The Two Moors festival, set up more than two decades ago in the wake of the foot-and-mouth epidemic, has established its own niche in the British festival schedule outside the crammed summer season. The two moors are Dartmoor and Exmoor, with concerts in the towns and villages of both and straddling a geographic area in Devon and Somerset that’s reckoned to be the largest covered by any festival in the UK.
Under its current artistic director, violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen, the emphasis of the programming is on chamber music and song. A weekend of concerts on Dartmoor is followed by another on Exmoor, and each seems to have its own faithful following, and to judge from the final couple of days on Exmoor, it’s an event that has really embedded itself in the local community.
