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2024-12-31-accounts

The London Festival of Contemporary Church Music

10 – 19 May 2024

Report of Trustees Financial Review 2024

Promoting, developing, and showcasing contemporary liturgical music in service and concert

The London Festival of Contemporary Church Music was founded in 2002 with the aim of showcasing contemporary liturgical music in both service and concert. Now in its 22nd year, the LFCCM has grown to include nearly 50 events, dozens of composers, hundreds of performers and thousands of audience members, both live and online.

Contents

1 Trustees and Administrative Details...................................................................................3
2 Letter from the Chair............................................................................................................4
3 Our Purpose, Aims, and Objectives....................................................................................6
4 Festival Debrief Report: Our Activities in 2024.................................................................7
5 Historical Summary Report_.....................................................................................................16_
6 Structure, Governance, and Management......................................................................18
7 Financial Review for 1 January – 31 December 2024......................................................22

Trustees and Administrative Details

Registered charity name LONDON FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHURCH MUSIC Registered charity number 1199196 Registered address 12 FESTUCA HOUSE 38 MIRABELLE GARDENS E20 1BR The Trustees Mr Alastair Carey (chair) Mrs Philippa Ouvry-Johns Rev Ronald Corp Mr Graham Ross Mr Jonathan Wikeley (Treasurer) The Administrators Mr Alastair Carey for Festival 2024 Ms Felicity Hayward Artistic Director Dr Christopher Batchelor

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Letter from the Chair

2024 was a transitional year for The London Festival of Contemporary Church Music. Following the decision in 2023 of the Festival’s founder and Artistic Director, Dr Christopher Batchelor, to retire from his role no later than 2026, the Trustees began 2024 with a primary goal of determining an overall artistic leadership strategy for the years following Christopher’s retirement. By the end of 2024, the Trustees had not only finalised the Festival’s future artistic leadership strategy, but had advertised the position, reviewed applications, and short-listed three applicants for interview in the first quarter of 2025. As a result of this positive and tangible progress, I leave 2024 with strong sense of optimism in the Festival’s future direction.

While the Trustees worked on issues relating to the Festival’s future, the Administrators entered a potentially difficult period: the transitional stage between the end of one artistic Alastair Carey vision and the beginning of another. Such transitions can be a dangerous time for any artistic organisation, where a gap in leadership leads to faltering momentum, a decline in activities and outcomes, and an overall regression in artistic outcomes. Additionally, the internal transition within the LFCCM was matched by similar leadership changes occurring at St Pancras Parish Church, the Festival’s home since its inception in 2002 and by far its most significant supporting venue.

It was with a certain degree of trepidation, then, that the Administrators developed a programme for 2024’s Festival. A reduction in support from St Pancras Parish Church had the potential to negatively affect the Festival’s “Call for Scores” submission project, leading to one of the ticketed concerts being adapted to create more performance opportunities for the composers who contribute music to this open submission project. The other concert was aided greatly by both financial support and development assistance from The Stephen Dodgson Trust, who had previously partnered with the Festival in 2023 on a recital project incorporating the music of

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Stephen Dodgson and were keen to collaborate again on a larger-scale project in 2024.

While leadership changes at St Pancras Parish Church did affect the church’s ability to host certain events, I am delighted that St Pancras was still able to support a particularly unique event that has become a high point of the Festival programme: the “Cymbals and Dances” recital, with student dancers from London Contemporary Dance School presenting their self-choreographed works to blazing new organ music brilliantly played by Martyn Noble. And while St Pancras was unable to engage with 2024’s Festival in the same manner as in previous years, it was edifying to see other venues with deep historical connections to the LFCCM step up to fill the gap. I am particularly grateful to Geoffrey Webber and the clergy, staff, and the Friends of the Music organisation at Hampstead Parish Church, who generously hosted one of ticketed events that, in prior years, would have taken place at St Pancras, and to Jonathan Wikeley and the clergy and staff at All Saints Church, Fulham, who generously hosted the annual choral compline service that this year focussed on new music by young composers.

Overall, 2024’s Festival programme included two ticketed concerts, two free organ recitals, two liturgical services at St Pancras Parish Church, and 36 liturgical services at 26 other participating venues across London. In total, the Festival scheduled 187 live performances of 163 distinct works by 132 composers in 2024.

