LIMF2020: a distanced chamber music festival

A message from Malcolm Noble, Artistic Management, Leicester International Music Festival

Visit the Crowdfunder page to donate

Normally every September we hold a very special chamber music festival at New Walk Museum. Artistic Director and oboe virtuoso Nicholas Daniel assembles a wonderful musical family to make music of the very highest standard. Over the course of six concerts, themes are explored in and around a particular composer. 

Our 2020 plan was one of our most promising: Eleanor Alberga was to be our composer in association, with lots of her music programmed, as well as a new commission from David Matthews. 

One of the important things about any festival is the atmosphere. We love welcoming you to the Victorian Gallery at New Walk Museum – if you’ve been you’ll know how special it is. What’s really exciting about a small, intimate, festival like this, is that you get to speak with some of the very best musicians in the world, and see them work together across the festival week in ever-deeper synchronicity.

We had abandoned hope of music at New Walk Museum this summer, but after encouragement from the Friends, we are keen to do what we do best: create music of the very highest standard and share it. We are proposing filming music, and editing it for streaming over the three days in September we normally do. We know how much everyone likes hearing Nick and others talk about their music -especially when the composer is there. We will attempt to recreate something of a festival feel in the way we present online events. 

Many of our long-standing audience members will have been isolated during this hard time, with Leicester suffering the first second lock-down only exacerbating this. We are working hard on helping those less confident with technology to access this material. By not doing in real time, it will be edited to a high standard and give us much more scope to help everyone access it. 

So we ask for your help. We have two possible programmes lined up which we can produce with your support. If we can raise our first target of £4,820, we can do a very small festival of wonderful music; if we raise £7,460 we can provide something closer to the real festival, with family concert. Whatever we raise will support our continuing tradition of the very best musicians performing great (new) music for all, including our educational work and family concerts. 

We ask people to support us as they can: could you offer some of what you might have spent on tickets if you had been able to go to concerts during the summer? Or even the price of a round of drinks? We have some rewards available, and with music available to all, everyone benefits. Those donating over £50 will become Friends of the Festival too.  

If you are able to support us, we can promise some magic. If you have been to our festival before, you will know what that means, and if you have not, you have the chance to find out from the safety of your living room. We look forward to welcoming you to our festival in September. 

Please note the following:
1. The Board would like to thank all those who support the Festival. If you donate £50 or more, we’ll make you a Friend of LIMF. This means you will get the benefits and updates we give to friends for one year. Let us know if you do not want that to happen.
2. The Board has to look after the artists. This means that any contact with artists is subject to availability, contingent on a range of factors, including the needs of artists. The Board reserves the right to substitute this as necessary.
3. To make sure everything goes well, any meeting with an artist will have at least one Board member present.
4. The Board reserves the right to substitute any and all benefits at its sole discretion; in the event of any such substitution or substitutions, refunds of neither donation or purchase element of any funds given to the Crowdfunding campaign or any other shall be given.
5. The nature of the current coronavirus context means that everything including artists and timeframe are subject to radical and unpredictable change. We will do our best to keep to the programme, timings, and artists promised, but things might change. The Board reserves the right to do what it thinks appropriate and safe, at its sole discretion; this may diverge from, or be more cautious, than Government advice or guidance.
6. Any contact information provided will be used to contact you about the festival, your donation and any rewards.
7. Should the full amount not be raised, the Board will endeavour to meet these costs, failing which donations will used to put on live music for digital and/or physical audiences as soon as is practicable and safe in the Board’s view.