Author Neil Primrose
The Southrepps Classical Music Festival was founded by father and son Neil and Tom Primrose, a retired headteacher and his international conductor and pianist son, and their friends, singers Daniel Goode and Ben Johnson. The idea was born in 2008 and became a reality in 2010. It was an instant success, combining as it did some key factors. The first, of course, was the quality of the music-making which started extremely high and got better
every year with glowing reviews and attracting world-class musicians.
The second was the nature of Southrepps itself:
In the early years so many of the performers and guests commented on the exceptional hospitality and the tightly knit nature of the village. The festival could not have happened had not people in the village opened their homes to performers between them providing accommodation for up to 50 musicians and singers. The Vernon Arms, indisputably the best public house in Britain, provided extraordinary quantities of food with daily meals and provided an important venue for meetings. St James Church was the venue for all the concerts, its exceptional acoustic and beautiful architecture gilding the already highly polished lily. The village hall provided further accommodation for rehearsals and over the years some memorable end-of-festival parties with amazing food provided by hosts and the nearby Groveland Farm Shop. A large number of villagers were involved in the logistics of the festival: putting up rigs, staging, lights, marquees, proving refreshments, providing financial services and booking facilities, putting up advertisements, and over the years a large number of organisations and private individuals provided funding through donations and other kinds of support.
The Repertoire
A good place to sample the repertoire is to visit the festival’s website which provided an
online festival during the pandemic in 2020:
Media – Southrepps Music Festival
Reviews:
September 2015
“In the helpfully unreverberant acoustic of high-towered St James’s Church, pleasingly barewithin despite the (excellent) Victorian restoration of the nave and with light flooding through the leaded Decorated-era windows, this team offered every gradation of sound from ghost-whispers to blazing unisons and multi-part splendours underpinned by the resonance of the two double-
basses which you could feel behind your back in the wooden bench supports.”
Southrepps Sinfonia and Soloists, Southrepps Festival | The Arts Desk
September 2019
“ When you’ve found some of the best young musicians in the world, and they’ve found that they love working in the peaceful surroundings of a magical spot in North Norfolk, you don’t let go. Tenor Ben Johnson and pianist Tom Primrose focused for a special-birthday Southrepps Music Festival on long-term visitors including BBC Young Musician of the Year 2014 Martin
James Bartlett, award-winning guitarist Sean Shibe and violinist Benjamin Baker alongside a stunning newcomer and Bartlett’s equal among more-than-promising pianists, Hungarian-born Daniel Lebhardt. With Britten’s The Burning Fiery Furnace as the fierce centrepiece -Southrepps’ first staged slice of music-theatre, opera, church parable, call it what you will -the 10th anniversary edition was unquestionably the richest ever”.
See theartsdesk at the Southrepps Music Festival – world-class young musicians return to North Norfolk.
Concerts continued to be held until 2025.
In 2026 the founding directors ben and Tom resigned:
We’d like to express our gratitude, as we do every year, to the people who have helped us bring so much wonderful music to the village over the past sixteen years. This broad range of people includes those who helped us set up the festival back in 2010, those who have so dedicatedly assisted with logistics and organisation, those who have acted as administrators over the years, all those people who have generously given donations to help us fund the events, our wonderful hosts in the village and surrounding area, and of course all the people who have been such a warm and appreciative audience. It’s been a wonderful and unforgettable time: as most of you know, this has been a labour of true love – we’ve never taken a fee as it’s been the music and village that has motivated us every year. While we’ve both held down busy international careers, some of our most memorable and treasured musical memories are from Southrepps.
Tom and Ben
From the Trustees of the festival charity:
It was with great reluctance and much sadness that the Trustees accepted the resignations offered by Tom and Ben. From its inception in 2010 and for the next 16 years, the Southrepps Music Festival has been a beacon of classical music excellence in Norfolk. The architects of this have been Tom and Ben, and it has been through their energetic and whole-hearted commitment that this success has come. They have played every role from Artistic Directors, administrators, funding applicants and recruiters of some of the finest established and emerging classical artists playing today, many of whom have gone on to forge their own highly successful careers. The Festival owes a huge debt of gratitude to both for their inspiration and determination to build such a wonderful annual festival.
The departure of Tom and Ben will inevitably lead to changes. It is now time for the Trustees to reflect on what comes next and the future direction of travel for the festival. In due course this will be communicated via the website and our mailing list.https://www.southreppsmusicfestival.com/news.html