I am deeply grateful to all who contribute to the work of the Festival: the Trustees, the Administrators, and all our many partners – composers, performers, other venues and artistic groups, and of course our many supporters and funding partners, both private and public. Without your support and contributions, the Festival could not continue its work. On behalf of the Trustees, I thank you all.

Alastair Carey Chair, Board of Trustees

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Our Purpose, Aims, and Objectives

The London Festival of Contemporary Church Music was founded by Christopher Batchelor in 2002 with the aim of showcasing contemporary liturgical music in both service and concert. Today, the LFCCM’s goals and activities fall into three broad categories:

Composition-based activities, including commissions, management of the “Call for Scores” open submission project, and encouraging performance of premieres at participating churches across London.

Performance-based activities, typically involving a mixture of ticketed concerts, free recitals, and liturgical services featuring contemporary music at a wide variety of participating churches across London.

Outreach-based activities, including workshops, educational projects, and seminars.

Our goal each year is to find a blended mix of these activities that, together, promote and encourage the development of new sacred music and the fostering of choral and organ composition and performance at all ages and levels of ability. Nearly all events promoted by the Festival are free of charge, so as to maximise the accessibility and benefit to the general public.

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Festival Debrief Report 2024 Our Activities in 2024

The Administrators of the 2024 Festival have prepared a Debrief Report detailing the Festival’s activities and outcomes for the year. The next pages of this Annual Report include excerpts from the 2024 Debrief Report, highlighting some of the activities that took place during the Festival’s ten-day programme.

Following the Debrief Report is a Historical Summary Report that shows key outcomes for the Festival’s entire history across a variety of compositional and performance-based metrics.

A complete listing of the 42 events that comprised 2024’s Festival programme are available at . https://www.lfccm.com/whatson/festivals/2024/

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Summary of Activities and Outcomes

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Performance-based activities: Concerts and Recitals

Ticketed events

The Festival promoted two ticketed concerts in 2024’s programme. “I Am Not Yet Born”, featuring music by British composers Stephen Dodgson and Ronald Corp, was hosted at Hampstead Parish Church, while “The Hunt of the Unicorn”, featuring themed selections from the Festival’s “Call for Scores” submission project, was held at St George’s Church Bloomsbury, with many of the composers in attendance.

I Am Not Yet Born

Following a successful initial collaboration in a lunchtime recital programme during 2023’s Festival, The Stephen Dodgson Trust suggested a more elaborate performance for LFCCM 2024 that would have the scope to include more of the composer’s sacred music. In particular, the Trust was keen to stage a live performance of Dodgson’s substantial choral cantata The Innocents , commissioned and first performed in 1975 but unheard since. Examination of the hand-written score revealed that this is a substantial work, nearly 30 minutes long. Much of it is written for virtuosic soloists. For the purposes of the 2024 performance, the final section, which is both the most substantial and scored for full choir, was separated out, typeset into a modern edition, and formed the centrepiece of this programme of sacred music by this highly gifted British composer of the late 20[th] century.

Other material in the programme included representative pieces by three of Dodgson’s key influences – Kenneth Leighton, Benjamin Britten, and Leoš Janáček – and, in the second half, selections from Ronald Corp’s remarkable trance-like meditation sequence Dhammapada , a selection of Bhuddist scripture verses set to music for choir accompanied by pre-recorded bells and gongs.

Artistically the project was successful, with The Stephen Dodgson Trust expressing interest in collaborating on a commercial recording of the composer’s sacred music in conjunction with the Festival. Commercially, however, this

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performance continued the overall post-Covid trend of poor audience attendance, despite publicity support from Hampstead Parish Church.

The performance and overall project was made possible by generous financial support from The Stephen Dodgson Trust. Hampstead Parish Church generously made the performance space available free of charge, thanks to the support of the “Friends of the Music” organisation based at the church. Additional performance costs were funded by private donations.

The Hunt of the Unicorn

The Administrators developed this project largely in response to a reduction in performance slots for “Call for Scores” submissions at St Pancras Parish Church. The project was similar conceptually to a ticketed concert performance by The Sarum Consort during 2017’s Festival, where selections sequenced to represent the journey from Christmas to Easter were accompanied by a visual dance component. The visual element seemed to resonant with audiences; the 2017 performance was both artistically successful and well attended by an enthusiastic audience.

