Dartington music foundation drops Devon link…

…leaving two sparring charities singing different tunes

The group behind a new version of the Dartington music summer school has dropped any reference to the institution in its legal name and outlined new plans away from the Devon site in coming years.  The move points to a deepening of the split between the two charities that had previously cooperated over the festival and reduces the chances of the renowned event returning to its previous home in its original form.

The two charities at the centre of the rift are the Summer School Foundation (previously called the Dartington International Summer School Foundation) and the better-known Dartington Hall Trust that runs the sprawling Dartington estate.

As well as changing its name the foundation has altered its legal terms of reference – known as the memorandum of association or constitution – in new documents recently filed under the 2006 Companies Act.

In the previous wording of the relevant filings, the foundation said its main aim was to “promote and organise schemes to provide education for the benefit of the public in all aspects of music and related arts, including opera, music theatre, electronic media, music and dance, and in particular to support and encourage the Dartington International Summer School and its successor by whatever name it may be known”.

In the re-jigged format, the equivalent clause retains the wording about music-related education but – in reference to supporting festivals – drops any mention of Dartington. Instead the relevant sentence now says a key object of the charity is more generally to “promote, organise, support and encourage summer schools, festivals and similar events”.

Normally lasting four weeks the summer school has bult up a global reputation over more than 70 years, attracting top international musicians and creating a strong following in South Devon. Rather than purely focusing on classical music, the event has spanned a range of musical genres, including folk, jazz, composition and conducting skills, while offered bursaries to young musicians given the chance to learn from top performers. However last year the trust – the main organiser for the event albeit assisted by the foundation over promotion and funding – cancelled plans for the 2024 festival on the grounds of severe financial constraints which it said had pushed it close to bankruptcy. That prompted the foundation to organise its own version of the summer school, based on the concept developed at Dartington and involving many of the same performers and volunteers.

This went ahead for two weeks earlier in the summer at Gresham’s School, a well-funded private school in Holt, Norfolk. The move irritated some people at the trust on the basis that the foundation might be infringing its intellectual property. Meanwhile the trust staged its own greatly cut-down (and less costly) variant on the summer school. This took the form of an eight-day singing workshop called ChoralFest that ended a few weeks ago. In contrast to the usual summer school format, no instrumentalists took part, apart from two pianists, with public performances restricted largely to short recitals by professional singers.

In a sign that both charities are – at least for the time being – happy with ploughing their own course each have said they were satisfied with the results from their respective 2024 events and are planning similar summer festivals next year.Richard Heason, chief executive of the foundation, said its Holt festival “went really well” with more than 400 people resident over the two weeks,

“We offered over 500 individual sessions across more than 60 courses along with over 60 talks and concerts. We’re still collating the feedback from participants, artists and volunteers, but from the over 200 responses we’ve received so far the response has been overwhelmingly positive.”

In 2025 the foundation is planning another two-week event at Gresham’s. After this it hopes eventually to move to a three- or four-week schedule, helped by the possibility of more accommodation that could increase considerably the number of available beds from 260 this year.

Commenting on its own ChoralFest, which attracted about 75 people who stayed at the Dartington site, the trust said: “We were very encouraged by how the event went. We were pleased with the quality of the recitals and rehearsals.

“We more than covered our costs. The feedback from those who attended, including people who had been at previous Dartington summer schools, was extremely good.”

Looking ahead, the trust said it was “enthusiastic” about operating a similar event in 2025. “We are now considering what it should entail. At this stage no options [including the possibility of increasing the length of the festival and involving more instrumentalists] have been ruled out.”

As to whether the rift between the two bodies could be healed, Heason said the foundation would be “very happy” to talk to the trust about a future relationship but had had no contact with senior people there for some time. A big problem for the trust in any efforts to stage residential events on the scale of previous versions of the summer school is a shortage of suitable accommodation. At the most it is thought Dartington can offer about 140 bed spaces of appropriate quality, well below the available spaces at Gresham’s.

In the past Dartington could offer more accommodation – in bedrooms formerly used by students at the Dartington College of Arts, which closed its Devon site in 2010. But due to lack of maintenance over the years much of this space has fallen into disrepair and is close to impossible to use.

Shortly after the college’s closure, Dartington lost, what had sometimes been hefty, Arts Council funding, a big factor weakening the summer school’s financial position.

For the foundation, as it looks ahead to staging future events in Norfolk, it may have to face questions from donors with a strong attachment to Dartington. Over the years the benefactors have provided funds to support what most of them would have thought would be a summer school in its traditional home in Devon rather than one 300 miles away.

While the foundation has no employees and has had as its main job raising and handing out money, at the end of its last financial year last October it had some £300,000 in reserves, most of this due to donations.

A further detail about the foundation is that – while its legal documents now contain no reference to Dartington –  many people strongly associated with the charity are former leading lights at the Devon institution

Several of the foundation’s trustees have close connections with Dartington, including its chair Lisa Tregale, now the director of the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales. who a former summer school administrator. The foundation’s secretary is Gareth Keene, whose jobs have included secretary of the Dartington trust and administrator of the art college.

In contrast the most senior people managing the trust have few past Dartington links. Among the newcomers are Lord David Triesman, Robert Fedder and Mark Stone – respectively the trust’s chair, interim chief executive and creative director – who all took up their positions last year.