ANNUAL REVIEW 2007
cheltenhamfestivals.com
FESTIVAL DIRECTORS & STAFF Current Directors Sir Michael McWilliam Chairman Peter Bond Member, Finance & General Purposes Committee Jonathan Carr Chairman, Audit Committee Christopher Cook Chairman, Music Festival Peter Elliott Member, Audit Committee Paul Fry (Retires July 08) James Heneage Chairman, Literature Festival Virginia Isaac Member, Finance & General Purposes Committee Martin Knight Dr Gill Samuels CBE Chairman, Science Festival Ion Trewin (Retires July 08) George Whitmore Chairman, Jazz Festival Dr David Wood Honorary Treasurer Donna Renney Chief Executive Artistic, Executive Directors & Festival Managers Sharon Bishop* Science Festival Manager Meurig Bowen* Music Festival Director (from August 2007) Martyn Brabbins Music Festival Artistic Director (until July 2007) Kate Danielson* Jazz Festival Executive Director (until June 2008) Tony Dudley-Evans Jazz Festival Artistic Director Clair Greenaway* Literature Festival Executive Director Dr Mark Lythgoe Science Festival Director Sarah Smyth* Literature Festival Artistic Director Professor Kathy Sykes Science Festival Director Sophie Winstanley* Acting Jazz Festival Manager (from July 2008) Central Departments Helena Bibby* HR and Office Manager Philippa Claridge* Education Manager Ian George* Marketing Manager Carol Malcolmson Assistant to Chief Executive Sarah Rawlings* Head of Development Keith Woodman* Finance Manager * denotes member of Executive Senior Management Team
CONTENTS Chairman’s Statement
4–5
Chief Executive’s Report
6–7
Finances
8–9
Highlights of 2007
10 – 11
Education & Community Programme
12 – 13
Jazz Festival
14 – 15
Science Festival
16 – 17
Music Festival
18 – 19
Literature Festival
20 – 21
Jazz Generation Performers
22 – 23
Famelab Finalists and Reserves
23
Festival Academy Players
24
Commissions& Premieres
24
Wellcome Trust Events
25
Winner of the Cheltenham Booker Prize 1932
25
Sponsors & Supporters
26
Patrons
27
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sir michael Mcwilliam, chairman
chairman’s statement Cheltenham Festivals is responsible for two of the country’s oldest festivals and two of its newest. The first Music Festival was held in 1945 followed by a Literature Festival in 1949. Our first Jazz Festival was held in 1996 followed by the Science Festival in 2002. The national scene is one of vibrant festival activity with sponsors, funding bodies, and audiences spoilt for choice. The challenge for those responsible for organising festivals, especially when aiming to reach beyond a purely local catchment of supporters, is to articulate a festival profile within attainable resources that will give their enterprise distinctive identity and raison d’etre. The Board initiated a debate around these issues during the year and it will inform our evolving strategy. The main task last year was to establish Cheltenham Festivals as a cultural enterprise outside the framework of municipal operations, albeit with the continued valued provision of arms length services, revenue and development grants. It is now apparent that there are opportunities to be seized whereby the Borough Council and Cheltenham Festivals could together raise the profile of Cheltenham as a festival town, to mutual benefit. This is referred to in the chief executive’s report discussing Cheltenham as a ’spa for the mind’. I look forward to working with the Borough Council leadership in realising this potential. Strategies are needed for improving the town’s cultural infrastructure and to coordinate better the promotion of Cheltenham’s cultural resources. Our other major stakeholder behind refining the identity of Cheltenham Festivals is the Arts Council. The three-year framework grant award to 2011 contained a welcome uplift, but we are confident that, despite a funding environment that is both competitive and stringent, there is a compelling case for further development and capacity building support. In her Chief Executive’s report, Donna Renney gives a lively account of the festival year, as well of developments within the organisation. Audiences enjoyed the public face of the festivals, including our efforts to reach out beyond the confines of the Town Hall, while the Board is most appreciative of the dedicated effort from all concerned to deliver these results.
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Individual festival programmes acknowledge the vital contribution made by patrons and sponsors, and it is perhaps invidious to pick out names. Yet it is worth celebrating the variety of organisations that have seen value in underpinning Cheltenham’s festival reputation, or have enabled something special to take place. Messier Dowty can perhaps claim precedence for supporting Cheltenham Festivals since their inception. The Jerwood Charitable Foundation has taken a special interest in sponsoring new generation jazz groups. The Summerfield Trust has been key to the educational outreach of the festivals. The Times, Daily Telegraph, BBC Radio 2, 3 and 4, as well as the television station Channel 4 have all played a crucial role in disseminating festival programmes along with their sponsorship.
Cheltenham Festivals are a ‘spa for the mind’
Cheltenham Festivals is responsible for two of the country’s oldest festivals and two of its newest A member of the Board chairs the respective advisory committee for each of the festivals and plays a leading role in supporting programmes and attracting sponsorship. Ion Trewin fulfilled this role for the Literature Festival with great distinction for 12 years until his retirement as Chair of the Literature Festival at the end of last year. We shall miss his counsel, but anticipate his continued involvement as a participant in future festivals. Two other directors have retired from the Board, Nick Spencer and Julie Winterman and I am grateful for the contribution each of them made to the festivals. Three new directors have joined the Board, Peter Elliott who comes with a legal career background, Jonathan Carr who for many years worked in the City for both L. Messel and Warburgs and has been High Sheriff of Gloucestershire for the past year, and Martin Knight who comes with experience of the City and of university administration.
The McMaster report Supporting Excellence in the Arts earlier this year has laid down a challenge to arts organisations to reach out ever wider into their surrounding communities, to embrace innovation and artistic risk, to have an international perspective. This bracing vision comes without a proferred safety net. Cheltenham Festivals engages with this agenda, yet it has still to reach a state of financial sustainability with accrued reserves capable of withstanding revenue shocks, and so a degree of caution will be mandatory until a more robust position has been achieved. Notwithstanding this constraint, the 2008 festivals provide a cornucopia of stimulating and enjoyable offerings, and there is confidence that continued progress can be made in consolidating the reputation of Cheltenham Festivals.
