OUR FESTIVAL – THE STORY SO FAR
(Our festival is currently known as Buxton Music, Speech and Drama Festival)
Note to the Reader
This story is what we know about our festival. It has been run by volunteers for 118 years so far and has operated under two different names. There are many gaps in the story. If you can help to fill them or to correct statements contained in the document, we ask you to do so by contacting gillatotter@gmail.com This will enable us to update the story progressively. There have been, and are, festivals and other musical offerings which overlap with ours. This makes it hard to clarify what relates specifically to it. For this reason, when not given its full name, it is frequently referred to as “our festival” in this document.
- THE EARLY YEARS
We know our festival started in 1907 and its establishment was an initiative taken by GH Lockett, a member of a well-known Buxton musical family. It was called the Buxton and North Derbyshire Musical Festival initially. We know something about the musical scene that had evolved up to that time. The hosts of coaching inns had arranged entertainments for their guests from the 1600s onwards (possibly earlier) and music would have been played for balls held in the Assembly Rooms starting in the 1780s. The Victorian era brought into existence the Pavilion Gardens complex with two concert halls. These were augmented by the creation of the Town Hall in which concerts sometimes took place and by the building of new hotels with ballrooms able to host large audiences for events including concerts.
An extensive press report in 1910 stated that over 2000 people had entered a competitive music festival in 1909, drawn from Buxton and the surrounding area:- At this festival, there were thirteen vocal classes for adults and an entire day given to children’s choirs. Three quotes from the judges appear below. The press article also
took a retrospective look at the previous three festivals.
We also know from the press coverage that our Festival was contained within an organisational structure referred to as The Society and that it had a President and an Executive Committee.
- WAR, DEPRESSION, WAR
As far as the press record is concerned, little was reported about our Festival in the next twenty years. Much else was happening. Buxton’s spa buildings were used during the First World War as military hospitals for Canadian soldiers evacuated from the Western Front. The Devonshire Hospital continued to treat local people, as well as Canadian, British and other Allies soldiers needing specialised surgery or rehabilitation. Some say the spa and its associated cultural activities started a decline at that point. The lack of reporting may simply have been that press reporters were limited in number, due to hostilities and a need to focus on other matters.
There are fleeting references to our Festival in the 1920s. The Derbyshire Advertiser and Journal reported that winners of the Buxton and North Derbyshire Musical Festival had participated in a concert to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Railway Servants Orphanage in Derby. It was clearly a big event with celebrities and visitors attending from around the UK. It is the first record we have that participation in our festival could lead on to other assignments.
References to the Festival in the 1930s are equally scanty.
It was reported in the Derby Daily Telegraph in 1932 that the winner of a verse-speaking class at a Derby festival had also won prizes in similar competitions in Buxton and Matlock. The same paper referred to a festival in Staffordshire in February 1939 and mentioned that drama and verse-speaking competitions had attracted two award-winning participants from a similar festival in Buxton.
It is believed that our Festival continued throughout the 1930s.
In an article published in 1988 under the heading of “Fifty Years Ago” ie in 1938, there was commentary from the reporter on what had been achieved by our Festival since its establishment.
Evidently, the original Festival purpose of encouraging top quality singing had been augmented to include recitation competitions.
The performing arts stayed active in Buxton through the Second World War. We know that most teachers enlisted in the services or other war work and retired teachers took their places. A Buxton resident, Stan Evans, reports that he participated in our Festival as a boy treble in 1944. He did not win but proudly informed us that his school choir (Kent’s Bank) had consistently won the choral classes – so much so, that Stan believed other schools were put off taking part! Full credit to the stand-in headmaster, who was an accomplished pianist and also to another stand-in teacher, more than able to conduct a group of musicians. They took their young charges to memorable success. Stan went on to participate in the local musical scene, and has supported our Festival in various capacities to this day. (Pictures of Stan as boy and at age 90, if available.) At that time, our Festival was all about striving to win and learning to lose!
During 1937, Buxton sought to emulate Malvern, which had started an annual theatre festival, based on its underused spa buildings. Buxton was inspired to do likewise and the Old Vic theatre company presented three plays during August and September. The Opera House temporarily gave up its main function (which at that time was a cinema). These theatre festivals continued until 1943 with Sadler’s Wells opera taking over from the Old Vic in 1940. Then they ceased.
A local resident in her late 80s reported recently that Buxton was humming during the war. It was seen as a relatively safe area and was one that had attracted many additional people. These included military people located at Harpur Hill and those looking after prisoner-of-war camps in the Temple Fields area of town, refugees and the employees of commercial and administrative organisations moved from their normal locations. There were plenty of takers for musical offering.
