4 June 2022: Doddington Place Gardens Jubilee Proms concert   FESTIVAL:
28 July 2022 Newnham church 6:30PM Free Music & Drinks for supporters & locals
29 July 2022:  Assembly Rooms, Faversham 7PM Opening Festival Concert: Handel concerti & Haydn symphony
30 July 2022: Assembly Rooms, Faversham 7PM Song Recital: tenor, soprano & cello
31 July 2022
    3pm: Doddington Church 3PM Bach & Vaughan Williams – with choir
    5:30pm: Doddington Place Gardens: Swing & Jazz trio
    7pm: Doddington Place Gardens 7PM Handel, Bach, Telemann, Krommer & Haydn
1 August 2022: Assembly Rooms, Faversham 7PM Accordion & Friends 2 August 2022: Assembly Rooms, Faversham 7PM Glorious Chamber Music
3 August 2022:  Doddington Place Gardens 7PM Rossini – Petite Messe Solenelle,”opera” with soloists & choir

Summer 2022 Concerts in Faversham Assembly Rooms & Doddington Place Gardens – began with commemorative music for the Queen’s Jubilee on 4 June. Our annual mini-festival, Musique-Cordiale in Kent, launched in Faversham on 29 July 2022 with a charming concert of orchestral music and concluded, after a series that featured an exciting variety of choral, orchestral, chamber and jazz concerts, with:

We also staged a one-off pre-festival event in Doddington Place Gardens in 2022: 

The Musique-Cordiale orchestra with soloists, conducted by Graham Ross, also performed

in a special commemorative concert at 7PM on 4 June 2022 to
celebrate the 70th Jubilee of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II

This included a programme of rousing music – classical favourites a la “last Night of the Proms” + Dambusters, Mozart, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Puccini, Parry & more…),
preceded at 5:30PM by our special
Swing & Jazz ensemble with Terry Seabrook (keyboard), Tristan Fry (drums) & Sean Law (double bass).
Programme HERE.

Frederick Long, bass, & Aidan Coburn, tenor, among soloists performing on 4 June 2022
with the Musique Cordiale Festival Orchestra, conductor Graham Ross

Our box offices will reopen at Easter 2023.

As these videos illustrate, the show continued  in 2020-2022 after initial Pandemic lockdowns… and our events managed to retain something of the convivial  and musical feel of Musique-Cordiale – but on a different scale, in a more challenging climate… and without most of our usual pan-European musicians & audiences.

   Vivaldi:  Four Seasons
Final notes of closing Concert, 4 August 2021, Musique-Cordiale in Kent: Emma Purslow, violin, Musique-Cordiale Festival Ensemble, conductor Graham Ross,
Doddington Place Gardens, Kent, GB

Summer 2021

Programme 29 July – 4 August 2021
(7 concerts in Kent, GB)

The summer festival (reduced but exciting and mostly open-air) took place in GB instead of France this year

Organising a 2-week annual international festival in Provence always took months of planning and lead-time (it will be slightly shorter in 2023). Each year since 2005, we have arranged venues, travel & accommodation, enrolled singers, recruited and transported musicians with instruments and sometimes opera sets and costumes, booked soloists, ordered music, prepared posters, banners and printed programmes as well as setting everything up on our website. We manage everything from catering to lighting and ticketing to the details of a diverse programme that excites performers and audiences alike. And we budget early to achieve this and to try to fund what we plan.

