Welcome to the Abingdon Music Festival!
“A festival with a difference – not a competition but a workshop”
The next Concerto Competition will be held in the newly-rebuilt Silk Hall of Radley College on Sunday 19 April 2026. Full details and entry form will be published soon.
2026 Festival:
Aware that teachers and participants have not favoured the venue-availability-enforced earlier timing of the Festival over the past couple of years, the decision has been taken to move the Festival back to dates after the October school half-term.
Provisional dates will be:
PIANO classes: Friday 7 – Sunday 9 November
OTHER classes: Friday 14 – Sunday 16 November
Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons will be more heavily used; there will be no classes on Sunday mornings, as the venues will be St Nicolas’ Church, Market Place and Trinity Church, Conduit Road, Abingdon, both of which have high-quality pianos.
The 2025 Festival attracted as many entries as last year, with a pleasing variety of performance sin all age-groups.
The adjudicators worked very hard, and their helpfully constructive comments on each performance were greatly appreciated by all participants.
The Festival concert featured an enjoyable variety of performances selected from across the gamut of classes, including two harpists and the first Family ensemble for many years.
The 2023 CONCERTO Competition was held on Sunday 30 April, in the Silk Hall, Radley College (by kind permission). It attracted 14 competitors on a pleasing variety of instruments, from whom Edward Harris-Brown emerged as the winner with a highly impressive performance of Bartok’s ultra-virtuosic 1st Piano Concerto. Edward gave his prize performance with the Abingdon & District Music Society Orchestra on Saturday 09 March 2024, performing Ravel’s G major Concerto, followed by an impressive improvisation on an audience-generated 4-note sequence as an encore.
The next Concerto Competition was postponed to 2026, due to the non-availability of a suitable venue in 2025.
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WHAT TO EXPECT AT OUR FESTIVAL
We regularly receive comments that this is a really friendly and informative festival; to those of you who may be new to it, its “difference” means that after every performance, in whatever category, an adjudicator of the highest calibre will give instant comments and helpful advice. Audiences appreciate hearing these assessments immediately instead of having to wait until the end of the class, and performers really enjoy the chance to work on their pieces with an experienced adjudicator. The only element of competition is that each adjudicator is invited to select items for the final Sunday evening concert.
HOW TO HELP US
We could not run the Festival without our Friends, who pay a small annual donation to support the administration and assist as stewards and receptionists during the Festival weekend. Would you join them as a Friend of the Festival? All details here: AMF-Friends-1911
CHAMBER ORCHESTRA opportunity
Recognising the talents of its participants, the Festival is pleased to draw attention to the opportunities for high-quality chamber-orchestra playing offered by the Oxford Concerto Orchestra; please see tab above.
The Festival is a member of the British and International Federation of Festivals for Music, Drama and Speech.