I am delighted to report that the 134th Annual Performing Arts Festival has taken place over 11 days in Huddersfield Town Hall and it has been a delight. Never a festival to ‘rest on our laurels’ we have diversified again this year with new events covering toddlers so that our performers now range from two years old to over ninety years old and, with the introduction of our first Festival Dance Showcase, we can now properly describe ourselves as a Performing Arts Festival.

Forming the core of our long tradition are the 125 classes for piano, instrumental, young and adult vocals, junior, youth and adult choirs and speech and drama.  This year we have introduced new classes for adult solo voices and adapted some of the previous speech and drama classes to incorporate solo acting across the age ranges. All classes are adjudicated by internationally renowned adjudicators who have provided support and encouragement to the performers as well as helpful hints for future improvements. All performers awarded a first place in a class receive a trophy and proud supporters take wonderful pictures. The number of performers has increased in all but the instrumental classes although we are yet to return to our pre-Covid numbers. 

We have held five workshops;

• The adult singing workshop where 150 singers and over 100 musicians practiced and performed Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man. Images of war and its consequences were displayed on an enormous screen which filled the town hall stage and added to the excitement and pathos of the day and the performance. 
• The Toddler workshop saw a group of two year olds and their parents/grandparents/carers enjoy a craft based session with singing and dancing; they all grew from being a tiny acorn to a large oak tree - and loved it. 
• The Reach for the Stars workshop saw our local special needs school children learn techniques and perform with the excellent Dark Horse Theatre Company and then each school performed a prepared piece for everyone else; we ended the session as always with everyone; teachers, support workers, festival volunteers and of course the wonderful children singing and dancing to our theme tune of Reach for the Stars - complete with actions. 
• After the Reach for the Stars workshop, festival and town hall staff work hard to transform the Concert Hall into a Tea Dance venue. Children from a local school sung for our guests who were dementia sufferers and their carers and then we had lots of tea and cakes, singing and dancing. The mayor of Kirklees came along - and served the tea!
• The Celebrate and Sing workshop for key stage 2 children filled the town hall with over 800 junior school children. The wonderful Tom Meredith from Musica Kirklees led the workshop; introducing the youth orchestra and their instruments and leading the singing. Schools had worked really hard to prepare the children for the morning and it was great to see and hear the well prepared songs they all sung.
• Our major competition which takes over the main concert hall for one day is the Young Musician of the Year  - now open to any qualifying musician from across the country we had to close the entries early this year because it was so popular. We heard amazing young performers with a range of instruments and voice compete for the £1000 prize. This year the winner was a Percussionist; Tom Hall from the Royal Northern School of Music.

Four big evening concerts were held during the festival;

• The Armed Man  - the culmination of the day’s workshop
• The Festival Dance Showcase - an amazing evening of talent from nine different and varied local dance groups. The festival’s first experience of Dance as part of the event and certainly not the last.
• The key stage 2 concert where some performers from the morning session came back so that parents and other supporters could see them.
• The Last Night of the Festival concert which sees the finals of the adult choirs, selected outstanding performers from throughout the festival and a performance by the Young Musician of the Year

Nearly 4000 performers and nearly 2500 audience members have been welcomed into the festival this year and none of this could happen without the unstinting work of the army of volunteers who make up our committee and band of helpers. They give their time, energy and support to the festival and we are very grateful to them.

Two long serving and very hard working members of the committee stepped down this year although they will continue in a helpers role. The festival awarded them Honorary Life membership and the Mayor of Kirklees awarded them their certificates at the Last Night of the Festival concert. Charmaine and Gareth Beaumont received their certificates from Councillor Masood Ahmed, Kirklees Mayor. 

Welcome to the 2023 Mrs Sunderland Festival.