Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival (BDBF) has launched a financial support scheme for local artists to help develop their creative work and provide their input into the organisation’s future plans.

Artists In House will initially select three artists to help trial and develop the scheme from the new year. Each artist will receive £10,000 to support their artistic work as well as give their time as freelance artists to bring their voices directly to BDBF’s programming, artistic decision making and strategic direction in an ever-changing environment, as well as mentoring and advising other artists.

The coronavirus crisis has created unprecedented challenges for artists, performers and freelance creatives across the city. Feedback from the sector has revealed that immediate help is needed such as financial support; networking opportunities with peers; sharing resources, as well as long term opportunities to create work for digital audiences. Through engaging in conversations with local networks and participating in the national Freelance Taskforce, BDBF is contributing to the Cultural Recovery Action Plan for Brighton & Hove.

BDBF commissions and supports both emerging and established artists and companies, enabling them to develop, take risks and deliver work of the highest quality across theatre, circus, dance, spoken word, music, digital/media and multi-art forms.

Kyla Booth-Lucking, BDBF Director of Programming and Participation said:

“We want this scheme to support and nurture local artists during these uncertain times, but we also want to gain valuable insights from the artists themselves. Alongside our other support for artists through the Open Venues scheme and Creative Catch-ups, this will help us to grow and to effectively support the community of artists who live and work in the local area. As we look to the future re-opening of our Corn Exchange and Studio Theatre spaces, this collaborative way of working will be vital to producing, encouraging and developing new artistic work here in the city.” 

Applications are invited from artists based within Brighton & Hove and wider BN postcode areas, particularly from diverse candidates who are under-represented in the current workforce and programming. The deadline for the first round of applications is 8 January 2021 and BDBF is hosting online advice sessions for artists who have questions or need more information before applying..

Full details are on Brighton Dome’s website: brightondome.org/artistsupport

A special double-bill featuring a celebration of music by Corelli, Vivaldi, and Bach performed by an ensemble of the finest string players and led by violin virtuoso Max Baillie. This will be followed by St Leonards’ top jazzers playing Gypsy Jazz classics, featuring clarinet legend Ewan Bleach. There’ll be a bar serving mulled wine and mince pies.

‘Please join us for a festive evening of music to re-open the stunning Church of the Holy Child in St Leonard’s! You’ll find details below– hope to see you there!‘  – Max Baillie violin

*** This is a socially-distanced event with precautions to keep everyone safe and healthy***

Saturday 19th December

Concert 1: 7pm – 8pm Bach and Beyond: Baroque Celebration!

Corelli Christmas Concerto (Max Baille & Jane Gordon, violin solos)

Bach E major violin Concerto (Max Baillie, solo)

Vivaldi concerto for strings in G minor

and a surprise item!

Featuring Max Baillie / Annie Beilby / Naomi Burrell / Rachel Dawson / Dominka Feher / Jane Gordon / Kate Robinson / Gavin Kibble / Ciaran McCabe / Darius Thompson

Concert 2: 8:30pm – 10pm St Leonard’s All Stars Jazz

St Leonard’s All Stars Jazz 8:30pm – 10pm

Gypsy Jazz favourites to make you swing in your socially distanced chairs!

Sweet Georgia Brown, All of Me, Minor Swing… and many more….

Featuring Ewan Bleach / Josephine Davies / Ben Somers / Benoit Viellefon

Ewan Bleach – clarinet / saxophone

TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE

Tickets can be purchased for a single part or the whole evening’s music. There will be a bar offering mulled wine and mince pies.

Concert 1: Baroque Celebration £8 / £5 concessions

Concert 2: Jazz All Stars £8 / £5 concessions

Full evening ticket: £15/(£10 concessions)

Facebook Event details with photos and pre-concert news.

Pre-booking strongly recommended. If you would like to avoid Eventbrite commission fees please contact us directly for an alternative way to pre-pay.

contact Max Baillie maxfbaillie@gmail.com or Jane Gordon hastingsemf@gmail.com

Two hugely anticipated exhibitions

Lakwena Mciver’s Homeplace 

Stephen Chambers’ The Court of Redonda 

will mark the re-opening of Hastings Contemporary after

the UK’s latest national lockdown.

Lakwena Maciver, one of the UK’s most exciting contemporary black artists creates painted prayers and meditations, which respond to and re-appropriate elements of popular culture. Central to her practice are words, used as both images and anchors of meaning.

