Musical Utopia in Cornwall

A week in the magical musical bubble of St Endellion's Easter Festival offered a hopeful vision of grass-roots classical music in the UK

The 15th-century church of St Endellion, home to the Easter and Summer Festivals

It’s easy to feel despondent about the future of classical music. Incessant stories of stringent cuts, bad policies and shameless politics lead to a certain existential despair. Tellingly, Richard Morrison’s interesting new BBC radio series surveying the landscape is entitled A Land Without Music, after music critic Oscar Schmitz’s diagnosis. But let me tell you about my Easter holiday. You might think me a Polyanna, but what I experienced was a quintessentially British Utopia: the magical musical bubble that is Endellion Easter Festival.

The magic starts with the location: St Endellion is set amid the green and pleasant lands and rugged coastline of North Cornwall. There has been a summer festival there since 1958, which Richard Hickox directed from 1973 until his death in 2008. At around the same time he co-founded the shorter Easter version with his then-wife, Fran Hickox.

For the week around Easter, a bunch of professionals, semi-professionals, students and a few lucky amateurs (like me) from around the country pile into the beautiful 15^th-century church of St Endellion (one of John Betjeman’s favourites) to make music together. This year I played in four orchestral and choral concerts, and went to three chamber music programmes. At each one, the church pews were packed with locals, holiday makers, and family and friends of the festival.

Those four concerts happen to be some of the most exciting music-making I get: a Mozart Requiem conducted by the prodigious Adam Hickox (son of Richard), with Mark Padmore and Matthew Brook standing directly behind me; two Haydn Creations with cellist-now-conductor David Watkin offering lessons in musical philosophy and phrasing, and Brook’s hilarious imitations of Haydn’s animals; and the chance to sit at the epicentre of the orchestral sound as a second violin for an all-Brahms programme (well-being levels off the scale). The orchestra included professionals such as former Hallé leader Paul Barritt and Ulster Orchestra leader Ioana Petcu-Colan (who also both gave chamber performances), and one of the pleasures was to hear them performing chamber music together, and with Mark Padmore.

Chamber music concerts at St Endellion

Endellion is much more than the music, though. For starters, there’s the food. Choir and orchestra eat together every evening in a great big tent set up behind Glebe Farm, served two delicious and wholesome courses concocted by expert volunteers. Everyone takes a turn to clear plates and do the dishes, whether soloist, conductor or orchestra player (unless they stand in a field doing parking duty). This egalitarian ideal plays out in the funding, too, with everyone paying to take part, including soloists.

Then there’s the socialising. The tent stays open after concerts, serving drinks and offering a chance to chat both sense and nonsense with friends old and new, with a high proportion of music geekery and gossip. There’s also plenty of downtime between rehearsals to explore local food options (the benefit to the local economy during the week should not be underestimated) and even extra-curricular chamber music, although the weather precluded good walks this time.

There’s a certain life cycle to the festival: we grow up and older together. We discuss our life changes and medical conditions. People dip in and out, skipping a few years when they have babies and returning when their kids are old enough for the creche, which is a central part of Endellion’s cradle-to-grave philosophy. I’m a relative newcomer with five festivals, but there are people who have been coming for decades, including whole families. Like a magnificent old tree, the orchestra constantly regenerates itself, with young people coming through (such as Adam Hickox himself).

The diversity of age is another of the Utopian aspects of the festival, with choir and orchestra ranging from student to retired, all working and socialising alongside each other. That doesn’t mean that friendship groups don’t form of those with similar ages, or based around the choir and orchestra, but people are open and communal daily routines mean faces become familiar: at tea break, when we hear notices and enjoy running gags, everyone chats with everyone.

Nor does it mean that there’s no gossiping, critiquing or venting, or that everyone magically agrees at every musical level. Sometimes there is tension, even of the most subtle kinds, especially under the time constraints of fairly minimal rehearsals, but we skirt the issues and come together for the concerts. Music teaches us to understand, tolerate and override differences for the greater good (usually).

Our performances might not be as polished and perfect as those you would hear at the Festival Hall (I won’t bore you with my personal list of errors), but there’s an intimacy and life to them that makes them all the more personal, and to which the audience seems to respond. (There’s certainly nothing more human than performing The Creation having spent the previous hour with one’s hands in a sink cleaning dinner plates, wearing concert gear covered with mud from the journey between tent and church.)

The festival is made possible by the commitment and time of conscientious volunteers, trustees and directors, looking after every detail, from programme to parts to accommodation to food to money to parking to tea and biscuits. There’s an enormous amount of work behind the scenes and they take it on not for money, prestige or influence, but for the sheer love of music and of the community and traditions their predecessors built.

Endellion may not be as glamorous or well-heeled as major international festivals, but that’s exactly what makes it so special. It represents the very best values of classical music in this country: passion, integrity and a certain no-nonsense, mucking-in, let’s-put-on-a-show-right-here spirit. It also demonstrates what classical music offers audiences and players alike: multigenerational community, friendship, commitment, intellectual and spiritual growth, and a whole lot of joy. As long as festivals like this exist at the grass-roots level across the UK, I have hope.