The English Music Festival hosts a number of recitals and events throughout the year, including those which form part of its newly established UK and European Concerts Series. On this page are reviews of concerts that have been held under the aegis of the EMF as well as of launch celebrations of CDs released under its recording arm, EM Records. Please click on an event title to read its review.
We are currently in the midst of preparations for the Sixth English Music Festival and anticipate a high level of interest – and of ticket sales – so do book your tickets as soon as you can!
Please note that all three hostelries in Dorchester-on-Thames will be serving pre- and post-concert meals – but booking is strongly advised. There are also still some rooms available in the village – but these are booking up swiftly; so, again, we recommend that you reserve your accommodation as soon as you are able. Visit the Facilities: Accommodation page on our website or ask me for a printed accommodation list.
We are still in need of helpers for the duration of the Festival itself, so if you feel able to assist as a steward, please do let me know – you would be most warmly welcomed! Also: are you able to distribute any leaflets in your local area? It would help us enormously if you could spread the word in this way – whether you take 10 or 1,000 leaflets – all is hugely appreciated!
We are now in the process of establishing an American Friends of the EMF (under the guidance of The Stanford Society Chairman John Covell), so if you live in America and are interested in either helping to set this up, or joining as a member, please do let us know.
In the meantime, we have founded a successful and popular South Oxon Friends group and Friends are, likewise, encouraged to convene local groups. Anyone for a Dorset group?!
EM Publishing will soon be issuing its first publications: Never Lukewarm by Cuillin Bantock, a memoir of his grandfather, Granville Bantock; and scholarly-critical editions of Walford Davies’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major and Bantock’s Sonata in C major for Violin and Piano. These will be available from the Marketplace page in due course as well as at the Festival.
We are producing silk ties and long ladies’ scarves for this year’s EMF, and these will be on sale during the Festival. If you are intrigued to see what these look like, or would like to order one of these in advance so as to be able to turn up to the Festival already suitably attired, please do so by visiting http://www.englishmusicfestival.org.uk/marketplace-merchandise.html (cheques also welcome if you prefer not to purchase online).
Copies of our musical map will also be available at the Festival and for purchase from our Marketplace shortly after the Festival has ended.
Contributions to the next issue of Spirited are warmly invited – but please note the absolute deadline of 12th October!
The EMF has joined easyfundraising.org.uk. This is a scheme whereby retailers donate money to particular charities whenever supporters of the charity spend money with said retailer. So, for example, if you purchase a book on Amazon or Abebooks, buy flowers from Marks & Spencer, a disc from HMV, a new fridge from Comet, or insure your car with RAC, those retailers then donate money to the EMF, which is collected and passed on to us by easyfundraising. There is even an easysearch toolbar that allows money to be generated for the EMF every time it is used as a search engine. The only thing that supporters have to do to start raising money for the EMF is to visit our easy fundraising page, http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/englishmusicfestival and click on the box just above our logo which says ‘Yes! Sign me up’. This will take you to a page where you can register as a supporter. Then, every time you wish to buy a product online, if you log in to easyfundraising first and select your retailer of choice from their alphabetical listing, money will be donated to the EMF from every purchase you made. You will NOT be charged a penny more for any item – the money purely comes as a donation to charity from the retailer.
We would be so grateful if you could sign up and help our cause in this invaluable way!
Please visit our Events page for news of our concert at Hay-on-Wye on 8 June – a superb programme of Britten, Elgar, Delius, Holst and Vaughan Williams.
Please also note a concert being held at the Oxford Town Hall on 26th May with EMF regular conductor Hilary Davan Wetton, who will be conducting Vaughan Williams’s Fifth Symphony and the Folk Song Suite, along with Elgar’s Serenade for Strings and Walton’s Façade.
The English Music Festival is unique. It is the only event dedicated exclusively to the music of British composers, and to the goal of bringing that vast corpus of amazing works back into the mainstream of the nation’s culture.
Despite the fact that the EMF is continuing to develop and expand, we are still a small organisation, and desperately require your continued support and help! If you can join our Friends’ Scheme, you will not only be able to enjoy a range of benefits, but you would also have the satisfaction of knowing that you are playing a major part in the success of the Festival.
If you would like to become more actively involved during the Festival itself, we would gladly welcome your input as a steward or helper. In the meantime, we also urgently need your help in distributing leaflets, to spread the word further about the EMF – whether just by passing them on to friends, or displaying them in your local library, post office, tourist information centre or hostelry. Please do let me know if you can support our important cause.