Exploring the role of the artist as myth-maker, with their use of acid-bright colour and bold typographic text, her paintings act as a means of decolonisation, subtly subverting prevailing mythologies. The approach is instinctive and autodidactic, producing visceral, rhythmic and immersive panel paintings, iconic murals and installations.

Lakwena’s most recent body of work exhibited for the first time at Hastings Contemporary focuses on the interplay between her practices as both artist and mother of two young sons. Responding to feminist author bell hooks’ essay Homeplace (a site of resistance), and in the tradition of African women across the diaspora, Lakwena has been painting the walls of her home to create a space of affirmation, empowerment and resistance upon which will sit her panel paintings.

Challenging both the external and the internalised voice of mass media, Lakwena has created works in the public realm internationally, from installations at Tate Britain, Somerset House, Facebook and the Southbank Centre in London, to a juvenile detention centre in Arkansas, a monastery in Vienna, and the Bowery Wall in New York City.

Lakwena says “What’s this exhibition about? Well it’s about me ‘singing over’ my home, my family, my community. I’m an artist and a mother, and I guess I’m looking at where those two roles cross over. My art is concerned with mythologies; things we hold to be true and I want to tell the truth to my kids. These are words of affirmation, words that will encourage, warn and inspire. I know that they go out into the big wide world and I can’t control what happens out there. They’ll hear things and be influenced by things that I have no control over. But I can ensure that in my home I am sending them clear messages about who they are, their value, their worth, what to do in times of need, where to go to for help, what to set their hearts on, what is important. So that’s what these paintings are about. My intention is to create a safe space for them. As these paintings and images of them travel, literally and virtually, my hope is that they might act as sparks to encourage others to define spaces of safety, and also as signs to point people to places of safety”.

First shown at The Venice Biennale in 2017, Stephen Chambers’ The Court of Redonda depicts a cast of 101 imaginary courtiers inspired by a literary legend that developed around the tiny uninhabited Caribbean island of Redonda. This legend took shape as a fantasy in the mind of Matthew Dowdy Sheill, a merchant trader who claimed the island in 1865 and gave himself the title of King. The title passed down to his son, who decided that it should be given to poets and novelists as a form of literary honour. The celebrated novelist Javier Marías was a recent sovereign and his appointment of courtiers, including film director Pedro Almodóvar and novelists AS Byatt and Ian McEwan, inspired Chambers to create his own imaginary court of Redondans: not just poets, philosophers, artists and writers, but also patients, pharmacists, harlots and “bums”.

Chambers explains: ‘It’s a construct, – an idea that I was intrigued with. I wrote to Javier Marías, and in that correspondence, I suggested that I would paint portraits of the court. The paintings are not portraits from life, and they’re not depictions of real people, -they are invented. I wanted to present a wide range of motley ne’er-do-wells and in a way celebrate their ordinariness. There is that line that I kick around my head which goes ‘the ordinary is more extraordinary than the extraordinary’’.

The Court of Redonda is joined in this exhibition by other series of works by Chambers exploring histories, both real and imagined.

Stephen Chambers RA is one of the UK’s most revered artists, having exhibited widely around the globe, with more than 40 solo presentations including the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 2012 and at the Pera Museum, Istanbul in 2014. Chambers contemporary dance collaborations at The Royal Ballet, London with Ashley Page and Orlando Gough include Sleeping with Audrey (1996), Room of Cooks (1997,1999), and This House will Burn (2001)

Chambers work is held in many international collections including Arts Council England, Deutsche Bank, London, Downing College, Cambridge (at which he was the Kettle’s Yard/Downing College Fellow and later elected an Honorary Fellow), UK Government Art Collection, London, Metropolitan Museum, New York and The Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Liz Gilmore Director of Hastings Contemporary says “Hastings Contemporary Gallery finishes this extraordinary year with two hugely exciting and thought-provoking exhibitions by two internationally significant artists: Lakwena and Stephen Chambers. Responding directly and positively to the challenges of our time Lakwena’s vibrant two-room exhibition will challenge and delight. Chambers’ stunning series of works take the viewer on an imaginative journey where we can reflect and learn on our own world order. Both exhibitions remind us of the vital role artists play as storytellers and mythmakers.

