LMCMF Charity Commission report June 2024 to June 2025
The Charity’s name is Llantwit Major Chamber Music Festival
Charity Registration number 1184812
The registered address is: 42 Boverton Brook Llantwit Major CF61 1YH
The Trustees are: Cledwyn Lewis - Chairman Keith Baker - Vice Chairman Sally Tarlton - Secretary Antony Tarlton - Treasurer Andrew Elliott - Music advisor Alyson Jones
The repertoire for the performances, both public and Outreach, is devised by the Festival Director, Ben Tarlton, who reports to Trustee, Andrew Elliott, for his approval.
The Charity’s work:
The main focus of the charity is to produce chamber music concerts to a very high professional standard in Llantwit Major church, usually towards the end of March each year.
Before the main festival, in November 2024 a winter concert was given, mainly for the Friends of the Festival, by Ben Tarlton and the international Harpist, former Royal Harpist, Alis Hughes.
They also visited schools in the Outreach Project, funded by an award from the Waterloo Foundation.
The 2025 Festival consisted of five concerts, with the first being on the evening of Friday 21[st] March. They performed: the Quartet for Oboe and String Trio by Mozart, the ‘Phantasy Quartet’ for Oboe and String Trio by Benjamin Britten and concluded with the first String Trio Op.3 by Beethoven.
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On the Saturday evening, there were performances of String Quartets by Haydn and Grieg and the Finzi ‘Interlude’ for Oboe and String Quartet.
On the Sunday afternoon we welcomed players, sponsored by the Worshipful Company of Musicians. The performers were the ‘Gus and Goncalo Guitar Duo’.
The final concert, later on the Sunday afternoon, consisted of performances of two pieces for Oboe and Strings: the ‘Nocturne and Capriccio’, by Antal Dorati, and ‘Cup of Kindness’ by Helen Leach. The Progamme concluded with the second of Mendelssohn’s two String Quintets.
All the concerts were attended by a good number of people, pretty-well filling the main body of the church, who applauded the performances enthusiastically.
All these concerts were held in St Illtuds’ Church Llantwit Major, by kind permission of the Rector, Reverend Canon Edwin Counsell.
As well as performing concerts for the public, the musicians performed several outreach concerts in local schools and care homes. For this, the LMCMF was fortunate in securing funding from the Waterloo Foundation.
This work is a very important factor, as the Festival Director, Ben Tarlton, is passionate about bringing high quality music to as many people as possible.
The idea is to introduce classical music to young people (age 4 and up, mainly primary schools) by playing short, often virtuoso pieces to the children, asking for feedback and then inviting them to come up and conduct the players, something they really enjoy doing. We have noticed especially good concentration from the children and we know this will make a lasting impression on them, especially as provision for music in schools is less of a high priority these days.
The feedback from the children was excellent, especially from schools we had visited several times. They greeted the players enthusiastically.
In the last few years, we have visited certain schools several times with different instrumental combinations, and are always warmly welcomed back.
These outreach performances are at no cost to the schools, as they are fully funded by the Waterloo Foundation.
Where the money is from:
1) First and foremost, from sponsors large and small.
2) From ticket sales
3) Donations from the “friends” of the festival.
4) We will also receive a substantial sum from Gift Aid in July 2025
5) We ran a bar each night (with a licence) and this makes a profit, although we do not charge high amounts for the drinks.
Where the money has been spent:
1) Fees and travel expenses for the 8 performers. (Six for the Festival concerts and two visiting artists from the Worshipful Company of Musicians) They are hosted as guests in private homes, but the cost of providing meals during the week is met by the Festival.
2) Costs are also involved with publicity, printing of programmes, posters and fliers. Website fee, staging, purchasing music and the hire of the church.
This year there were five performances with very good audiences for each concert, providing good ticket revenue.
We charged £13 for a ticket with 3 or more concerts having a discount. Under 25’s were free though sadly we did not attract a huge number of young people.
This price is very competitive when compared with other local festivals. We wish to keep it this way to attract a loyal local audience.
Publicity is :-
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1) Via word of mouth
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2) Distributing posters and fliers
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3) Emailing all the Friends to inform them of the Festival dates and booking details.
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4) A paid for advert in the local paper, which was well worth while.
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5) Regular posts on Facebook and Instagram
At the end of the financial year we had sufficient money left from the Waterloo Foundation grant, to fund the outreach concerts for July and November ‘25-, plus a small surplus.
We have a new volunteer Fund Raiser.
We will also receive Gift Aid payment during this financial year.
Sally Tarlton - Festival Secretary
On behalf of the Trustees
Sally Tarlton
| EXPENDITURE | INCOME | |
| Players fees and expenses Fees & expenses for outreach work |
£5,015 £2,100 |
Money in bank June 2024 |
| Hire of staging | £472 | Moneyin bank 1stJune 2025 |
| Publicity, printng, (fiers, posters& programmes)newspaper advert |
£1,346 | (Net gain for the year) |
| Church hire fees(Nov& March) | £575 | November concert 2024 * |
| Website fee | £148 | Grants and personal donatons, HMRC Worshipful Company of Musicians, Llantwit Major Town Council, Llantwit Major Lions,Bower Trust |
| Food and drink forplayers and for bar sales | £908 | Friends membership |
| Misc Music, minibus taxi, postage | £210 | Ticket money (Ticket Source Zetle and Cash) March concerts 2025 |
| TOTAL | £10,774 | TOTAL |