AFTER two decidedly different and unusual festivals due to the Covid-19 pandemic and Covid restrictions, the Edington Music Festival returns in its traditional form on Sunday August 21.

The 67th festival will run for its usual eight days – Sunday to Sunday, August 21-28 at the 14th century Edington Priory Church, with four services a day, and three choirs of top-flight singers under three of the country’s leading choral directors.

The offices of Matins and Compline will be sung to plainsong by the Schola Cantorum directed by Peter Stevens, assistant master of music, Westminster Cathedral, while the principal services will be led by a Nave Choir of men and boys conducted by Matthew Martin, precentor and director of College Music, Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, and a consort of mixed voices conducted by Jeremy Summerly, director of music at St Luke’s Church, Chelsea.

The music will take place under the direction of a new festival director, Robert Quinney, Director of the Choir at New College Oxford and former festival organist and director of the Nave Choir.

Mr Quinney has themed the music for this special festival under the heading “Creation and Recreation”, a nod both to its re-emergence and to its capacity for promoting relaxation and fulfilment. 

The week will follow the traditional form starting each day with Matins (plainchant), followed by Eucharist, then Evensong and ending with Compline by candlelight, also plainchant. 

Wednesday, August 24 will see both the return of the BBC Radio 3 recording a Choral Evensong concert live to be broadcast at a later date, and the Festival Supper in the evening in the Parish Field at 6.30pm for 7pm by kind permission of Edington Parish Council.

The Friday evening service will be a Requiem Mass by Michael Haydn, younger brother of Joseph Haydn, and the week will also include Vaughan Williams’ ‘Mass in G Minor’, Copland’s ‘In the beginning’, and Dove’s ‘Seek him that maketh the Seven Stars’.

Leaflets containing the whole programme are widely available; full information is also on the website, www.edingtonfestival.org.  All services are free and unticketed.

The Musical Evening and Supper on August 24 costs £25 per ticket, available from Hugh Hancock at musicalsupper@edingtonfestival.org, or from Mrs Susie Hancock at Dunge Farm, West Ashton, BA14 6AX, or call 01225 754626. Payment is by cheque, made out to Edington Music Festival Society, or ask for BACS.

Parking is available opposite the Monastery Gardens.