The Musique-Cordiale Trust

Activities & Public Benefit

The objects stated here indicate most of the activities and benefits envisaged. On application by the association, the Trust may support individual projects or ongoing activities that form part of the Festival or Academy or it may provide bursaries or small grants to support individual musicians, students or teachers. In addition, it may be that the charity will itself organize courses, concerts, recitals, master-classes or educational experiences and/or publish or engage in public promotion of understanding about music and song via multi-media approaches in Britain and Europe. Support for hard-to-fund activities, including the promotion and administration of the organisations that manage such events, courses, concerts and educational outreach are included in the Trust’s remit. Applications that are unrelated to the Musique-Cordiale Festival and Academy but which fit the Trust’s objects, goals and focus are also invited.

 

A large proportion of the Trust’s charitable income is raised through on-going fund-raising activities associated with the annual Musique Cordiale Festival and Academy, concerts and events in Britain and Europe , including Musique Cordiale in Kent - where most recent events that we could manage or support during the pandemic occurred, mainly out-of-doors in 2020 and 2021 following Covid-19 guidelines. We are proud to have continued to offer music and opportunities to learn, rehearse, play and sing in the summers of both years - and again, gradually more ambitiously again, in 2022 and since).

 

We have been able to do this through the support of donors, public funding bodies and other charities whom the Trust approaches because they subscribe to its goals. However the pandemic has seriously curtailed our capacity to raise funds or to stage concerts or teaching opportunities. In 2020 we realised that we needed to to the initiative and to arrange alternative events ourselves rather than just supporting course and concerts organised by others. However, we were not able to charge anyone for tickets to the only (outdoor) concert that we did manage to stage in 2020. Meanwhile, most of our regular annual costs continued and the association which we supported to run the Festival did incur costs for organising and then having to cancel the it that year. In 2021, social distancing rules significantly added to our costs and reduced options for ticket-selling.

 

This all explains our need for "revival" funding. We are proud to have  organised and funded some exciting public performances of music again in 2022 - and much more in 2023 and 2024 - and to see money flowing back into the pockets of a few talented musicians after those lean years. The Trust staged and financed a Queen's Jubilee orchestral concert in 2022 and a summer festival week of Musique-Cordiale performances, many open air in Kent. But this investment in people and continuity has seriously sapped our funds. We are glad that it is possible and viable  for the full classical music festivals that the Trust supports in Britain and Europe to be successful again in 2023 and 2024 - with associated opportunities., especially for young musicians and singers. But we and they need your support to recoup our funds so that we can continue to contribute to their rising costs. But the autumn & winter of 2024 is when we need your support to provide the funds to enable 2025 to happen!

 

The Trust is a small charity with limited resources. It distributes and invests its income at the discretion of its trustees in ways that meet its goals and, where possible, the stated intentions of its donors. Follow MENU tabs for further information, including details of the Trust's Grant-giving Criteria and procedures and for how to apply for funds OR how to support or donate to the Trust.