2020 Festival

17th-19th April 2020

The 2020 Festival will be hosted by Suffolk Branch.

It will be at Chantry Academy in Ipswich, which is easily accessed from A12, A14 and by train, and is a modern accessible building.

The SRP conference will again be on Friday afternoon with the festival concert on the Friday evening. We are delighted to announce that Parandrus (Charlotte Barbour-Condini, Daniel Swani and Grace Shih) will be our performers. They have promised a very varied programme of music ancient and modern so do come and support them as one of our emerging young players’ groups.

On Saturday and Sunday there will be the usual playing all day with strands based on difficulty from easy to very hard to enable us to cater for all players from just started to post Grade 8.

For details see festival details, accommodation, or food menus.

During the weekend there will be a composers’ competition, organised by Steve and Ann Marshall, for composers to write a piece that will benefit SRP branches. The finalists’ pieces will be played through on Saturday with the winning pieces, chosen by you, being performed on the Sunday, conducted by Helen Hooker.

Saturday evening will be an everyone-included performance of The Masque of Oberon (by kind permission of Peter Holman), which was written for the court of King James in 1611 for the presentation of his eldest son, Prince Henry, to the court. It is the only Masque for which the entire text, written by Ben Jonson, survives. Everyone will join in the playing of the dances; there will be short or longer speaking parts for those who wish to volunteer; some choral bits for those who wish to sing as well as play and a few solos for singers. We will rehearse then perform the entire Masque for our own pleasure – and any friends who wish to come and listen.