A professional orchestra, the “Spa Orchestra of Buxton” was established and performed at concerts in the Pavilion Gardens from the 1940s. They continued through the Second World War, had a season lasting from May to September and also held winter and Christmas concerts. The repertoire was mainly classical and also included some musical theatre melodies.
In 1942, Buxton had a Drama Festival of one-act plays, referred to in the local press nine years later. Whether this was independent of, or related to, our Festival is not clear. It may have inspired an interest in drama, leading to its inclusion in the range of our Festival’s competitive offerings.
- A NEW POST-WAR ERA
Change was underway and Buxton was reinventing itself. The decline of spa treatments accelerated as the National Health Service was established bringing free medical treatments for all citizens. Like most parts of the country, Buxton felt the effects of “post-war austerity”. The surplus visitor accommodation was being put to use progressively for regional and national conferences. The result was that the artistic life of the town waned overall.
Despite the broader scene, our festival retained much, if not all, of its initial vitality in the 1950s. In 1951, it took place over three days in five locations – The Pavilion, the Playhouse, the Town Hall, the Congregational Church and the Wesley School. Celia Dunk, a Buxton resident and later Chair of our festival, reported recently that anyone who had music lessons, privately or through school, took part as a matter of course. She also stated that almost every school had a choir and participated at music festivals all around the region. Another local resident, Gill Morton, who took part in our festivals during the 50s and 60, had herself been taught by the daughter-in-law of GH Lockett, our Festival founder. Gill went on to play an important role in our festival Committee. She commented how useful it had been to receive feedback on a performance from someone other than her own teacher. Participation offered a chance to have a trial run before a music exam. All participants had been on a learning curve and that made for a very friendly environment.
Nearly forty years from its foundation, it became clear that our festival had developed an organisational maturity. A set of Objectives and a Constitution for its running were drawn up and agreed on 27th January 1954. This document named the organisation “Buxton and North Derbyshire Music Festival Society”. A Festival Office address was given as 3 Longden Square, Buxton. (It is not clear whether this was in residential or commercial use at the time.) We know from contemporary press advertisements that there were “Patrons”, who enjoyed privileged ticketing, in return for their financial contributions.
By the 1960s, the war and immediate post-war generation was coming of age and the period of austerity following hostilities was passing. It was a time of experimentation and renewed energy. Some individuals were key in moving Buxton into a new phase of excellence in the performing arts. Kenneth Crickmore, the General Manager of the Halle Performing Arts Society, had come to live in Buxton. He organised a series of Festival Concerts performed by the Halle Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli in “the Pavilion Ballroom”. These continued until 1967. In 1965, music in the Pump Room was included every day at 11am during this week-long festival which took place every July.
It appears that our Festival (Buxton and North Derbyshire Musical Festival), or perhaps just some of its winners, performed alongside the Halle and other professional concerts, all being advertised together in publicity leaflets as “Buxton Festival of Music” or on occasion “The North Derbyshire Music Festival”. In 1964, we know related concerts were held in the Pavilion Concert Hall, St John’s Church as well as the Pump Room. Professional orchestras and ensembles, other than the Halle, included the Alberni String Quartet, The New Bass Consort and the Manchester Wind Ensemble. This Buxton Festival of Music appears to have continued to 1968.
Our festival appears to have gone from strength to strength during the years of “Buxton Music Festival” referred to above. There were instrumental, vocal, piano and verse-speaking classes to name those specifically mentioned in the press. These were structured to provide opportunities for every age group from “Under 9s” upwards. There were classes for ladies, men, madrigals, mixed voice and parish church choirs. There were sub-classes focusing on different genres eg British Composers, Light Opera, Opera and Madrigals. The identity of choirs and ensembles was diverse:- folk, bands of commercial organisations and the choir of Oignie, Buxton’s twinned town in France. There were around thirty classes for groups of young people under 21. The Mayor and Mayoress turned out for the opening occasions. By 1965, many silver cups had been donated, to be given to specified class winners. Some bore the names of particular local communities, such as Fairfield and Hadfield. Others bore the names of individual donors. In 1963, the Committee of our Festival donated and presented a cup in memory of the founder GH Lockett.
In the 1960s, there were “Winners’ Concerts”, at which the winners of some or all of the individual classes performed. These were advertised in 1966 (in the Town Hall), in 1967 (at the Playhouse) and through the 1980s and 90s (usually in the Octagon section of the Pavilion Gardens building).
