Festival: Cheltenham Music Festival

Cheltenham Music Festival offers nine days of sublime and surprising musical adventures. The Festival takes place in first-class venues in the beautiful Regency town of Cheltenham and across the Cotswolds in cathedrals, abbeys and churches. 

Expect orchestral concerts by world-class orchestras and soloists in the fine acoustic of Cheltenham Town Hall, superb chamber music concerts in the Pittville Pump Rooms set in beautiful parkland and choral concerts in the glorious spaces of Gloucester Cathedral and Tewkesbury Abbey. 

Impressive past performers have included Nicola Benedetti, with whom the festival has had a long association, the Hallé, the CBSO, Bryn Terfel, Steven Isserlis, Alison Balsom, Milos and Evelyn Glennie. The Festival is proud to offer a platform for emerging performers, including BBC New Generation Artists, BBC Young Musician winners and local young musicians from Gloucestershire. There are opportunities for over 3000 local school children to make, enjoy and appreciate music, while the annual Classical Mixtape presents a wonderfully varied concert in an informal, accessible way.

The inaugural festival saw Benjamin Britten conducting the first performances of his Interludes and Dances from Peter Grimes and a strong focus on British contemporary music continues to this day.  The Festival’s Composer Academy, gives early-career composers the chance to have their compositions workshopped, performed and recorded. And Composium brings some of the most influential people from the classical music industry together for discussion and debate.