Oundle International Festival
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Oundle International Festival and Oundle for Organists
The Oundle Internation Festival (OIF) is a music festival and organ school held in Oundle, England.
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[edit] Background
Oundle International Festival (OIF) was founded in 1985, with the training of young organists as its core component. The summer schools were to be centred upon a new organ, built by Frobenius of Denmark and installed in Oundle School Chapel. A concurrent festival programme for the general public was also planned as a recurrent feature of the enterprise. Thus, every July OIF has welcomed up to 60 young organists each year, in the age range 14 to 24. An international team of distinguished organists is engaged to provide intensive coaching.
The Festival and Summer School at inception were part of, and supported by, Oundle School, but since 1995 OIF has been an independent company limited by guarantee, and a registered charity. It has a Management Committee of eight, which meets three times a year.
[edit] Education for young organists
OIF is recognised worldwide as the leading provider of organ tuition in a non-competitive environment. As indicators of the success achieved on one level, we can point to the outstanding success of OIF students in gaining Oxbridge organ scholarships (an average of 80% per year of those attending the Prospective Organ Scholars course), and in performing public recitals at prestigious venues arranged by OIF.
OIF’s Pulling Out the Stops course is targeted at recruiting beginner organists in the age range 9 to 14. Leading figures have commented that OIF has done much to address the well publicised dearth of those prepared to learn and play the organ in churches.
Since July 2002 the Prospective Organ Scholars course has been separated from the main summer school in Oundle and now takes place in Cambridge and Oxford in alternate years. The students are accommodated in an Oxbridge College, and thus are given a real boost prior to their all-important organ scholarship examinations in September. They are required to direct, sing and accompany three Evensongs in different college chapels, with Compline on two evenings. Mornings and late evening are taken up with organ tuition and practice, with full access being given to most of the superb college organs in Cambridge and Oxford.
[edit] Festival
The Festival was founded with two aims: foremost was the desire to provide high calibre concerts to serve Oundle and the wider community in this under-provisioned, very rural area. The second aim was to enlighten students attending the concurrent Summer Schools for Young Organists that there are other kinds of music beyond “organ, organ all the time”. Young artists are also encouraged alongside the more established, famous names. For the last years a Festival has been promoted in July, mostly of classical music but with gradual additions over the years, so that the Festival now also encompasses jazz, open-air theatre and various kinds of exhibition, town walks etc. It is seen as a success, with audience numbers increasing year on year.
In 2007 the Festival undertook a community opera for the first time, with three performances of Tobias and the Angel by Jonathan Dove. It was very successful, with three choruses of local people (one comprising around 40 local primary schoolchildren), celebrated professional opera singers and a small orchestra of professional musicians. In addition many local people were involved in costume-making, set design and build and much else.
Concerts are also now promoted at other times of the year, under the Festival banner. ‘Music in Quiet Places’ serves the local community by bringing a series of professional concerts to rural villages in May and June.
Since 1994 a fundraising jazz & firework concert has been held on Oundle School playing fields, which has become the highlight of the year in this small market town, attracting an audience of up to 5,000 from all over the Midlands.
