A message from the festival’s director Dr Joan Royle:
 

Welcome to the Villages Music Festival 2025.
 

There is an exciting programme planned for those long summer evenings in June. The opening night will be very special, with a production of ‘La Bohème’ by Regents Opera in the walled garden of Limekiln Farm, Chalvington, a lovely romantic setting; you will be surrounded by flowers and trees as the sun descends and Mimi meets her fate. A reminder, perhaps, of how lucky we all are today.

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The week continues with an eclectic mix of English and French music by the Mistral wind quartet, cream teas in a village garden accompanied by Los Twangueros playing a variety of guitars. A new departure for the festival will be a compered discussion about the future of music in the UK, featuring Richard Morrison, art critic and feature writer of the ‘Times’ newspaper, Georgina Born OBE, a musical anthropologist, who is soon  to retire to Ripe, Will Hancox, local renowned pianist and promoter of all kinds of up and coming young professional musicians in Sussex, and a young member of the panel who has recently experienced the difficulties of forging a career in music. There will be time for questions from the audience. The discussion will be followed by refreshments and a short musical entertainment by a vocal quartet. The Festival continues with a jazz evening, also in the gardens of Limekiln farm, a special piano recital by Joanna McGregor CBE, who performs nationally and internationally, and ends with a concert by the Laughton Community Choir singing the joyful Dixit Dominus by Handel, accompanied by String quartet.
There is much to enjoy in terms of music performance, but also the ambience and warm welcome of our villages.
 

The full programme will be published by the end of March and tickets will be available from this website from April.

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I do hope you will be able to join us.
 
Joan Royle
Director, Villages Music Festival
January 2025