Farnham Festival was founded in 1961 by the then Head of Music at Farnham Grammar School, Alan Fluck. Its main purpose is to enable young people of all ages and abilities to experience the magic of music making. The Festival is held biennially and comprises a week of concerts, workshops and art exhibitions held in St Andrew's Parish Church, Farnham Maltings and local schools. Approximately 1,500 young people take part in groups from a wide range of schools and colleges; private, state and special. Works performed include, as often as funds permit, newly commissioned works by the Festival committee. Some performing groups commission their own works. The young people, whose ages range from 5-20, gain enormously from the experience not only of performing in public with fellow students, but also of having the privilege of rehearsing with the composer and giving the works a world premiere. Again an exciting week is planned, ranging from Art, Jazz Cafe, Dance, Steel Pans to large combined choirs of Infants and Juniors, Secondary School and Sixth Form College Ensembles, the renown Farnham Youth Choir, the County Youth Wind Orchestra, The Just So Singers - a choir of over 100 Special Needs Student, to mention but a few! This years funding from sponsors sees major new commissioned works for The Combined Junior Schools Choir, The Just So Singers, and The Surrey County Youth Jazz Orchestra. The Farnham Youth Choir's performance in Saturday night's concert, will include the world premiere of Jonathan Dove's "It sounded as if the Streets were running", a piece specially commissioned for the choir by Andreas Klatt. We are very fortunate having been able to commission Pamela Wedgwood to write once again for the combined Junior School Choir. The work is a mini-musical set in the time of Queen Victoria entitled "Queen Vic.", and promises to be a real show stopper! The renowned vocal composer Paul Ayres is writing for the Just So Singers a work entitled "Just So" based on the Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. (The commissioning of this work has kindly been supported by the PRS Foundation.) To accommodate the ever increasing audiences supporting the Combined Infants and Junior Choir Performances, this year sees a repeat of both the Wednesday and Friday evening concerts, separately on Saturday morning. A specially priced ticket is available for parents wishing to attend both of the Saturday morning concerts. The Jazz Café, first staged in 2005, sees this year five small jazz ensembles performing in the Cellar Bar/Tannery Room. | 
