Music festival's 75th celebration

Composer and conductor Benjamin Britten appeared at the festival in 1972

A festival in Powys which has featured some of the greats of classical music is celebrating its 75th anniversary.

Benjamin Britten, Gustav Holst and Adrian Boult are just three of the leading musicians who have appeared at the Gregynog Festival since 1933.

Founded by sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies, it is still held at their one-time home near Newtown.

Among this year's highlights is a performance by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

International pianists Philip Moore and Simon Crawford-Phillips open the 11-day event on Friday evening.

The programme also includes French pianist Pascal Rogé, harpists Siân James and Robin Huw Bowen, award-winning trumpet soloist Alison Balsom and tenor Andrew Kennedy.

This year's festival has been created especially to honour sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies Gregynog Festival spokesman

This year's programme reflects on the important role the sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies played as patrons and practitioners of the arts.

But it also features a series of "outreach" performances in places such as Aberystwyth railway station and the Bear Lanes shopping centre in Newtown.

A festival spokesman said: "This year's festival has been created especially to honour sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies as patrons and practitioners of the arts."

He added: "The Strings of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, directed by Lesley Hatfield, create a fine finale for the anniversary programming on June 22 with a sequence of music by contemporary composers with Gregynog and Montgomeryshire connections."

The Davies sisters were also avid art collectors.

More than 250 of their paintings and other works, which included masterpieces by Monet and van Gogh, were left to the National Museum of Wales.