Summer warm-up for Petworth Festival later

Coming up in the June edition are: May 31, 7.30pm, St Mary’s, Ella Sings Ellington (jazz); June 1, 12pm St Mary’s, Julian Lloyd Webber – Travels With My Cello (speech); and 7.30pm, St Mary’s, Catrin Finch (harp) and Aoife Ní Bhriain (violin).

As artistic director Stewart Collins explains: “The summer addition evolved out of the Queen’s platinum jubilee two years ago. We decided to celebrate the weekend with a series of events and it was very, very popular. And so we have continued to do it. And it has become the art of tantalising. It's a case of “on your marks” and expect a bit more around the corner!

“This is the third year we have had the June addition and it's a curtain-raiser. And what is lovely is we have got people that have been to the festival before and have been popular. It's about remembering people who have been here and who have done special things.”

Exciting too for the festival is that this year comes with a new look and feel in terms of the festival's marketing and its website: “It's partly to do with a new relationship that we have got. This year we have got a new principal commercial sponsor which we have not had previously, Sofas & Stuff. They have been a modest supporter of ours for years but this year they have completely stepped up. They have two big projects that they sponsor in Sussex, one is Pallant House and one is us. They are brilliantly committed to the arts, and talking to them and just thinking about the way we present ourselves we felt it was a suitable time to change our look. We wanted to go for something really high-end… but that's not to say that we wanted to distance ourselves from anything we have ever done before. We have always featured a key artist on the front of the brochure but now we have gone for a piece of abstract art. We have always been red and now we have gone for a rather elegant blue.”

The approach to the programming, of course, hasn’t changed: “Our approach is the ‘if it ain't broke’ formula. Last year was spectacularly successful and we're capitalising this year on the things that we seem to do really well and that are very popular. The festival is right back in the position that we were pre-Covid and the general feeling is that we are really doing very well. It has always been very important to us that our performances and performers are the very best and we now want to reflect that in our publicity and in our marketing.”

As for performers, there are a number that Stuart is particularly looking forward to including South African cellist Abel Selaocoe on July 22 at 7.30pm in St Mary’s: “He is not someone that people would be overly familiar with but he is incredibly exciting. It's the fact that he is a classical cellist who will be performing the likes of Bach but being South African born and bred he will also be performing African music and so will be bringing an extra series of layers to the performance. He brings something more to his performance than you would expect from the average conservatoire trained musician. There is an extra soulfulness and there is an extra joy.”