Participation: terms & conditions
We try to organise the Festival & Academy so that they are rewarding and meet everyone’s expectations. In this spirit, please raise any issues or questions with us directly so that we can try to sort things out together. However, just for clarity, the following are our standard terms and conditions.
• By offering to host you and accepting you as a participant at Musique Cordiale, the Association Musique Cordiale, which organises it, agrees to certain terms.
• By placing a booking or by allowing us to arrange your transport to the festival, accommodation or inclusion in the programme, you are agreeing to the terms and conditions.
• When you apply to join the festival as a choir participant, a volunteer or as an Academy student, we ask you to agree to certain terms and conditions stated on the application & enrolment forms. Your signature (or an exchange of emails) confirms your agreement to these and, by sending in the form, deposit or payment or by arriving and attending, you also confirm that you have read and agree to these contractual conditions.
• When we invite you to the festival as a musician, singer, soloist, ensemble, conductor or tutor, we agree terms of a contract with you. This contract includes obligations to which both the association and you agree by signing a contract and/or by participating in (including travelling at the association’s expense to) the festival. We normally confirm the agreement and also ask you to sign a contract or to confirm your agreement by an exchange of emails. The association pays people at a rate agreed between us only for certain services, including teaching, providing accommodation, food, transport, printing, promotion etc.
• We do not normally pay musicians or participants in our Volunteer Programme for their time at the festival. However, we do want everyone to have an enjoyable time in ways that support their careers or other personal goals and we try not to make unreasonable demands. In exchange, the association provides most evening meals with wine, accommodation, travel to the festival and certain other out-of-pocket expenses. We also ensure that participants have some free time and will try to help with local transport so that you can enjoy activities in the area.
• Please read your own contracts and the following carefully.
1. Booking
1.1 MEMBERSHIP: To become a choir participant, an Academy student or to join the Volunteer Programme, you must join the association for the year and the annual membership fee of 30 € / £25 becomes due on application and is not reimbursable.
1.1.1 DEPOSITS: A deposit is required when you make a booking to sing in the choir or to be an Academy student. This is returnable in full until the deadline for booking or until you have been invoiced, whichever is the earlier. On receipt of the booking or when the booking deadline passes, whichever is the later, you shall be sent a confirmation invoice and welcome letter or email; this constitutes formal acceptance of your booking. After this date, we will not reimburse or return any deposits paid.
1.1.2 Payment of the published charges or amount of the invoice must be received by the published due date or within 14 days of the association issuing an invoice. If payment is not received by the due date, the association cannot guarantee your place.
1.2 BALANCE DUE: The balance of the participation fees is due by the published date or by the date stated on your invoice, whichever is the later. Remember that by booking and allowing the booking deadline to pass, you have already agreed to pay the balance due in full. We try to be reasonable in exceptional circumstances when you have to change your plans but we do insist, as a condition of booking, that you take out insurance to cover cancellation or illness at the time that you are accepted as a participant or by the booking deadline, whichever is later. If payment is not received by the due date, the association reserves the right to give you notice that the booking is cancelled and we may still pursue you for funds due. After the booking deadline, we will not refund any deposits or membership/friend fees. After the final payment deadline, we will not reimburse any payments that you have made for booking, including membership, participation, accommodation or travel. This is why we insist on travel being taken out before the booking deadline.
1.3 Bookings made within six weeks of the start of the festival or Academy require full payment on confirmation that the booking has been accepted.
2. Cancellations
2.1 If you cancel a booking:
2.1.1 We will not refund your annual membership or Friend fees or Donor contributions at any time unless we cannot accept your booking.
2.1.2 We will refund all other money paid to us in full if the booking deadline has not yet passed or if we are not able to accept your booking
2.1.3 The deposit will NOT be reimbursed if you cancel after the booking deadline.
2.1.4 Reimbursement of any value of the remaining final balance already paid after the booking deadline but before the date for final payment on the invoice or published final date shall be at the discretion of the association but, if offered, it would have to be because of exceptional circumstances.
2.1.5 If you cancel after the published date for final payment or the date specified on your invoice, no reimbursements will be made and the association is likely to pursue you for any outstanding amounts that were expected.
