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    09

    Mar 2024

    Last Updated: 08/03/2024

    Harrogate youngsters shine but competitive festival faces uncertain future 

    by John Plummer

    | 09 Mar, 2024
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    harrogate-competitive-festival-1
    Harrogate Competitive Festival competitors and adjudicators

    For nearly 90 years, the Harrogate Competitive Festival for Music, Speech and Drama has been showcasing the diverse talents of up-and-coming performers from across the district. 

    The festival, which attracted more than 1,000 entries this year, opened on Friday, March 1 with the promise of a varied programme over three weekends. It will end with a flourish on Sunday, March 17th, when the winning musicians and performers give a final concert.   

    For many young musicians and drama students in the area, the festival is a much-loved fixture on their calendar. It offers an invaluable opportunity to perform in front of an audience of peers and receive feedback from professional adjudicators.

    Former entrants have gone on to distinguished careers in music and the performing arts, with some of them featured in this year’s programme sharing their fond festival memories. 

    Treasurer and secretary Alan Connell is one of them. He vividly remembers taking to the stage as a young violinist 63 years ago when the festival was held at the Royal Hall. He said it was a great experience and can help young performers push themselves and make progress – with some discovering how much they love it. He said: 

    “We’ve got quite a lot of teenagers who have been coming since they were little. We get children whose parents performed as youngsters at the festival. Some of the performing arts participants come every year because they intend to pursue it as a profession.” 


    Harrogate Competitive Festival winners

    Winners Beatrice Adeleke and Sophia Coe with drama teacher Denyse Smith, all from the Knaresborough School of Speech and Drama, and adjudicator Paul Trigg.


    An uncertain future 


    This year’s opening weekend went very well, said Alan, with more than 60 classes mainly in piano, strings and woodwind, plus some speech and drama. But despite the fantastic start and the healthy number of entries, the festival faces an uncertain future. 

    It has struggled to return to its pre-pandemic numbers after being forced to cancel in 2020 and 2021. Since then, the committee has been working to attract more competitors and last year introduced additional classes to appeal to a wider demographic. Alan said this had helped to some extent:  

    “This year has been a lot better for numbers, and for the first time in about five years we’ve had enough entries to warrant classes on Friday evenings as well as the weekend. But we’ve noticed that some of the festival’s music classes are not as well attended as they used to be. Schools are no longer encouraged to provide music lessons and it can be expensive for parents to pay for tuition for their children.
    “Speech and drama, however, is doing better and overall we are quite confident that if we can keep going for a few more years we can get the numbers back up to pre-pandemic levels.” 


    Whether there’s time to do this remains in doubt, however. The festival was founded in 1936 and is run entirely by volunteers as a registered charity.

    It costs around £20,000 a year to produce the event, and this is covered through operating income and donations. Grants and funding that were previously available have been cut, as they have for other similar festivals and the arts and music nationally. Entry fees for all classes were increased this year, but the festival is reliant on reserves built up through the generosity of benefactors and donors.

    Alan said:

    “We don’t consider making a profit but we do think in terms of shortfalls. We need financial support. We’ve been lucky over the last 10 years to have had a couple of nice legacies from a small number of supporters, but it’s very difficult to break even. The festival’s future over the next couple of years is uncertain.”


    He added that the volunteers are 'all getting older' and they were also in need of new people to help them organise and run the event.

    The final concert takes place at Harrogate High School on Sunday March 17, at 2pm. Tickets cost £6 and are available from Alan Connell on 01423 527 586. Contact Alan if you would also like to make a donation to support the festival.

    Min pic: Some of the festival competitors and adjudicators



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