In 2025 the Shipley Arts Festival is celebrating 25 years of offering inspiring music in beautiful locations across Sussex which this year will include the closing concert in the Festival of Chichester.
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00:00Good morning, my name is Phil Kewitt, Group Arts Editor for Sussex Newspapers. Always
00:06a real pleasure to speak to Andrew Bernardi, but now, this year, really significant. This
00:11is the 25th anniversary of the Shipley Arts Festival. Andrew, you created it, you must
00:17feel enormously proud to reach this landmark. What does that landmark mean to you, 25 years?
00:25Thank you, Phil, so much for your typical generosity and your support, I think, throughout
00:31almost all the 25 years.
00:34Your father, kind of.
00:37I feel younger, and I feel younger because I feel we've connected and joined up so many
00:47parts of our county. The Festival Friends, the four brilliant sponsors we have, Tuviz,
00:56Nightingbird, Creston Rees and NFU Mutual for Horsham and Chichester. Through this network,
01:03through these Friends, we've inspired literally several thousand people to find music and
01:12the love and warmth that brings to the relationships that we share. I feel very deeply grateful
01:21that everyone supported that vision and that we have more new great music in the world.
01:27We have a Stradivarius violin, which I'm holding, which symbolises all these works. This violin
01:32is all the investors, all 30 except for one, come from Sussex. So, the violin is a walking
01:40symbol of that deeply rooted nature of our music making. I'm obviously very proud of
01:48the comments from our preview on Sunday, when Rupert Tuvi, one of our Deputy Lord Lieutenants,
01:56very generously spoke about the impact this regional festival with international links
02:03has had on our communities. So, I'm deeply grateful for everyone's support.
02:08You were saying earlier how impossible it is to set up a festival, how difficult, and yet
02:15this festival established itself relatively quickly. That suggests that it really was answering a need, wasn't it?
02:24I think so. Thank you for saying that. I think so. I think the need for spiritual nourishment,
02:32artistic expression, all the transactional things we're involved in, be it buying a pint in the pub,
02:39or buying a car, or whatever we do, those moments are transactional. The thing that brings those
02:47moments value is the friendships around it, the connection. Those things bring true value
02:56to our lives, and music is the highest form of intelligence that we're able to express
03:05as humans, and that is what we've given birth to through the festival. There was a gap in the
03:11market, which I did see, but it's the way we've, not filled, but the way we've been generous in
03:18that space, that's the difference. I've come to realise that the other two festivals which
03:26I'm aware are similarly deeply rooted, the Leith Hillym that Vaughan Williams founded, and also
03:32Aubrey with Benjamin Britton, who also was very, very deeply connected in Sussex, at Lansing College.
03:39Those musicians, those two musicians, were similarly building in a very similar way,
03:46and so I'm just very grateful. We really do have, we've performed at Goodwood,
03:53the Duke of Richmond generously said it was the finest music they've ever had on this stage.
03:57We've been at Lansing many times, at Lansing College, and stretching right across the country
04:03states, churches, and I've this year, for the first time actually, all three pubs in Shipley,
04:09and how lucky are we to have three pubs in one parish, the largest parish with the
04:15smallest population, but it emanates out, and as you probably know, we've got
04:21fantastic links into China, Hong Kong, I'm going to Hong Kong as well,
04:25and India, the High Commissioners, we've performed at the Embassy before Christmas.
04:31This year you start on March the 2nd, and you have 14 events, that's quite something, isn't it?
04:37We do, we do. It's 14 events, our roots are here, and that's what's different. We're not interested
04:43in suddenly becoming a Mayfair festival, or a London fair, or anything like that.
04:48Our music making is deeply rooted here, and we take that journey, those values I've just described,
04:53we take those around the world, but this is our home. And March the 2nd,
04:58Opera Gala, with some wonderful musicians who will make you smile for sure.
05:04Brilliant. Well, congratulations on the quarter century. It's a massive,
05:09significant achievement. Well done. Lovely to speak to you.
05:12Thank you, thank you. We're just very proud, and thank heavens it was difficult to start,
05:18because it meant we had the determination to push through that pandemic, as one of the only
05:23festivals in the country that was able to do that. It was determination, and faith, belief,
05:28and more importantly, support from everybody from Arts Council England, through our four sponsors.
05:33But that wide base of festival friends that remain committed to the vision,
05:38that we're looking forward to carrying into our 26th year next year as well.
05:43Well congratulations. And onwards.
05:44Good to speak to you, thanks.