Chelsea Festival 2012

The Chelsea Festival has been through various incarnations. For many years it was a pretty large scale event, celebrating all that Chelsea had to offer, with substantial sponsorship from the Cadogan Estate. My ensemble, FifteenB, gave a number of concerts at the festival between 2000 and 2006. With the Cadogan Estate concentrating their arts sponsorship on the Cadogan Hall, the festival metamorphosed into the Chelsea Arts Festival, which is alas no more. Now some brave souls have stepped in to fill the gap and created a new Chelsea Festival. This takes place from 13 to 20 October with a variety of events, including some rather interesting concerts.


The festival aims to celebrate the venues Chelsea has to offer, with events at churches, the Physick Garden and other places. The festival kicks off on 13 October with a concert at Christ Church, with the choir of Christ Church and King's Baroque, conducted by Gareth Wilson, in Haydn, Charpentier, Corelli and Bach. On Sunday, Rupert Jeffcoat plays the organ at St. Luke's Church, with works including Liszt's Prelude and Fugue on BACH.  Then on Tuesday, Robert Quinney plays an all Bach concert on the newly rebuilt Flentrop organ at Christ Church. On Friday 19 October, artists from Mahoganny Opera will be performing Britten at Christ Church and the festival concludes with a performance of Faure's Requiem and Vivaldi Gloria with the Chelsea Festival Chorus and Orchestra conducted by Jeremy Summerly.

There is an interesting programme of walks, talks, studio visits and free jazz, see the Festival website for details. (Note that if you Google the Chelsea Festival then you may well get the website of the previous Chelsea Arts Festival).