The Leith Hill Music Festival (LHMF) was founded in 1905 by Margaret Vaughan Williams,[2] sister of the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Lady (Evangeline) Farrer, wife of Lord Farrer of Abinger Hall. Ralph Vaughan Williams was the festival conductor from 1905 to 1953. The present festival conductor is Jonathan Willcocks (appointed in June 2016).[3]
The musical festival consists of various independent choral societies or choirs who are member choirs and therefore comes together under the organisation of the Festival to perform the concerts and competition for each season. A season starts in mid March and includes the mid-March concert of J. S. Bach'sSt Matthew, St John Passion or Handel'sMessiah (latest addition), then a Youth Competition and the main Festival usually in first week of April but definitely avoiding Easter if it falls in April. Currently (as of 2017), there are 12 choirs in the group which is split in 3 divisions for competitions and concerts over the Festival.
The festival is competitive, lasting three days, each day with a different division of choirs; each evening the choirs who have competed during the day combine to give a concert of the main works which form the subject of the competitions. Following the tradition established by Vaughan Williams, the festival performs a mid-March concert of the Passions by J.S. Bach alternate years as a taster and build up to the main festival and competition in early April. Handel's Messiah and Bach's B Minor Mass have also been added. The present chorus master for these concerts is Ben Costello, appointed in 2014. These concerts are open to the public as singers at a fee and rehearsals are held in Dorking, the traditional home of the Festival.
History
In 1905, Margaret Vaughan Williams (known as Meggie, b. 1870), the older sister of the English composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams and her friend, Lady Evangeline (Eva, b. 1871) Farrer, the wife of Lord Farrer of Abinger Hall formed the Leith Musical Festival. This was a time musical festivals were like a movement, following in the line of Mary Wakefield having founded one of the earliest in Cumbria in 1885.[4] At its founding, the two ladies named it Leith Hill Musical Competitions, a name it bore until 1950.[1]
Meggie was brought up in Leith Hill Place, her mother's family home after their father died. She was schooled at home. Eva (Lady Farrer, born Evangeline Knox) belonged to an Irish family who were often abroad. She was born in Florence and grew up in a sound knowledge of European languages. Through her own entrepreneur life, she arrived in Abinger Hall, the home of the Farrers to teach music to the child of Thomas Farrer after his wife died. She later became Farrer's [second] wife.
How the two ladies met is unclear. But records show that Meggie was visiting Abinger Hall since 1892 and supposedly was acquainted with Ida Darwin (née Farrer). This, however, is not accidental since the Vaughan Williamses (through their mother Margaret Wedgewood) were great nephews of Charles Darwin. Regardless the circumstances, Meggie and Eva, being nearly of the same age and young, struck up a friendship after Eva came to teach music in Abinger Hall and subsequently became the wife of Lord Farrer. It was through this friendship that they established the Musical Festival.
Eva had already experienced musical politics and administration and had studied and taught music professionally both in England and Scotland, including studying at the Royal College of Music under Hubert Parry (who was not wholly encouraging of her composition) and rated her as: "Aims of the highest. As yet very uncertain of practical details. Puts her heart into everything worth doing." During this time at RCM, which preceded her coming to Abinger Hall, Ralph Vaughan Williams was also studying at the RCM under Parry.
Organisation
Currently,[when?] the festival is run by a general committee led by a chairman and the secretary who also doubles as the festival organiser. All the conductors of the independent choirs making up the Festival are also members of the committee by default as well as the festival conductor. Other key officers include the vice chairman, honorary treasurer, etc.[clarification needed]
There is also an executive committee and a music committee. In addition, the festival appoints a president, festival conductor, chorus master, principal festival accompanist and festival accompanist.
Many other volunteers play a role in the general committee which the main backbone of the festival and the roles includes box office, choral librarians, fundraising organiser, archivist, etc.
The festival is a registered charity in England and Wales and entirely run by volunteers most of whom are members of participating choirs as well as other locals who do not sing at all.
After the death of Vaughan Williams in 1958, the festival committee commissioned David McFall to design two identical bronzereliefs with a likeness of the composer: one was placed in St Martin's Church and one in the Dorking Halls.[5]
Festival conductors
At the time of the founding of the festival, Ralph Vaughan Williams was not yet a great composer or celebrated in any way. However, with the Vaughan Williamses and the Farrers being of a liberal ideology, Ralph also saw the opportunity to use the competition as a way to include and reach more people with music. The festival has been wholly founded for amateur singers and with a goal of encouraging both music and participation. Secondly, Lady Farrer had been a fellow student with Vaughan Williams under Parry. So joining the two ladies would have been easier. Thus Ralph Vaughan Williams became the festival conductor[6] while the ladies organised, managed and set everything about the festival, with Eva as president and Meggie as secretary. Ralph Vaughan Williams was also to hold this position until 1953, a term which remains the longest in the conductorship of the festival to date.
