A HISTORY OF THE SUFFOLK
FESTIVAL - Bill Lynch
This document is a personal
selection of highlights revealed by the minutes of the managing
committees.
The festival arose from a
proposal from the East Anglian Association of Musical Societies, although there
is also a passing reference in 1927 to the “Henniker Competitions” launched in
1897. It was known as the Suffolk County
Musical Competition Festival. The first
meeting was held 28Jul1923. The first
festival was on Fri 15 and Sat 16 May 1924 at the Public Hall,
As early as 18 Apr1925 it was
resolved that the “Broadcasting Company” be invited to
send a representative to the festival to make a selection from the vocal
classes for broadcasting.
In 1930, patrons subscribed
£51, entrance fees amounted to £62, admission charges raised £52, the concert
admission charges raised £27, syllabus and programme sales raised £23, and
advertising revenue was £22. These
together almost met total expenditure of £245.
A separate charge of 6d was made for marksheets until 1930, after which
the charge was absorbed into the entrance fee.
Early syllabuses and
programmes were sprinkled with literary quotations. Syllabuses were titled “Forecast and
Syllabus” until 1955. The previous
year’s class winners were listed in one or both. The contents were progressively weeded in the
mid to late 1930s. From 1967 to 1972
they were titled “Competitive Festival” with the name of the assn in smaller
print across the top. Until at least
1948 they bore a cover price, but in 1948, and probably always in practice, the
secretaries were given power to give free copies at their discretion. Youth day syllabuses were often separate and
free. The syllabuses were officially
free from 1967.
In the early days, there were
arrangements with rail and Eastern Counties bus companies to issue return
tickets at the price of a single on production of a ticket of admission to the
festival. By 1934 this had shrunk to
railway only, and it disappeared with the war.
Bronze plaques were awarded
to winners of certain classes (presumably to keep) until 1930, when they were
dropped as too expensive. The cttee
resolved 20Jun1931 to reinstate them.
Challenge Banners (up to 13) were also awarded, to be returned for the
following festival. Other trophies such
as cups and shields were slow to appear.
In 1935 a “Prize of Music to the value of one guinea” was offered by a
cttee member for piano repertoire, and the first medal was presented by Oliver
Lusher. In 1938 a scholarship taking the
form of a year’s tuition was awarded by the cttee, guided by adjudicators’
reports, to a
OAs were not available for
rehearsal, and there seems to have been no provision for booking them in
advance; they were simply “in attendance” on the day, and therefore presumably
free. However, a fee was introduced for
1948. By 1949 they had to be reserved at
entry time and would not be available for rehearsal during the festival. In Sep 1960 Council decided that an official
accompanist was not now required (as from the 1961
Until 1937 inclusive,
and later for some, several classes had two sections, giving a choice of set
pieces, and competitors could enter either or both sections. In the pgm the sections were usually
separated by another class.
The competition was
restricted, with specific exceptions, to amateurs who lived in
There was an altercation with
the Customs & Excise Commissioners over entertainments tax in respect of
some classes. By appealing through the
MP for
The town of solo competitors
was shown in the programme from 1933 (or at least that was resolved by cttee on
25Mar1933).
The cttee on 20Oct1934
resolved to affiliate to the Federation of Music Festivals. About five years before that they had
disaffiliated as a desperate cost-cutting measure.
There was a general shake-up
of classes in 1936. Folk Dancing became
Country Dancing. Evening sessions were
introduced.
The 16th festival was in May
1939, then there was a break during the second world war until the 17th
festival in May 1946, although a one-day “informal competition festival” was
held under festival auspices in May 1941, restricted to BSE area and excluding
adult solo and masses children’s classes.
The minutes of the last pre-war cttee mtg (1Jul1939) give no hint of
disruption by war, and even report provisional dates for the 1940
festival. The next cttee mtg was not
until 16May40, at which the chairman’s decision to cancel the 1940 festival was
reported and approved. Trophies were to
be entrusted to the care of their current holders.
On 11Sep1943 the cttee
“agreed that, if possible, a festival should be held in BSE in 1945 and , in the meantime, to give every possible encouragement
to the local wartime festivals being held in various centres of the
county”. No 1945 festival occurred. The 1946 festival was purely musical (no
dancing or elocution, as resolved at cttee 26May1945), and was the last under
the original name: from 1947 it was the Suffolk Musical Festival, and from 1955
the Suffolk Music Festival.
Also at 26May1945 it was
agreed to run with a main cttee, representing all county organisations
interested in music, and three subcttees: executive; music; and schools. At the first main cttee mtg (29Sep1945) the
main cttee was renamed to Council.
From 1946 the choral section was non-competitive and so were classes for groups,
but as cups appeared their classes became competitive and by 1962 the whole
choral section was competitive again.
The 1947 festival was
postponed at a late stage to June as a result of various difficulties, notably
the rapid turnover of Secretaries: there were three in the course of the year.