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chief executive’s report
Delivering Great Festivals From an early stage of my involvement with the Festivals, I recognised a creative energy in the organisation which was being frustrated because the organisation had outgrown its structures. So, when I was appointed Chief Executive in 2006, my aim was to develop a framework for the organisation that would allow the untapped creative power of the Festivals to be harnessed. I have focused on strengthening the staffing of each Festival, building a strong senior management and gradually developing the central teams of sponsorship and marketing. The staffing and organisational changes that have been put in place over the past year have enabled improved long-term planning and the development of more rewarding relationships with programming and funding partners. The Festivals have an excellent record for artistic quality on which to build their future, and it is my belief that Cheltenham Festivals has the potential to be one of the great Festival brands of the world. However, achieving this will depend on a continued surge in our creative programming and the development of improved physical facilities. In addition, gaining the recognition the festivals deserve will require the development and delivery of a well honed marketing and communications plan as well as the ongoing commitment of our key supporters and stakeholders. We continue to put in place an executive and team structure that reflects these priorities. The confirmation by Cheltenham Borough Council in February 2007 of our £500,000 investment grant gave us the means to make the improvements in operating facilities referred to above so that we could plan to build revenues over a 5-year period. Our thanks go to Cllr Paul McLain, then Cabinet Deputy with responsibility for Finance and Culture, for leading such a bold proposal in support of developing Cheltenham’s international reputation for culture. We are grateful to the Borough Council for its on-going support of the Festivals and look forward to developing the partnership further. The appointment of Meurig Bowen as the new full-time Director of the Music Festival, and the investment in our website with the appointment of Pete Riley as full-time Website Manager, were major milestones in staffing developments this year.
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We finally flew the Borough Council nest when we moved into our own offices, kindly supplied to us through an in-kind sponsorship arrangement by HSBC Bank. Previously, we had been accommodated shoulder-toshoulder with our Town Hall colleagues in offices that we had outgrown. The impact of having all four Festival teams working together has revolutionised the way we operate and been important in allowing the creative development of the organisation by facilitating the sharing of ideas between teams.
Cheltenham Festivals has the potential to be one of the great Festival brands of the world Focusing on establishing financial viability for the Festivals over the coming 5 years, we had rewarding discussions with Board members and staff about the overarching brand of the Festivals and what we wanted the values of the organisation to be in preparation for launching a common marque across all four Festivals. The new anvil-shaped marque was finally chosen at the end of the year with help from our design consultant, Howard Milton, although it was not launched until February 2008. The conclusion of our deliberations about Festivals’ values was a re-affirmation of our commitment to produce Festivals with ‘attitude’, ‘bite’ and ‘edge’: hence, the extra sharpness to the point of our anvil to symbolise this. We believe the programme of every Festival should give audiences the opportunity to discover and participate in new and interesting work, and should challenge perceptions. Our programmes will always provide counterpoints to what some critics would call the tastes of ‘Middle England’. Nevertheless, we do not allow political or artistic fashion to deter us from giving our audiences access to outstanding performances of high art which some critics may deem inaccessible. Our overriding goal is to give as many entrance points as possible for people to try the Festivals and a wide range of events is on offer at every Festival to suit audiences’ tastes, knowledge and experience. It is our job to give people reasons to try new experiences and to support them in new cultural adventures. Another decision has been to emphasize our continuing commitment to each Festival’s core discipline whether that be contemporary Literature, Music, Jazz or Science. However, cross-fertilisation between Festivals is encouraged and we constantly look for links between Festival activities.
Donna Renney Chief Executive, Cheltenham Festivals
Throughout all of our work we seek to be: • • • • •
Demanding of the very best; Open and dynamic; Creative in finding ways to engage audiences; Supportive of young talent; Willing to take measured risks.
We see an opportunity for Cheltenham to revive its fame as a spa to which people came to take the waters to improve their health, to being a place to which visitors come to nourish and exercise the mind. The Festivals will provide a place to explore interesting themes, to take part in debates, hear different and unusual music, challenge one’s perceptions and enhance knowledge. In short, a spa for the mind. Festivals are by their nature well placed to drive cultural change as they provide intense cultural experiences for people which can have a lasting impact. With the increased artistic activity of the Everyman Theatre, a resurgence of arts activity both formal and informal at the University of Gloucestershire, and plans for the development of the Art Gallery and Museum, there is the hope that over the next 5 -10 years, we shall see Cheltenham develop as a place with a quality and dynamic cultural offering. If the key cultural providers can work effectively together, albeit they are competitors in many ways, then Cheltenham with all its other benefits of stunning architecture and green spaces could become a cultural destination of importance. However, improvements in its cultural buildings will need to be made, as the growth, particularly in Festival activity now challenges the current facilities and the expectations of 21st century audiences are high. For our ambitious vision to be realised we will need to conquer our own financial challenges. It is tough for the Festivals to overcome the year-on-year loss of revenue funding from the Borough Council, so we were pleased that our trading results were much improved on last year with only a small deficit of £8,063 being incurred. However, the first instalment of the infrastructure grant from CBC was not fully used in the period and the financial outcome consequently showed a surplus of £92,400. This surplus is due to be spent in future years. Media coverage was again excellent with a value approaching £3 million.
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chief executive’s report
FINANCES
The amount of improvement required in our financial performance over the next 5 years is not to be underestimated but we received encouraging news at the end of 2007. When many arts organisations were receiving devastating news from the Arts Council, we were told that we would receive a 26% increase in our annual Arts Council grant from 2009. This is a direct reflection of the quality we have achieved over the past few years and our success in increasing audiences. We were delighted that our strong performance was recognised by the Arts Council in a very competitive environment. However, to put this in context our Arts Council grant was 6% of turnover this year and in 2009 our current forecasts show that even with the increase it will rise to just 7%. Therefore, there will be no let-up in our drive for additional revenue sources. Tables showing growth in box office and sponsorship as well as income and expenditure are shown here.
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Sponsorship and Box Office Income
Income (k)
Sponsorship Income 2006 & 2007 £450 £400 £350 £300 £250 £200 £150 £100 £50 £0 JF
SF
MF
LF
General a/c
Festivals 2006
2007
Box Office Income 2006 & 2007 £600 Income (k)
Growth in 2007 was impressive with some 14,000 extra tickets being sold. We achieved a growth in income of 30% against a growth in costs of 19%. All Festivals put in good performances in increasing box office revenue with the Jazz Festival performing particularly well registering growth of 53% over the previous year. Also, the Music Festival had one of its best ever years in terms of box office receipts recording 32% growth over 2006.
