CULTURE
It’s run by volunteers and they’re starting without a budget, but the new Chelsea Festival already looks set to be a winner
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NEW FESTIVAL CELEBRATING Chelsea’s diverse culture will launch in October with a programme including concerts, tours, talks, exhibitions and a
special poetry project involving a local school. The festival’s events co-ordinator, Rachel Bowron, is an arts consultant who sings in the choir at St Luke’s Church. She says the festival committee – all volunteers – is made up of parishioners with different areas of expertise and experience who wanted to “make Chelsea an even better place than it is already”. “We just wanted to demonstrate all of the great things that Chelsea has to offer,” she says.
The new Chelsea Festival is not associated with the Chelsea Arts Festival, which stopped running a few years ago, but takes some inspiration from it. “We weren’t involved in the Chelsea Arts Festival,” explains Rachel. “It was wonderful, while it existed... Chelsea is worthy of a festival.”
She says that the Chelsea Festival is filling a gap left by the former event. “We’re starting very small. Our intention is for it to become an annual event and to involve the local community,” she adds. One of the aims of the festival is to make the events programme as varied as possible. No small feat for a team of volunteers, starting without a budget. “We’re trying to raise money but at the
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same time put on some interesting and high- quality events,” says Rachel. “We wanted to make it as accessible as possible.” Many of the events are free – although you still need to book tickets.
The line-up includes a guided walk around Chelsea, a special tour of the Chelsea Physic Garden and its sculpture exhibition followed by supper, and free jazz on Dovehouse Green. Rachel says it is hoped that the theme for the guided walk will change each year so people can learn more about the area. “There are so many beautiful little corners of Chelsea,” she adds.
The committee is also keen to involve Chelsea’s artists, with an exhibition and talk by Charlie Mackesy and the chance to look around local artist Julian Barrow’s studio, which once belonged to Whistler. Concert highlights include Rupert Jeffcoat exploring the extremes of the organ at St Luke’s Chelsea, Rupert Quinney – sub-organist at Westminster Abbey – playing an all-Bach programme at Christ Church and Benjamin Britten songs performed by Mahogany Opera. The closing concert is a choral spectacular performed by the Chelsea Festival Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Jeremy Summerly, featuring Vivaldi’s Gloria and Fauré’s Requiem. High-level amateurs and semi-professional musicians have been brought together to form the Chelsea Festival Orchestra and Chorus. “We are blessed with the wonderful musicians who work within the parish,” says Rachel.
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