Final preparations are underway for the 2013 Alderley Edge Music, Speech and Drama Festival which promises to be even bigger and better than ever before with 2736 children performing across hundreds of music, speech and drama classes.
Entry has increased for the sixth year in a row, which is mainly down to a 15.5% increase in the numbers of speech and drama entrants.
As a result of the additional numbers, the festival will start again on the Tuesday (7th May), to create a five day extravaganza featuring the best in brass, strings, percussion, song and verse - which will culminate with a spectacular finale on Saturday 11th May.
Keith Lowe, Festival Chairman said "We have to start yet again on the Tuesday at the only venue outside of Alderley Edge, The Evans Theatre in The Wilmslow Leisure Centre, as we have another bumper entry to the Year 6 and under choir class with 14 schools entering their choirs. With up to 40 young voices in each choir, this class alone has 560 children.
"This is not only a great testament to the high level of appeal that our Festival continues to have, but also to the commitment of the teaching staff, and the obvious high level of competition that this class continues to generate."
The 2013 Festival will take place in the usual four venues – The Festival Hall, Alderley Edge Methodist Church, St Pius X RC Church and St Philips and St James Church. Then, in order to accommodate the additional participants, on the Friday evening and all day Saturday they will have six additional rooms in Alderley Edge School for Girls.
Keith Lowe commented "This is our 97th Festival this year, and we have already started thinking about our 100th in 2016, with some special events planned in that year.
"To get there involves an amazing amount of organisation and it is the commitment of the 24 members of the Committee that make this happen. Each member of the Committee has a specific role, and it is this dedication to those roles that enables the Festival to run as smoothly as it does – but we do have fun on the way – a competitive Festival we have, but we enthuse it with a sense of fun; it this fun that is transferred to the five days and makes us what we are.
"However, a Festival does not run itself, and without our 'other' team of volunteers it would not be possible to be as efficient as we are. These are the volunteers, who every year help as ticket stewards, room stewards, platform stewards and adjudicator stewards. Without these people we would struggle, and I appeal to any local person who would help us to ring our Stewards co-ordinator Caroline Morgan on 01477 571264 – we especially still need help on Saturday morning and afternoon."
As part of their commitment to giving something back to the community, and as a result of our continuing partnership with the Hallé Orchestra, the Alderley Edge Music, Speech and Drama Festival are sponsoring a workshop for brass players at the end of June this year. This will be held at The Alderley Edge School for Girls, where they will be inviting the top brass players from the Festival along with other invited brass players to be coached by two senior Brass players from the Hallé Orchestra. The morning session will be one-to-one coaching, with group coaching in the afternoon and a final performance of all Brass players as the final session.
The 2013 Alderley Edge Festival takes place from Tuesday May 7th to Saturday 11th May. For further information and a full timetable of events visit the Alderley Edge Music, Speech and Drama Festival website.