Since LFCCM 2024 already included a strong dance collaboration in the “Cymbals and Dances” organ recital, this year the Administrators looked for a different visual component to accompany the music, settling on large-scale reproductions of the medieval “Unicorn” tapestries, thought to depict key moments from the life of Christ. Reproductions of the tapestries were placed throughout the venue for the audience to examine and consider before, during, and after the performance. Musical selections were themed around Christ’s advent, passion, and resurrection. In addition to 18 submissions from “Call for Scores”, the programme incorporated two pieces by Alastair Putt, a highly talented young composer and performer who tragically took his own life in late 2022.

While not as well attended as the 2017 programme on which it was loosely based, 2024’s performance nevertheless received a warm reception from its audience and achieved its logistical goal of covering the short-fall in “Call for Scores” performance and recording slots that would have normally been taken up by St Pancras Parish Church.

The performance and venue costs were funded by private donations.

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Free events

The Festival also promoted two non-ticketed organ recitals in 2024’s programme:

Performance-based activities: Liturgical Services

At St Pancras Parish Church

Prior to the founding of the LFCCM as a CIO, the Festival was administered as an artistic project of St Pancras Parish Church, with liturgical services performed at St Pancras during the Festival period managed and financed under the umbrella of the Festival. With changes in both pastoral and musical leadership taking place at St Pancras during 2024 and further changes anticipated in 2025, it was not entirely unexpected that St Pancras’s direct contribution to, and participation in, the Festival would reduce in 2024. Indeed, the Administrators now expect 2023 to have been the last year of significant involvement in the Festival by St Pancras Parish Church, at least for the foreseeable future. Liturgical events that normally would have taken place at St Pancras, such as the choral compline, were moved to other venues, and the performance slots for “Call for Scores” submissions that would usually take place at St Pancras were incorporated into other events, including one of the ticketed concerts.

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At other Participating Churches

29 participating churches took part in 2024’s Festival, an increase of 7% from 2023 but still down nearly 30% compared to 2019’s high-water benchmark before Covid. These 29 participating churches contributed 42 liturgical services to the Festival programme, a slight drop in event participation from 2023 despite the larger number of venues taking part and still down 19% compared to 2019. Hampstead Parish Church, Robinson College Cambridge, and St Martin of Tours Epsom made strong contributions in 2024 hosting three events each, with Hampstead Parish Church generously hosting one of the ticketed concerts.

Three churches returned to participating in the Festival after an extended period away:

Diversity of liturgical approach across participating venues remains reduced compared to pre-pandemic; 2019’s Festival included participation from venues with liberal / evangelical services that included jazz and improvisation; participation in 2024 tended to be from venues focussed on the more traditional choir-accompanied-by-organ approach. Diversity in ensemble skill level remains diverse, with participating ensembles based at these various churches range from amateur parish choirs through to fully professional vocal ensembles, suggesting that there continues to be scope for a wide variety of interests and skill levels to participate in the Festival.

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Composition-based activities: “Call for Scores”

The Festival’s “Call for Scores” project is an open competition for music to be performed at the Festival. Starting in 2010, “Call for Scores” has now collected hundreds of submitted choral and organ works from around the world. A total of 162 submissions were made in the second half of 2023 for 2024’s Festival, with 122 of these being Personal Submissions directly made by composers aged 21 and over, seven being Youth Submissions directly made by composers under the age of 21, and 33 being Commercial Submissions directly made by a commercial publisher. Only Personal Submissions are subject to a review process. Of the 122 personal submissions, 71 were approved for distribution to 2024’s participating churches. There were 57 performances of 51 works in 2024, slightly more than 2023 but broadly in-line with post-Covid figures overall. However, “Call for Scores” performances post-Covid still remain 5% lower than 2019’s pre-Covid Festival. The improvement in participation over 2023 was largely due to the inclusion of multiple items in one of the ticketed concerts, “The Hunt of the Unicorn”. Including performance slots for “Call for Scores” submissions in this event balanced the substantial decrease in performance slots available at St Pancras Parish Church in 2024.

Of the 51 performed selections, four were submitted by composers based in Italy, one from a composer based in Australia, and three from composers based in the United States. The remainder came from British composers, with the overwhelming majority of those from composers based in England.

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Fundraising

Charitable Fundraising

2024’s Festival received funds from the following funding partner:

The Trustees have identified creating a fundraising pipeline, for more efficient targetting, development, application, and overall management of fundraising, as a key strategic objective.

Private Donors

Private donations totalling £10,500 were directed primarily towards performance projects.

Online Engagement and Analysis

Facebook

The LFCCM’s Facebook page has seen a pleasing increase in overall engagement since the end of 2023. It now has 990 followers, an increase of 12% over 2023.

