New approaches as Arundel's Hanover Band navigates tough times

They visit the beautiful 12th-century Steyning Parish Church for a special performance of J S Bach’s St John Passion on the evening of April 12. Tickets are £25, available online and from the Steyning Book; Shopmedia.com. Concert starts 7pm (Vicarage Lane, Steyning, BN44 3YQ). And then on Good Friday (April 18), they offer the same concert at 7pm at St Nicholas' Church, Arundel, BN18 9AT, with tickets available on https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/thehanoverbandfoundation/t-lnpxvpd

Based in Arundel, The Hanover Band is one of Britain’s finest period instrument orchestras with a reputation for the excellence of its performances and recordings of 18th and 19th century music. The Hanover Band Chorus is an ensemble of sixteen singers joined by five soloists: Philippa Hyde soprano; Tim Morgan alto, Bradley Smith tenor, Simon Wall Evangelist, Alex Ashworth Christus and Ed Price Pilate. Andrew Arthur will be the conductor.

General manager Stephen Neiman said the band was in a good position with an encouraging number of engagements coming up: “But I do think that all orchestras since Covid have had a quite tough time and I think so many orchestras since Covid have spent a good deal of their reserve finances just keeping the orchestra running, especially during the lockdowns. We did a whole series of Beethoven symphonies which were published on YouTube when we were allowed to get together and record them. That provided a lot of work for the orchestra but the financing was through private sponsorship and through our own reserves, and it meant that our reserves were consequently depleted to quite a degree.”

And the challenge has been twofold: “I think since Covid, audiences are more concerned and fragile about coming together in places like churches where they are all hugger mugger and could be next to someone who is coughing away. Audiences are not now as robust as they used to be. We are finding a lot of people are buying tickets and then not coming along. What we need to do is really encourage people to come back to our concerts.

“I think it is a question of time, and I think it's just a question of the fact that we have to get used to how things are now. Things are much tougher now. Things are much tougher for the arts and things are much tougher for the theatres. I think we are doing better in the bigger venues where audiences can be more spaced out and separate from each other but I think we're still pushing up against it somewhat in the churches where we struggle more.

“But we have just got to keep soldiering on. We've got to find more people that want to come to support us.”

Since Covid, the amount of money that comes in through the box office as a proportion of the cost of putting on a concert has dipped from 50 per cent to 42 per cent, and with sponsorship remaining the same at 30 per cent, it has meant that a bigger proportion has to be found from private sources. And with that in mind, the Hanover Band has been changing its business model. Rather than putting on the concerts itself, it is looking more to taking part in events where the band is engaged by separate concert organisers – therefore concerts where the Hanover Band receives an engagement fee.

Stephen believes it's an approach that will work for the band. Indeed it is working already to the extent that they are busier in terms of engagements than they were pre-Covid: “But like everything in music there is a lead-in time of two or three years. We are seeing the risk decrease but we are not seeing the financial benefits yet. But as I said we just keep soldiering on!”