N.B. It is strongly recommended that you arrange a comprehensive travel insurance policy – including cancellation and health cover – and have full cover for personal belongings including instruments, since these are not covered by the association’s insurance policies. If you fail to do so, costs of cancellation, illness or loss will be entirely at your own risk.
2.2 If the Association cancels a booking:
2.2.1 If the cancellation is with respect to the balance of the fees not being paid within the required time then the same terms shall apply as if you had cancelled the booking. Therefore all clauses in section 2.1 would apply.
2.2.2 In the unlikely event of the association cancelling a booking, other than under clause 2.2.1, then all payments that have been made with respect to participation or membership shall be reimbursed.
2.2.3 Under no circumstances shall the association’s liability exceed the amount paid to it in participation fees and membership fees for that particular person and that particular Festival or Academy.
3. The Association Musique Cordiale
3.1. accepts no responsibility for loss, damage or theft of instruments or personal belongings.
3.2. reserves the right to substitute tutors, conductors or other musicians from those originally advertised but will, when possible, advise of any such change(s). If we are unable to replace an indisposed tutor, conductor or musician and, as a result, the course, event or festival cannot take place, we will refund any monies paid in respect of that event.
3.3. reserves the right to cancel any course, concert or event without giving reasons. In this event, we strive to give maximum notice and will refund in full all monies paid to the association.
3.4. reserves the right to vary the course programme without notice and, while respecting laws and our own anti-discrimination policies, to refuse any application for participation in a course or event a course without giving reasons.
3.5. respects your confidentiality. We will not divulge the status of course bookings at any point, nor details of others who have booked onto a course except, confidentially to the management of the festival or programme. We do not share personal information with others and do not keep or record any card payment details beyond the moment when the intended payment is processed.
3.6. will not normally accept unaccompanied children under the age of fifteen on any course. Charges for accommodation and meals apply to all accompanying adults or carers.
3.7. makes every effort to ensure that schedules, programmes, publicity materials, the website and booking forms are accurate and will do its best to remedy any errors but it takes no responsibility for errors in any such publicly distributed materials.
3.8. takes no responsibility for the quality of services or products offered by sponsors, programme advertisers and on-site or local vendors except for the services and products offered by the association or its agents.
3.9. is not responsible for items reported lost which cannot be found. A charge, to cover postage & packing, is made for lost property returned to you after your departure. Items can be held for a maximum of 1 month unless agreed in advance.
4. Use of images in publicity material
We may take photographs that include clients, musicians, students, volunteers or other participants during their stay which we use in our publicity materials. If you would prefer your image not to appear in such materials please let us know. Otherwise acceptance of a place in the choir, academy, orchestra, volunteer team or as a soloist, ensemble or tutor implies consent for your image to appear in our publicity materials. We often also provide materials that are sought and valued by individual ensembles, singers or musicians for their own promotional purposes.
5. Video and sound recordings
We may record any concerts or events that take place under the auspices of the Festival or Academy and which we declare for the purposes of payment for music rights (of composer or author). We may distribute these recordings as follows:
• in brief excepts for publicity purposes on the festival website, via social media or in promotional materials or;
• in full or partial recordings distributed only to members of the association; or
• in full recordings provided for individual artists or ensembles to meet their own requests (e.g. for submission to competitions, examinations or course admissions or for their own promotion or web-sites.
For the above purposes, participation in the festival will be taken as your agreement to being recorded. We will usually try to ensure that conductors, directors, soloists or prominent players have a prior opportunity to view such material and that we will not use it if they feel that it misrepresents their talents or performance. If we wish to distribute video or sound recordings to a wider audience or for sale to the public, we will fully consult members of the relevant ensembles before doing so.
6. Expenses for invited musicians & other participants: please click here for Musique Cordiale Travel, Accommodation & Subsistence arrangements
Privacy
Musique Cordiale respects your confidentiality and guards your personal information. We never retain details of your bank debit or credit cards after we have received payments from our members, donors, customers or supporters. We do not sell your name, email, address or phone details. Only Musique Cordiale has access to this information to communicate with you and we share it only with our agents and then only for the purposes of contacting our supporters, customers, donors, staff or suppliers on our behalf. We are trying to be EU GDPR compliant and we retain data only for compliance purposes or to maintain our current lists of and communications with members, singers, players, supporters & Friends. We do not retain any information on visitors to our website.
Updated December 2018