Out & About Summer 2021

Spring into the autumn The Newbury Spring Festival has announced that live music will be returning once again to West Berkshire with 41 concerts and performances from September 4-20. Out and About caught up with Festival Director Mark Eynon to find out how he has coped and what his plans are.

How did the pandemic hit the Festival?

has managed to survive. We also received a contribution from the Council Emergency Response Fund, so with all of this we are in the lucky position that the Festival has a future. Are you still using all the same venues? No, that is one area where we have had to make some changes. Because we don’t know whether we will still have to social distance, we made the decision to limit the Festival to our largest venues where social distancing is possible. Therefore, the two main venues will be St Nicolas Church and the Corn Exchange. However, the Corn Exchange is unavailable for the middle weekend and so we will Valley Hotel and the Vineyard. The only other exception is Douai Abbey, where Tenebrae will be performing on September 16. Is the Sheepdrove Piano Competition taking place? Yes, I am delighted that Peter and Juliet Kindersley have kindly agreed to let us hold the competition at Sheepdrove again. Furthermore, one of the UK’s best-known pianists Paul Lewis is not only performing the Brahms First Piano Concerto on the final night with the LPO, but is going to be a judge at the piano competition. I am particularly excited about this because he was be using the new theatre at Horris Hill School, as well as holding concerts in Donnington

Like the entire performing arts world, the pandemic hit the Newbury Spring Festival. It was due to take place in early May 2020 and as the programme went to print, we had to cancel. At the time I was keen to postpone it until September and so started to plan for an interim Festival of a few concerts, however it then became clear that that wasn’t possible either. The board made a decision that we should postpone the Festival until May this year, but when that also proved impossible we decided to move it again to autumn. Thankfully I have found that many of

formerly director of the Leeds Piano Competition and a world expert on Beethoven, the featured composer of the competition. Will the Festival chorus be performing this year? No, which is a huge sadness. Due to the pandemic, it has not been possible for amateur choirs to rehearse. But I am absolutely delighted to be able to tell you that the chorus will be back with a vengeance in 2022 where they will perform the Mozart Coronation Mass at the opening concert with the same conductor soloists and orchestra as planned for last year. What is the Festival planning for young artists? As a Festival Director I have always been keen on supporting new and young musicians, and now so many have been badly hit by the pandemic. Thankfully we have got a plethora of young talent coming to the festival this year, including many of the young artists who would have had a Young Artists Lunchtime Recital in 2020 with the addition of Charles Maxtone-

the artists who we would have had in 2020 are available and whilst there have been some changes, particularly with orchestras, I am delighted that we are

“The theme is to celebrate being back playing live music and inviting as many artists as possible”

now going to open the Festival with Bach’s St Matthew Passion with Ian Bostridge as the Evangelist. It is the perfect work to mark a new dawn and will be a great spiritual celebration of our return to St Nicolas Church. The following Saturdays will feature the Royal Philharmonic with Paul Daniel and Jennifer Pike, and London Philharmonic with Richard Farnes and Paul Lewis. I must add that it is a huge tribute to our sponsors and very generous audience donations that the Festival

O&A SUMMER 2021

56