The inspiration, ingenuity and investment behind JAM on the Marsh

The final, triumphant note of JS Bach’s Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen reverberates through St Leonard’s church, signalling the end, not just of another concert in the quaint Kent town of Hythe, but of the 2023 iteration of JAM on the Marsh Festival. Complementing the natural beauty of Kent’s Romney Marsh with classical music, theatre, visual art and community projects each year, JAM on the Marsh is set to return for its 2024 edition next week (starting 4 July) and promises a varied multi-arts programme in the mediaeval churches dotted across the area. As the applause fades and the famed post-festival party gets underway, one might be forgiven for believing that the work of the JAM team is done for another year. However, this final day of the festival is just the beginning.

The driving force behind each JAM on the Marsh festival is a core team of four: festival chair Edward Armitage, head of operations John Frederick Hudson, head of marketing and fundraising Sarah Armitage and concert manager James Aburn. Sitting with them in a café in South London is like sitting in the eye of a creative storm, with ideas and anecdotes zipping across the table in quick succession. Although the days following the end of each festival are, as Edward puts it, ‘carnage, a car crash!’, the group’s plans for the following festival are, at that point, already in motion. A master-document of ideas is circulating, with dates and concerts – either confirmed or wished-for – which over the next 11 months will be expanded, evolved and acted upon. ‘Ideas come out from the festival, and we discuss possibilities every day,’ Sarah explains. ‘So ideas are always going down on paper. The skeletons of future festivals are evolving all the time, and for our 2025 festival, there’s already quite a lot of ideas down. They may not actually come into fruition depending on funding or people's availability, but the ideas are there.’

Head of operations John Frederick Hudson, festival chair Edward Armitage, head of marketing and fundraising Sarah Armitage and communications manager Claudia Ott (Image courtesy of JAM)

Of course, in these early stages, it is difficult to pin down the details of each concert, but for the team, this fluid planning period can yield wonderful – if unintended – results. For example, when keyboard player Stephen Farr was unable to perform Bach’s Goldberg Variations at a previous festival due to a schedule clash, the festival team needed to adapt to fill the gap in the festival programme: ‘We have a call for artists every season and Green Opera and Marginalia had sent in a submission for Hansel and Gretel,’ recalls Sarah. ‘We couldn’t think where to schedule it initially, but then we put it in the place of the Goldberg and it was just lovely. We were flexible, and it was great to have the community involved and broaden the range of what we programme.’ Edward chimes in cheerily: ‘We got this absolute banger – sort of by mistake!’

Although the festival team is adept at rolling with the proverbial punches, there is no escaping from the bottom line, and funding is essential. The application process is relentless, giving marketing and fundraising head Sarah Armitage precious little time after each festival to rest on her laurels. ‘Her work actually starts the day after the festival finished, before the planning begins,’ explains Hudson. ‘Sarah has to write the reports to finalise the last year in a way which builds goodwill with our funders, to confirm we have delivered these amazing things. Then when she applies again, they are more likely to fund us based on previous years.’ Although Sarah has, by this point, mastered this approach, she takes a very realistic view of the festival’s funding prospects. ‘It's never a given you're going to get funded. We've had the National Lottery community funding underpinning our core costs and having that sort of multi-year funding is fantastic, but in terms of project costs it's starting from bedrock every time.’

Using skills gained from her previous career in research and advertising, Sarah’s data-focused mindset is vital for the festival’s survival. ‘I get all the feedback from audiences [the festival circulates feedback forms every year] and from partners and collate all that, plus our findings,’ she explains. ‘Then from September I will put the budget together and start writing applications.’ While programming details are needed for fundraising, funding is needed to confirm programming, so this period can be a balancing act. ‘From the art point of view, as we don't get more than one year of funding at a time until that's all confirmed, we don't know what we can do,’ Edward elaborates. ‘As late as March, we're still hoping for bits of funding to come in so specific concerts can happen. You can't create the budget unless you know what you’re presenting and that's where we get really concertinaed sometimes – how do we know what funding we need until we've got the programme?’

Festival curator Nicholas Cleobury will conduct the opening concert of the 2024 festival (Image courtesy of JAM)

The JAM team tackle the circularity of the fundraising-programming process by evolving the programme together, in constant communication, starting with the central artistic requirements of each year’s festival. ‘I say to Edward and Jon in early September, “What are the fundamentals? What are the big costs of the festival?”. I put together what I call the core costs, and that's what I start fundraising for.’ Sarah clarifies. ‘Then I go through the hell of funding applications for about three to four months and then, come January, we know where we are or where we feel we're going. We may need to adapt things, take something out or reduce it down but usually, it's not wildly different from our original plans.’ As with all of JAM’s endeavours, connections are key: ‘We have, over the 11 years, developed good relationships with our funders so they know what we're going to do in principle, and we always deliver reliably. They come to the festival; they know what happens.’

