Shipley Arts Festival switches online

In challenging times, the team behind the Shipley Arts Festival are more determined than ever that it will go ahead. And go ahead it will – just in a different format. Artistic director Andrew Bernardi will be making the festival’s April and May concerts “virtual” events. The festival team will be taking a decision about June’s concerts at the end of the first week in May. Andrew’s point is that music is absolutely central to community: ““I think when you are in a crisis, it emphasises two things. It very much makes you concentrate on the importance of the quality of what you are doing, whether in relationships or in the work you are offering. “But I think the other thing that the crisis emphasises is that it shows that music is as much about trying to bring people together as it is about trying to be the best – and you realise that that togetherness is absolutely fundamental. “It is our 20th year for the festival, and we are quite determined to celebrate our values of community and music education and quality. We will just be doing it in a slightly different way. “We won’t be doing live concerts until the middle of June, but we will making a very careful decision about those June concerts on May 8. “We will need at least a five-week lead time from the advice that we are given about those concerts, so whether we do this June’s concerts live or not is still in question. “But certainly if we are not doing them live, we will be doing them online instead.” Andrew’s great advantage was his close, daily contacts with China. It meant he was well ahead in terms of knowing what was going to happen here – and was able to plan for it accordingly. “I was aware that it was going to be as bad as it is here long before it happened. We were able to do a lot more preparation to go online before anyone else. We had a big head start in that respect, and that’s the reason we have expanded our IT team and I have taken on an additional web designer and also people to deliver the online content. We had prior knowledge because of our daily connections with China. We knew it was going to be far worse here than people were thinking at first.” Some of the music may have to change in the concerts – but the number of concerts won’t be changing. “My view is that when something terrible happens, you can either fall over or you can look for the positives. I think you have got to use your imagination and make the best of every situation, just as Captain Tom did raising all those millions for the NHS. I think if you look for the solutions in life at all times, then you will move forwards. “The most important thing in life is community, and the best way of bringing people together is through music which is the highest form of human intelligence. I am trying to apply that kind of thinking to this contemporary setting, and we are lucky enough to have astonishing IT possibilities at a time when we need to come together more strongly than normal.” For the online concerts, the musicians will be using precisely those technological possibilities to make their music. Full programme thecapitolhorsham.com. The next concert is on Sunday, April 26 at 6:30pm. Baroque trumpeter Crispian Steele Perkins, Bruce Martin, Graham Salter, Andrew Bernardi and The String Academy perform J S Bach; Purcell; Vivaldi; and Bernardi.

Andrew Bernardi