Dartington is in the dumps

Here is a local review by Peter Marsh in the Totnes Pulse of the substitute ‘festival’ put on by the Dartington Estate after the traditional event was driven into exile.

After the demise of the long-established Dartington music summer school in its usual form, a new version of the festival took place last week. ChoralFest was organised by the Dartington Hall Trust (the charity running Dartington) as a “differently-formatted” version of an event it chose last year to discontinue, on the grounds of high costs and the charity’s own dire financial state.

The summer school has been a fixture at Dartington for more than 70 years, attracting world-class musicians performing in concerts and running courses. Summer schools in recent years have lasted four weeks, spanning a range of musical forms from medieval to contemporary, and including folk, jazz, composition and conducting skills. It led to many collaborations involving people from different musical genres. The final concert in 2023 was a performance of Bach’s B Minor Mass.

In contrast, the programme for the eight-day ChoralFest looked thin. The public concerts centred on five short evening recitals by professional singers best known for their operatic prowess. Most of them doubled up as tutors, giving singing lessons to the 70 or so people who had signed up for the week. They also rehearsed for a public performance of a Russian choral work given last Saturday.

In contrast to the usual summer school format, no instrumentalists took part, apart from two pianists. The near-absence of instrumentalists saved money but for most people detracted from the festival’s appeal. Each week of the summer schools in recent years has featured at least one big choral work with a choir of more than 100 and an orchestra….

Read on here. It gets worse.