£500 £400 £300 £200 £100 £0 JF 2006
SF 2007
Festivals
MF
LF
Growth in 2007 was impressive with some 14,000 extra tickets being sold Sources of Income Income 2006 - £2,241,230
Income 2007 - £2,910,896
£57,470
£68,812
£173,672
£169,024
£250,000 £306,428 £996,953
£249,424
£1,130,497
£1038,491
£711,355
44% Sponsorship, donations and misc grants
39% Sponsorship, donations and misc grants
32% Box office
35% Box office
14% CBC revenue support (grant and in kind)
9% CBC revenue support (grant and in kind)
8% Arts Council England grant
9% CBC infrastructure LABGI grant
3% Other misc income
6% Arts Council England grant 2% Other misc income
Expenditure Expenditure 2006 - £2,360,717
Expenditure 2007 - £2,818,496 £147,744
£156,839
£176,501
£480,987
£482,281 £990,253
£1,197,844 £732,638
£814,126
42% Programme
43% Programme
31% Fees & Salaries
29% Fees & Salaries
20% Marketing & Sponsorship
17% Marketing & Sponsorship
7% Administration
6% Administration 5% LABGI spend
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chief executive’s report
HIGHLIGHTS OF 2007 Throughout my activity report of the year, I find myself drawn to write about the success of our partnerships. Developing trusting relationships with partners interested in co-programming allows the Festivals to put on many very special events that cannot be seen elsewhere. As an introduction to my report on the Festivals, I have tried to pick out a few of the highlights which this year include strong growth in local partnerships for our education and outreach work particularly among community groups such as Hester’s Way. Within the Jazz Festival, working with Radio 2 not only resulted in an outstanding Friday Night is Music Night concert broadcast live from the Town Hall, but also one of the most sensational and memorable jazz evenings of 2007, when the BBC Big Band performed in the Everyman with Swedish electronica duo, Koop, complete with a mesmerizing Japanese singer. This was an unusual brew and attracted a young, funky audience. If Sir Brian McMaster wants excellent culture to be events which profoundly affect or change an individual, then the Koop event with the BBC Big Band would have gained his approval. The metamorphosis of the Jerwood Rising Stars to the Jazz Generation demonstrated just how successful the scheme has been in identifying talented young British performers and it was particularly satisfying to see its development. Another scheme for the very talented which continued strongly in 2007 at the Science Festival was NESTA FameLab. The programme identifies scientists with a particular gift for engaging a public audience and one of the unforeseen outcomes of the competition has been the development of connections between the contestants, to the extent that many of them now work together to produce new communication events.
On the theme of promoting links between Festivals, we programmed biomedical events with the Wellcome Trust at both the Science and Literature Festivals. Wellcome events at the Science Festival focused on human enhancement examining the development of drugs to do away with the need to sleep, the drive for longevity, the use of mind-enhancing drugs to do well in school, and the return of eugenics in the 21st Century. Whilst at Literature, our Wellcome partnership undertook 6 events entitled ‘Writing Medicine’ combining authors and scientists to explore the interaction between science and literature. The strand tackled the following subjects; the research process involved when writing about medicine, the TV portrayal of medicine, writing about autism, illness and recovery, and examining how language reflects human nature. Turning to Music, the American theme was a lively one and perhaps made more poignant because of the tensions with America over both the Iraq war and America’s attitude to curbing climate change. The two great orchestral concerts by first-time visitors, the Brno Philharmonic from the Czech Republic, over the final weekend of the Music Festival shone a spotlight on orchestral work and brought it to the heart of the Festival. Our Festival year ends with a 10-day celebration of Literature and it is testament to the skill of the Literature Festival team that even though this Festival now sells 87,000 tickets, it has not lost its friendly and intimate feel and still offers some very small and specialised events often in partnership with its guest directors who this year were British comedian, writer and broadcaster, Armando Ianucci, and well-known philosopher, A.C. Grayling. Finally, our expansion overseas into S.E. Europe with the British Council and FameLab – 12.5 % of television audiences watched the FameLab final in Turkey – as well as the prospect of the first Cheltenham Science Festival in St Louis, Missouri is very exciting for the future of the company.
Community concert given by Brno Philharmonic Orchestra at Pates Grammar School. A young maestro takes the baton!
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very special events that cannot be seen elsewhere
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chief executive’s report
education & Community Programme The more detailed part of my report starts with a review of some of our most important work; the projects undertaken by the Education Department. Providing and encouraging access for schools and community groups to the treasure trove of culture that the Festivals can offer is central to our work and of the utmost importance in addressing the social divisions in our society. This year saw the final year of the 3-year grant given to us by the Summerfield Trust to develop the infrastructure of our Education Department. The grant enabled us to put in place a proper strategy to focus our resources allowing us to extend our work with schools and to embed our operation among local community groups. We now have a much admired and really impressive education team. It has only two members of staff who add incredible value to the Festivals. We would, of course, like it to be larger and often there is more demand for our work than we can cater for. Every Festival ran education projects. Jazz – 9 schools, 239 pupils ●
Jazz It Up! – Jazz it Up! has now been in operation for a number of years and this year we extended our workshop provision for school jazz bands with a focus on improvisation. The schools then performed at the Festival itself.
Science – 6,365 children and young people ● 15 events and 15 workshops for schools covered Key Stages 1-5. ● A new project this year, in partnership with Creative Partnerships, was the Young Science Communicators. This project ran in the nine months preceding the Festival for schoolchildren aged 11 to 16. Seventy-two pupils from four secondary schools in the Forest of Dean developed a ‘science showcase’, which they performed for other schoolchildren on the Festival’s main arena stage. Many of the pupils had been totally turned off science prior to the project. Adam Hart-Davis compered the final event and was effusive in his praise for both the concept behind the project and the pupils’ achievements. The different approach to science teaching resulted in one class of disaffected 14 year olds who regularly played truant consistently turning up for science lessons during the project. It allowed them to explore science outside of the normal classroom setting.
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Music – 345 participants ● AmeriSong – a singing and writing project culminating in a performance by 240 primary school pupils which presented the history of modern America through story and song. ● Festival Academy - a day of singing, writing and performing involving Music Festival Academy musicians and Performing Arts students at the National Star College. The College serves students with physical disabilities and associated learning difficulties. This workshop was led by the extrovert young conductor, William Carslake. The pupils wrote and choreographed their own song about fruit, entitled ‘Juicy Love’. Literature – 5,341 pupils ● 15 events for schools, held mainly at the Everyman Theatre, giving thousands of pupils the opportunity to meet their favourite authors, discover some new ones and exercise their literacy muscles along the way. ● Across the Bard – 134 children took part in this project for Key Stage 2 and 3 pupils, run by actress Fiona Ross. Each of the eight participating groups enjoyed four workshops which focused on the language and world of Shakespeare through his play The Winter’s Tale. The workshops culminated in a spellbinding performance at Cheltenham Bournside School of eight highly original interpretations of the dominant themes and characters in the play. At least three of the schools were in socially deprived areas. A letter received from a parent stated “…my son actually enjoyed the whole process and it didn’t involve maths or football!” It was the first visit of our future Chairman of the Literature Festival, James Heneage, to an education project and he was entranced by the quality of work he saw. Community Programme This year we have focused our energies on community organisations in Cheltenham, and have had a number of useful meetings and conversations with a range of community leaders and workers here. Establishing successful, by which we mean long-term, relationships within communities happens slowly and is achieved through small steps in close consultation with community leaders.
