Earlier this month, we received the sad news that there will be no Stourhead Festival of the Voice 2015, due to the event having grown in popularity so much that the National Trust property is no longer able to support it. Martin Clements, Stourhead’s Visitor Experience Officer, writes as follows:
We are very grateful to all the choirs who made Festival of Voice so successful over the past twelve years. During this time it has transformed to accommodate growing numbers of choirs, performers and equipment. It is well loved, but has outgrown Stourhead’s capacity to offer suitable locations, services and support for choirs. As a result, we have regrettably decided not to host the event in 2015.
La Nova Singers have been lucky enough to participate in the event several times over the years – from 2009 until 2013. In addition, we gave two evening performances at Stourhead for the Marie Curie Walk Ten charity fundraising walk in 2011 and 2012. We have always enjoyed the chance to get out and about and explore the beautiful gardens, exercising our singing voices and our legs (you don’t realise how big that lake is until you’ve had to run around it, after taking a wrong turning on the way there and arriving 20 minutes late)! It’s also been fun to have the challenge of attracting and keeping an audience, picking thematically appropriate music (Bridge Over Troubled Water on a bridge! Ships of Arcady in the rain!) and simplifying our ‘act’ to its most portable form.
Many of us were sad that we weren’t able to participate in one of the singing days last September, so to hear that there won’t be an opportunity this year is a great disappointment. Nevertheless, we’re grateful for the huge amount of work Stourhead’s staff and volunteers have put in over the years to run this event, and for the great enjoyment – and fabulous photos – we’ve had from it. Not to mention the chance to meet and hear so many other fantastic choirs!
Above is a gallery of some of our favourite Stourhead moments, which you might like to enjoy whilst listening to this recording of La Nova Singers performing ‘Ships of Arcady’, by Michael Head, in the Pantheon at Stourhead.
More on Stourhead Festival of the Voice:
- Ave Maria ‘A Capella’ – La Nova Singers sing Saint-Saens’ Ave Maria in the Pantheon (video)
- Festival of the Voice 2013 (blog post)
- Marie Curie Walk Ten 2012 (blog post)
- Festival of the Voice 2012 (blog post)
- ‘An Inside Story‘ – article in the Fine Times Recorder – another choir’s perspective, with a bit of history.
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