Finding hope in a ‘revolution’ of music in the Cotswolds

When you look at the state of the world today – from Vladimir Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine, Hamas’ threats to Israel and the tragedy of Gaza, the turmoil of American politics and the uninspiring choices in British politics, to the forgotten tragedies of Myanmar, North Korea, the Uyghurs, Tibet and Hong Kong, which I try to draw attention to daily – it would be easy to despair. As the American poet William Kotzwinkle put it, “The world is so big and I am so small, I don’t like it at all, at all.”

That is why regular moments of inspiration, prayer, joy and love, both in solitude and silence and in vibrant community with others, are so vital, not just to lift our hearts but also our horizons and hopes, refresh our souls and enable our spirits to soar again.

I had one of those moments last weekend, in the picturesque Cotswolds town of Chipping Campden. Indeed, for the past decade or more Chipping Campden has provided me with an annual soul-boost.

As I watched the conductor and heard the orchestra perform Tchaikovsky’s Fantasy Overture from Romeo and Juliet and Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5, and listened to acclaimed soprano Sophie Bevan perform Richard Strauss’ Four Songs op.27, at this year’s Chipping Campden Music Festival, every sense of tiredness, anxiety and concern within body and mind evaporated – at least for the duration of the two-hour concert. The bigger picture became clear again and what my friend Baroness Philippa Stroud, chief executive of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC), calls the “Better Story”, was once again told. The timpani in Tchaikovsky’s great work and the horns in the finale of Sibelius’ symphony beckoned me on in the adventure of life.

Perhaps it helps that the conductor was my brother-in-law, Thomas Hull, and the leader of the orchestra was my sister, violinist Ruth Rogers. Certainly, it was a family outing, as it has been every year for the past decade or more. Each year I help look after my nephews while my sister and brother-in-law rehearse. My mother comes, and my whole family has got to know many of the musicians over post-concert drinks in the Eight Bells pub.

That familial connection is an ingredient, as is the involvement of the local community that pulls together each year to host musicians – and hangers-on like me – and embrace the festival spirit.

But the original vision for the Chipping Campden Music Festival, and for the past 22 years the work of turning it into reality, has been that of its founder, a truly remarkable local wine-merchant called Charlie Bennett.

A year after Charlie started the festival in 2002, Thomas Hull – a music agent by day, representing some of the world’s greatest classical musicians, including pianists Alfred Brendel and Paul Lewis, and a conductor and clarinettist by night – turned up, performing with Paul Lewis two piano concerti.

Introduced by former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger – who now backs the excellent Chipping Campden Literature Festival in his capacity as editor of Prospect – Tom was tasked with inviting “the best artists to the festival”. As he says, “I told everyone in the business that Chipping Campden was a special place and that any artist would enjoy performing there.” He brought the Lindsay String Quartet and Alfred Brendel, who “helped put the festival on the map”.

The vision, as Tom tells me, “has always been very simple”. It is to “try and invite the very best musicians to enjoy performing” in Chipping Campden. “I want to build an environment where the greatest musicians and aspiring musicians keep coming to Chipping Campden and, through our youth orchestra, inspire others to take up music.”

The concerts take place in the town’s Anglican St James’ Church, which Tom says “is blessed with a remarkable acoustic”. Brendel said it has “one of the finest acoustics I encountered in my 60 year career”. The church also has “a very fine Steinway Model D piano”, which the festival eventually bought.

It provides a stunning venue, with a capacity of almost 400. Bookings need to be well-planned in advance, to avoid clashing with weddings and – less predictable – funerals, and of course built around Sunday services.

But the vision is about more than simply attracting talented musicians. It is about pairing experienced, professional orchestral musicians with music students, to develop musical talent. That is why the orchestra consists of both experienced professionals and talented music students from the Royal College of Music, the Royal Academy, the Guildhall, the Royal Scottish Conservatoire of Music, the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

This year, for example, the orchestra was at its biggest capacity ever – 56 players. They performed Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, as well as a good mix of Beethoven, Brahms, Elgar, Ravel, Strauss, Tchaikovsky and Sibelius.

Generally, up to 22 professional musicians sign up each year to perform and mentor music students, many returning annually. At least 34 Academy members – music students – are selected through auditions from Britain’s major conservatoires. Tom tells me: “We had over 200 applications this year, and I heard 160 auditions.”