Providing and encouraging access for schools and community groups to the treasure trove of culture that the Festivals can offer Literature Festival Community Programme
Storytelling
● Book Stand – six reading and creative-writing workshops for inmates at HM Prison Gloucester, run by wordsmith Marcus Moore. In Marcus’s words: “All in all, this was a splendid project which, in my view, achieved more than we might have expected. HMP Gloucester can be a harsh environment and one where the inmate population is very transient. That several participants attended regularly was a real bonus. Word seemed to get round that Book Stand was a good thing. Opportunities for prisoners to welcome a writer into their midst are not that common. We had a lot of fun, exercised a few minds, and covered countless topics in conversation and on the page. Many fine pieces of writing were produced, of which I hope the lads feel justifiably proud.” I visited one of the workshops, and everyone I spoke to expressed their enjoyment of the project and their dismay that it was about to end.
In May we took a storyteller to three venues in disadvantaged areas in Cheltenham as well as to the Art Gallery and Museum. The Centres that hosted our visit were:
● Ten Days – this was a creative response to the floods of July, run by local poet Brenda Read-Brown. Brenda wrote a series of poignant poems in response to conversations with people who were caught up in the disaster. The poems were broadcast on BBC Radio Gloucestershire and displayed at the Festival, where they attracted a lot of attention. The project was immensely popular as it gave people the opportunity to tell their story and to be listened to.
• • • •
Family Space in Hesters Way Hesters Way Children’s Centre Whaddon Children’s Centre Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum
Taking the Festivals out and about with a storyteller was a great opportunity to address the myth that the Festivals are exclusive, expensive and take place only at ‘inaccessible’ venues in town. We were able to highlight the fun side of the Science and Music Festivals and to flag up the fun days and free/less expensive events aimed at families, children and young people. These sessions were well-received. It was interesting to discover that no one in these areas knew about the free activities; many people were keen to find out more and were enthusiastic about coming to try the Discover Zone and the family fun days. Snakes and Stories During the Science Festival we returned to the Children’s Centres with Rhys Jones, a herpetologist, some of his snakes and a storyteller. These sessions were very popular with children and adults alike; Rhys is passionate about educating the public about reptiles – in a very accessible way – and the Centres are very keen to be visited by the Festivals. Community Choir In June we held two open sessions with a local community choir, again in Hesters Way and Whaddon. The choir is now the Cheltenham Festivals’ Community Choir.
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chief executive’s report
JAZZ FESTIVAL When the vibrations of the Jazz Festival are felt throughout the Town over the May Bank Holiday weekend, I often ponder how seemingly little provision for Jazz there is in the UK compared with other genres of music. Jazz has never quite made the mainstream in the UK. Yet, what always strikes me about the Jazz Festival is the diversity of audiences it attracts. The Festival brings a very different audience to the Festivals and this presents enormous opportunities. In 2007 we improved our previous record for reaching new audiences racking up a number of firsts. For the first time we held an event in the 2,200 seater venue at the Cheltenham Racecourse with Madeleine Peyroux playing to a sell-out audience, and we introduced our very first outdoor free Marquee, giving everybody a taste of Jazz. We have a commitment to helping young local performers and over the Bank Holiday weekend, some 10 local and regional Fringe bands played to the crowds crammed into Imperial Gardens, enjoying the glorious sunshine and soaking up the wonderful Festival atmosphere. Bands included The Bridge’, ‘Policy Brief’ and ‘Simon le Fort’. It was a great outdoor celebration of the Festival for everyone and met one of our key aims to be much more a part of the town. The expansion of the Jazz Festival in terms of box office income and numbers of tickets sold was impressive. In total, we attracted over 1,000 new audience members to the Festival and 2,000 more tickets were sold than last year. Our audiences were drawn by carefully-programmed exclusive Festival events, including the Mercury-nominated Guillemots playing a specially-devised free jazz set and three unique events with our partners BBC Radio 2. One of these was when Michael Parkinson presented a special live broadcast of Friday Night is Music Night with Curtis Stigers. This contrasted with the BBC Big Band performing with legendary band leader, Bob Brookmeyer and glamorous Brazilian pianist Eliane Elias, and on the following night with Swedish electronica duo Koop. With an eclectic programme divided into three strands, encompassing mainstream jazz with a broad appeal, contemporary jazz and club jazz, our aim was to provide avenues for people to gain access to the Festival. For our jazz lovers, we had a rare UK residency with American jazz legend Bob Brookmeyer accompanied by his protégés from the New York downtown scene. The Festival also welcomed from the US, virtuoso saxophonist Charles Lloyd.
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From the British scene, our close partnership with the Jerwood Charitable Foundation took a leap forward as our young musicians from the past 5 years of the Jerwood Rising Stars series became the Jerwood Jazz Generation. We have provided a showcase for over 50 artists in the series so far and this year we invited back eight to present their new work. We had 2 new commissions, one from saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, the other from guitarist Jonny Phillips who fulfilled a long-term ambition to collaborate with some of Brazil’s most acclaimed musicians, including Teco Cardoso. The Festival prides itself on offering new experiences for audiences and artists alike, and we were delighted that a recent Arts Council review commented on the significant contribution of Jazz to the national profile of Cheltenham Festivals as a cutting-edge festival town. Our series of club jazz for the 18 – 30 year old crowd plays a large part in creating the atmosphere and this year we were delighted to welcome The Cinematic Orchestra launching their new album and Gilles Peterson presenting the star of his new record label, Ben Westbeech.
The Festival brings a very different audience to the Festivals and this presents enormous opportunities
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chief executive’s report
SCIENCE FESTIVAL The importance of the Festival as an arena for public debate was demonstrated by the appearance of highprofile and influential speakers – including Guest Director Jonathon Porritt, Leader of the Opposition, David Cameron, and entrepreneur Richard Branson. The Festival plays a vital role in allowing people to hear directly from some of the great thinkers, scientists and politicians of the day without the intermediary of the media. Nearly 16,000 tickets were sold for the five days of the Festival, and 10,000 people visited the free Discover Zone interactive exhibition and Family Fun Day. Sixty-five adult events, 21 family events, and 30 events for schools plus a host of free activities provided a great breadth of experience for visitors. The Festival achieved overall sales of 71% of capacity, and the family and schools events reached 87% and 90% of capacity respectively. The free Discover Zone was, once again, a huge draw and was packed throughout the Festival with visitors taking part in activities from rowing races to herding robotic sheep with robotic sheepdogs. The first ever Family Fun Day on the Saturday of the Festival attracted many passersby who might not otherwise have visited the Festival. Guest Director, Jonathon Porritt, programmed a series of challenging events with an environmental theme. ‘Turning the Tide’ proved to be a popular discussion on the value of tidal barrage on the River Severn with a particular regional relevance, and environmentalist Fred Pearce discussed his strong opinions on climate stability. The Wellcome Trust supported a strand of events discussing human enhancement. Four events investigated the controversial means by which individuals can be artificially enhanced to improve performance or health – from drugs that help children to concentrate at school to a debate about the value of life with a disability. By day the ExperiTent was home to children’s workshops, but in the evening it became the venue for After Hours, an innovation that allowed speakers to experiment with new material. It was the home for the music strand featuring, amongst others, Jem Finer of The Pogues, who uses science in his compositions, and John Mattius’s ‘cortical songs’. In addition to the schools’ programme which is much appreciated by teachers, the Festival ran a project entitled, Young Science Communicators. Further information about this project can be found in the Education and Community Section of the report.
