An amazing festival of performing arts in the wonderful surroundings of the Huddersfield Town Hall. The 136th festival has maintained and grown the individual adjudicated classes which have formed the base of the festival over the years and has enriched this with workshops, showcases and community events which reflect the range of performing arts in the area and which provide the opportunity for performance by all in a non-competitive way.

Traditional classes in piano, spoken word, vocals, instrumentals, choirs and the young musician of the year event have been joined by workshops for babies, toddlers, special needs students, dementia sufferers and their carers, adult singers, spoken word audition participants,  junior school pupils and traditional dance groups. The discofest at Mrs S, a new venture for the festival this year was a great success and the evening concerts have been a delight to experience.

SPECIAL EVENTS

A Night at the Opera adult singing workshop led by Thom Meredith was held on February 2 2025 and over 100 amateur singers joined the excellent Musica Kirklees Orchestra and super soloists to perform favourites from a range of Operas. 

There were four events on February 12 making it a very busy day for the festival. The baby workshop saw young babies dancing and singing, the toddler workshop had movement and music making at its focus, the children from our local special schools worked with the Dark Horse Theatre group and then performed their own songs. Later, dementia sufferers and their carers were entertained, sang, danced and enjoyed tea and cakes.  What a day!!

Thursday 13 February 2025 saw 800 junior school pupils sing their hearts out with show tunes all morning. 500 came back in the evening to showcase the event to a packed town hall too.

On Monday evening 17 February we held our first ‘audition masterclass’, led by Rebecca Vines (adjudicator) a group of budding professional performing arts stars were steered through the world of competitive audition. 

Tuesday evening 18 February was the third annual Festival Dance Showcase; an amazing evening of music, dance, colour and community. We welcomed two local dance schools, Harissa (a belly dancing group), Irish dancers, a Morris Dance Set, an adult tap dancing group and a Carnival dance group. 

Another completely new venture for the festival was an adult disco held on Friday afternoon 21 February 2025 - Discofest at the Mrs S  - complete with band, DJ and bar. It was an enormous success and is firmly in the diary for next year. 

The Last Night of the Festival concert featured the final for adult choirs, a recital by the young musician of the year and some memorable performances from across the festival. We also presented the retiring Chairman of the festival and his wife with Honorary Life Membership in recognition of their amazing work over many years.

  ADJUDICATED CLASSES

We welcomed 28 separate junior and youth choir performances on Valentine’s day from Kirklees, Calderdale, Halifax, Sheffield and York. The youngest choir members were five to seven years old and the oldest were sixteen to twenty one. 

The busiest two days of the festival was the weekend of 15 and 16 February. This was our Vocals weekend. Forty vocal classes from under sevens singing Disney to adult recitals. We welcomed singers in traditional classes, Disney , music theatre, pop ballad, Sondhein, German Leider, French Melodie, operatic solos and more. 331 individual performances were held in three separate venues within the town hall with three international adjudicators and three wonderful festival accompanists. Over forty trophies were awarded and each singer received verbal and written feedback on their performance. 

Also on Sunday 16 February we held the Young Musician of the Year competition which is a national competition in which we limit the admission to twenty 16 to 24 year old musicians. The standard this year was very high. We heard a range of performanaces including a French Horn player from Birmingham , a guitar player from London, a Cellist from Manchester and a soprano from Oxford. The winner was Roberto Rumenov, a graduate of the Royal Madrid Conservatoire and currently studying at the Birmingham Conservatoire. Second was Danil Margulis, a double bass player studying at the Royal College of Music and third was Sophie Iliaifar, a mezzo soprano and graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music.

Monday and Tuesday saw our piano classes. Sixteen different classes attracted 73 individual performances from very young students working towards grade 1 to accomplished pianists playing Chopin. 

Previous Speech and Drama classes have been rebranded and upgraded this year to spoken word classes with some of the performances being organised on the stage of the concert hall performing to an audience on the stage risers. From Humorous Verse to Dialect speaking with Shakespeare, slam poetry and dramatic solos on the way it was a marvellous two days.

Thursday February 20 was the instrumental day; strings in the morning, woodwind and brass in the afternoon and ensembles in the evening. Over sixty individual performances and eight ensembles in the evening. Hanson Arts groups delighted the audience with their Ukeleles, string quintet and quartet and then their wind band and strings orchestra. Musica Shelley’s Woodwind trio were great and the Note brass Ensemble were delightful. The evening finished with the Shelley over 60s ukeleles supported by the Sing for Toffee choir which rounded off a splendid instrumental day.

The last day of the festival saw the arrival of adult choirs from all over the country.  Our local choirs were first on in the morning - very early for singing voices!! Choirs from Skelmanthorpe, Lindley, Denby Dale and New Mill sang in the first class. They were then joined by choirs from London, Todmorden, Peterborough, Cheshire and other local choirs for the days’ classes. Four choirs were invited to sing in the evening; Colne Valley Male Voice Choir, Peterborough Voices, Peterborough Male Voice Choir and Chantage. The overall winner was Chantage - a beautiful choir from London who say they will be back!

OVERALL

A truly splendid festival and according to the feedback, one of the very best. About 5000 separate performances; each carefully prepared, thoroughly rehearsed, supported by parents, teachers and peers and then performed in the grandeur of Huddersfield’s magnificent town hall  provides those of us who organise and administer the festival with the real reason why an army of unpaid volunteers should give up so much time and effort in order for the festival to be successful. We provide that platform and opportunity for performance and the performers make it all worthwhile. 

Even though the festival is run by unpaid volunteers it is increasingly costly to put on; all prices are increasing  - renting the town hall, adjudicator and accompanist fees, even printing and box office costs and we are grateful to all those who contribute via sponsorship or membership of the festival. We are always on the look out for more support and we would like to hear from you if you think you could support us in some way.

                                                                Ann Talboys 

                                                                Festival Administrator