Our Festival’s Committee undertook experiments from time to time. A Handwriting class (competition) was introduced in 1966, with the work on display in Buxton Museum and Art Gallery.
The influence of individual music teachers cannot be overstated. The pupils of one teacher won 15 “First”, 13 “Second” and 6 “Third” certificates.
There are some signs that the organisers of our Festival may have been facing financial pressures in the 1960s. There was an advertisement for a Bring and Buy event in the Hartington Hotel with cakes, grocery and fancy stalls.
In 1966, one of the adjudicators of the competitive choral classes in our Festival was Gordon Clinton, Principal of Birmingham School of Music. He commented “It has been one of the most enjoyable days I have spent for a long time. Since 9.30 this morning, there has not been a single bad performance.” The reporter of The Buxton Advertiser (8 July 1966) stated that Mr Clinton was so impressed by the choirs competing in the “mixed voice choirs for a minimum of 45 participants”, that after they had all sung CH Parry’s “Descend ye Nine..!” he gathered them all on the stage again. There were over 200 people involved. He had them sing the same piece of music together, while he conducted. The result was anticipated to be so impressive that the doors to the Pavilion Gardens were flung open. This was so that the maximum number of people could enjoy the wonderful sound. (The words, by Alexander Pope, are set out in the Appendix. The title “Descend Ye Nine” does not appear in Pope’s poem and was evidently added later.)
- THE 1970s – 1990s: OUR FESTIVAL WAS IN GOOD SHAPE BUT NOT ATTRACTING PUBLICITY.
We know from the stories of some individual families that our Festival flourished through the 1970s. A former Chairman, Philip Holland, reported recently that he participated in them himself from the mid 1950s until he left school in the mid 60s. He was not the first generation of the family to do so. The record goes back to his grandfather, who sung in the 1907 Festival as a teenager and possibly later as a young adult. He reports that there were many other music festivals across the Peak District and beyond and “anyone who learnt a musical instrument took part in them as a matter of course”. He mentioned Derby and Leicester, but they were also known to have taken place in Matlock, Bakewell, Fairfield, Hazel Grove and Heaton Mersey. As well as individual families, schools took part in the choral classes of these festivals and many did not limit themselves to the nearest one. Not only did Philip take part regularly, but so also did his children and grandchildren – and sometimes the generations teamed up in duet classes! Taking part in music festivals for those fortunate enough to have schools attaching importance to music, speech and drama was a way of life. The same applied to those who had private teachers and those in families which gave each other support across the generations. Some have been inspired to develop their musical or dramatic abilities professionally or as very competent amateurs and to support actively those following after them.
Jason Curteis, a member of our festival’s current management committee, won an under 14 strings competitive class in 1982. He remembers losing on occasion to other players, whom he felt had performed to a lower standard. Conversely, he sometimes found he had won when competing against players who had performed better than himself! He made the general comment that festivals were great if you won but unfortunately sometimes gave a negative experience if you believe that you might win but did not. Jason’s students participated in current festivals. In the current festivals, participants can chose to enter one of the non-competitive classes if they wish and to benefit from the adjudicator’s comments and encouragement. Whilst every effort is made to use a fair ranking system, there are nevertheless lessons of life to be learnt about the processes of ranking talent and on occasion living with disappointment.
In the broader scene, the musical environment of Buxton and its area continued to evolve. Male voice choirs had come into existence after the First World War and during the 1950s. They were very much in evidence during the 1970s and 80s. They played their part in our Festival and many others. Such choirs as Alfreton, Chapel-en-le Frith, Tideswell and Stoke on Trent have continued to thrive to this day.
The popular music scene, amplified by evolving radio and television technologies at home and abroad, brought the stars of new music genres to cities around the United Kingdom for live performances. Those in Manchester and Liverpool were well within reach of local people. The stars frequently included Buxton in their regional tours, since it had excellent performance facilities arising from its spa heritage. Rock music festivals were started in the town in the early 1970s. These took place at Harpur Hill in the initial years, before repeated adverse weather conditions drove them inside. Chuck Berry, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles and Paul McCartney alone featured on the Buxton scene. There were moments of drama, too, when Hell’s Angels took over the stage when Chuck Berry was performing! The extent to which young people taking part in our festival also embraced the new popular scene is unknown – but there was certainly some volatility in the numbers participating in our festival during these years. There are certainly people in mid-life now who participated in our festivals in their schooldays and who now enjoy going to revival concerts of the stars from the 1960s and 70s!
