RNLI families in Overstrand to create The Edge of the Land – a striking kite installation exhibited at Cromer Artspace. At Sidestrand Hall School, choreographer Neil Paris developed S.O.S. Superheroes of the Sea, a joyful dance-theatre piece celebrating transformation and bravery.

Both projects were supported by Festival Bursary artist Florencia Nannetti, who shared her circus practice with the young participants.

Sea Like a Mirror was a partnership project led by Cement Fields, with Art Gene, Norfolk & Norwich Festival, North East Lincolnshire Council & East Marsh United, and Super Culture. With thanks to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). Supported with public funding from Arts Council England.

Artists in Residence: Sean Shibe and Lotte Betts-Dean

Together, our Artists in Residence offered not just performance, but an embodiment of the Festival’s bold and curious spirit.

Sean began at the Maddermarket Theatre with a programme for classical guitar which spanned centuries, from Bach to Adès. At St Peter Mancroft, he joined 12 Ensemble and GBSR Duo for Oliver Leith’s visceral Doom and the Dooms, and closed with an intimate solo lute performance at Norwich Castle. Lotte showcased her remarkable vocal range across three distinct projects. She opened with Messiaen’s ethereal Harawi at Octagon Chapel, then partnered with guitarist Dimitris Soukaras for an exquisite recital at Dragon Hall blending Debussy, Britten and unexpected contemporary voices. Her final project, Voice Electric, presented together with Luke Abbott and Jack Wyllie, was a bold, genre-defying encounter between human and machine, with works exploring the edges of technology and emotion.

Festival 2025 highlights

All 2025 Events and Artists

The Adnams Spiegeltent 

  • Alogte Oho and his Sounds of Joy
  • Band Night – Con & Milsky, Leo Lore, Ledbyher, PleasureInc.
  • Carmen’s Cantina – Ragroof Tea Dance
  • Clarissa Connelly
  • corto.alto
  • House of Pepper – Andrew Pepper
  • Martin Hayes
  • Mind Reader – Alex McAleer
  • Nabihah Iqbal
  • Showdown – Upswing
  • Still House Plants
  • The Sisterhood – Sarah Jane Morris

Free Outdoor

  • HydroPunk – Artizani Norfolk & Norwich Festival Co-commission
  • Go Grandad Go! – Company DHW
  • Ian Douglas
  • Jerry Tremblay
  • High Voltage – JOF
  • Hug – Levantes Dance Theatre
  • Waiting Song – Mish Weaver
  • Roots to Rise – Nandita Shankardass
  • Silent Disco – Red Herring
  • Tell Me – Sadiq Ali Company Norfolk & Norwich Festival Co-commission
  • March Static – Speak Percussion in collaboration with All The Queens Men
  • Ro-Tes – Stopgap Dance Company Norfolk & Norwich Festival Co-commission
  • Eshu at the Crossroads – Theatre-Rites & Miguel Altunaga
  • The Hide – Tilly Ingram Theatre

Classical Music

  • BBC Singers
  • Britten Sinfonia with Imogen Whitehead
  • Compline by Candlelight
  • Chaos String Quartet
  • Emma Rawicz
  • Forgotten Dances – Sean Shibe
  • Gurdjieff Ensemble
  • Harawi – Lotte Betts-Dean & Joseph Havlat
  • Leonkoro Quartet
  • Lost Harmonies: Endangered and Medieval Traditions – Idrîsî Ensemble
  • Music in Four Parts – Apartment House inc World Premiere of Grace’s Amazing Imitation Apartment by Cassandra Miller
  • Nightweave – Joseph Havlat, Deni Teo & Benjamin Mellefont inc UK Premiere of ever-weaver by Lisa Ilean
  • Sean Shibe with 12 Ensemble and GBSR Duo inc World Premiere of Night Owl by Sasha Scott
  • Sterling Elliott & Joseph Havlat

Contemporary Music

  • An Evening with… Gilles Peterson
  • Arooj Aftab
  • Endless Joy – Luke Abbott, Lotte Betts-Dean & Jack Wyllie World Premiere
  • The Band Stand: Arianne White, Arthur Black, Babatunde Gomes, Beat Fiasco, Briggs and Stark, Eleanor Yates, Gourds, Graham Horne, Hammeta, Harry Whiteley, JenJen, Juliet, Kuiper, Lottie Gray, Milly Anna, Neonheon & Ali, Pilot Light, Read the Room, Ronan, The Cain Pit, The Winterlong, Tina Blaber, Troilus
  • Travels with a Guitar – Lotte Betts-Dean & Dimitris Soukaras
  • Voice Electric – Lotte Betts-Dean

