Cheltenham Music Festival celebrates its 80th birthday & doubles its audience year-on-year

Mozart's Requiem: David Crown conducts Cheltenham Bach Choir and the Musical & Amicable Society at Cheltenham Town Hall

This year the Cheltenham Music Festival celebrated its 80th birthday [see my review of the closing concert]. The birthday year included two new commissions, four world premieres, large-scale orchestral performances and intimate chamber recitals. Cheltenham’s 80th anniversary proved an opportunity to celebrate the Festival’s heritage – and also look to a promising future.

The festival’s 80th season saw a doubling of its audience year-on-year, capping a vibrant anniversary year that saw the Festival reaffirm its position as a centre for world-class classical music in the UK.

The doubling of the Festival’s audience figures reflects a sense of renewed energy around the Festival in Jack Bazalgette's inaugural year as its Artistic Director. "To see so many thousands attend a programme of this breadth has been genuinely exciting," he said. "Cheltenham is held in both esteem and affection eighty years on, and our mission in our ninth decade is to deepen and broaden that relationship with concert-goers, the classically curious and existing enthusiasts alike."

Further details from the festival website.

New music to the fore: Gergely Madaras & BBC NOW celebrate Cheltenham Music Festival's 80th birthday in rousing style with music from the first festival alongside music for today

BBC National Orchestra of Wales & Gergely Madaras at Cheltenham Town Hall - Cheltenham Music Festival 2025

Britten: Four Sea Interludes from 'Peter Grimes'; Arnold: Symphony No. 5, Anna Semple: Fanfare for Cheltenham; Elgar: Enigma Variations; BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Gergely Madaras; Cheltenham Music Festival at Cheltenham Town Hall
Reviewed 12 July 2025

A celebration of the festival's 80th birthday by reflecting its support for new music from the outset, alongside a new commission in temperature-beating performances

The Cheltenham Music Festival has been celebrating its 80th birthday this year, and Jack Bazalgette's first season as artistic director culminated in a celebratory final concert at Cheltenham Town Hall where Gergely Madaras conducted the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in a programme that both looked back to that first Cheltenham Festival concert and  looked forward.

Founded in 1945, the festival began two years before the first Edinburgh Festival and a year before the Arts Council was founded. The first concert included Benjamin Britten conducting the concert premiere of Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, just a week after the opera's premiere, alongside William Walton and Arthur Bliss conducting their own work.

At Cheltenham Town Hall on Saturday 12 July 2025, Gergely Madaras and BBC National Orchestra of Wales began with Britten's Four Sea Interludes, then followed this with Malcolm Arnold's Symphony No. 5 which was commissioned by the festival and premiered there in 1961, part of a sequence of contemporary British symphonies at the festival between 1946 and 1964 including works by Rubbra, Ian Whyte, Arthur Benjamin, Robert Simpson, Alun Hoddinott and Alan Rawsthorne. After the interval was the premiere of the latest festival commission, Anna Semple's Fanfare for Cheltenham, and the evening concluded with Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations which was also in that first festival programme.

BBC National Orchestra of Wales & Gergely Madaras at Cheltenham Town Hall - Cheltenham Music Festival 2025

The Edwardian Town Hall is not the home to the municipal offices but was built as the replacement for the 18th century assembly rooms. The main space is a handsome classical hall with a stage that was filled to capacity by the orchestra. However, the sound had surprisingly clarity and immediacy to it.

Creating a fun day out as well as broadening the mind: Jack Bazalgette on his first Cheltenham Music Festival as artistic director

Jack Bazalgette (Photo: Ehimetalor Unuabona)

Jack Bazalgette is perhaps best known as the co-founder and director of through the noise, which since 2020 has programmed more than 130 classical music concerts in non-traditional venues using an innovative crowd-funding model to widen audience appeal [see my review of their noisenight at the 2024 Leeds Lieder Festival]. 

Last year, Jack was appointed as artistic director of the Cheltenham Music Festival and the 2025 festival, which runs from 4 to 12 July, is the first under his stewardship. This year, not only is the festival celebrating its 80th birthday, but also the 150th birthday of local son, Gustav Holst.

When I ask Jack what, for him are the highlights of this year's festival he charmingly demurs but highlights the festival's final concert on 12 July when the BBC National Orchestra of Wales (BBC NOW), conductor Gergely Madaras is playing a programme which reflects the festival's early years. For Jack this is important, he points out that so many great pieces were commissioned by or written for the festival and he was keen to highlight these. The 12 July concert will feature Malcolm Arnold's Symphony No. 5 which premiered at Cheltenham in 1961 and which Jack sees is a masterpiece that he seeks to reclaim for the festival. The whole programme has these sorts of links, there is Britten's Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, which rather amazingly premiered at the first festival in 1945, a new piece by Anna Semple which has been commissioned specially, and Elgar's Enigma Variations which were in that first ever concert.

Celebrating 80 years: Cheltenham Music Festival with new music from Deborah Pritchard & Anna Semple, alongside music from the first festival

Cheltenham Music Festival 2023

Established in 1945 in the months following the Second World War, the Cheltenham Music Festival is celebrating 80 years this year. The festival was part of a post-war arts festival movement that also saw the launch of the Festival of Britain and Edinburgh International Festival. This year's Music Festival runs from 4 to 12 July 2025, but there is also the Jazz Festival (30 April to 5 May), Science Festival (3 to 8 June) and Literature Festival (10 to 19 October).