Since founding the group, there have been 6 conductors, as follows:
Publicity material created in 1905 for the first festival
The style of the festival has remained largely the same as when founded: one change being to do away with 'male voices' and 'female voice' and replace them with 'lower' and 'upper' voices respectively in reflection of the fact that women are now found singing the lower range (tenor and bass). Generally, the style of the festival is a competition in the morning followed by full concert in the evening. The morning competition involves choirs singing different choral music subtypes or classes.
Marks are awarded by adjudicators on the above and prizes won with the last two classes not forming part of the aggregate mark which also attracts a prize. Each participating choir is conducted by its Conductor while the Festival Conductor is known to sit in a corner and watch without making any input or interference. Adjudicators are independently sought and invited. The appointment as adjudicator to the Festival is highly regarded by music professionals due to the quality of the competition, despite the fact that all the choirs are amateur. After the competitions, the choirs come together for a combined rehearsal which is taken by the Festival Conductor who then gives his own interpretation of the works sung in the competition.
In the evening, the main festival chorus is joined by a professional orchestra and soloists to perform concerts of a usually above amateur standard. Throughout the three days, different soloists sing on different days.
In addition to the above, the groups of choirs are rotated in a circle for performing each year; thus a group that sang on a Thursday (the first days of the festival) this year, would sing on Friday the next and Saturday the year after. Currently, there are four choirs in each group for each day. A prize is also awarded to the highest scoring Madrigal throughout the Festival.
Youth competition
Initially started by the LHMC as Children's Day, the day is currently known as Youth Competition and happens one week after the mid March Concert of Passion or Messiah. The Children's Day was started in by LHMC in 1921 led by Margaret Vaughan Williams after overcoming many huddles by the County. It flourished until 1946 when it died and later resurrected to what is now the Youth Competition revived mainly in 1992 and has been hugely successful since then. The Youth Competition is however only open to children and teenagers under 18 years. The entry is currently through schools. Prizes are awarded by categories and the young people sing together at the end of the day.
Member choirs
As of 2017, there are 12 member choirs in the Festival. The membership has changed over its 112 years to and have seen choirs come and go, establish and disband, struggled and merged and so on and forth. Member choirs has largely come from within the Surrey county but as the county political shape has changed, history notes that some choirs which once were in Surrey, are now outside of it. 2017 membership included:[10]
Beare Green & Newdigate Choral Society
Bookham Choral Society
Buckland & Betchworth Choral Society
Capel Choral Society
Dorking Choral Society
Epsom Choral Society
Holmbury St. Mary Choral Society
Horsley Choral Society
Leatherhead Choral Society
Mickleham Choral Society
Oxshott Choral Society
Shalford Choral Society
Other Events
Come & Sing
In October 2014, the President of the Festival together with the General and Music Committee planned and put up a singing workshop open to the general public. This was hugely successful and thus became an annual event in the calendar of the Festival, happening every October since then.
Related Research Articles
A choir is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words is the music performed by the ensemble. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which spans from the medieval era to the present, or popular music repertoire. Most choirs are led by a conductor, who leads the performances with arm, hand, and facial gestures.
Ralph Vaughan Williams was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century.
The Three Choirs Festival is a music festival held annually at the end of July, rotating among the cathedrals of the Three Counties and originally featuring their three choirs, which remain central to the week-long programme. The large-scale choral repertoire is now performed by the Festival Chorus, but the festival also features other major ensembles and international soloists. The 2011 festival took place in Worcester from 6 to 13 August. The 2012 festival in Hereford took place earlier than usual, from 21 to 28 July, to avoid clashing with the 2012 Summer Olympics. The event is now established in the last week of July. The 300th anniversary of the original Three Choirs Festival was celebrated during the 2015 festival, which took place from 25 July to 1 August in Hereford (the landmark 300th meeting of the Three Choirs does not fall until after 2027 due to there being no Three Choirs Festivals for the duration of both World War I and World War II and COVID-19. The 2023 Festival will take place in Gloucester from 22 to 29 July.
