Making music together is the life blood of learning to play, and our Festival seeks to provide as many opportunities as possible for group performance.

Classes for Younger players

For beginners’ violins and group playing, we offer our “Fiddlesticks” session led by the charismatic Emma Stoneman.

Opportunities for Recorder players offer a mixed session of solo classes, groups and a beginners’ workshop.

Junior Music Makers is for Primary aged music groups of all varieties. The event is non-competitive and hugely popular.

The Junior Bands and Orchestras Festival (up to Year 8) has a really varied programme of classes for younger players.  These are mainly competitive, but with the emphasis on a festival performance. Classes range from Chamber Music to larger scale ensembles.

Two new events for all ages:

A new venture for the Festival is the Blues Jam Workshop for rock band players which offers opportunities for solo and group performances.

Our new class for the performance of Georgian Music is for solo or group instrumentalists and offers a cash prize of £150 to the winner.

Senior Classes

Music week begins with Senior Chamber Music and Ensemble classes; many of the performers in these groups then take part in their schools larger groups for Chamber Orchestra and Conventional Orchestra.

These are all competitive classes and follow largely the classical repertoire, though not exclusively!

The Senior Bands Festival provides an afternoon of hotly contested classes for Wind Bands and Swing Bands. Also on offer is the non competitive Showcase class providing the opportunity to demonstrate what your school enjoys doing well. This class is open to all ages and anything goes!

See syllabus and Festival calendar for details