York Chamber Music Festival 2024
Annual General Meeting 20[th] January 2025
Present: Stuart Lowe, Alison Gammon Jill Shepherd, Stella Waller, Ray Walker Absent Robert Gammon, Tim Lowe
Agenda
Apologies for absence Chair’s Report/discussion 2025 YCMF
Artstc Achievement
Thanks to Tim the festival attracts players of international standard so we continue to bring world class chamber music to York. The septet version of Metamorphosen last year was truly awesome. This year the level was equally high and I make no apology for including here the unsolicited email from Charles Martindale which does reflect what people told me face-to-face and on email.
Dear Stuart,
My friend and former colleague, David Hopkins, Professor of English emeritus at the University of Bristol, and himself an accomplished amateur musician (with a son who was principal cello in the National Youth Orchestra!), told us he had never enjoyed chamber music playing more (and he has heard most of the top groups in the world). In addition to the choice of programme and other excellences (what amazing pianism, for example) he was struck by the extent to which this was genuine chamber music playing - not a group playing to an audience so much as one listening and responding to each other and fully drawing the audience into their conversation. And the playing had such fire, panache, spontaneity, and sense of enjoyment, beyond what one normally encounters even in a good live performance, simply stellar. We sent them back to Bristol highly contented.
Please congratulate and thank Tim for doing this so generously for York.
We are already looking forward to next September. All best wishes,
Charles (Professor of English, University of York)
This message does confirm our aim to bring the highest quality of chamber music to York. We are continuing to work on the 2025 programme (see Appendix A)
Audiences/ticket sales
We had good size audiences but the venues are not full and there is scope to build on our loyal core of supporters given the quality we provide. We have built the email list embedded in Wix to over 500 people. We checked for duplicates and bogus addresses and found very few that were inactive or problems.
Ticket sales were slightly lower than last year. We sold 470 tickets (£8,030) The discounted Festival pass certainly had an impact and is worth keeping now the NCEM box office can deal with it. 35 Passes were issued; 36% of sales.
Website and Publicity
The website continues to be managed technically by Ashley McGovern (Red Bonsai). He also designs the flyer and deals with printing. He designs the posts. He does a limited amount of social media outreach. Many thanks to him.
All the text on the website, the posts and all the programme notes are written by me on a voluntary basis.
I took an ‘executive decision’ to give up printing concert programmes because the costs were becoming prohibitive. We lost money in 2022 by selling at £1. But I have had quite a few plaudits for the free ‘Two sides of A4 notes’ which are summaries and key points from the website. Quite a few people had printed out their own from the pdf on the website. I note that the Liverpool Phil also hand out an A4 sheet, (rather uninformative, just basic information)
Blog posts
The occasional blog posts connected to the programme are also popular. Wix analytics show big upticks in people lingering on the website after these are published and a definite impact on ticket sales nearer the festival. They do seem to engage people with the concert series in the months in the build up to the festival.
- We are gradually building the Wix email list. There were 40 new sign ups via the website since the 2023 festival. Perhaps we should be more proactive on this? A large percentage of tickets are bought by people on this list.
Other cost savings were from not advertising in the Ryedale Festival brochure or ‘Visit York’ saving about £750. My sense of it is that we didn’t lose out on ticket sales because of this. Our flyers covered Ryedale events, NYMoors and were distributed around town and at the Unitarian Chapel. We were circulated on the Chapel’s lunchtime concerts email list and round the Central York Churches newsletter We were mentioned in the NCEM newsletters. We were belatedly mentioned in the Minster pew sheet.
- We should discuss our outreach strategy. Several people commented that for the standard of music being produced why weren’t the halls full up? This is a good question.
Players and their fees
Fees for the festival artists went up by £100 compared to last year. Magnus Johnston also charged VAT. The players arrived in York on Wednesday lunchtime and rehearsed until 7.00pm. On Thursday they rehearsed from 9.30 to 7.00pm. We took them for supper in town each day. The concert days also involved rehearsals before the events. There were a lot of notes played during these five days, especially for the violinists who played in everything. Tim played in both lunchtimes. They seemed to enjoy their visit to York, being
hosted by us and our hospitality. Players of this standard would normally charge more than we could afford for five days and willingly came to us. Great many thanks to them for producing world-class chamber music. “ …their playing had such fire, panache, spontaneity, and sense of enjoyment, beyond what one normally encounters even in a good live performance.” I think this says it all.
Ticket Sales Income
Ticket income was £8,030. This was a shade lower than last year but a big advance on 2022 (25% improvement). It accounts for 51% of expenditure and if we can improve on that next time much the better. The discounted ‘All Concerts’ pass was a success (36%) of income.
After last payment for 2024 festival there is £ 13,025.00 in the bank to carry forward to 2025 as a reserve.
Audience size
I wonder whether this is a metric worth mentioning. We do need a reasonably accurate account for the Charity Commission, Public Liability Insurance and as a measure of how we are growing or not. Basically each concert has a tickets sold number from the NCEM Box Office but added to this are all of us volunteers, stewards plus occasional friend and relatives, journalist, a few people by invitation.
- This all added up to over 520 in the audiences over 5 events. Cross referencing names I can see that quite a few people came to two or three events and of course the 35 ‘All Concerts Pass’ holders who probably came to everything. The point is that we have a core of about 60 people most of whom come year by year. Some festivals with many more financial and administrative resources than us offer special treatment for sponsors and annual donations. Could we do this? Our core come because they love the music… while the Harriet Trust continue their support we are solvent and are building a reserve in the bank. We have improved our audience numbers year on year.
