Cheltenham Music Festival

[Cheltenham Music Festival]

Dear Posters,

I've rather belatedly become aware of this forum, and various threads discussing a lack of information about Cheltenham Music Festival, so I wanted to make it known that here at Cheltenham Music Festival we do have an archive of programme books and brochures (outlined on the concert programmes database here: http://www.concertprogrammes.org.uk/html/search/verb/GetRecord/8216/)

We have also updated the "Reminiscences" book referred to above (a Cheltenham Music Festival in-house production, hence the lack of a publisher - sadly there are only a handful of copies remaining) by way of a 2014, 70th-Festival release called 'Cover Story' listing all the premieres at the Festival and reproducing the cover artwork from each year.

During the past four years I've been chipping away at making sense of the materials we have - cataloging scores (some autograph), live archive recordings and occasional photographs but much remains unsorted and I've no doubt we're yet to discover some treasures. 

Although we have no formal archive or research space, I'm very happy to arrange access to the collections (and to share spreadsheets of the materials we have sorted)  on a case-by-case basis (I just need to arrange a time when we can provide you with desk space to look at what we have) and to discuss our resources with anyone who is interested in the Festival's history. I've set up this account so that you can email us directly via this username.

Due to some serious flooding at the Festival's previous Town Hall offices, I fear that much early material - particularly photographs - may have been damaged or destroyed, but I'm hopeful that duplicate materials may survive on other public or private collections. There is clearly a wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm on this forum, and I'd welcome any contributions that can alert us to the whereabouts of other materials relating to the Festival - I'm beginning to collate a list of collections that make reference to Cheltenham with the ambition of making this a useful resource for future researchers interested in the Festival.

I hope you don't mind me posting this, but I thought some of you might welcome the access to this resource! 

Many thanks, Alexis (Music Festival Manager, 2011- )

[Mark Thomas]

Alex, thanks for letting us know. Very much appreciated. Just in case you haven't seen it, please read my reply to your other recent post.