TALK – ‘Three Score years and Then…’

‘Three Score Years and Then…’

Gavin Henderson

Gavin Henderson was Director of the Dartington Summer School for twenty six years,1985 – 2010, in succession to Sir William Glock and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. His talk will trace its earliest ‘ rumblings ‘ with Benjamin Britten’s return to England during WWII, to the first Edinburgh Festival in 1947, with the reestablishment post war of Glyndebourne Opera – and thence to the first actual Summer School at Bryanston in 1948, before relocating five years later to Dartington  – and now to Greshams, with renewed connection to Benjamin Britten.

Gavin’s tenure saw many developments of the Summer School programme: an expansion of the composition classes, an intensive focus on early music, the establishment of a Festival Orchestra and also a Baroque Orchestra, the inclusion of Jazz and Rock, a foray into other performing arts disciplines – notably dance and music theatre, and the regular inclusion of non western musics, especially Indian.

It grew to being a full five week season built around a weekly unit of 400 attendees and faculty, usually at full capacity.