APPENDICES
Appendix 1 Event audience numbers
Event One: 49 sales of single seats, 35 ‘All concerts’ passes. We sold 10 seats for cash at the door and there were 8 free tickets for the stewards (3) and 5 for our other volunteers. So the whole audience was 103 (including page turner).
Event Two: 56 single tickets, 35 passes, NCEM stewards (5?), YCMF volunteers (8), a journalist, Ashley McGovern and his wife came at our invitation and a few children with parents. So at least 110 can be accounted for and that seemed about right with 120 seats out.
The same logic for Events Three and Four.
Event Five at St Olave’s on Sunday afternoon there 67 singles, 35 passes, sold 17 for cash on the door and 6 were our stewards and volunteers and Rev Kingsley Boulton. 126 total.
The total for audience numbers was about 517 over the five events. We need to know this for Insurance purposes and as a measure of how we are doing compared to previous years.
Appendix 2 Ticket sales 2022 - 2024
| 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | £ | £ | ||
| Tickets | 5,765 | 7,800 | 7,395 | |
| Cash sales | 840 | 575 | 635 | |
| Total | 6,605 | 8,375 | 8,030 | |
| n= | £ | |||
| Single tckets | 248 | 4,790 | ||
| Pass (35) | 175 | 2,625 | ||
| Door | 47 | 635 | ||
| Total | 8,030 |
Appendix 3
The 2025 programme
The 2025 programme will be launched at a cello recital on March 12[th] 7.30pm at the NCEM. Tim Lowe and John Lenehan
Programme
Beethoven Cello Sonata in D major, Op. 102 No.2 Bloch Three Pieces from Jewish Life Rachmaninov Sonata for Cello and Piano in G minor, Op. 19
YORK CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL 2025
EVENT ONE
Friday 19 September – 1:00 – 2:00pm £15 Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate
Cello recital
Tim Lowe (cello) and Katya Apekisheva (piano)
Schumann Fantasiestücke Glasunov- Elegie Glasunov -Chant du menestrel Brahms Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 2 in F major, Op. 99
EVENT TWO
Friday 19 September – 7:30pm £20 National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church
Concert by Festival Artists
Charlotte Scott, Jonathan Stone (violins)
Hélène Clément, Gary Pomeroy (violas) Jonathan Aasgaard, Tim Lowe (cellos)
Haydn String Quartet Op. 76 No.5 ‘Largo’ Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, opus 110 Schoenberg String Sextet Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) Op. 4
EVENT THREE
Saturday 20 September 1:00 – 2:00pm £15 Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate
Viola recital
Hélène Clément (viola) and Katya Apekisheva (piano)
Frank Bridge Two Pieces for Viola and Piano: Pensiero and Allego Appassionato Shostakovich Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 147 Rebecca Clarke Sonata for Viola and Piano
EVENT FOUR
Saturday 20 September 7:30pm £20 Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York
Concert by Festival Artists
Charlotte Scott, Jonathan Stone (violins) Hélène Clément, Gary Pomeroy (violas) Jonathan Aasgaard, Tim Lowe (cellos) Katya Apekisheva (piano)
Schubert Notturno in E Flat, Op. 148, D. 897 Schumann Piano Quartet in E flat major, Op. 47 Tchaikovsky Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50
EVENT FIVE
Sunday 21 September 3.00pm £20 St Olave’s Church, Marygate Lane
Concert by Festival Artists
Charlotte Scott, Jonathan Stone (violins) Hélène Clément, Gary Pomeroy (violas) Jonathan Aasgaard, Tim Lowe (cellos)
Mozart String Quintet No. 1 in B flat major K174 Brahms String Quintet in G major, No. 2 Op. 111
NOTES
York Chamber Music Festival 2024
Account
EXPENDITURE
Red Bonsai (PR and Website etc)
Website design/links to NCEM box office etc 2,000 flyers/100 posters /design/printing Blog posts on website and via Wix Some Social Media/Twitter
Sub-total 1,720 (inc VAT) Miscellaneous Hotel (Bar Convent) 154 Piano tuner 180 Public Liability Insurance 301 Alison’s catering 119.33 Betty’s token for Ridge 50 Double-side programme copying 100 Meals out (Old Siam 301.44) (Prezzo £298.05) 599.49 Parking 58.60
Sub-total 1,562.42
Venues
Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall 500 NCEM (concert hire) 420 (inc VAT) Unitarian Chapel 400 (2xdays rehearsal; 2x lunchtime recitals St Olave’s Church 100 St Bede’s (rehearsal space) 61.50 NCEM Box Office @10% of ticket sales 887.40 (inc VAT) Sub-total 2,368.90 Players fees Magnus Johnston 1,572.40 (inc VAT) Ben Hancox 1,310.94 Gary Pomeroy 1,300.00 Simone van der Giessen 1,340.00 Marie Bitlloch, 1,300.00 Tim Lowe 1,666.20 Sam Coles (Flute) 350.00 Andrew Brownell (Piano) 1,300.00 Sub-total 10,139.54 Total expenditure 15,790.86
| INCOME Ticket Sales Tickets via NCEM Cash at the door Donatons via website Refund from NCEM Sub-total The Harriet Trust Total Income Balance of income less expenditure |
£ 7,395 635 8,030 213 150 8,393 10,000 18,393 2,602 |
|---|---|
State of Bank Account
After last payment for 2024 festival there is £13,025 in the bank to carry forward to 2025
| 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| £ | £ | £ | |
| Tickets | 5,765 | 7,800 | 7,395 |
| Cash sales |
840 | 575 | 635 |
| Total | 6,605 | 8,375 | 8,030 |
Notes:
Ticket income from tickets was 51% of expenditure We sold 36 ‘All concert passes’ for £2,700 (36% of sales)