Newbury Spring Festival 2017: Leo Popplewell, Cellist, lunchtime recital at the Corn Exchange

Last year, I participated in a collaboration between the Newbury Spring Festival and the local Open Studios in which artists were invited to sketch at performances and rehearsals. The results of last year's collaboration (which involved six artists in total) are on display at the Newbury Corn Exchange until 24 May.

I really enjoyed the sketching, and I found working from those sketches to produce finished artworks a very satisfying process. So I was delighted when I discovered that I would be able to do it again this year. I was only able to fit one sketching date in my schedule, and that date was today's lunchtime recital - a performance by the young cellist Leo Popplewell.

There were, by coincidence, a lot of cellos last year. I have come to like cellos; they have beautiful curves and make a wonderful array of very lovely sounds. Young Mr. Poplewell certainly teases out a fabulous noise from his instrument. He was accompanied by Mikey Pandya on piano for the first part of the show (when they performed Sibelius - Malinconia Op.20 and Fauré - Sonata No.2 in G Op.117), but played alone on stage for the second part (Britten - Cello Suite No.1 Op.72).