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The ambitious sponsorship target was achieved in 2007. Our longstanding relationship with the pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, continued to underpin our fundraising efforts and many other key sponsors from both the public and private sectors - including the Medical Research Council, Rolls Royce and British Energy - continued to support our work. Media partnerships with Channel 4 and Daily Telegraph helped raise our national profile and our audience reach.
an arena for public debate Another highlight was NESTA FameLab, our exciting national competition, run in partnership with NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts), to find talented scientists and engineers who can share their enthusiasm and knowledge with the public. In its third year, the competition kicked off with seven regional heats across the UK, with entrants from universities and industry. The introduction of a presenting skills workshop at each heat added to the experience for those taking part and to the overwhelming success of the competition. For the seven finalists and seven reserves, a weekend residential masterclass gave a further opportunity to work with expert science communicators, scientists and media trainers to improve their skills. The national final took part at the Festival in June, where Nic Harrigan excelled on stage to become the 2007 champion, winning £2,000 and an internship with Channel 4. Many previous FameLab finalists also returned to take part in this year’s Festival, as well as appearing at other science events in the UK and abroad, with some even appearing on the radio and TV. Over the past three years NESTA FameLab has uncovered some outstandingly talented people whom we may never have found had it not been for the competition.
This year saw a considerable growth in the Festival’s international presence. The first international FameLab competitions were run with the British Council in nine countries in South East Europe, the organizers having received training in the UK. The nine winners travelled to the UK to attend the Festival, and took part in an international showcase during the UK final. It was moving to witness how FameLab was contributing to the development of science communication in so many countries. Towards the end of the year, Professor Frank Burnet, one of the founder Directors of the Cheltenham Science Festival and now the Festival’s International Director and I travelled to St Louis, Missouri as guests of the St Louis Science Center. Discussions had been ongoing between our organizations for about a year, exploring the possibility of distilling the essence of the Cheltenham Science Festival to run a similar event in St Louis. Both of us were very impressed by the team that Doug King, President of the St Louis Science Centre, has recruited and were convinced that a partnership could be established. It is planned to run the first Festival in October 2008 in advance of the Presidential election, but at a time that will not conflict with the matches of the St Louis Cardinals! Several of our UK Science Festival speakers will take part in the Festival in St Louis.
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chief executive’s report
music FESTIVAL The 2007 Festival saw one of the best box-office takings ever with an additional 500 people buying tickets. In total we sold 14,708 tickets an increase of over 1,600 tickets on the previous year. Russia and Scotland had provided themes for Martyn Brabbins’ previous Festivals and this year it was the turn of America, its musical connections and influences. As part of the American theme we hosted an American composer-in-residence who really did compose whilst in Cheltenham. Many of the projects and strands developed under Martyn Brabbins’ directorship reached maturity this year and this provided a new depth to the Festival. This was particularly true of the Festival Academy which has developed a strong audience following and whose performance of Tarik O’Regan’s new work with clarinetist Michael Collins epitomised the very essence of the Academy’s goals. The Festival got under way with a rousing all-American programme performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra under the conductorship of the extremely energetic and crowd-pleasing Rumon Gamba. This is a repertoire that the BBC Concert Orchestra perform superbly and the orchestra was enhanced with a powerful performance by Chloë Hanslip, the soloist in the Barber violin concerto, who demonstrated her virtuoso skills in the final movement. Well-known soprano, Joan Rodgers replaced the American, Nancy Gustafson in the second Barber piece the famous Knoxville: Summer of 1915 a nostalgic, dreamlike work depicting a summer evening in Tennessee.
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Early Music was well represented in the programme and well supported by audiences. There were two particularly unusual and interesting concerts with support from the Early Music Network. The Pump Room provided a splendid setting for the first of these, the Masque of Moments. Masques and Antimasques were wonderfully performed led by lute player, Elizabeth Kenny. The concert celebrated the sumptuous scoring of English music written for the early 17th Century. This was followed on Monday by a performance from the King’s Singers and early music group, L’Arpeggiata. The concert, entitled Los Impossibles was held in the spiritual setting and beautiful acoustic of Tewkesbury Abbey. It was described by many of our audience members “as a revelation and an introduction to a new genre of music”. The performance focused on the rich baroque repertoire of sixteenth century Italy, Spain and Portugal which feature in an 18th Century Mexican manuscript revealing how the New World culture influenced the music in a sort of cultural inter-breeding to produce a new refreshing musical style.
The 2007 Festival saw one of the best box-office takings ever Our support of talented young artists continued with our own Festival Academy, a group of musicians handpicked by Martyn Brabbins for the Festival and designed to give the cream of young musicians studying in Britain an opportunity to work on contemporary repertoire with established performers. The Academy performed three concerts this year. The first was a morning concert with the Russian pianist, Boris Giltburg who has become a firm Cheltenham favourite since first performing in 2005 under the Russian theme. Later in the week they performed two back-to-back concerts in the Town Hall. The first was a contemporary concert in the round with clarinetist, Michael Collins. The programme encompassed work that our composer-in-residence, Tarik O’Regan, had composed during the Festival itself. In many ways it was a celebration of all that the Music Festival stands for and the piece itself charmingly reflected the range of music on offer in the Festival. The Academy “Happening” took place straight after in the more intimate setting of the Pillar Room, a room used extensively by our young artists in the Jazz Festival. Amongst other work the Happening particularly explored the American experientalists such as Christian Wolff, Steve Reich, Cage and Cardew as well as West Coast composer Terry Riley. Among the world-class pianists we welcomed to the Festival, the epic performance of some fiendishly difficult repertoire by the Canadian Marc-André Hamelin must surely be one of the most brilliant and courageous performances ever heard at Cheltenham. The concert comprised a double bill of the Ives piano sonata no 2 followed by an hour and thirty minutes of Schumann’s Fantasie in C, ending with the Alkan Concerto for solo piano. We shall be delighted to welcome Marc-André back to Cheltenham in 2008. Vocalists also had a high billing and two pieces performed which are not so well known but strikingly beautiful were the Ravel, Chanson Madécasses performed by Ailish Tynan as part of BBC Radio 3’s weekend of New Generation Artists and the challenging pieces by Shostakovich, Seven Romances on Verses by Alexander Blok performed by soprano Susan Gritton as part of the Florestan Trio’s concert.
