Education Programme

Since 2014, we have been delighted to include a public education concert as part of the Festival, having been working with local schools since 2003. The performance offers some very young composers, all participants in our education workshops, the chance both to perform their own compositions and to hear young professional musicians play. Composition workshops are held in five local primary schools – in Peasmarsh, Beckley, Icklesham, Winchelsea, and Rye – and led by our education manager Sam Glazer and with members of the emerging ensemble Resident at the Festival.

Our education work is central to the core aims of the Festival, and we hope both to open the participating children’s hearts and minds to the worlds of chamber music and composition, while inspiring the next generation to participate in music-making. Our goal is to return to these schools each year in order that every student might have the opportunity to participate.

We are particularly grateful to Rother District Council, High Weald Arts Society, Sussex Community Foundation, the Rudi Martinus van Dijk Foundation and Fairlight Arts Trust, without whose support our education work would not be possible.

“My son was fortunate enough to take part in the Peasmarsh music festival in both year 5 and 6. The event was a fantastic opportunity for him, his friends, and peers from other local schools, to come together and experience the range of emotions that comes with performing to a live audience – from initial nerves and anxiety to the rush of euphoria that comes with receiving rapturous applause. My son said the best bit of the experience was “being able to listen to and be part of original songs that had never been heard before. Writing our own song was really fun and hearing each other’s ideas and where music could take us was a real adventure in one day.”
– Beckley School parent