Covid-19 has challenged the resilience of the cultural sector.  The trustees and I are very proud of the prodigious efforts of our small team delivering such meticulous installations at this challenging time. We would like to thank the exhibiting artists Lakwena and Stephen for their incredible openness and agility in responding to the changing brief and for their thoughtful and imaginative use of the gallery spaces. Visitors will be able to enjoy these exhibitions alongside the prophetic exhibition by Sir Quentin Blake ‘We Live in Worrying Times’. None of this would have been possible without the generosity and support of many incredible individuals and organisations who have supported us at this time.”

Hasting Contemporary Team overcame the logistical barriers that the pandemic created for galleries and museums across the world, enhanced by the investment from Hastings Borough Council, ACE and DCMS’ recovery funds. The team presented a series of stunning exhibitions throughout the year, while also trailblazing robotic technology to help combat social isolation and ensure they reached the widest possible audience. The year will culminate with these two dazzling shows opening in December.

Hastings Contemporary is planning a calendar of exciting new projects though out 2021, and will continue to curate world-class exhibitions and shows for all our audiences both on-line via our robot tours and in our much loved gallery, as and when it is allowed to open.

The Worthing-based International Interview Concerts (IICs) are well-placed to find out and showcase their discoveries in their ‘Advent Crown’ show on Sunday December 6 at 6pm. It will be a livestreaming on their new YouTube channel, linking to the homes of some of their associated professional musicians from other countries.

Relaxed conversations between their own performances of carols or related music will enable us to share what their own Christmases look and sound like, as well as what they enjoy of the universal features and sounds of the season. And learn what they most look forward to. Viewers can ask questions online, on the day.

These featured Advent Crown guests are from 4 overseas nations – one of them, Mexican, living in a fifth. To maintain the element of surprise, their identities are under wraps until the show.

These 7 musicians will bring their own national carols or pieces, and they’ll perform others of universal familiarity, amounting to music from 9 countries. Of the two best-loved English settings of In The Bleak Midwinter, one is by The Planets’ composer, Gustav Holst. Now, Advent Crown, one guest will unfold something else Christmassy by him few Brits know.

Whatever the chats uncover, at least one startling revelation is guaranteed. One carol will tell us how English-speaking nations have been rather sniffy about what they deemed suitable Christmas carol material. No giveaways now, except that it’s about imagery, and it’s been run by at least one celebrity singer past millions of English-speakers who never knew . . .

In non pandemic-tormented times, these IICs guest musicians earn their living on classical instruments or their voice, but they are all-round musical people. Here they will be presenting Christmas music they have jumped at the chance to perform, and are relishing it. So expect some familiar Christmas music in new clothing.

The International Interview Concerts are running a 12-point countdown to Advent Crown on their Facebook page, with engaging text, pictures and music links.

There is a ‘gofundme’ page for voluntary contributing towards the Advent Crown’s performing musicians and the charity’s continued work in schools and public. You will find it at –

https://uk.gofundme.com/f/sekzmg-international-interview-concerts

GARSINGTON OPERA’S THE TURN OF THE SCREW WINS RPS AWARD

Garsington Opera’s 2019 production of Britten’s opera The Turn of the Screw has won the Opera and Music Theatre section of the 2020 Royal Philharmonic Society Awards.

The jury’s citation read: ‘This spine-tingling, stylish production was a class act. It was perfectly conceived for its setting as twilight fell, and showcased a gratifyingly inclusive cast and crew, all delivering at the very highest level.’

The award was open to all opera activities taking place in the 2019 season in the UK and the winner was chosen by a panel of specialists. The cast reacts to the news of the award in this video here: https://youtu.be/R4MnvK_AelE

Douglas Boyd, Garsington Opera’s Artistic Director, said: “All of us at Garsington Opera are so proud of this production, and we’re over the moon that we’ve won this award. In this year when we must celebrate the performing arts more than ever, we’d like to dedicate this award to everyone who works in the amazing world of opera. We’re all winners.” A highlight of the 2019 Season, this production of Britten’s masterpiece was acclaimed by 5-star reviews in the press and a hugely enthusiastic audience response.

It featured a starry British cast and was enhanced by stand-out debut performances by the children playing Miles and Flora – among the most challenging juvenile roles in the whole operatic canon. Cast and creative team:

Prologue/Quint Ed Lyon,

Governess Sophie Bevan

Flora Adrianna Forbes-Dorant / Elen Willmer,

Miles Leo Jemison

Mrs Grose Kathleen Wilkinson,

Miss Jessel Katherine Broderick

Conductor Richard Farnes,

Director Louisa Muller

Designer Christopher Oram,

Lighting Designer Malcolm Rippeth

Garsington Opera Orchestra

A filmed version of a live performance was shown on BBC iPlayer in the summer and can be seen on our YouTube channel until 19 December. Click here to watch the opera Garsington Opera is also delighted to announce that Louisa Muller’s award-winning production will be revived in 2022 (cast and full creative team to be announced).

