Clun Valley Music
Clun Valley Music Report for Annual Parish Meeting 2024
Clun Valley Music is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). Its work is managed on a day-to-day basis by the charity’s Artistic Director, Richard Tunnicliffe, and is overseen by the Board of 4 Trustees, which meets three to four times annually. There are no salaried members and no employees; the Artistic Director offers his services without remuneration. The work of the charity is occasionally supported by volunteers on an ad hoc basis.
Activities and Objectives
The purpose of the charity is to advance, improve, develop and maintain public education in, and appreciation of, the art and science of music in all its aspects by any means the trustees see fit, including through the presentation of public concerts and recitals. The charity carries out this purpose within the area of the Clun Valley, Shropshire.
Our Work in 2022/23
We have had a very successful fifth season of concerts, both artistically and financially.
Our third season of free August Sunday lunchtime concerts in Clun Methodist Church, “Two’s Company”, once again proved a great success, drawing capacity audiences for all three concerts and achieving a substantial income in donations. It is clear from the feedback from audience members that these concerts have now become a much-loved and eagerly anticipated feature of Clun’s cultural calendar and we will be repeating it with four concerts in August 2024.
Our main season of concerts, in our usual venue of St George’s Church, marked a break with tradition by focussing on the music of a single composer, J.S. Bach, whose music is perhaps the principal cornerstone of the classical canon. The opening concert was a spellbinding recital by a world-renowned duo of baroque flautist, Lisa Beznosiuk, and harpsichordist, Paul Nicholson, playing a selection from their highly-acclaimed recording of Bach’s complete flute sonatas. The final concert was an afternoon recital featuring the lighter side of Bach in his “Wedding” and “Coffee” cantatas. The radiant voice of Clun-based soprano Gemma King led the proceedings, with baritone Giles Underwood, making a welcome return visit, and rising star, tenor Rory Carver, completing the lineup. In between these two concerts, a string Quartet recital, led by artistic directors Luba and Richard Tunnicliffe, put the music of Bach in context with works by Haydn, Mozart and Mendelssohn.
Aside from the lunchtime concerts mentioned above, we are planning a series of fund-raising concerts and also aim to use some of our surplus funds for developing our educational work. We are currently in the planning stages of an ambitious project in collaboration with the Clun visual arts community on the theme of “rivers”. The health of our rivers is of ever-increasing importance, both for the wildlife and the human population of our rural communities, and, of course, rivers and water in general have provided a rich source of inspiration for artists and musicians throughout the ages. We plan to commission a new work from a young composer, with input from the local schools, to be performed as part of our 2025 season. Details of this will be posted on our website in the coming months.
Joan Kerry
Trustee, On behalf of Clun Valley Music clunvalleymusic2018@gmail.com