Growing an audience for live classical* music in West Cornwall

Cornwall has been a national centre of creativity in the visual arts for well over a century.  With the arrival of the railway in Victorian times, the special peninsular light drew visiting painters to West Cornwall.  A growing community of artists attracted interest from locals, with fishermen drawn to new creative lives as copper workers and painters.  Some of Britain’s best-known artists and sculptors set up studios in Newlyn and St. Ives.  Today there are more than 60 commercial art galleries in St. Ives alone and countless more across West Cornwall, underpinned by the major publicly funded galleries of Newlyn Art Gallery and The Exchange and Tate St. Ives,  The visual arts contribute massively to the local economy.

With so much local interest in the arts, where does music fit in?  The nearest dedicated music venues are nearly 200 miles away in Wells (Somerset), in Bristol, and Poole (Dorset).  But since the 1970s for six weeks each year, West Cornwall has been home to IMS (Prussia Cove) and regularly visited by leading musicians from across the globe.  In parallel, a knowledgeable audience has been steadily growing.  The series of Concerts Penzance was established in 2009 to promote chamber music concerts in the six months between the IMS visits.  Partially modelled on the concerts at Britain’s top chamber music venue Wigmore Hall in London, Concerts Penzance has developed a reputation for engaging, high quality performances and innovative programming.  Part of the ethos of the series has been to focus on public education rather than merely providing musical entertainment, achieved by dissolving the barriers that frequently make classical music appear to be elitist.  A strong relationship between performers and audience has been created with a broad range of repertoire presented in contexts that expose and illuminate the workings behind the music being heard.

The series has included Humphry Davy Science and Music Lectures, where eminent scientists present cutting edge science side by side with music, frequently exploring the direct relationships between the two.

The cost of attending concerts is kept as affordable as possible, with all events free to young people under the age of 26 thanks to the support of CAVATINA Chamber Music Trust and the local music education Hub.  Visiting musicians have also regularly been involved in education projects for local young people.  Concerts Penzance has proved that there is real appetite for the wide concept of public education through music, and that attending concerts significantly adds to many people’s quality of life, especially those of retirement age.  Concerts Penzance usually attracts between 90 and 160 people to each event, but without a piano the series has been limited to relatively expensive larger performance groups – string quartets rather than solo recitalists.  We believe that by using our own venue and putting on more events for one or two instruments with piano, MusicAbility Foundation (which now runs the Concerts Penzance series) will be able to offer more high quality concerts in a more sustainable model, growing the audience for live music and generating cultural connection and personal wellbeing in the town.

The space in the main hall at 10 Parade Street is immediately attractive and inspiring to visit – people coming into the hall for the first time always seem to have the same ‘wow!’ response.  The traditional shoe box shape is ideal for live music, and with new panelling or other absorbent wall covering, the good acoustic can be further improved.  However, the current maximum audience size is just too small to enable a financially sustainable series of concerts with quality performers.  We are exploring ways to increase the potential audience size to 80 plus, at which point the balance of performers’ fees to affordable ticket income will make it possible to run regular concerts in a sustainable way.  While we’re working to sustain the important heritage features of the building, we also need to improve access to the hall and balcony and increase safety measures.  MusicAbility Foundation will be asking planners to consider changes in the main room to allow the building to once again become a prominent centre for the public, as it was nearly 200 years ago.

* The term ‘classical’ has been used here in the widest sense, to describe any music from the long tradition of acoustic music making from all ages and different cultures, as opposed to the contemporary music which has roots in rock, pop, urban and other amplified music genres which are generally well served in venues across the region.