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X (formerly Twitter)

The @lfccm X account now has 814 followers, a decrease of 5% since 2023. This marks the first measured decrease in engagement for the Festival on this platform.

Changes in X’s leadership, management style, and overall approach to content management since 2022 – including some potentially concerning relaxation in the handling of hate speech and extremist content – have created some concern amongst the Administrators as to whether the platform remains an appropriate engagement venue for artists and charities in the long term. Both in response to these management changes and the reduction in engagement, the Administrators aim to diversify the social media platform strategy for LFCCM 2025. In particular, increasing engagement on Facebook may suggest the future strategy should more heavily target Meta’s social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

Direct Email

The committee continues to progress merging all the Festival’s disparate contact lists, with the direct email contact list now including more than 500 subscribers. Subscribers receive engagement before, during, and after each Festival, keeping them informed of the LFCCM’s progress, reminding them of upcoming engagement opportunities – particularly around compositional opportunities, such as “Call for Scores” – and informing subscribers of how they can take part in, and donate to, the work of the Festival.

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Historical Summary Report Measuring the Festival’s Activities from 2002 to today

This Historical Summary Report shows key outcomes for the Festival’s entire history across a variety of compositional and performance-based metrics.

The summary data shown here is based on information captured from every event in the Festival’s history, all of which is available to view online:

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Events Distinct Performed
Works		 Distinct Performed Composers Commissions Performed Call for Scores Submissions Performers (Ensembles and soloists) Live Performances
of Works		 Premiere Performances Recorded Performances of Works Total Published Tracks Participating Venues
LFCCM 2024 42 163 132 48 59 187 38 46 57 29
LFCCM 2023 63 228 153 9 48 71 269 57 22 24 28
LFCCM 2022 58 226 142 3 33 99 247 48 12 16 34
LFCCM 2021 26 92 69 3 21 35 96 19 25 30 13
LFCCM @ Home (2020) 6 36 33 1 3 39
LFCCM 2019 80 216 152 5 58 91 248 61 24 33 43
LFCCM 2018 72 189 134 6 35 83 229 46 17 33 42
LFCCM 2017 59 175 110 4 30 67 193 38 36
LFCCM 2016 34 104 77 3 15 42 109 17 20
LFCCM 2015 40 120 89 7 20 46 131 24 54 92 21
LFCCM 2014 46 143 102 8 8 61 153 36 29
LFCCM 2013 41 126 85 8 8 51 134 28 23
LFCCM 2012 37 73 51 4 12 25 75 19 18
LFCCM 2011 33 86 56 4 8 40 95 20 15
LFCCM 2010 32 94 67 6 27 104 19 11
LFCCM 2009 32 95 64 3 28 103 13 8
LFCCM 2008 28 99 58 7 20 99 8 5
LFCCM 2007 23 85 69 6 22 86 15 4
LFCCM 2006 20 37 36 3 21 39 3 4
LFCCM 2005 21 74 52 4 14 75 5 1
LFCCM 2004 16 24 23 1 3 24 2 1
LFCCM 2003 & 2002 22 64 53 1 12 64 4 2
831 2137 761 95 340 665 2799 520 200 285 113

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Structure, Governance, and Management

The London Festival of Contemporary Church Music (LFCCM) is a registered Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) (charity number 1199196). It is governed by its Constitution, last amended on 17 May 2022 and adopted at the date of the CIO’s incorporation on 7 June 2022. The formal membership of the CIO is limited by the Constitution to the Trustees; there are no other voting members. The members of the CIO have no liability to contribute to its assets and no personal responsibility for settling its debts and liabilities in the event the CIO is wound up.

The Trustees

On 7 June 2022 the CIO was incorporated with three Trustees, the minimum quorum required by the Constitution. Two additional Trustees were appointed on 21 September 2022. When appointed as Trustees, individuals automatically become members of the charity until they are no longer Trustees. All Trustees are appointed for three year terms with the sole exception of the inaugural Trustees who were appointed for an initial term of four years. No Trustee may serve more than three terms consecutively without a break of at least one year.

New Trustees receive copies of the Constitution, the most recent Annual Report and Financial Statement, such other internal information as may be needed in order to familiarise themselves with the governance of the charity (for example, minutes of recent meetings and policy documents), and induction information provided to all charitable organisations by the Charity Commission.

