We are delighted to present Brecon Baroque Festival 2020 online. Creating an online festival has enabled us to offer work to the musicians who are the lifeblood of Brecon Baroque, and to share a wonderful project with our audience. We hope you will be behind us on this, especially given the huge loss of livelihood and the hardship suffered by so many of the musicians we welcome to Brecon for the festival each year.
We have moved our plan for a three year live Bach cycle, due to start this year, to begin instead in 2021, and are re-booking our musicians for a resumption of live work at that festival.
The centrepiece of our digital festival is the world première of an arrangement, specially commissioned from Chad Kelly by Rachel Podger for Brecon Baroque Festival, of Bach's Goldberg Variations. We also present a live introductory event with Rachel and Chad and a documentary made during the preparation and rehearsal of the Goldberg project. We round off the festival with an interactive on-screen discussion between Rachel, Chad and the audience about reimagining the Goldbergs. The films remain available online for a limited period after their first presentation, over what should have been the live festival weekend, October 23 to 25. Booking is now open for the festival.
All content is specially made by Rachel and Brecon Baroque musicians in Brecon. We are also finding ways to continue the community and education work we carry out locally, and the young musician mentoring work - both key to Rachel's vision for the festival.
The general outlook for the next 18 months is difficult. We are really thrilled to present the festival online, but the consequence of not staging live events this year will be a hole in our budget of approximately £28,000 worth of gross ticket sales which we typically attract. Of course we will not bear the full costs of staging a live festival, but making the high quality digital content we plan brings considerable cost.
We have launched a Festival Futures Fund to see the festival through this challenging year and to plan for the 2021 and 2022 festivals and beyond, in what will remain a difficult environment for the arts. In the extraordinary circumstances of 2020, we ask are asking you to consider if you can support us please. It would mean a huge amount to us, and could secure the festival now and for the years to come.
* Charities pay a small fee for our service. Find out how much it is and what we do for it.