However, the Festival is not only about the Festival Academy Orchestra, which performs three of the festival’s 18 concerts over two weeks. In addition, there are five young artist lunchtime concerts and other concerts every night. This year these included the Takács Quartet, pianists Paul Lewis, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Marc-André Hamelin, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Roderick Williams and the Aquinas Piano Trio.

For all the time I have known the Festival, my brother-in-law has wielded his baton and my sister has led the players. But in addition to that and auditioning the musicians, Tom – who is now Artistic Director – also selects the repertoire.

“We like to invite world class soloists, so the orchestra can enjoy working with and learning from them,” Tom says. “I programme all the orchestral concerts and talk to the visiting artists about their programmes as I curate the whole festival, trying to present a variety of musical style and balance of works people know and love, while introducing them to music they might not know.”

Over the past 16 years, the orchestra has already performed most of the major works written for an ensemble of its size, including “all of Brahms’ and Schuman’s symphonies, the first eight of Beethoven’s, most of Schubert’s, many of Mozart’s and Haydn’s, four of Dvorak’s and two of Sibelius’”. New works have been commissioned from David Matthews and Howard Goodall, and twentieth century masterpieces by the likes of Stravinsky, Britten and Prokofiev and twenty-first century works by Lindberg and Jonathan Dove have also featured. Audiences have been “tested”, he notes, by “Stravinsky’s fiendish Symphony in C and The Firebird.”

Why does this matter? Why should a festival in the Cotswolds be worth recounting?

Because music makes the heart sing and keeps the soul alive. And without it, the world would be in an even greater darkness.

As Jordan Peterson writes in Beyond Order, “artists are the people who stand on the frontier of the transformation of the unknown into knowledge. They make their voluntary foray into the unknown, and they take a piece of it and transform it into an image.”

Art, Peterson adds, “is not decoration … Art is exploration. Artists train people to see … It is very hard to perceive the world, and we are so fortunate to have geniuses to teach us how to do it, to reconnect us with what we have lost, and to enlighten us to the world.”

This festival brings community together. It attracts tourists. But much more importantly, it is about building the future. The Festival’s Youth Orchestra tries to help boost arts education and promote music among young people, which too many of our schools are failing to do.

“Music has become a pastime for the rich and privileged. We have to battle this to expose the under-privileged to the joys of music,” Tom argues. “It has been scientifically proven that children who are encouraged to play an instrument do better across the curriculum.” Look, he adds, at all the highest achieving schools in the country – “they all have incredible music departments.”

A lesson to be learned, for whomever is next in government.

And as I experienced last month, Chipping Campden isn’t only a hub for music. It has a thriving literature festival too.

I had the privilege of helping to organise and participate in a remarkable panel discussion at the Literature Festival. Moderated by Baroness Helena Kennedy, KC, the panel included  Marina Litvinenko, widow of Alexander Litvinenko who was poisoned by Vladimir Putin’s agents, former BBC journalist John Sweeney who has written a book about Putin – Killer in the Kremlin –  and myself in a discussion about Russia, China and the challenges posed by authoritarianism poses to western civilization and the free world. It was sold-out, the best attended event of the entire festival.

So in this small corner of the Cotswolds, a revolution is beginning.

A revolution of hope. Love. Justice. Community. Culture. Civilisation. Beauty.

If you want proof, just watch the amazing documentary – How To Build an Orchestra which tells the Festival’s story.

My brother-in-law is secular and politically left-of-centre. I am a Catholic, and politically centre-right. But we are bound by bonds that far transcend tribalism, ideology or belief. We are bound by family, humanity and the power of music that overpowers differences of opinion.

I am extraordinarily unmusical. At school I tried the piano, clarinet and saxophone, but couldn’t get any of them to work. The only places I ever sing are in the bath, occasionally, and in church, quietly.

But that doesn’t matter. Every performer needs an audience, so I am proud to be part of it: to listen, love, support and cheer.

Beauty, Peterson argues, “leads you back to what you have lost” and “reminds you of what remains forever immune to cynicism”. Beauty “beckons in a manner that straightens your aim. Beauty reminds you that there is lesser and greater value. Many things make life worth living: love, play, courage, gratitude, work, friendship, truth, grace, hope, virtue and responsibility. But beauty is among the greatest of these.”

When beauty, liberty, community, hospitality, love, hope, purpose and life meet and embrace, as they do in Chipping Campden, it’s worth joining in.