With the ever-changing Covid-19 pandemic situation in Europe in 2020 and 2021 – and restrictions on travel as well as a vaccination schedule that could not reach everyone for a while, we realised (in mid-April 2020, sometime after our usual Easter Box Office opening) that we had, quite simply, run out of time to produce a full festival 2020 in the Pays de Fayence that summer. And even if we did, we could not insure it or be confident that our audiences would flock from all over Europe to the beautiful venues where we usually perform musical delights, not only in vineyards and the Fayence amphitheatre but also in closely-packed medieval churches. SO… the Festival shrank and also moved to Kent GB pro tem! And it was just as well as, in the end, we would not have been allowed to put on the festival in France in August 2020 – or in 2021 – at the time we usually have. And the logistics (closed ports and airports, travel restrictions, covid passes, infection rates) meant that we could not have brought our musicians and singers from all over Europe to Provence anyway. Even in Britain, we had to accept (though many tried till the last moment) that non-UK-based musicians and audiences simple could not participate. And we still had to turn away recently-infected people and exercise special care and social distancing. Indeed, most concerts have had to take place out-of-doors and we could not accommodate singers as compactly (or affordably) as usual. But we DID manage to dodge the English weather. We put on a single concert (free-no box office) in September 2020 … and successfully staged a shortened week-long series of 7 summer Concerts in 2021 (+ rehearsals, outdoor catering and conviviality). This proved a great success, reaching new audiences and attracting new choir and orchestra members as well as providing an outlet, at least, for many of our longer-standing musicians and singers though WE MISSED OUR FRENCH & PAN-EUROPEAN AUDIENCES. But, unlike so many other festivals and concert series, our SHOW DUID GO ON, maintaining our uninterrupted 17-year record of successful and popular festivals of classical and choral music. Our international festival in Provence, of the kind we have proudly offered in the past, was this year still yet within our reach. But everyone who could come to Kent, both in summer and in December 2021, was happy – and we are happy to have reached new music-starved appreciative audiences – to whom we also plan to be loyal in future!

   Mozart REQUIEM, 31 July 2021, Musique Cordiale Festival Ensemble & choir, 31 July 2021,
Doddington Place Gardens, Kent, GB

Covid-19 again meant that concerts in England in 2021 & 2022 were possible only in Britain:

 Musique-Cordiale’s Festival in the beautiful Kent Downs (an inviting ambience though not quite so reliably warm and dry in summer as Provence} Doddington Place Gardens and lovely acoustic churches

We missed our loyal supporters in France but we are trying to be positive and creative at a time of great challenge for culture and music. We are so pleased that some of you, based in Britain, could join us for our concerts in 2020-22, in Kent, GB and that we have attracted new enthusiastic audiences in Kent (see feature article HERE) … and, with luck, something may prove viable in France again in summer 2023 too.

In 2021 and 2022, we decided to do what we thought we COULD manage, carefully and cautiously and mainly out-of-doors, but to do it in ways that retain the high musical and aesthetic standards for which Musique Cordiale has become known. And we succeeded! We also hoped it could still be friendly and convivial, incorporating a variety of lovely music in enchanting settings, along with our traditional mix of music, wine, food and good humour -and so it proved! So, in both these summers, it took place in the Kent Downland countryside in England and was based in the enchanting Doddington Place Gardens and, with suitable social distancing, in nearby indoor churches and the Faversham Assembly Rooms.  We hoped that, at least, a few singers and players could join us from France, Holland, Germany and Switzerland – along with some of our European supporters. But, in the end, Covid travel rules prevented this both in the summer and again for our winter events in Faversham. We so hope that crossing La Manche will not prove so challenging in 2023!

2021 Programme & Repertoire: The 7-day summer series included a performance of the MOZART REQUIEM with choir, orchestral ensemble & exciting young soloists under the baton of Graham Ross, director of Music at Clare College, Cambridge with reduced orchestra – and with Rebecca Taylor at the keyboard. The concerts ended with a favourite and popular choral piece, the VIVALDI GLORIA, followed by a performance of the Vivaldi Four Seasons. At Graham Ross’ suggestion, the choir’ a cappella repertoire included the RUTTER BIRTHDAY MADRIGALS, with piano and double bass, which are romantic and fun and fit well to the season and ambience. Other favourites include are Lay a Garland (Pearsall), Richte Mich Gott (Mendelssohn). The 2021 concert Programme is HERE (online BOX OFFICE)

But now…. we invite you to renew your subscriptions. (we’re offering free memberships in 2023 to young or under-employed musicians). And if you are a good experienced singer, please consider joining our choir. See details HERE (we welcome new singers especially and hope to re-engage more of our pan-European talent who have not been able to sing and play with us during the pandemic). Please join our mailing-list to ensure that you receive up-to-date information See contact us. If you would like to join or re-join the Musique-Cordiale CHOIR this summer, please click HERE (enrolment of good and experienced singers).