Cheltenham Music Festival celebrates its 80th birthday & doubles its audience year-on-year

Mozart’s Requiem: David Crown conducts Cheltenham Bach Choir and the Musical & Amicable Society at Cheltenham Town Hall

This year the Cheltenham Music Festival celebrated its 80th birthday [see my review of the closing concert]. The birthday year included two new commissions, four world premieres, large-scale orchestral performances and intimate chamber recitals. Cheltenham’s 80th anniversary proved an opportunity to celebrate the Festival’s heritage – and also look to a promising future.

The festival’s 80th season saw a doubling of its audience year-on-year, capping a vibrant anniversary year that saw the Festival reaffirm its position as a centre for world-class classical music in the UK.

The doubling of the Festival’s audience figures reflects a sense of renewed energy around the Festival in Jack Bazalgette’s inaugural year as its Artistic Director. “To see so many thousands attend a programme of this breadth has been genuinely exciting,” he said. “Cheltenham is held in both esteem and affection eighty years on, and our mission in our ninth decade is to deepen and broaden that relationship with concert-goers, the classically curious and existing enthusiasts alike.”

Further details from the festival website.