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Sutton Music Festival

incorporating Speech & Drama

2024 – The 91st Annual Festival

2023 Festival Gala Concert Photo

SMF Gala Concert 2024

Report on Sutton Music Festival Gala Concert 2024

This year’s Festival came to an end on Sunday with the prizewinners’ concert where the Mayor, Cllr Colin Stears, presented the trophies. The 2024 Festival had attracted the highest number of entries in recent years and the quality of performance was outstanding. Many thanks to all who entered, to make the Festival such a success, and to families, friends and teachers who give so much support.
A selection of photos from the concert are here. Those who asked at the concert for photos will receive these by email in the next week.

The Mayor Cllr Colin Stears with the Prize Winners from the 2024 Gala Concert

Celebrity Vocal Masterclass 2025

The Celebrity Vocal Masterclass in 2025 will be led by Heidi Pegler

The next in our series of celebrity masterclasses, for singers, will be held on 11 May 2025. Further details will be announced in due course.

The Vocal Masterclass will provide an unrivalled opportunity for some of our most talented singers from this year’s Sutton Music Festival to perform a favourite piece and work on it in public with soprano and singing teacher Heidi Pegler.

Heidi enjoys a busy career both as a performer and an educator. She has appeared at many of Britain’s leading concert venues and is currently Deputy Director of Music and Head of Singing at St. Paul’s Girls’ School, Hammersmith where she runs a lively and busy singing department conducting all the choirs and directing and producing musical and operatic productions. She is a consultant, senior examiner and trainer for the ABRSM, has given workshops worldwide and is a former Chair of the Association of Teachers of Singing.

She has published several songbooks including the award-winning series The Language of Song, The Best of Singing and It’s never too late to sing.

Our series of Masterclasses, which began in 2015, has proved very popular with our talented performers. It is funded by a bequest from the late Neil Heayes.

Gala Concert Brings The 2024 Sutton Music Festival To A Close

The 2024 Sutton Music Festival came to a close on Sunday 1st December at Overton Grange School with a Gala Concert of prize winners. Trophies and prizes were presented by the Festival president and Sutton Mayor Councillor Colin Stears.

The Mayor Cllr Colin Stears with the Prize Winners from the 2024 Gala Concert

Participants in the 2024 Gala Concert

Folklore Choir Maghida sang Bulgarian Folk Songs

Group photo with the Mayor

Playing ‘Montagues and Capulets’

Singing ‘I believe’

Winner of the 90th Festival Trophy

Winner of the Arts Network Sutton Speech and Drama Prize

Winner of the Beethoven Junior Cup

Winner of the Colin Peel Speech and Drama Prize

Winner of the H R Taylor Strings Prize

Winner of the H R Taylor Vocal Prize

Winner of the Junior Pianoforte Cup

Winner of the McGrath cup for Junior Poetry

Celebrity Piano Masterclass 2024

SMF MASTERCLASS 24 MARCH 2024 – PRESS RELEASE

Masterclass for Piano given by Vanessa Latarche

Sutton Music Festival organised a very successful and enjoyable Piano Masterclass given by Vanessa Latarche on Sunday 24 March at Trinity School. The masterclass gave an opportunity for some of the Festival’s most outstanding musicians to work with an internationally renowned pianist. They played works by Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Liszt and Kapustin.

Said Vanessa after the class had finished: ‘It has been a wonderful afternoon of music. The students were all very well prepared and were responsive to the feedback. It is such a joy to work with such talent.’

Professor Latarche has been Head of Keyboard at the Royal College of Music since 2005. Awarded a Fellowship of the Royal College of Music in 2010 for outstanding services to music, an honour conferred on her by HRH Prince of Wales, in September 2011, she was granted a Personal Chair at the RCM, which gave her the title of Chair of International Keyboard Studies. As an extension to her keyboard faculty work, Vanessa was appointed as the Associate Director for Partnerships in Asia, which involves managing the RCM’s collaborative work in China and the RCM’s degree programmes at Nangyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore.

The Masterclass is funded by the Neil Heayes bequest. Sutton Music Festival is supported by Arts Network Sutton, the HR Taylor Charitable Trust, and is grateful to Trinity School for the use of their piano and recital room.

Masterclass 2024 - Vanessa Latarche & Participants

Vanessa Latarche FRCM & Masterclass Participants

Gala Concert Brings The 2023 Sutton Music Festival To A Close

The 2023 Sutton Music Festival came to a close on Sunday 26 November at Overton Grange School with a Gala Concert of prize winners. Trophies and prizes were presented by the Festival president and Sutton Mayor Councillor Colin Stears.

The Mayor Cllr Colin Stears with the Prize Winners from the 2023 Gala Concert

Participants in the 2023 Gala Concert

90th Festival Trophy

The Mayor with previous prizewinners at the 90th Festival Concert

Winner of the 90th Festival Trophy

Impromptu – winners of the Church and Chapel and the Open Challenge Shields

The Choirs of St Elphege_s Schools winners of the Borough Challenge Shield

Singing _Pie Jesu_ by Andrew Lloyd Webber

Winner of the Junior Vocal Challenge Cup

Winners of the Instrumental Ensemble Challenge Shield

Winner of the Colin Peel Speech and Drama Prize

Winners of the Recorder Group Challenge Sheld

Winner of the Diamond Anniversary Cup for outstanding acting

Winner of the Elocution Challenge Cup

Winner of the HR Taylor Piano Prize and the Beethoven Junior Cup

Winners of the Winifred Burton Piano Ensemble Cup

90th Trophy with Piano cake

Celebration cup cakes

2023 Celebrity Masterclass For Strings

SMF Masterclass for strings given by Ruth Rogers

Sutton Music Festival organised a very successful and enjoyable Masterclass given by Ruth Rogers on Sunday 5 March in Wallington Library. The masterclass included participants from the 2022 Festival, playing violin and cello. They played works by Bach, Sarasate, Paganini, Rachmaninov and others.

Said Ruth after the class had finished: ‘It was an honour to work with these incredibly talented young musicians. They responded so well to ideas and suggestions, and I think that it was a lovely opportunity for them to perform to an audience and interact with a professional musician. Huge thanks to the Sutton Music Festival for giving young people this opportunity.’

Ruth Rogers is currently one of the Leaders of the London Mozart Players, and regularly guest leads other major orchestras. She studied at the Royal College of Music, has won many prestigious awards including the Tagore Gold Medal and the Manoug Parikian Award. She now performs both at home and abroad both as a soloist and in various chamber music ensembles including the Iuventus String Quartet and the Aquinas Piano Trio.

The Masterclass is funded by the Neil Heayes bequest. Sutton Music Festival is supported by Arts Network Sutton, the HR Taylor Charitable Trust, and is grateful to the London Borough of Sutton for the use of the library.

The Mayor, Ruth Rogers and the Masterclass 2

The Mayor of Sutton Cllr Trish Fivey with Ruth Rogers and Masterclass participants

The 89th Sutton Music Festival 2022

We would like to thank the record number of people of all ages who entered the 2022 Festival and participated in a most successful event. We hope the feedback they received from our expert adjudicators will be fruitful.

The Festival came to an end on Sunday 27 November with the Prizewinners’ Concert, showing an excellent standard of performance in music and drama.

Gala Concert Brings The 2022 Sutton Music Festival To A Close

The 2022 Sutton Music Festival came to a close on 27 November at Overton Grange School with a Gala Concert of prize winners. Trophies and prizes were presented by the Festival president and Sutton Mayor Councillor Trish Fivey.