The BBC Symphony Chorus is a British amateur chorus based in London. It is the dedicated chorus for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, though it performs with other national and international orchestras.
Dona nobis pacem is a cantata written by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1936 and first performed on 2 October of that year. The work was commissioned to mark the centenary of the Huddersfield Choral Society. Vaughan Williams produced his plea for peace by referring to recent wars during the growing fears of a new one. His texts were taken from the Mass, three poems by Walt Whitman, a political speech, and sections of the Bible. A.V. Butcher has analysed Vaughan Williams' use of the Whitman poems in this composition.
Jonathan Peter Willcocks is an English composer and conductor.
Eugene Concert Choir is a choral masterworks organization in Eugene, Oregon, that consists of three performing ensembles: the 100-voice Eugene Concert Choir (ECC), the 36-voice chamber choir Eugene Vocal Arts (EVA), and the associated professional chamber orchestra Eugene Concert Orchestra.
Crouch End Festival Chorus (CEFC) is a symphonic choir based in north London which performs in a range of musical styles, including traditional choral repertoire, contemporary classical, rock, pop and film music.
William Charles Cole LVO, DMus, FSA, FRAM, FRCM, FRCO was an English conductor, composer and organist.
There have been three choirs named The BBC Chorus in the history of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Today's BBC Symphony Chorus. Founded in 1928 as the BBC National Chorus, it changed its name to the BBC Chorus in 1932, before changing it again in 1935 to the BBC Choral Society.
A 42-strong professional chorus developed in the 1930s. It would perform either alone or with the BBC Choral Society as a "choir within a choir". It was abolished in 1961 following changes to the BBC's choral structures.
Today's BBC Singers. Founded in 1924 as a 16-strong BBC Wireless Chorus, and formally renamed The BBC Singers in 1935, it was expanded to 28 in 1961 and renamed The BBC Chorus as part of reforms to the BBC's choral set-up. It was then renamed The BBC Singers once more in 1972.
The Bach Choir is a large independent musical organisation founded in London, England in 1876 to give the first performance of J. S. Bach's Mass in B minor in Britain.
The London Philharmonic Choir (LPC) is one of the leading independent British choirs in the United Kingdom based in London. The patron is Princess Alexandra, The Hon Lady Ogilvy and Sir Mark Elder is president. The choir, comprising more than 200 members, holds charitable status and is governed by a committee of 6 elected directors. As a charity, its aims are to promote, improve, develop and maintain education in the appreciation of the art and science of music by the presentation of public concerts.
Bath Bach Choir, formerly The City of Bath Bach Choir (CBBC), is based in Bath, Somerset, England, and is a registered charity. Founded in 1946 by Cuthbert Bates, who also became a founding father of the Bath Bach Festival in 1950, the choir's original aim was to promote the music of Johann Sebastian Bach via periodic music festivals. Bates – an amateur musician with a great love and understanding of this composer's works – was also the CBBC's principal conductor and continued in this role until his sudden death, in April 1980. This untimely exit pre-empted his planned retirement concert performance of J. S. Bach's Mass in B minor, scheduled for July of the same year, and effectively ended the first period of the choir's history.
Bristol Choral Society is a large mixed-voiced choir based in Bristol, England, founded in 1889. As of 2002, it is conducted by Hilary Campbe, it has around 140 auditioned members. The choir stages at least three concerts annually at the Bristol Beacon in Bristol with professional orchestras and soloists, and another annually at Bristol Cathedral in addition to other performances and broadcasts in Bristol and further afield.
The City of London Choir is a non-professional choir based in London, England.
Brighton Festival Chorus is a large choir of over 150 amateur singers based in Brighton, UK. One of the country's leading symphony choruses.., and considered "one of the jewels in the city's musical crown", BFC performs in major concert halls throughout Britain and Europe, particularly in Brighton and London.
Janet Wheeler is a British composer and choral conductor, based in Saffron Walden, Essex.
David Moule-Evans was an English composer, conductor and academic.
Eva Kathleen Merritt was a British conductor who led her own orchestra from the 1920s into the 1970s. She was best known as a pioneering woman conductor, and for her local music-making in Petersfield, Hampshire.
↑ "Famous Residents & Visitors". St James Church Abinger Common. St James Church Abinger Common. Archived from the original on 26 April 2017. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
Corke, Shirley (2005). Music won the cause: 100 years of Leith Hill Music Festival, 1905-2005. Dorking: Leith Hill Musical Festival.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