This Sunday 22 November, Brighton Dome will broadcast its first live performance from its Concert Hall during lockdown. Government restrictions mean that audiences are unable to attend socially distanced events in the venue but artists and staff can still work behind closed doors to bring the concert online.

The performance is produced with Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) and Strings Attached to encourage audiences to enjoy classical chamber music. The concert will feature award-winning musicians – the renowned pianist and recently appointed BPO Music Director, Joanna MacGregor CBE and the Gildas Quartet who make their Brighton Dome debut to play sumptuous music by Schubert and Haydn. Joanna will join the Quartet to perform Shostakovich’ dazzling, satirical and moving Piano Quintet.

Andrew Comben, Chief Executive, Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival said:

“We would love to have a live audience joining us for what promises to be a stunning performance in our Concert Hall but being able to bring it to music lovers live at home means we can reach out to even more people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend. Offering the performance at an affordable price also means that we can provide a live classical experience that is accessible and will hopefully appeal to viewers who may not be regular classical music fans.”

Joanna MacGregor has performed in more than 80 countries with the world’s leading orchestras and eminent conductors, and is a regular broadcaster on TV and radio, making numerous appearances at the BBC Proms. She is known for her influential role as Head of Piano at the Royal Academy of Music and was appointed Principal Conductor and Music Director of BPO, only the fourth person to hold the post in almost 100 years of the Orchestra’s history.

The Gildas Quartet have been praised for their ‘energy, verve and refreshing approach’, performing to critical acclaim at Bridgewater Hall, Southbank Centre, Wigmore Hall, and on BBC Radio 3. Their bold and explorative approach to performance has been recognised by prizes, including the International Franz Schubert and Modern Music Competition in Graz as well as the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition.

Latest TV Brighton will be filming the concert and live streaming on TicketCo TV.

Tickets cost £5 per household with the option to watch again for a month following, available to book from brightondome.org.

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) has a new home. It is now based  at  Acland Burghley comprehensive school  (ABS) in Camden.  Three offices will be adapted for the administration team, alongside a recording studio and library. The Grade II listed school assembly hall will be used as a rehearsal space, with plans to refurbish it under the school’s ‘A Theatre for All’ project, so for the first time, all elements of the OAE will be in the same place: players, staff and library.’

It’s been quite a journey since 1986 when a group of musicians decided to tear up the rule book and reinvent what we mean by “an orchestra” by going back to basics. That means “period instruments” or replicas of them  and they were at the forefront of the original instruments movement which has gained so much momentum in the last 30 years. OAE players switch instruments according to the music they’re playing. This might mean for example, one violin or flute for Bach or Vivaldi and a different one for Brahms or Bruckner and all the challenges of  sheep gut strings and horns without valves. It’s a case of using historical knowledge to make the music sound fresh, immediate and exciting.

William Christie is OAE’s current director although the idea of an omniscient conductor or “maestro” is a concept which developed during the nineteenth century. OAE often plays without a conductor as a lot of their repertoire would have been performed in the eighteenth century and before.

The  new residency – a first for a British orchestra – will allow the OAE’s musicians to live, work and play amongst the students of the school. The move is supported by a leadership grant of £120,000 from The Linbury Trust, one of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts. It  facilitates the move to the school and underwrites the first three years of education work.

Crispin Woodhead, OAE chief executive explains: “Our accommodation at Kings Place was coming to an agreed end and we needed to find a new home. We already had a strong relationship with many schools in Camden through our education programme and our appeal hit the desk of Kat Miller, director of operations at Acland Burghley School. She was working on ways to expand the school’s revenue from its resources and recognised that their excellent school hall might be somewhere we could rehearse.”

 Nicholas John, Acland Burghley’s Headteacher confirms:  “This partnership is much broader than simply music education.  Its reach will be measurable in other areas including physics and mathematics, and supports our new school mission ‘Creating Excellence Together’. The orchestra will very much be a part of the everyday school community, where students will be offered workshops and assemblies.”

