Farnham Festival of Music was founded in ’61 by Farnham Grammer School’s (FGS) music master Alan Fluck and Rev. Hedley Wilds. The first was held at the parish church in May ’61 with 800 children partaking from schools across the area. The festival also featured commissioned music, sponsored by private individuals and local businesses. They gathered together supporters, many of them musicians themselves. and local music teachers and conductors of choirs cooperated willingly in the pilot project.
The ’61 festival saw FGS joining forces with Tiffin’s School, Kingston to form a combined orchestra of 90 musicians. They played a fanfare written for the occasion by Malcolm Arnold, and Arnold’s Little Suite as well as works by Vaughan Williams, Handell, Haydn and Purcell. The FGS / Tiffin school’s woodwind section played Sonata Pian’ E Forte by Giovanni Gabrielle and the school’s singers, with Gavin Williams on organ, performed Bach, Stravinsky and Britten. Partially recorded by the BBC and broadcast later the event was given four columns in the proceeding Sunday Telegraph.
The 5-minute long “Farnham Festival Overture” was composed by Bennett and Bragg for ’64’s festival
Diana Dors (born Diana Mary Fluck) was Fluck’s cousin and would attend the festivals. In May ’67 the festival commissioned jazz musician John “Johnny” Dankworth to write a piece. He produced Tom Sawyer’s Saturday, which can be heard on this recording posted by Graham Varney. That same year the Erase label recorded performances at the Parish Church of St. Andrews across the 9 and 11 May ’67, committing three tracks them to vinyl: An English Book, Mary Magdalene, and Two Canticles from the New English Bible.
The Jazz and Classical festival returned in May ’69 with renditions of big band, choral, classical, and early music spread across Farnham Girl’s Grammer School, Farnham Grammer School, Frensham Heights School, and Farnham Parish Church on the 10 to 12 May that year. The Surrey County Youth Orchestra performed Ralph Vaughan Williams’ March Past of the Kitchen Utensils; the junior choir from Aldershot County High School performed Gordon Jacob’s A Goodly Heritage and Williams’ Benedicite; the Aldershot County High School Orchestra’s version of Pamela Verrall’s Suite Fiesta Española was well received; Williams’ work was also tackled by Farnham Girls Choir and Farnham Singers with four songs from A Yacre Of Land. Ernst Toch’s Geographical Fugue 16th And 17th Century Songs were carried off by the Choir of Weydon County Secondary School, while The London Youth Jazz Orchestra played The Serpent by Tubby Hayes.
The festivals specially commissioned works continued for ’69’s festival. Mr & Mrs Norman Patrick entrusted the British composer and pianist John McCabe, who delivered Concertino for Piano Duet with Orchestra, which was ably first performed by the pianists Frank Wibaut and Christian Rutherford backed by Frensham Heights School Orchestra. There were excerpts from the fantasy operetta.
Recording of the festival were published by Erase Exclusive Recording and Sound Effects, across two LPs: Farnham Festival 1969 Red and Farnham Festival 1969 Blue, the sale of which was limited to participants, their parents and friends of The Farnham Festival 1969.
Fluck led Farnham Area Youth Orchestra in the 70’s and on leaving Farnham Grammer School ran Youth and Music in Covent Garden. He also helped to develop live music at The Malting, Farnham from ’75 to ’85.
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