There are few press reports about our festival during the 1970s. Each year, it took place but did not command wider attention. There was a lot else going in relation to the musical and dramatic scene in Buxton, especially in the second half of the decade.
The Buxton Opera house had been functioning as a cinema for many years and was in need of repairs and ungraded facilities. The freeholder, High Peak Borough Council, did not wish to renew the lease, which expired in 1981, for the entertainment company running the facility at that time. In 1976, Malcolm Fraser visited Buxton for the first time. He was a lecturer at the Royal Northern College of Music, concerned principally with teaching singers to act. He saw Buxton Opera House and thought it an excellent venue for an opera festival. He enlisted two associates from the musical world and started the process of influencing appropriate parties to undertake necessary remedial work on the Opera House. They also started gathering funds to launch an opera festival in Buxton. The Buxton Opera House Trust and the Festival Board were set up to address these tasks respectively. Arup Associates were commissioned to undertake the remedial work required on the Opera House. The first Buxton Opera Festival took place in July 1979. It included two operas for children and there were recitals and concerts taking place alongside the operatic offering. There was no mention of competitive music, speech or drama competitive classes taking place as part of its programme. There was no known linkage between the Opera Festival (now Buxton International Festival) then and there never has been since.
The Buxton Music Festival, set up in the 1960s, appears to have continued for a while. Competitors in our festival appear to have stayed associated with it and there were certainly competitive classes in the programme for children, local bands and schools across the region. One boy featured in the Buxton Music Festival, Gareth Davies, won a cup presented to our festival by his grandfather in the 1930s. This shows once again the power of family links in promoting participation. As the Buxton Opera Festival diversified its offering and grew in number of performances and audiences, the previous Buxton Music Festival appears to have gradually waned over the 1980s and 90s, leaving our festival isolated. There was confusion in the press about the different titles and on occasion our festival was itself referred to as Buxton Music Festival.
On 9th August, 1978, our festival applied successfully for charitable status. What influenced the decision to do this is unknown.
Many other musical and dramatic bodies came into existence in Buxton and the surrounding area during the 1980s. Advertisements appeared in the press associated with brass bands, orchestral bodies such as the Buxton Music Centres (Wind Groups and String Orchestras), Buxton Music Club, WEA Music Appreciation groups, Spa Town Country Music Club, country music festivals, live musical offerings at night clubs and pubs, Buxton Young People’s Theatre Trust, Jazz Appreciation Society, Buxton Drama League, the Drama Festival and the Fringe Festival associated with the Buxton Opera Festival. A Buxton Arts Council was set up with representatives of these various organisations taking part. Other organisations were in existence offering musical experience a little further away, such as Kinder Children’s Choir and these were attractive to some Buxton families. The Gilbert and Sullivan Festival was also brought to Buxton in 1994.
In 1996, the 75th anniversary of the founding of the British Federation of Festivals took place. The Federation provides support to festivals relating to the performing arts. Our Festival was invited to send a soloist or group to take part in a special celebration event in Warwick and over 300 festival groups participated. The British Federation of Festivals now has international scope and our festival remains affiliated.
- INTO THE 21ST CENTURY
During the later 1990s, our Festival’s Committee sought to clarify its identity. The name was changed from Buxton and North Derbyshire Musical Festival to Buxton Music, Speech and Drama Festival in 1996. These three categories of competitive classes were well established and there was perhaps a need to narrow the geographical focus. There were advertisements for new volunteers to act in various capacities on the Committee. It was advertised using its new name in 1997 and it also mentions that it was in receipt of financial support from High Peak Borough Council.
In 1998, the Buxton Advertiser reported that the “first Buxton Music Festival was held in 24 years”. This suggests that although our festival had retained its own, unceasing organisational identity throughout the late 1970, 1980s and 90s, this was lost amidst the wealth of other musical festivals and associated performance offerings. Five year’s later, it was clear the confusion was not entirely cleared up, since the press simply identified it as Buxton’s “other music festival”. The terms “Other Festival” and “Little Festival” are to be heard in conversation amongst locals to this day.
In 2001, an Annual General Meeting of the Subscribers (Patrons? ) took place and it was reported that some competitive classes were under-subscribed and that therefore some economies would need to be made. The Rules, incorporating the Constitution, were rewritten to reflect a change of focus to amateur music, speech and drama.
