Contact info
Address
The Barn
Dartington Hall
TQ9 6DE Totnes, Devon
United Kingdom
http://www.dartingtonsummerschool.org.uk/
Info
Tel: +44 1803 847080
Fax: +44 1803 847087
info@dartingtonsummerschool.org.uk
http://www.dartingtonsummerschool.org.uk/
Administration
Tel: 0044 (0)1803 847080
Fax: 0044 (0)1803 847087
info@dartington.org
Press
Tel: 0044 (0)1803 847080
Fax: 0044 (0)1803 847087
info@dartingtonsummerschool.org.uk
Lianne Jarrett Associates
35 Queen's Gardens, Brighton, BN1 4AR
Dartington International Summer School
The Dartington Summer School plays an important role in the professional training (with master classes and workshops) and in the education of an open-minded and largely cultivated audience. The festival largely and regularly cooperates with artistic workshops, high-level training institutions and musicians from very different regions of Europe and other continents as well.
This festival has been an EFA member since 2000.
Festival Programme
Each EFA member manages its own Calendar. In case there is no programme availabable for this year, please visit the festival's own website.
History
The summer School began as a reaction to the first Edinburgh International Festival (1947) which was intended to give Britain a counterpart to the Salzburg Festival, but many great musicians such as Bruno Schnabel, although delighted with Edinburgh, asked ‘where is the teaching?’ They felt that Europe needed an equivalent of Tanglewood ... a summer school of music attached to a major festival. Schnabel took his concerns to his student William Glock.
Glock felt passionately that British musical thinking and practice needed to be closer to that of Europe and the USA. His fascination for music covered all eras and he immediately answered the challenge. What was needed was a place where a musical community (artists, teachers and students) could live and work together with plenty of teaching and performance space and without outside influence. He settled on Bryanston School and found a private patron. Participants paid to attend and thus provided small surpluses for bursaries. Thus the Summer School was born.
The Summer School thrived at Bryanston in spite of lack of public funding and when it outgrew its home it seemed obvious to relocate at Dartington even though the larger community could not all sit down together. Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst shared an ideological mission, especially in terms of the arts and were fortunate that Dorothy’s wealth enabled them to turn their dream into reality. Influenced by the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore they found the Dartington Estate in Devon in a state of dereliction and turned it into an artistic Utopia, visited by numerous contemporary composers, artists, potters ....
The Summer School moved to Dartington in 1953 and has progressed through different stages of development although the basic mingling of amateur and professional has remained a central feature. During the five years of Peter Maxwell Davies’ directorship (1980-84) the drive was to narrower more professionally orientated courses, but this changed in 1985 when a new egalitarian approach began. The specialised courses and composition continued, indeed increased and differentials in fees were ironed out - all were paid the same plus travel, accommodation and food. Families were encouraged and programmes for children increased. Distinguished composers were invited Stravinsky, Berio, Lutowslawski, Tippett; Song writers, jazz and rock were introduced. Wind and brass courses, early music and music theatre all developed with John Woolrich, Alan Hacker, Melinda Maxwell, Emma Kirby and Anothony Rooley. Conducting and opera masterclasses and orchestral residency all evolved and grew in prestige.
Attendance grew steadily - sell-out weeks became the norm and four weeks grew to five. More and more came from overseas as traditional barriers were removed; Poles, Croats, Slovenians, Serbians, Hungarians arrived to name but a few. The age profile is broad, but all are young in spirit with some 60 nationalities represented. Of the 400 participants each week some 100 are staff, 75 are bursary and scholarship students and 225 will be paying their own way. The summer school also brings many visitors to the local area thus enhancing the infrastructure.