This year, each weekend had a particular focus which audiences appreciated. The opening weekend including the Monday had an early music feel, the middle weekend concentrated on BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists and the final weekend saw a double-bill from international visitors the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra whom we welcomed to the Festival for the first time. The Festival started its finale weekend in the same way that it had begun with an all-American programme in the Town Hall which included the much-loved Rhapsody in Blue. The final concert in the main programme was reserved for 3 mighty works, Delius’ Appalachia, Elgar’s Sea Pictures sung by mezzo-soprano, Sarah Connolly and the New World Symphony by Dvorak brought the 2007 Festival to its close. The final weekend of the Festival and final weekend of Martyn Brabbins’ three-year directorship coincided with the Gloucestershire floods. With the Brno Philharmonic safely in Cheltenham and, in fact, inside the Town Hall rehearsing when the rains came, the violins did play on. However, as I took off my shoes to paddle across the river that was flowing in front of the Town Hall, I was reminded of one of Martyn Brabbins’ early community concerts at Cheltenham, Noyes Fludde! Successful festivals must develop year on year and, in a short space of time, Martyn has introduced many new concepts to Cheltenham which will live on in future festivals. One of these developments was the strong sense of community engagement with local musicians that Martyn brought to the Festivals and it is one for which we are all grateful. The promenade-style ‘athons’ in which the symphonies of a composer were played all in one day help enormously to bring orchestral work to young audiences. In 2003 in Michael Berkeley’s penultimate year the Beethoven-athon was held, the Tchaikovsky–athon in 2005 and the series culminated with the Dvorak-athon this year. These are the kind of events that make Festivals very special and rely on the goodwill of many performers. In July we said ‘Goodbye’ to Martyn but in early August we welcomed Meurig Bowen as our new Director for the Music Festival. He set to work immediately on preparing for the 2008 Festival.
The morning concerts at the Pump Room were strongly supported throughout the Festival and brought to completion one of Martyn’s projects, the performance of the Shostakovich Quartet cycle.
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chief executive’s report
literature FESTIVAL The 2007 Festival enjoyed enormous success with over 87,000 tickets sold over the ten days – an increase of 10,000 tickets on 2006. Over 400 writers attended the Festival taking part in 207 events for adults, 98 events for children as part of our Book It! Festival, 9 events for families, 28 events in our increasingly successful Write Away programme and 24 events as part of our fringe programme, ‘voices off’. The overarching theme of the 2007 Festival explored the question ‘What does change mean to us?’, and this theme wove through many of the Festival events alongside those programmed by the two contrasting Guest Directors. Armando Iannucci created a fascinating series of events over the first weekend, featuring David Mitchell and Stewart Lee amongst others, and A C Grayling’s events over the second weekend took a close look at the arts in the UK and included high-profile contributors such as Claire Tomalin, Carlos Acosta and Christopher Hampton The Festival further developed its commissioning of new writing this year. Short stories on the theme of transformation were created for the Festival by the 2007 Man Booker Prize winner Anne Enright, Biyi Bandele, Hari Kunzru, Julia Blackburn and Jon McGregor, which were broadcast on BBC Radio 4. The Festival also held a special debate in memory of the broadcaster and long-time Festival interviewer Nick Clarke, and held an event to celebrate Radio 4’s 40th anniversary. Other successful partnerships included the Festival’s title sponsor The Times, whose ever-popular Times Debate attracted an audience of more than 2,000 and whose writers contributed to many other events, and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Waterstones, the Festival’s bookseller, also worked in partnership with the Festival as well as acting as the Festival’s bookselling partner. In 2007 the Festival forged a successful new partnership with the Wellcome Trust, who supported a strand of events exploring the interaction between literature and medicine, which were particularly successful in terms of audience numbers and feedback. Other programming areas explored this year included a focus on the art, culture and writing of China, and an exciting new storytelling weekend.
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The Festival increased its use of the Centaur at Cheltenham Racecourse this year, with 9 events taking place over the first weekend including visits from Michael Palin, Ian Hislop, Stephen and Lucy Hawking and Helen Mirren. The Festival also saw the tented village reach its full potential as a superb complex of Festival venues which greatly enhanced the Festival’s capacity and the audience’s enjoyment of events. The tented village and Imperial Gardens provided the venue for the Festival’s expanded Fun Days, which this year ran over both Saturdays of the Festival, attracting audiences of more than 1,000 on each weekend, greatly enhancing the Festival’s offer to families and younger audiences. The children’s Festival Book It! was also extremely successful, with an increased number of large-scale events catering to family audiences. The use of its enhanced tented facility ensured that there was still plenty of opportunity for more interactive hands-on activities. The Festival fringe ‘voices off’ once again took the Festival out on the streets and into unique venues around Cheltenham. Particularly successful this year were the free ‘Word on the Street’ events featuring performance poetry, storytelling and street theatre throughout the town, bringing new audiences to the Festival and ensuring the Festival’s presence was felt throughout Cheltenham. Anyone who attended the 2007 Literature Festival was part of a most wonderful celebration and exploration of all kinds of writing from journalism, to contemporary fiction, popular comedy writing to the intellectual but highly readable copy of Professor Stephen Pinker writing on language as a window into human nature. The Festivals provide a huge variety of opportunities for performers and audiences. We look forward to developing ever more creative programmes in the future for the benefit of as many people as possible.
Despite selling over 87,000 tickets, the Festival has not lost its friendly, intimate feel
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jazz generation performers Bryan Corbett Quartet Bryan Corbett trumpet, flugelhorn Levi French piano, keyboards Ben Markland double bass Neil Bullock drums Leading his band for the second time at Cheltenham, Bryan Corbett’s sweet funky jazz and trademark warm tone once again captivated the packed audience in the Town Hall Pillar Room. He also enjoyed a guest slot with Michael Parkinson’s special edition of BBC Radio 2’s Friday Night Is Music Night, broadcast live from the Festival to a nationwide audience of over a million. Gwilym Simcock Big Band Gwilym Simcock piano Mark Lockheart, Julian Siegel, Stan Sulzmann saxophones Noel Langley, Robbie Robson trumpets Chris Parkes, Paul Robinson French horn Trevor Mires, Louis Edney trombones John Parricelli guitar Laurence Cottle bass Martin France drums Jules Buckley conductor A dazzling pianist and talented young composer, stylistically reminiscent of Keith Jarrett or John Taylor, Gwilym Simcock seamlessly fuses jazz and classical styles – a talent recently rewarded with a place on Radio 3’s coveted New Generation Artists scheme, until now reserved for classical musicians. Sebastian Rochford’s Fulborn Teversham Sebastian Rochford drums Alice Grant vocals Pete Wareham saxophone Nick Ramm Nord Lead In another inspired collaboration, the formidable creative talents of the UK’s hottest, most in-demand drummer, Sebastian Rochford, and acclaimed Acoustic Ladyland frontman, Pete Wareham came together for the punky, funky melodic music of Fulborn Teversham. Jonny Phillips’ Oriole Brazil The Jerwood Commission Jonny Phillips guitar
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Teco Cardoso flutes, saxophones Thomas Clausen piano Fernando de Marco bass Afonso Corrêa drums, percussion Ben Davis cello Sebastian Rochford drums A sensory banquet of soaring melodies, colourful South American folklore, lively dances and emotional ballads, the music of Jonny Phillips and his F-ire Collective ensemble, Oriole, has garnered much critical acclaim. After a captivating performance in 2006, Jonny was commissioned this year as part of our Jerwood Jazz Generation to write new music and to organise a unique collaboration with some of Brazil’s most acclaimed musicians, including sax/ flute virtuoso Teco Cardoso. Ingrid Laubrock The Jerwood Commission Ingrid Laubrock saxophones Tom Arthurs trumpet, flugelhorn James Allsopp baritone saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet Emma Smith violin Ben Davis cello Liam Noble piano Barry Green piano Larry Bartley bass Tom Rainey drums Since studying with the likes of Stan Sulzmann and Dave Liebman, Ingrid Laubrock has forged an enviable reputation on the cutting edge jazz scene. A member of London’s hothouse F-ire Collective and tipped by The Guardian as ‘one to watch’ in 2007, she returned to Cheltenham with the world premiere of her Jerwood Jazz Generation commission. Arnie Somogyi’s Ambulance with special guest Eddie Henderson Arnie Somogyi bass Eddie Henderson trumpet Rob Townsend saxophones, woodwind, digital sounds Paul Booth saxophones Tim Lapthorn piano Dave Smith drums, percussion Specialising in musical ‘accident and insurgency’, bassist Arnie Somogyi’s critically-acclaimed band combines high energy inventiveness with compelling, lyrical ideas.