The press releases in the early years of the new century all feature speech and drama rather than music, although the numbers of competition classes within the festival did not reflect that. A local drama group called Peak Drama put forward numerous participants and one was awarded top marks in four class categories one year: – reciting a set poem (under 14s), prose from memory (12-13 years), a religious reading (13-14 years) and solo drama (under 14 years). Other members of this drama group also won prizes. Later in the decade, the REC Theatre Company, established in 1995, put forward 40 participants and between them won nearly 40 awards. Maybe the profile of speech and drama simply rose visibly in the community during the decade, leading to it attracting more press attention. Winners Recitals, which had been a feature of our festival for many years in music, speech and drama categories, were restricted on occasion to one for Junior Speech participants only. The number of speech and drama categories increased slowly until 2013 but thereafter started a decline.
In the first years of the new century, our Festival lasted two days and was held in the Octagon and Methodist Church. In 2004, there were four venues. There were attempts at national level to increase the supply of brass and woodwind tuition in schools during these years. This endeavour reached Buxton and the national Music for Schools Foundation advertised for teachers to work in the Buxton area.
In 2007, choral music featured once more in the press reports. St Thomas More School won the top choir prize. St Anne’s Roman Catholic School also won prizes in the more junior competition classes. Two years later, a recorder competition class was also mentioned and won by Warmbrook Junior School ensemble. These youngsters were all taught by professional music teachers, who accompanied them. In 2008, piano and instrumental classes were established again. The number of venues for our Festival went up to seven, used over two days and there was a Winners’ recital concert in the Octagon. The following year, the range of classes was augmented further, with the inclusion once again of piano and instrumental classes.
The decade starting in 2010 was the period after the world-wide economic crash of 2008. In the UK, public expenditure on education reduced, particularly in relation to what some saw as non-core subjects. Musical education and opportunity began to reduce within the public sector, except in schools fortunate enough to have leadership which believed in it and actively promoted it. Expenditure on instruction passed increasingly from public to private sector, and came to involve the voluntary sector to a greater extent. Parents and enthusiastic adults could frequently not afford to pay for formal music education – an issue continuing to this day.
For reasons unknown, the Charitable Status of our Festival had lapsed during the early years of the new century. Required updates to the Charities Commission had not taken place and our Festival was struck off by the Commission. It was a time in Buxton and nationally, when bands, choirs and soloists were invited to participate in charity concerts for a variety of causes. We do not know whether participants in our festival took part. Maybe registration was not seen as essential, since participants could participate in charitable activities without it.
Former Chair of our festival , Celia Dunk, was asked recently what the value of participation was to those involved in the early years of this century. She mentioned opportunity to perform, to receive feedback, enjoyment of being surrounded by people of like skills and enthusiasms, and learning to accept and build on criticism. Participation led to broader opportunities as well. Choirs, ensembles and individuals attracted attention and were asked to perform later at care homes, private parties and in other festivals.
After 2010, our festival was strong on all musical categories – choral, solo and small group singing, piano, string and brass instruments. A mixture of age groups still participated, although the number of adults diminished after 2015.
In 2017 a new Committee took over with Elizabeth Haggis as Chair. Our Festival was re-registered with the Charity Commission. The 2017 Festival had a total of 238 individual or small ensemble entries, eight choirs and two recitalists. Roughly 90% were musicians, 9% speech entries and 1% drama entries. There were two venues. The choral classes took place in the Opera House and the rest in Buxton Methodist Church.
A Patron’s Scheme was introduced that year, at the cost of £20 annually (less for those on limited incomes) and this gave free entry to all classes in the Festival and to the Winners’ Concert, held one month later. (Was it called Friends or Patrons Scheme? Was it new or a relaunch?)
Festivals took place in 2018 and 2019 before the World was overtaken by Covid in 2020.
- OUR FESTIVAL AFTER THE COVID PANDEMIC
Much changed as a result of Covid. There were no Festivals in 2020, 2021 and 2022. In the years since, the numbers participating have been much lower than in the years leading up to the pandemic. In 2024 for example, there were 74 individual or small ensemble entries. This is roughly a third of the numbers in the years leading up to Covid.
Many young people missed opportunities to perform with other musicians during the pandemic years, to undertake music lessons or ensemble practices and they missed out on participation in festivals such as ours. When invited to reminisce, Ceris Bates, who performed as part of Chapel-en-le Frith High School’s band in 2023, commented on how useful it had been to receive feedback from a different professional. She also commented on how interesting, enjoyable and unprecedented it had been to play in the space and atmosphere that Buxton Methodist Church presented.