Royston Arts Festival - Past Festivals

The first Royston Arts Festival was held in 1982 under the directorship of Richard Lambert.

In 1983, a year before his death, the composer Gordon Jacob CBE, visited the festival to attend a concert celebrating his life work. That year the festival held a Henry Moore exhibition, showing 56 of his graphics and a concert hosted by the BBC newsreader Richard Whitmore and featuring among others, a young man called David Atkins, who was later to join the revived festival committee in 2009!

In 1988 the festival featured the Pro Arte Guitar Trio a year after they formed. They are now recognised as one of the world's leading guitar ensembles. That year also saw an evening of Indian classical music and a talk by Jonathon Gash, creator of BBC1's hit detective series ‘Lovejoy'.

One of the highlights of 1993 was the Welsh storyteller Daniel Morden who has since completed residencies at the Royal National Theatre and the Barbican Centre in London and has adapted traditional stories for the theatre, television and radio.

Over the turn of the millenium the festival took an 18 year break until it was revived in 2007 by Kathy Wholley. 2008 saw the internationally-renowned trumpeter Alison Balsom gracing the festival concert and in 2009 the National Theatre's Staff Director Robin Belfield returned to Royston to give a drama workshop.

Click on a festival year for the programme of events, photo galleries and press coverage: 2007, 2008, 2009.