 The school won’t just be OAE’s landlord or physical home, however. The arrangement will offer the opportunity to build on twenty years of work in the borough through OAE’s long-standing partnership with Camden Music.  Having already worked in eighteen of the local primary schools that feed into ABS, the plan is to support music and arts across the school and in the wider community.  This new move underpins the OAE’s core ‘enlightenment’ mission of reaching as wide an audience as possible.

A similar project was undertaken in 2015 in Bremen, Germany. The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie moved into a local comprehensive school in a deprived area and the results were described as “transformational”, with improved academic performance, language skills, mental health and IQ scores; reputational benefits; greater interest in and engagement with music among pupils; strengthened links between school, orchestra and community; and even, according to some of the musicians who took part, an improvement in the Kammerphilharmonie’s playing.

Violinist Margaret Faultless, who leads OAE, said: “As classical musicians, it can often feel as if we exist in a bubble. I think I can speak for the whole Orchestra when I say that we’re all looking forward to this new adventure. We are all used to meeting with people from outside the classical music world of course, but the value of our new project lies in the long-term work we’ll be doing at the school and the relationship that will hopefully develop between the students, their parents and teachers and the orchestra. The members of the Bremen Kammerphilharmonie said their experience actually improved them as an orchestra and I think the same will happen to us over the next five or so years, and it will remind all of us of the reasons we make music, which are sometimes easy to forget, especially in our strange and troubled times.”

SE

OPUS THEATRE are very proud to be supporting Classical Club, an innovate new venture by our Artists in Residence, the renowned London Mozart Players.

In response to the closure of concert halls and nationwide restrictions in audience numbers caused by the pandemic, Classical Club was created to ensure that audiences all over the country (and beyond) can continue to experience the joy and wonder of classical music. Delivered in partnership with Scala Radio, the eight-concert digital series provides an eclectic mix of content from emerging young artists and seasoned virtuosos, offering something for audiences of all ages to enjoy.

The launch of Classical Club is also an important step forward for the many artists in our industry whose livelihoods have been devastated by COVID. By purchasing a Classical Club Season Pass, you can support our sector in a meaningful way, whilst enjoying world-class music at home

Purchase a Classical Club Season Pass for just £50 before 31 October and you’ll receive:

Acess to Eight Classical Music Concerts

Watch on demand and as often as you like!

Filmed in Unusual & Iconic venues

A Programme for the whole family that includes:

Mozart – Schumann – Stravinsky – Strauss

The Soldier’s Tale – Little Red Riding Hood and much more!

Purchase at www.londonmozartplayers.com/classicalclub

Watch all events on www.youtube.com/user/brightonemf

Friday 23 October, 7pm (available until Friday 30 October)
POCKET-SIZED CLASSICS
Pocket Sinfonia

Mendelssohn Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Beethoven Symphony No. 6, The Pastoral

Newly commissioned animation and film of the natural world accompanies two of the most-loved classics of all times, both arranged and reduced to chamber proportions.

Saturday 24 October, 10.30am (available until Saturday 31 October)

BIRDS, BUGS & OTHER BEASTS – A MUSICAL MENAGERIE

Spiritato with Delyth Taylor – puppeteer

Family programme including music by Heinrich Biber: puppets made from recycled materials meet in the woods.

Saturday 24 October, 7pm (available until Saturday 31 October)

ARCADIAN WILDERNESS

Ensemble Augelletti

Comprising musicians, poets and philosophers, the Accademia degli Arcadi was formed in Rome in 1690. Members sought inspiration from pastoral scenes set in Arcadia – an ancient, mythical space of unspoilt wilderness where the inhabitants lived in harmony with their natural surroundings.

This programme is set in the exquisite 15th-century barn of Sullington Manor Farm, and the pastoral landscape of rural Sussex.

Sunday 25 October, 3pm (available until Sunday 1 November)

CONNECTIONS

Dirk & Adam Campbell

New and traditional music combining string and wind instruments from Africa and Asia presented and performed by father and son duo Dirk and Adam Campbell.

Sunday 25 October, 7pm (available until Sunday 1 November)

BREMF LIVE! SHOWCASE

Four selected alumni ensembles from our young artist programme BREMF Live! who have progressed particularly well – featuring film footage from their original BREMF Live! showcase in addition to some new material showing more recent activity.

Friday 30 October, 7pm  (available until Friday 6 November)

INTRODUCING THE TRUMPET MARINE

The Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments

Meet the trumpet marine, a towering, single-stringed instrument with a host of resonating or sympathetic strings.  It was a trumpet-substitute for nuns and an unusual vehicle for virtuosic musical display in the late 17th century, falling out of circulation in the late 18th century and rarely seen or heard since then, despite its magnificent sound and appearance.

