The publicity for this year’s Sherborne Abbey Festival promised ‘A Feast of Great Music’, and a record number of Festival supporters were certainly not disappointed. Throughout the week, Sherborne was alive with music as audiences filled the Abbey and venues across the town to enjoy performances ranging from intimate chamber recitals to thrilling large-scale concerts. With choral music continuing as a longstanding staple of the Festival, the 150 amateur voices of the Festival Chorus, under their conductor Paul Ellis, were on fine form, this year enhanced by the accompaniment of a splendid period instrument orchestra, enabling the choir and three fine soloists to relish the timbres and textures of Haydn’s Classical masterpiece, The Creation.
Get in touch
For more information on events, tickets or any other general enquiries please get in touch.
Choral Excellence
The ever-popular Tallis Scholars made a return visit to Sherborne, drawing a capacity audience for a beautiful a cappella programme inspired by the Sistine Chapel. The singers produced their trademark ethereal sound in Allegri’s famous Miserere, and an encore of Lotti’s Crucifixus closed a memorable evening, leaving the audience in rapt silence before a prolonged and heartfelt ovation.
One of the most thrilling experiences of this year’s concert series was the first appearance in Sherborne of Solomon’s Knot, whose programme of three of J.S. Bach’s cantatas of 1726 was simply spellbinding. Eight superb singers performing from memory brought an extraordinary sense of spontaneity and depth to Bach’s amazing music, enriched by the virtuoso playing of some of the world’s leading Baroque instrumentalists. Their ‘bonus item’, the Dona nobis pacem from the B minor Mass, had the audience on the edge of their seats, and there were numerous requests for this outstanding ensemble to make a return visit to a future Abbey Festival.
Orchestral and Instrumental Highlights
Once again, we were treated to an excellent orchestral concert. The Iuventus Chamber Orchestra partnered the celebrated clarinettist Julian Bliss in a sublime account of Mozart’s much-loved Clarinet Concerto, coloured by the soloist’s extraordinary kaleidoscopic tonal and dynamic range. Rossini’s humorous Il signor Bruschino overture and Schubert’s rarely heard youthful Sixth Symphony completed an evening that perfectly balanced brilliance, warmth and charm.
Jazz enthusiasts were in their element for a concert by the James Pearson Trio, resident ensemble at the famous Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club. These three fabulous musicians gave a fascinating tribute to the legendary Oscar Peterson, their scintillating playing interspersed with James’s wonderfully engaging anecdotes and impromptu examples of jazz styles and techniques. There was laughter throughout, spontaneous applause, and by the end of the evening an irresistible feeling that Ronnie Scott’s had come to Sherborne for the night. This is clearly another group we need to book again!
The Abbey’s Own Musicians
Sherborne Abbey Choir once again took the Bank Holiday evening spot with a richly varied programme of choral music. Together with musical director James Henderson and organist Charlie Gurnham, the boy trebles and back rows presented a wonderful range of music from their wide repertoire, filling the Abbey with the rich, familiar sound for which the choir is so well known, taking us from the 16th century to the present day.
Chamber Music at its Finest
This year’s delightful offering by Wessex Strings embraced three masterpieces by English composers, Elgar, Parry and Ireland, with the orchestra rewarded by a large audience in their customary venue of Cheap Street Church. More strings repertoire followed shortly afterwards, with a stunning recital in the Gransden Hall by violinist Ruth Rogers and pianist Simon Callaghan, whose superb playing of Beethoven, Fauré, Saint-Saëns and Elgar created an afternoon of chamber music that was both deeply moving and utterly absorbing.
Making a first visit to the Festival was The Little Song Party – soprano Penelope Appleyard accompanied by Jonathan Delbridge on a 209-year-old square piano. Performing in elegant period costume, under the title Sense and Musicality, their beautifully curated programme featured music associated with Jane Austen and her contemporaries. The duo’s exquisite singing and playing created a delightfully intimate atmosphere in the Gransden Hall, transporting the audience into Jane Austen’s world in a concert that was as much a literary delight as a musical one.