The Festivals’ parent charity, Cheltenham Festivals – responsible for all four festival and their associated learning and outreach programmes – is celebrating its 80th birthday by pledging to give 80,000 children access to the arts throughout the year. 2025’s Cheltenham Music Festival will focus more than ever on transformative musical experiences, reaching new and bigger audiences, and enthusing and engaging the next generation of children. This year's programme includes Elgar's Enigma Variations that featured in those first concerts, plus and Benjamin Britten's Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes which premiered at the first festival, and Malcolm Arnold's Symphony No. 5 which premiered at the 1961 festival

The season is the first to be programmed by the Music Festival’s new Artistic Director, Jack Bazalgette  (co-founder of through the noise). 

Alongside the formal concerts there will be two Concerts for Schools, including one specifically designed for pupils with special and educational development needs (SEND) pupils, and a Relaxed Concert for Families with additional needs, all audiences of every age will be made welcome. New for this 80th year is and ensemble formed from existing local groups, the Cheltenham Festival Orchestra, which will perform with tenor James Gilchrist and the Cheltenham Bach Choir, with David Crown conducting in Mozart’s Requiem. And the local South Cotswold Big Sing Group will be taking part in Berlioz’s Te Deum at at Gloucester Cathedral with British Sinfonietta and mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly.

New commissions include a new octet from Deborah Pritchard to be performed on the first day of the festival by Britten Sinfonia alongside Mendelssohn's Octet, and a new piece by Anna Semple for BBC National Orchestra of Wales.  Songs for the Earth, an ensemble led by violinist Bridget O’Donnell and bassist Misha Mullov-Abbado, that fuses folk, jazz and classical music will be performing specially written pieces at Cheltenham a part of a meditation on music and nature.

Rising stars performing at the festival include violinist Braimah Kanneh-Mason, cellist Hadewych van Gent and guitarist Plínio Fernandes in Bloch and Bach, guitarist Alexandra Whittingham, trumpeter Aaron Akugbo and pianist Zeynep Özsuca. There are recitals from three BBC New Generation Artists - pianist Giorgi Gigashvili, tenor Santiago Sanchez and accordionist Ryan Corbett.

Major names at this year's festival include Imogen Cooper in Beethoven piano sonatas, Pavel Kolesnikov in Bach's Goldberg Variations, the Gesualdo Six and the Chelys Consort of Viols in Orlando Gibbons, the Vision Quartet performing Weber, Ravel and Dvorak from memory, plus pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason, and baritone Gerald Finley in recital.

Relaxed performance - Cheltenham Music Festival 2023

Full details from the festival website.

Cheltenham Music Festival returns for 2021 with 21 world premieres and free stage concerts

The Cheltenham Music Festival is returning to live music with a festival from 2 to 11 July 2021 which includes 21 world premieres and a number of free stage concerts. Large-scale concerts include Kirill Karabits and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and Martyn Brabbins and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Other performers include the Carice Singers, pianist Steven Osborne, mezzo-soprano Dame Sarah Connolly, cellist Matthew Barley, pianist Ivana Gavric, pianist Imogen Cooper, La Serenissima, saxophonist Jess Gillam, the Albion Quartet and 12 Ensemble.

There will be world premieres of Matthew Whittall's new choral settings of Robert Louis Stevenson's Songs of Travel, Luke Styles' new work performed alongside Britten's Canticles, plus premieres of music by Lillie Harris, Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Jonathan Woolgar, Sarah Nicolls and Maja Bugge, and a UK premiere from Alex Freeman.

The Cheltenham Composer Academy returns this year from 5-9 July. The scheme supports early-career composers (aged 18+), offering them professional advice and mentoring. This year will see 12 composers working with Daniel Kidane to workshop, perform and record their works with The Carice Singers and a chamber ensemble from Chineke!

The festival continues its partnership with the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists with four lunchtime recitals at Cheltenham Town Hall, all broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, from the Consone Quartet,  mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska with tenor Alessandro Fisher and pianist Sholto Kynoch,  jazz guitarist Rob Luft with his Quintet, and the Mithras Trio. Other young artists at the festival include the Maxwell Quartet who will be performing a work by Dutch composer Joey Roukens.

Celebrating the centenary of the birth of Oscar-award-winning film composer Sir Malcolm Arnold, the Festival presents two screenings of his most famous films, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness and Whistle Down the Wind, as well as including his Concerto for two violins and strings in the BBC Nagtional Orchestra of Wales concert.  

There will be two Music and Mindfulness sessions, led by composer and guitarist Will Crawford. The sessions will guide audiences through the use of music in meditation and mindfulness practices to help manage stress and aid relaxation in everyday life.  

For those wishing to enjoy the local surroundings, a guided tour takes audiences in the footsteps of Hubert Parry around the countryside of Highnam, where he grew up. Led by George Parris, Director of The Carice Singers and Parry scholar, the walk sheds light on the composer’s life, listening to his music in the very setting which inspired much of his writing.

The Free Stage mixes the Cheltenham Music Festival with the Cheltenham Jazz Festival, hosts some of the best up-and-coming performers from the worlds of classical, jazz, indie, folk, Americana and beyond.

Full details from the Cheltenham Music Festival website.