Performance

  • Baby Bedlam x Messy Play – House of Bedlam with Little Mess Norwich
  • Close-Up – Vincent Gambini
  • Crossing the Line – St George’s Theatre Company Festival Connect & Create Project
  • Four Portraits From an Edgeland – Dan Canham Norfolk & Norwich Festival Commission / Festival Connect & Create Project
  • Heka – Gandini Juggling
  • Little Murmur – Aakash Odedra Company
  • Monsters – Andy Field & Beckie Darlington Norfolk & Norwich Festival Commission / Festival Connect & Create Project
  • Rock Charmer & Night Flyer – The Paper Cinema
  • Show Pony – still hungry & Bryony Kimmings
  • Songs of the Bulbul – Aakash Odedra Company
  • The Haunted: Insomnia & Reveri – A Dream of Autoimmunity – Joanna Holland with Leah Clements and Louise Kim Salter
  • The Norwich Nine – Bootworks Theatre Co. Festival Connect & Create Project
  • TOAST: Georgie Jones, Rachel Long, A.F. Harrold, Kareem Parkins Brown, Jo Bell, Ella Frears

City of Literature Weekend

Programmed in association with National Centre for Writing

  • City of Literature Publishing Fair
  • Do You Remember the First Time?  Seán Hewitt & Monique Roffey
  • Drawing for Change: Graphic Novels – Nicola Streeten
  • Flatlands – Danielle Giles & Noreen Masud
  • Hunt for the Golden Scarab – M.G. Leonard
  • Make, Play & Take Home – Na Qiruoxuan
  • Page Against the Machine – The Book Hive
  • Picture This: Writing with Photographs – Emmanuel Iduma
  • Put Your Shoes On – Polly Dunbar
  • Ripeness – Sarah Moss
  • The Harriet Martineau Lecture – Val McDermid
  • The Poetry of Motherhood – Erica Hesketh
  • The Spectacular Suit – Hayley Wells
  • Unlock the Art of Storytelling in Podcasting – Hattie Crisell
  • What’s So Hard About Writing? – Hattie Crisell & Emma Jane Unsworth

Visual Arts

  • East Gallery
    • The New Scroby Sands Offshore Wind Farm Information Centre – Arieh Frosh, Ed Compson
  • OUTPOST
    • Dual Narratives – An Exhibition by Takeover
  • Houghton Hall
    • Stephen Cox
  • Norwich University of the Arts’ Immersive Visualisation and Simulation Lab (IVSL)
    • Immersed in Changing Landscapes – An-Ting, Chris Allen, Meitao-Qu, Kate Flurrie, Louis Nixon, Kirk Woolford, Collusion, Broads Authority
  • Norwich Castle
    • One Self: The Creative Life of Colin Self – Colin Self
  • Groundwork Gallery
    • Plant Power
      • Resilient Plants, Through Poetry and Music – Harriet Tarlo, Stevie Wishart
      • Art and Science of the Faba Bean – Anna Dumitriu, Chris Ridout, with colleagues
  • PRIMEYARC
    • Rebel Resistors Radio Club – Action Hero
    • Great Waves – Shortwave Collective
  • Cromer / Cromer Artspace
    • Sea Like a Mirror Festival Connect & Create Project
      • White Horses – Ivan Morison
      • The Edge of the Land – Kate Munro
      • SOS – Superheroes of the Sea – Neil Paris
  • The Forum
    • River of Hope – Ali Atkins, Lewis Buxton Festival Connect & Create Project
  • The Sainsbury Centre
    • A World of Water – Maggi Hambling, Eva Rothschild, John Crome, Olafur Eliasson, and more
    • Darwin in Paradise Camp – Yuki Kihara

Masthead credit: Pine Agency
Other image credits: Luke Witcomb, Kat Mager, Tom Maingay

Arts make life better

Norfolk & Norwich Festival brings tens of thousands of people together in celebration – it has been doing this for over 250 years. Through our May Festival and our year-round arts education work, focusing on children and young people, we lead and support celebration, creativity and curiosity in communities across Norfolk and the region.

This year we begin an exciting new initiative, Festival Connect & Create that will bring creative opportunities to those schools and communities with least provision. Creativity transforms people’s lives. It builds cohesive communities, develops vital skills and supports health and wellbeing. We want more people to have access to creative opportunities.

Please consider donating to support and develop this work. With your help we can increase access to the life changing power of the arts.

Registered Charity No. 116442

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