famelab finalists & reserves Following his celebrated commission at Cheltenham in 2004 and rave reviews from performances at London’s Ronnie Scott’s, the band joined us with their latest music and a very special guest - American jazz luminary and sparky sideman to the likes of Herbie Hancock and Art Blakey, trumpeter Eddie Henderson. Hans Koller Octet with special guests Bob Brookmeyer and Kenny Wheeler Hans Koller piano Kenny Wheeler trumpet Bob Brookmeyer valve trombone Adrian Adlam violin Mark Hanslip saxophones, flute Julian Siegel saxophones, bass clarinet Jim Rattigan French horn Phil Robson guitar Dave Whitford double bass Jeff Williams drums Hans Koller’s forward thinking and sensitive compositions were excellently performed by his star-studded octet featuring Cheltenham Jazz Festival Artist In Residence, Bob Brookmeyer, and free jazz pioneer Kenny Wheeler. Neil Yates & Tarnished Silver Sketches of a Northern Town Neil Yates trumpet Percy Pursglove flugelhorn Richard Iles flugelhorn Rob Flemming tenor horn Lee Hallam trombone Katrina Marzella baritone horn Les Neish tuba Jo Hinchcliffe visuals For his first visit to Cheltenham as bandleader, trumpeter, composer and Stockport lad Neil Yates presented his acclaimed brass band-influenced jazz suite. Tracing the story of the mills and factories of northern England, through industrial prosperity, decline and regeneration, he paints a lucid and emotional picture of urban history and the very human triumphs and tragedies which accompanied it. The music was brought to life further with evocative visuals and special programme notes.
1 Nicholas Harrigan (National Winner – qualified London Heat) PhD Student, Quantum Physics, Imperial College, London 2 Jan Schnupp (National Runner-up – qualified Oxford Heat) University Lecturer and Tutorial Fellow in Medicine St Peter’s College, University of Oxford 3 Marieke Navin (National Runner-up – qualified York heat) PhD Student, Particle Physics, University of Sheffield 4 Cardiff Winner - Peter Zeidman MSc Student, Natural Computation, University of Birmingham 5 Plymouth Winner - Caroline Johnson Schools Programme Co-ordinator National Marine Aquarium, Plymouth 6 Glasgow Winner - Nick Dickens Genome Biologist, Institute of Cancer Research 7 Belfast Winner - Phillip Jess Research Fellow, Biophysics, University of St Andrews 8 London Reserve - Steve Mould Technology Consultant and Stand-up Comic 9 Cardiff Reserve - Annabel Cartwright Part-time lecturer in Computing 10 Plymouth Reserve - Martin Coath Researcher, Centre for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience, University of Plymouth 11 York Reserve - Jon Silversides Technical Editor, Royal Society of Chemistry 12 Glasgow Reserve - Ed Sykes PhD Student, Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh 13 Oxford Reserve - Steve Steer PhD Student, Nuclear Physics, University of Surrey 14 Belfast Reserve - Fiona Dunlevy PhD Student studying inflammation in Cystic Fibrosis Queen’s University, Belfast
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festival academy players
commissions & PremiEres
Alexandra Wood
violin
Sara Trickey
violin
Maria Oldak
violin
Amelia Jones
violin
James Boyd
viola
Diana Matthews
viola
Tim Gill
cello
Carina Drury
cello
Enrique Galassi
double bass
Kathryn Thomas
flute
Julia Crowell
flute
Ruth Bell
oboe, cor anglais
Timothy Lines
clarinet
Daniel Sanford-Casey
clarinet
Rob Buckland
saxophone
Lawrence O’Donnell
bassoon
James Palmer
horn
Mark O’Keeffe
trumpet
Bede Williams
trumpet
Douglas Coleman
trombone
Richard Benjafield
percussion
Scott Wilson
percussion
Nicola Eimer
piano
Dominick Argento Three Sonnets by Petrarch Chris Beardsley So travels the moon – for 4 violins, 2 violas, 2 cellos and double-bass Performed by soloists from Wells Cathedral School World Premiere Tunde Jegede Exile and Return. Performed by Tunde Jegede and Brodsky Quartet, Pittville Pump Room World Premiere Adam Melvin Duplex Performed by the Eimer Piano Trio, Pittville Pump Room World Premiere Steven Mackey Busted – for solo percussion. Performed by Psappha, Town Hall European Premiere James MacMillan Horn Quintet. Performed by Nash Ensemble, Pittville Pump Room World Premiere Anthony Payne Piano Quintet Performed by Boris Giltburg, piano, and members of the Festival Academy – Pittville Pump Room World Premiere Charlie Piper Dances for Wind Quintet Performed by Festival Academy, Pittville Pump Room World Premiere Tarik O’Regan New work written in Cheltenham Performed by Festival Academy and Michael Collins, Clarinet Paul Whitmarsh Berceuse in a Box Performed by Bella Tromba, Pittville Pump Room World Premiere
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wellcome trust events Science Festival Human Enhancement
Literature Festival Writing Medicine
New writing at 2007 Literature Festival
Perfect Humans Current technology enables us to design a child before it is even conceived and identify imperfections from the womb. John Harris, Professor of Bioethics at the University of Manchester, Rachel Hurst, Director of Disability Awareness in Action and Dr Thomas Stuttaford, The Times Doctor debated the consequences.