The Trustees meet three times per year to review, oversee, and guide the work of the Festival’s Administrators. They develop such governance policies and strategies as may be required to effectively manage the CIO in the long term.

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The Trustees have sole responsibility for financial oversight and management of the Festival and the Festival’s Administrators. The Administrators may attend meetings in order to advise the Trustees as required. One of the Administrators or one of the Trustees serves as the acting Treasurer.

Related Parties

The CIO enjoys a long, warm association with St Pancras Parish Church, its staff, musicians, and governing body (the PCC of St Pancras Parish Church). This reflects the fact that the Festival was founded at St Pancras, was hosted as an artistic project of the church for its first 20 years, and – while now separated from the church both financially and in terms of governance – continues to benefit from the church’s generosity as a host venue and a valued artistic partner. Changes in both pastoral and musical leadership at St Pancras Parish Church are expected to take place during 2024 and 2025 that could affect the relationship between the CIO and St Pancras. As a result, the Trustees and Administrators are mindful of the need to establish hosting relationships beyond the historical connection with St Pancras, so as to avoid risk associated with over-dependence on a single venue. The Trustees gratefully acknowledge considerable support from Hampstead Parish Church during both LFCCM 2023 and LFCCM 2024.

Public Benefit

In planning the Festival’s activities each year, both the Trustees and the Administrators take into consideration the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit. In particular, the Trustees are guided by the objects of the CIO, namely:

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Responsibilities of the Trustees

The Trustees are responsible for preparing the Annual Report and the Financial Statements in accordance with applicable law.

The Financial Year for the CIO is the same as the calendar year, i.e. 1 January – 31 December.

The Trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records which disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the CIO. The Trustees are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the CIO and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

The CIO has opted to prepare Receipts and Payments Accounts which summarises all money received and paid out by the charity in the period, and a statement giving details of its assets and liabilities at the end of the year.

Receipts in the period totalled £14,398. Expenses totalled £11,125. This left £7,993 in the CIO account at the end of the year, a healthy increase from 2023 and close to the benchmark reserves target determined by the reserves policy. The Administrators expect to reach the reserves target in 2025. Additionally, the Trustees aim to increase and diversify fundraising to reduce financial risk as a whole.

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Reserves Policy

The Trustees have determined that the desired level of reserves should be such that it is possible for the Festival to proceed with a minimum viable amount of activity in all key areas:

To fulfil these objectives this policy sets a desired free reserve balance of £9,500. This level is reviewed annually.

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London Festival of Contemporary Church Music

Registered Charity No.: 1199196

Receipts and Payments Accounts

For the period from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2024

Receipts and Payments

Receipts and Payments
Unrestricted Restricted Total funds
funds funds
Receipts
Box Office from Ticketed Events 512 - 512
Gift Aid 3,386 - 3,386
Grants – The Stephen Dodgson Trust - 1,700 1,700
Individuals and Patrons 10,500 - 10,500
Sub total 14,398 1,700 16,098
Asset and investment sales
- - -
Sub total - - -
Total receipts 14,398 1,700 16,098
Payments
Administrative costs 1,039 - 1,039
Performance fees 9,044 1,700 10,744
Venue fees 1,042 - 1,042
Sub total 11,125 1,700 12,825
Asset and investment purchases
- - -
Sub total - - -
Total payments 11,125 1,700 12,825
Net of receipts/payments
Net of receipts/payments 3,273 - 3,273
Transfers between funds - - -
Cash funds last year end 4,720 - 4,720
Cash funds this year end 7,993 - 7,993

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Statement of Assets and Liabilities at the end of the period

Unrestricted Restricted funds funds Cash funds Cash at bank 7,993 - Total cash funds 7,993 - Unrestricted Restricted funds funds Amounts owing to the charity and other monetary assets - - - - - Fund to which Cost Current value asset belongs Investment assets - - - - - - - - - Fund to which Cost Current value asset belongs Assets retained for the charity's own use - - - - - - - - - Fund to which Amount due When due asset belongs Liabilities - - - - - - Signed by one or two trustees Date of on behalf of all the trustees Signature Print Name approval Alastair Carey 21/07/2025 LFCCM Report of Trustees / Financial Review 2024 23

LFCCM Report of Trustees / Financial Review 2024

The London Festival of Contemporary Church Music

Report of Trustees Financial Review 2024

The London Festival of Contemporary Church Music is a Registered Charity, No. 1199196

www.lfccm.com