In recent years, the demands of funding applications like the ones Sarah tackles for each festival edition have become ever more stringent. ‘We’ve noticed it much more in recent years,’ says Sarah. ‘And of course, organisations like the Arts Council set the pace for everybody else.’ However, Sarah points out, this is not entirely unreasonable: ‘I think if you are asking for an amount of money, you've got to justify it as much as you can, in terms of who you're reaching and what the purpose of it is.’ These strict processes, although tough on arts organisations, especially those with small teams like JAM, can also be a blessing in disguise: ‘You do the Arts Council application and it’s so in-depth and so thorough that you can then use highlights from it in other applications.’ And when it gets to the festival and its impact, for Sarah, the time and effort spent on these applications is well worth it. ‘I get down to the festival and I see the festival orchestra play, or I see a young family coming to multiple events and I see we are making a difference. It is positive. There's a reason for what we're doing and all the hours of planning and fundraising it takes to pull it together is all worthwhile.’

Once the programming and fundraising is complete, the preparation begins in earnest. In the weeks before the festival (and during the 10 days of performances and events) the JAM team – who live on-site in Romney Marsh during the festival – host a morning meeting every day where, along with the consumption of copious amounts of caffeine, the schedule for the day is discussed. ‘John keeps us incredibly organised,’ Sarah explains, ‘We have spreadsheets of who’s staying where and who’s cooking what when. So we know, for example, if artists are staying or people are visiting, or if we're going to be cooking for 12 on a particular night.’ Each year the festival takes over a row of local cottages as its base, where organisers host performers and staff throughout the festival. These close quarters are an ideal space for visiting artists to share ideas and advice in an easy, informal setting. For Edward, these surroundings have an enormous impact on the festival: ‘We collaborate, we talk, we have ideas. We’ll be sitting round a table with an artist and discuss things informally.’ The festival’s partnership with violinist and London Mozart Players leader Simon Blendis came out of one such conversation. ‘He came down to do some rehearsals with Anna Tilbrook,’ Edward recalls, ‘And came into our house instead of theirs. We were just talking and having a drink and that interaction made our festival a bit special and different for him. Since then, he’s become more and more involved in the festival, he now leads our JAM Sinfonia among other projects, and that came about really because of a conversation over a glass of wine.’

JAM Sinfonia (Image courtesy of JAM)

It’s not just the organisers who benefit from this close-quarters exchange of ideas. The 2024 festival will include the second iteration of JAM’s Young Composers Residency, which sees four young opera composers develop their compositional skills, with their new works – inspired by local Kent filmmaker Derek Jarman – premiered during the festival. ‘The four composers on this year’s residency will be living in one of the cottages, in the middle of the festival,’ Edward tells me. ‘They’ll meet every performer, every conductor, every singer. They can talk to all of them about commissions, how things work in the industry and ask questions about their work. That’s amazing, and it happens throughout the whole festival.’ For Hudson, these moments away from the concert platform are hugely valuable. ‘I think the most important time of the festival is actually that time outside of the concerts. Obviously, the concerts are very sacred, that’s what we work hard on, but the special times for us – the composers and performers – are actually before and after the performances when we get time to talk. It’s something you might not get a chance to do in London at a big concert hall.’

The festival environment forges connections beyond the festival artists too. The cover of the programme for the 2024 edition of the festival is adorned with a striking image of the stars above Romney Marsh. The image, Sarah informs me, is the work of one of their festival volunteers, Susan Pilcher, who herself found creative collaboration through her involvement with the festival. ‘We have this lovely collection of local volunteers, which is great for local connections and engagement,’ Sarah explains. ‘One of the volunteers is a great night sky photographer and, after she got talking to one of the composers we work with, one of her photos inspired his next piece of music. That all came about after one of our concerts last year, it’s a really organic and creative time.’

Jon Frederick Hudson: ‘The special times for us – the composers and performers – are actually before and after the performances when we get time to talk. It’s something you might not get a chance to do in London at a big concert hall.’ (Image courtesy of JAM)

Another example of the collaborative ‘JAM approach’ can be found in the opening concert of this year’s programme which presents the premiere of a new work by Hudson who, beyond his role as head of operations, is also a composer, conductor and pianist. The new creation will see tenor Mark Padmore make festival debut alongside horn player Ben Goldscheider and the London Mozart Players conducted by festival curator Nicholas Cleobury. ‘This one is so typically JAM,’ Edward smiles. ‘The process starts at my uncle Robin’s funeral in November 2022 where his granddaughter Esme read some of the poetry she had written. I realised she’s really got a voice, and thought it would be great to commission her to write something for the festival. Then, at the wake, I looked up and Sarah was walking towards me with Mark Padmore (one of my absolute heroes). We were talking, and when he asked about coming to the festival, I asked whether he’d be interested in us commissioning a piece putting Esme’s words to music. Then the next morning I got an email from Ben Goldscheider saying he’d really like to come to the festival too.’ The combination of tenor, horn and strings led Edward to consider the project as a partner piece for Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings and he brought Hudson on board. As a composer, JAM’s emphasis on new music is a gift for Hudson, who relishes the opportunity for working with living artists. ‘That way, you bring people together,’ he enthuses. ‘Rather than just “whipping up” a piece. They’re invested in it because they’ve shaped it.’

On reflection, sitting in a South London café a world away from Romney Marsh, yet feeling as though I might be at the kitchen table at the epicentre of JAM’s cottage hub, ‘investment’ is the perfect term to sum up the festival’s ethos. It is the investment of the organisers in their mission to provide quality music for the people of Kent, the investment of the community in the festival which returns each year to serve them, and the investment of the artists, composers and performers in JAM’s ethos of programming, collaboration and new music which makes the festival work each summer – and underpins the tireless work of the festival team in the winter months too.