Maidstone Music Festival Friends

mmf SUPPORTING MAIDSTONE MUSIC FESTIVAL mmf

AIMS OF THE FESTIVAL

Maidstone Music Festival provides a friendly and supportive platform for amateur musicians, of all ages and abilities, to share in the excitement of making music. The competitive element is minimised in order to encourage performers to learn from one another. This educational festival, a non-profit organisation wherein the committee and additional staff all work entirely voluntarily, aims to promote a prestigious annual event giving pleasure and real value to performers and listeners alike.

THE FUTURE OF THE FESTIVAL WILL DEPEND ON FINANCIAL SUPPORT

Maidstone Music Festival is affiliated to the British and International Federation of Festivals for Music, Dance and Speech, and we intend to seek charitable status. We will continue to seek funding from various bodies, and sponsorship from private sector organisations, but we would like also to encourage the help of individuals for whom amateur music-making is close to the heart. Please consider supporting the Festival financially; three ways are open to you:

† Make a donation

† Make a legacy

† Become a 'Friend'

FRIENDS OF MAIDSTONE MUSIC FESTIVAL

In return for a minimum lifetime donation of £250, or a minimum annual donation of £15, Friends of Maidstone Music Festival are entitled to unlimited audience entry to classes, free programmes, a guaranteed seat and programme for the concert, an annual newsletter and an acknowledgement in the programmes.

REGISTER YOUR INTEREST NOW

If you would like to know more about donations, legacies or Friends, please contact me via the comments facility below.

Maidstone Music Festival

Maidstone Music Festival is now in its fourth year, being an annual event which has become a useful and enjoyable addition to pre-existing opportunities for amateur musicians in the Maidstone area of Kent.

My wife, Sue, taught piano in Maidstone for many years and she always thought it ridiculous that the county town of Kent was one of the few large towns lacking its own educative festival for amateur musicians. Many other music teachers she knew felt the same way, and so it is for this reason that in 2007 she decided to organise one herself. The inaugural festival, mmf08, took place at the end of November 2008 and was very well received by participants, adjudicators and sponsors. The festival was also visited by a representative of the British and International Federation of Festivals for Music, Dance and Speech, and received praising comments; our festival became affiliated to the Federation shortly afterwards.

This festival is different from anything that previously occurred in Maidstone in that, like many festivals elsewhere, it provides opportunities for amateur musicians of all ages and levels of ability to perform individually to an audience and to receive educative adjudication from highly qualified musicians. All entrants are awarded a certificate, classified according to merit, and a personal written adjudication on their performance. The element of competition is kept to a minimum in order to encourage performers to learn from one another. There are both competitive and non-competitive classes, and the festival provides a friendly and supportive platform for musicians to share in the excitement of making music. Maidstone Music Festival, a non-profit organisation, now promotes a prestigious annual event which gives pleasure and real value to performers and listeners alike, and the most frequently heard comments from participants are that they had found our festival not only educative but also entertaining and great fun!

Encouraged by our initial success, we expanded the scope of the festival by adding categories - Plucked Strings; Accordion, Concertina, Harmonica; and Mixed Ensembles – to those of Piano, Bowed strings, Woodwind/Brass/Recorders, and Singing, and also by extending the range of classes. This year we are introducing, among other things, non-competitive classes for family ensembles within each category. In common with similar festivals, however, we have had disappointingly few entries from players of wind instruments and we are at pains to do what we can to stimulate greater interest.

Maidstone Music Festival 2011 will be held at Invicta Grammar School on the weekend of 26/27 November, 2011, with a concert on the evening of Saturday 3 December.