Cheltenham Composer Academy paused for 2024
Florence Lockheart
Friday, November 24, 2023
The festival has confirmed that, while future funding is found for the academy, the festival will go ahead next year with fewer events
British classical music festival Cheltenham Music Festival has confirmed that its Composer Academy will not be going ahead in 2024 due to funding challenges. The 2024 edition of the festival will go ahead next year with ‘fewer events than in 2023’.
Launched in 1945, the festival celebrated its 78th edition earlier this year with performances from artists including City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Manchester Collective and Scottish Ensemble. The festival has this week released a statement seeking to reassure audiences that it will not be disappearing from the UK’s cultural landscape.
In the statement, the festival team said: ‘It's a challenging time for classical music across the live events sector, and we are responding prudently by carefully curating our events. The 2024 programme will be a considered response to the challenging landscape for classical music: there will be fewer events than in 2023, and the Festival’s well-regarded talent incubator, Composer Academy, will be pausing while we look at future funding. But we have not compromised our vision of a Festival that encompasses all that classical music is and can be in the twenty-first century.’
Composer Academy is part of Cheltenham Festivals' Spotlight Talent Development Programme and which saw 12 selected participants attend premiere performances at the festival as well as receiving mentoring and having their compositions work-shopped, performed and recorded.
Composer Daniel Kidane, who mentors Academy students, shared a message from Ian George, co-CEO of Cheltenham Festivals, the charity behind the Cheltenham Jazz, Science, Music and Literature Festivals. In it he said: ‘This decision is not a reflection of the value we place on our work together, or the esteem in which we hold the Composer Academy community. The mission we all share is central to the Festival, and to the Cheltenham Festivals charity as a whole.’
George added: ‘When Composer Academy returns, our goal is for it to emerge stronger for this period of thought and consolidation. The greater risk is to continue without exercising this care. Prudent stewardship today will, we believe, reap real rewards tomorrow.’ You can read the whole message here.