The 1949 festival was held at
Felixstowe because the Corn Exchange (probably at
At the council mtg 12Jul1952,
the treasurer was keeping a number of cups and banners which had gone out of
use with the conversion of their classes to non-competitive. Resolved to offer the cups
back to their donors where traceable, and to use the banners to decorate the
halls during the festival. Three
such cups remained at 25Oct1952. At exec
cttee 14Nov1953, Mr Balaam reported ten trophies not in use:- “Mrs John Greene
Cup; Cup for School Choirs - donor unknown; Orpen Cup; Pettiward Cup - Folk
Dancing award; Lady Jervis - Folk Dancing; Wayman Cup; Mrs Hildersley; Mrs
Dudley Hervey; Christine Podd - Percussion Bands; Mrs Vernon Wentworth -
Village Choirs”, and the cttee decided which 8 classes to reallocate those cups
to, but left it to the secretaries to decide the order, and in the event the
“donor unknown” (presumably the Dorothy Fagge) and Jervis remained unallocated
for 1954 and the Hildesley, though eventually allocated to to the eighth class,
does not appear in the syll for 1954. In
1954 several trophies were restored and one or two more added. At the 9Oct1954 Council mtg it was pointed out
that many cups had fallen into disuse owing to non-competitive classes, and
agreed that the matter be considered.
The subcttee on trophies (chaired by Mr Balaam) reported and handed over
correspondence dealing with the donors’ wishes, and new allocations were
approved for the Jervis White Jervis, Hildesley, Dorothy Fagge, Ganzoni and
Ross Taylor. At exec cttee 26Nov1954
Miss Prigg lists the “Hildersley Cup, Lady Jervis White Jervis Cup, and a small
Cup originally awarded for School Choirs” as not assigned to classes last
year. At exec cttee 24Feb1955
recommended assignmt of JWJ to lieder, Hildesley (spelling corrected in minutes
by deleting “r”) to vocal ensemble, and “Cup (formerly given to school choirs)”
to “Open Piano Duet”. Council mtg
2Apr1955 approved the recommended allocations with modifications, as noted in
the exec cttee 1Jun55 minutes. At the
9Jul1955 AGM, the Secretary reported that all the cups and shields had been
collected, examined, re-engraved with the names of the new classes to which
they had recently been allocated, valued at over £268, insured and
photographed.
Youth Days were run largely
autonomously, having their own subcommittee, secretary, dates, venues,
syllabuses (usually) and concerts. It
seems they filled a gap in provision.
They were discontinued from 1967 on the grounds that schools could now
be better served by the education authorities, who had recently appointed music
advisors and raised school music activity.
At an extraordinary GM of the
Council on 1Sep1954 it was resolved to change the name to Suffolk Music
Festival. At the 9Oct1954 Council mtg,
Miss March was to be asked to draw up a constitution. At the next Council mtg (2Apr1955) a draft
constitution was adopted after amendment, to take effect in July 1955. The Suffolk Music Festival Association was
duly formed in 1955 to consolidate the help given by subscribers, and its first
AGM was 9Jul1955 in BSE. At that AGM,
the Secretary reported that the new constitution “preserved the special
On 6Oct1962 the Council
accepted committee recommendations to exclude professionals, to remove the
Elocution was reintroduced in
1962, renamed verse speaking in 1963, broadened to speech by 1966.
The festival was moved from
May to October in 1967, largely because of greatly increased school exam
activity in spring.
There is some evidence that
the 1969 festival was not recorded as well as it should have been. No executive committee minutes survive. The next surviving minutes state that minutes
of the previous meeting were not available, and that the committee did not know
where the cups were.
The 1971 festival was
cancelled on the grounds that a long postal strike had made it impossible to
engage enough adjudicators and to set all music in time for a syllabus to be
published.
There was an attempt in 1972
to push the local authorities into instituting an ambitious annual county-wide
festival of the arts, but the effort was shelved in view of the impending local
government reorganisation and not revived.
The Council was abolished at
the 28Oct1972 AGM.
The move to Stowmarket in
1974 was inspired partly by the merging of the previously separate counties of
East and West Suffolk, but it was also promoted as a single stable venue in
which the entire festival could be held under one roof, in contrast to the
variety of halls in each of
Until 1975, the Vocal
Championship was a playoff between the Voice class winners. From 1976 a wider formula was adopted
instead.
Cash prizes disappeared in
1978, the last one having been for composition, but reappeared for a short
while in the 1990s.
The biggest entry for any one
class was probably the 66 in 1979 for descant recorder solo with piano (11
years and under).
The present Dance section
started in 1980, as one way of making the 50th festival special.
Ipswich CE offered us free
accommodation in 1982 for their centenary year, and we accepted. Drama and film sections were immediately
introduced, at the wish of the Ipswich Corn Exchange, but the new sections were
not detailed in the syllabus. Aerobics
flooring was bought for the dance section, its cost being shared with the Corn
Exchange. Film quietly disappeared after
only one year, except that the EADT trophy remains in the syllabus! Drama was found to be financially unviable
(cttee 6Nov1984) and transferred wef 1987 to the Ipswich Arts Association
(cttee 4Nov1986).
From 1991 the festival
purported to be the Suffolk Festival of Music, Dance and Speech, to harmonise
with the recent change of name of the Federation. However, the change of name was not formally
ratified until a new constitution was adopted at the 1992 AGM.
Bill Lynch
December 1999