Wimbledon International Music Festival is back. Wimbledon will soon be alive again with glorious music, says Anthony Wilkinson, the festival founder. The box office opens in September for one of our most enjoyable and significant cultural events, our annual festival in November.
‘Jewel in London’s Cultural Crown’ – Jessica Duchen, Independent.
‘One of the most distinguished festivals in the UK’ – Musical Opinion
‘One of London’s major autumn events’ – Barry Millington, Evening Standard
Along with our wonderful Common, great schools, eating places, and easy access to West End theatres, international museums and art galleries, our local cultural life makes Wimbledon one of the great suburbs of one of the greatest cities in the world. How lucky we are.
This year’s festival sees major international stars like Sir Willard White, Dame Imogen Cooper, the Philharmonia orchestra, Viktoria Mullova, The Tallis Scholars, and a Tango tribute to Piazzolla devised by ‘Strictly Come Dancing’s’ Leandro Palou.
There is a saying in the festival business that ‘the closer one is to London, the harder it is to run a festival.’ In many ways this is true.
The competition is intense. The Chipping Campden Music Festival, because it is the main show in town, prints just 7,000 brochures. WIMF prints and distributes nearly 40,000, and in London that hardly scratches the surface.
Since its founding in 2009 WIMF has established an extraordinary reputation by offering the very best of musicians from around the world:
‘What makes Wimbledon unique is there are no also-rans hiding behind the star names’ – Cause4
A new concert hall
But it hasn’t been without a fight – mainly because Wimbledon doesn’t have venues on a par with the artists it presents. Some local churches have wonderful acoustics – but there is nowhere with raked seating, nor large enough to get the ticket revenue to support it.
But things could be on the point of changing. Many thousands have signed a petition for a 1250 seat international concert hall for London in Wimbledon. The world’s most celebrated architect Frank Gehry (of Walt Disney Concert Hall, and Guggenheim Bilbao fame) has already produced a first set of plans. Such an iconic cultural building would really put Wimbledon on the international cultural map. Glory could be just around the corner.
FOR DETAILS AND BOX OFFICE: wimbledonmusicfestival.co.uk