Medics From Dr Finlay’s Casebook to ER, portrayal of the medical world has undergone a seismic shift. Ambulanceman Tom Reynolds, author of the award-winning blog Blood Sweat and Tea, joined former doctor Jed Mercurio, creator of Bodies and Cardiac Arrest, and The Times’ Thomas Stuttaford to explore whether fact matches up to fiction.
Transformations Broadcast by Radio 4
Zombie Nation We spend more hours sleeping than anything else and symptoms of deprivation range from irritability to hallucinations. We might soon be able to drug ourselves to stay awake without resorting to caffeine or amphetamines. Sleep expert Russell Foster examined the future of a life without sleep. Gattaca Society: Return of Eugenics in the 21st Century Our ability to manipulate DNA means that we are able to design society in a way that has never before been possible. Geneticist and television presenter, Armand Leroi examined modern bioethics and discussed the potential implications for society. The other two events in this series were entitled Live & Let Die and High School?
The Only Boy in the World Michael Blastland has written powerfully about his son’s autism; he joined Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre and Marti Leimbach, author of Daniel Isn’t Talking, to talk about their own experiences, how autism is reflected on the page and how this relates to the latest medical thinking. In Sickness and in Health How do authors write about illness and recovery? Poet and non-fiction writer Gwyneth Lewis and author Jeremy Thomas have both written powerfully about depression and illness, whilst psychologist Oliver James explores similar issues in his work. They joined Brian Hurwitz to discuss reading, writing and recovery. Ian McEwan & Steven Pinker How does language shape who we are? Booker-winning novelist Ian McEwan and bestselling psychologist Steven Pinker share a fascination for the way language can offer a window into the depths of human nature. They made a rare joint appearance at the Everyman Theatre.
The following authors were commissioned to write a new story on the Festival theme of change which they read at their Festival event. Hari Kunzru Julia Blackburn Jon McGregor Anne Enright Biyi Bandele Winner of the Cheltenham Booker Prize 1932 Each year on the final Saturday of the Literature Festival, Cheltenham hosts a Booker Prize discussion about books that were written before the introduction of the Man Booker Prize. In 2007, the year was 1932 and the books on the Cheltenham short-list were Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm; Graham Greene’s Stamboul Train; Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh. The panel of judges was Katie Hickman, Ruth Padel, Simon Hoggart and Erica Wagner and the event was chaired by Ion Trewin. Each panelist made representations for one of the books and after a hard-fought debate the winner was Stamboul Train by Graham Greene.
the other two events in this series were entitled Sebastian Faulks & Steve Jones and Seizures: Paul Broks & Erica Wagner
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Sponsors & supporters Title Sponsors
Prinicipal Sponsors
Major Sponsors
Associate Sponsors
Abercrombie & Kent Broughtons of Cheltenham CHK Charities Dean Close School Friends of the Literature Festival Mitsubishi Rolls Royce Science Prize The Oldham Foundation The Steel Charitable Trust UCAS University of Gloucestershire Media Partners
Arts Matrix British Computer Society Berkhampstead School Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Cheltenham Ladies College Cheltenham Racecourse City of London School Cowley Manor Cube Metier Czech Airlines Czech Centre E&MS Folio Society Horwath Clark Whitehill Julius Bar Mears Mobenn Marquees Nelson Thornes Norwegian Embassy QAA Research Councils UK Rickerbys Solicitors Savills Schoolzone Spirax Sarco Taylor Brothers The Fiery Beacon Gallery The Keats Shelley Memorial Association The Natural Grocery Store Tijuana UCL Vintage Classics Wiggin Osborne Fullerlove Solicitors
The Daily Telegraph Gloucestershire Echo Jazzwise Magazine
Festival Partners
Regular Funders
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Alder King Aviva BBC Music Magazine BNSC Carr Greenwood Smith Charles Russell Solicitors Chelsea Building Society Gullivers Sports Travel Institute of Physics Publishing Kings School Lanes Health Mira Showers Moss Construction Rensburg Sheppards Science and Technology Facilities Council Star College The Delius Trust Willans Solicitors
PATRONS Individual Supporters
In-kind Sponsors
Life Patron
Festival Patron
Beryl Calver-Jones Christopher Henfrey Diana Woolley Eleanor Budge Elizabeth Jacobs Gerry Mattock Graham & Eileen Lockwood John Eaden Karen Brabbins Mary Mackenzie, Richard Walton & Friends Mr & Mr Michael Cronk Mr & Mrs S Winwood Peter & Esther Smedvig Richard Blackford Sir Michael & Lady McWilliam Trusts and Foundations
Aesthetica Alias Hotel Kandinsky Calmers Cheltenham College Cotswold Life Embassy of United States of America, London Glide Media Marketing Granta Index on Censorship Lower Slaughter Manor Lypiatt House Hotel MRG Systems Ltd New York Review of Books Nickelodeon Penguin Books science made simple Sign Solutions Spa PR The Cotswold Chef The Daffodil The Greenway The Oldie Magazine The Queens Hotel The Science Museum The Times Literary Supplement Waitrose Writers Forum
Charles Fisher Graham & Eileen Lockwood
Mark & Maria Bentley Stephen & Victoria Bond Jonathan & Daphne Carr Robert Cawthorne & Catherine White Bombie Clark Christopher Dreyfus Viscount Esher James Fleming Kate Fleming Stephen Hodge Anthony Hoffmann & Dr Christine Facer Hoffmann Richard & Peta Hoyle Simon & Emma Keswick Mark McKergow & Jenny Clarke Professor Angela Newing Robert Padgett Sue Ratcliffe & Callum Wardle Miss Patricia Routledge CBE Lavinia Sidgwick Jonathan Taylor Janet Wedge Professor Lord Winston Anne Wood
Alan Cadbury Trust Alkan Society Berners Trust Biosciences Federation Britten-Pears Foundation Early Music Network Ernest Cook Trust George Budge Trust Lincoln Financial Group PRSF Quenington Sculpture Trust RVW Trust spnm The Daphne Jackson Trust The Royal Society
Corporate Patron HSBC Willans Platinum Patron Peter & Anne Bond Mr & Mrs Cronk Marianne Hinton Howard & Jay Milton Gold Patron Jack & Dora Black Eleanor Budge Clive Coates & Ann Murray Michael & Felicity Crystal Wallace & Morag Dobbin Lord & Lady Hoffmann Elizabeth Jacobs Jeremy & Anne Lodwick Penelope Lomax Sir Peter & Lady Marychurch Sir Michael & Lady McWilliam The Helena Oldacre Trust Esther & Peter Smedvig Nick & Kai Spencer Meredithe Stuart-Smith Steve & Eugenia Winwood Peter & Alison Yiangou
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