Hastings Musical Festival

Major Singing!

Singing has always been a major part of Hastings Musical Festival.  In 2007 there were 23 sessions of singing with 89 classes for solos, duets, ensembles and choirs in a variety of styles.   We encourage wide participation of all age groups and abilities, and have classes ranging from those aimed at novice singers, who may never have sung at a Festival, through to our medal classes for experienced singers, both junior and adult.  The Festival provides an opportunity to try new repertoire, to gain experience of performing in public, and to learn from listening to other singers and to the comments of our friendly and helpful adjudicators.

We have choir classes for all ages.  Our primary school choir classes have become extremely popular in recent years, and we have now introduced a new class for younger pupils.  We also have classes for secondary school age choirs, youth choirs, boys’ choirs, barber shop, madrigal and adult choirs and aim to increase the number of choirs participating in the Festival.  We also welcome local Brownie Guide packs, Guide companies and Scout Troops with their Action Songs and Camp Fires.

Our Junior singers have ‘set song’ classes for all age groups, and an increasing number of “own choice” classes in different styles.  This includes Unaccompanied Folk Song which has traditionally been strong at Hastings Festival, as well as Sacred Song, Foreign Language Song and our more recent “Verse and Song”  English Art Song class.

Our fastest growing singing classes are for Show Songs.  For junior singers, we have classes for each age group to make the class sizes manageable.  This year, we have introduced a new class to introduce junior singers to the classic show songs of Novello, Berlin, Gershwin and Kern which might otherwise be overlooked in the desire to sing more modern repertoire.  For adults, we have separate classes for the show songs of different eras.

The Popular Music Vocal classes, where performers may sing to a backing track using a microphone, are also extremely popular and provide a great opportunity to experience performing in a theatre with a sound system.

Our adult classes start with the set song classes for each voice, which culminate in the John Lockey championship.  There are then a wide range of ‘own choice’ classes including Veterans, Novice, Early Music, English Art Song, International Art Song, Unaccompanied Folk Song and Humorous Song, amongst others.  A particularly enjoyable, and nostalgic, session is in the middle week of the Festival with an evening of Light Opera, Gilbert and Sullivan, and finally a Music Hall class (in costume, by popular request, following the Festival centenary celebration in 2007).  There are also opportunities to enter classes for duets, trios and quartets.  In the final week of the Festival are the senior classes, many of which are open to professionals.  These include the more ‘serious’ classes (such as Operatic, Lieder, Oratorio, Bach and Mozart, amongst others), as well as the Recital Class and the prestigious Gold Medal class, which attracts students from Music Colleges, as well as talented local singers.

We aim to continue to broaden the appeal of our Singing Section, while maintaining a high standard of performance.  Our challenge is to cater for the increasing interest in Show Song and Pop Vocals, while continuing to encourage singers to explore the varied classical repertoire.