The Magnificent Abbey Organ
Strictly speaking, the Festival’s only purely ‘solo performance’ was, of course, given by an organist! It was a great pleasure to welcome back Old Shirburnian David Bednall to give this year’s Bank Holiday recital (albeit delayed by six years since his original engagement fell victim to lockdown and a cancelled Festival in 2020). David’s exhilarating programme included some intriguing unfamiliar music, taking us on an exciting tour from Bach to Macmillan via Haydn, Howells and Gershwin, and ending with an action-packed improvisation on themes submitted by the audience – a wonderfully interactive finale that was greeted with smiles and enthusiastic applause.
Opera, Dining and Festival Traditions
Once again, opera-lovers were not forgotten, and two evenings of Opera at The Plume were as popular as ever, with singers Lynsey Docherty, Anthony Flaum and Philip Smith joining with resident pianist Caroline D’Cruz in a sumptuous programme of operatic favourites, complementing the delicious fare produced by one of Sherborne’s finest dining venues. Wonderful food, fine wine, laughter and glorious singing combined to create one of the Festival’s most distinctive and much-loved traditions. Even in the chill of the late-night air in The Plume’s courtyard, the singers’ final set from well known musicals was an enchanting way to savour the closing moments of this year’s Festival.
Celebrating the Next Generation
The Festival remains committed to its long-established practice of involving as many young people as possible, offering them a platform alongside the visiting professional artists. The 2026 Festival was greatly enriched by performances by the talented pupils of the town’s four secondary schools, Sherborne Girls, Sherborne Boys, Leweston and The Gryphon, all of them producing programmes of impressive variety and imagination, enthusiastically supported by large audiences. For the second year running, The Gryphon School collaborated with musicians from Bournemouth University, presenting an enterprising programme of Chilcott, Mozart and Purcell. Lower Sixth Gryphon French Horn player Danny Mitchell was outstanding in Mozart’s Third Horn Concerto, and the combined forces of singers and players well deserved their encore after a vibrant, spirited account of Purcell’s Come, ye sons of Art.
Two further youth-inspired events were added to this year’s Festival. From Baroque to Broadway was a huge success, with eighty youngsters of varying levels of musical experience spending a day forming a giant orchestra under the inspirational baton of Arturo Serna and with some thirty local adult musicians in support. An informal afternoon concert for families and Festival audiences showcased the results of the players’ hard work, enthusiasm and enjoyment of performing together in such a large ensemble for the first time. It was also a delightful innovation to host a concert given by the winners of the Douzelage Sherborne Young Musician Competition. Thirteen finalists produced an excellent programme of instrumental and vocal music, and it was a special pleasure to welcome a return visit by three accomplished performers from the Czech Republic who had gained first place in their respective sections in February’s competition.
Another outstanding musical pairing came in the form of a virtuoso recital by recorder player Amy Whittlesea accompanied on the theorbo by Matthew Wadsworth. This collaboration of two such accomplished musicians was a joy to behold. Their programme of Italian, Spanish and French music produced a fascinating palette of evocative timbres, intricate delicacy and spellbinding dexterity.
A Festival Made Possible by Many
Year by year, the Festival receives invaluable support from an enormous number of people in addition to the audiences who increasingly travel from well beyond Sherborne to enjoy a true ‘Feast of Great Music’. The Festival is enormously grateful to the Patrons whose annual subscriptions are absolutely vital in securing its continued stability and success. Our Sponsors and Advertisers, too, play a hugely important part in enabling us to plan for future years and to draw artists of the highest calibre to Sherborne. And, of course, nothing would happen without the hard work and dedication of our tremendous team of volunteers who allow everything to run so smoothly.
Above all, thank you to everyone who joined us this year. Whether you came to a single concert or spent the whole week with us, you helped create the warm and welcoming atmosphere that makes the Sherborne Abbey Festival so special. Plans are already underway for the 2027 Sherborne Abbey Festival, and we look forward to welcoming you back for another ‘Feast of Great Music’.