Saturday 31 October, 3pm (available until Saturday 7 November)

BIRD CHARMER

James Duncan from Sussex Wildlife Trust with Piers Adams recorders

During this COVID-19 spring, the reduction in traffic noise made more people aware of the beauty of birdsong. Yet in earlier times, birdsong was the ongoing soundtrack of everyday life, and musicians were deeply aware of its rich complexity. Recorder virtuoso Piers Adams plays some of the music composed in imitation of birds.

Saturday 31 October, 7pm  (available until Saturday 7 November)

REBELLION!

Joglaresa

We live in an age of protest and rebellion: against environmental damage and climate change, against war and injustice, and over religious and racial difference. But they certainly had their share of rebellion in medieval times: against the Crusades, corrupt leaders, religion and even sexual norms. Joglaresa perform medieval protest songs with some contemporary flavours and vivid animation.

Sunday 1 November, 3pm (available until Sunday 8 November)

SWEET AYRES OF ARCADIA

Musicke in the Ayre

Wilton, near Salisbury, was home to Mary Herbert, sister to the Elizabethan poet, Sir Philip Sidney. The house and gardens provided the inspiration for his major pastoral poem, The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia.

This programme, filmed in the ‘Arcadian’ pastoral landscape of the Sussex Downs and the house and gardens of St Mary’s House, Bramber, reflects on the beauty of nature as a metaphor for love, beauty and constancy.

Sunday 1 November, 7pm  (available until Sunday 8 November)

THE FOUR FACES OF GAIA, A celebration of the earth

Various artists

BREMF’s flagship multi-media production for 2020, reimagined for the digital space.

Four regions of the earth: Africa, India, the Middle East and Europe; and the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water combine in a celebration of music and dance in honour of the planet that sustains us.

Hastings International Piano, the charity responsible for the Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition and the Hastings International Piano Festival is delighted to announce a new partnership with iconic piano maker Steinway & Sons for the 2021 Concerto Competition in the historic town on England’s South Coast.

The Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition is an internationally renowned biennial competition for young concert pianists from around the world, attracting 170 applicants in 2019 from across the globe, 40 of which came to compete in Hastings during February and March. Their prize: the opportunity to perform with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on a two-night final and to win a first prize of £15,000.

The next competition dates are now confirmed to be the 17^th – 26^th June 2021 with successful entrants being selected from video auditions by a panel appointed by our President of the Jury Professor Vanessa Latarche, who is Head of Keyboard at The Royal College of Music in London.

Professor Latarche joined the competition team earlier this year to curate the 2021 competition, oversee the audition process, as well as to preside over the international jury who she has invited to join her in Hastings next summer.

Professor Vanessa Latarche says – “I am delighted that we have managed to re-schedule the Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition to June 2021. So many of the world’s musicians have had disappointment due to cancellations of events since Covid-19 began. Although they have become very adept at finding other ways of working, especially by video and streaming through social media, nothing replaces the thrill of live performance both for the artists, and the audience. The competition will provide a beacon of light for these young pianists to work towards, performing live, both solo and with orchestras to our audiences and my distinguished jury colleagues. I am thrilled to be working with Ian Roberts and the competition team to give the musicians these opportunities, and I look forward very much to welcoming them to Hastings, and to hearing them play in person in the summer.”

Managing Director of Hastings International Piano Ian Roberts says – “We are delighted that we have the opportunity to work closely with our esteemed colleagues and friends at Steinway and Sons in the lead up to and during our 2021 competition. Moving our competition dates to June 2021 enables us to provide a safe and secure platform for our young pianists to compete on, whilst protecting our audiences and family of volunteers, who give us their un-wavering support during each competition. During the June edition of Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition, we will provide enhanced performance opportunities for our pianists, including orchestral opportunities in both the semi-final and final rounds. Our partnership with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra continues in 2021 and we look forward to announcing further news about our exciting competition changes in the coming weeks.”

Hastings International Piano is delighted to also announce today that our new media sponsor for the next competition is International Piano Magazine, a perfect partner for our competition offering a rich mix of inspiration and guidance to pianists and piano fans around the world, from dedicated amateurs and students to professional pianists, teachers and aficionados.

The next edition of Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition takes place in the cultural hub of Hastings, on England’s historic south coast from the 17^th-26^th June of 2021.