Grayshott Concerts - A Musical Lifeline

How has Grayshott Concerts been affected by the pandemic?

At the beginning of 2020, still riding high following the world premiere of Karl Jenkins’ Miserere - Songs of Mercy and Redemption in November 2019, we were looking forward to a full programme for the year including Handel’s Messiah!, Best of Baroque and A Night At The Opera. Unfortunately, after just our first concert of the year in mid-March (Howard Shelley performing Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the London Mozart Players), as the UK government announced a full lockdown commencing 23rd March, the remainder of our programme seemingly went up in smoke!

However, the tenacious trustees weren’t going to let a small thing like national lockdown bring proceedings to a complete halt. Instead, we were able to work incredibly quickly in response to changing regulations to set up a further seven concerts in 2020, and eight in 2021 in between various lockdowns and in full compliance with social-distancing requirements - considerably more than we had originally planned!

All of those concerts involved the wonderful London Mozart Players, and in fact their Chief Executive Julia Desbruslais has publicly acknowledged Grayshott Concerts for their critical support for the Players at a time when the options for paid work elsewhere were very limited. “The pandemic almost brought the arts in this country to its knees,” said Julia. “Even in these difficult times, there have been pockets of light that have kept the fires burning and morale high. With only 37 live concerts for LMP during this time and all other activities being restricted to online filmed events, Grayshott Concerts have been responsible for providing a whopping 25% of the total live performances for LMP. Audiences are a lifeline for musicians, and we were so grateful that through these concerts our spirits were kept high, and our musicians employed.”

Other performers have been hugely appreciative of the opportunities afforded by Grayshott Concerts - London Festival Opera, who delighted us in September 2021 with A Night at the Opera, came together on that evening for their first live performance in over eighteen months.

What does Grayshott Concerts bring to the community?

Music is a wonderful leveller - audience members at our concerts come from all walks of life, and a broad age range. Part of our mission is to make classical music accessible and attractive to all, so a huge amount of thought goes into every single one of our concerts to achieve those goals. From our Board of Trustees, all of whom live within a ten-mile radius of Grayshott, to the almost-200 Friends who are the beating heart of our operations, it's a wonderful opportunity to share musical appreciation and enjoy a collective experience.

Wherever possible, we like to give back to our local community and in July 2021 we were able to put on an entirely free concert that was like a mini Last Night of the Proms packed with well-known classics. We welcomed over 180 key-workers from nurses to postmen, many of whom had never been to our concerts before. In addition to enjoying a wonderfully uplifting evening at the time, it’s been fantastic to see a number of those faces returning to us at subsequent concerts.

We also regularly support younger performers and have an ongoing relationship with Grayshott CE Primary School, facilitating workshops, opportunities to perform and the purchase of additional instruments. Most recently, we helped them to kickstart their work on Black History Month in October with an African Drumming session.

At the opposite end of the age scale, we also have a closer working relationship with The Huntington & Langham Estate, arranging for members of our house orchestra London Mozart Players to visit the care home and entertain residents in between rehearsals.

The commercial success of our concerts enables us not only to support individuals and collectives with grants to support their own musical development, it has also allowed us to fund additional staging, lighting and screen systems at St Luke’s that all church-users benefit from.



How can people get involved?

Our Friends are, by and large, music-lovers from the local area. Friends pay an annual membership premium that gives access to priority booking for all of our concerts as well as exclusive Friends-only events throughout the year. The latter have been heavily impacted by the pandemic but we are looking forward to reviving these with gusto in 2022. Anyone interested in joining as a new Friend can find out more on our website.

Two months ahead of each concert, the remaining tickets go on general sale to all-comers. The easiest way to keep up with all of our news is by following us on our various social channels: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

We also work with corporate and individual sponsors. Current supporters include Applegarth Farm, Surrey Oaks Wealth Management and the Huntington & Langham Estate. We’re always keen to develop partnerships with other local businesses - we’d be delighted to hear from anyone who might be interested in discussing this further.

What are you most looking forward to in 2022?

Our 2022 programme has recently been announced. From a full performance of Messiah! to start us off in February, right through to our ‘American Evening’ in November, it’s going to be quite a year! We are thrilled that our patron, Sir Karl Jenkins, will be back with us in October for our Gala Evening, conducting his own work The Healer: A Cantata for St Luke, originally commissioned by us to celebrate our 10th anniversary in 2014. In between those, we also have a Grayshott debut in March from Isata Kanneh-Mason (part of the incredibly talented Kanneh-Mason family), who won the 2021 Global Award for Best Classical Artist. More information and booking is now open via our website. We are looking forward to seeing Friends and friends, old and new there!