perspectives CHELTENHAMARTSCULTURE Cheltenham Arts Council: awards_funding_publicity_events listings February – May 2018 Shaped by our Buildings • Cheltenham Silver Band Cheltenham International Salon of Photography Cheltenham Music Society • Cheltenham Poetry Festival Fresh Art • Gloucestershire Young Photographer of the Year Cover image: Going Home by Above: image by Stu McKenzie, appearing 7–13 March at the Natasha Kumar, Artshouse, See more on Page 18, Fresh art Gardens Gallery, Montpellier Gardens. fair 2018 CONTENTS Cheltenham Arts Shaped by Our Buildings 2 Council Awards Cheltenham silver band 4 The nomination period Cheltenham International Salon of Photography 5 for the 2018 Cheltenham A look back at CAC organisations in the Literature Festival 8 Arts Council Awards is Cheltenham Music Society 9 now open. CAC member LIstings 11-16 organisations have been Cheltenham poetry Festival 17 asked to submit their Looking Forward to the Fresh Art Fair 18 nominations to the CAC Chair by the closing date Gloucestershire Young Photographer of the Year 21 of 14 February. The Awards OBITUARY: Glynn Griffiths 22 Ceremony will be held at MESSIAH - REVIEW OF CHELTENHAM BACH CHOIR PERFORMANCE 23 The Playhouse on 22 March. Perspectives is produced three times a year. The next issue will span June–September 2018. Cheltenham Arts Council Submission (ads and events) must be with us by the end of March for consideration for the next issue. Please email event details to PERSPECTIVES TEAM EDITOR SHARON LARKIN [email protected] LISTINGS Alice Hodsdon TEMPLATE DESIGN Chantal Freeman PERSPECTIVES FEBRUARY /MAY 2018 Issue Dear Readers Music takes centre stage in this photographic images from around edition of Perspectives with a report the world, and shines a spotlight on Cheltenham Music Society’s 70th on Cheltenham as a centre for the Anniversary Concert at Pittville Pump arts. There are also two important Room in January, when the Carducci announcements in this edition of Quartet played four works, including Perspectives: Cheltenham Arts the world première of Flock of Knot by Council's President, Edward Gillespie, Simon Rowland-Jones. There is also is sponsoring the membership of news from The Cheltenham Silver Band four groups/clubs/societies that on their promotion to the 2nd Section, have not previously been CAC and forthcoming tour to Belgium. Also, member organisations (deadline for there is a review of Cheltenham Bach applications – 31 March) and CAC Choir’s pre-Christmas performance is looking for a Secretary to begin of Handel’s Messiah. The literature shadowing our current Secretary as scene is represented by reports from soon as possible, before taking over Gloucestershire Writers’ Network the position in the summer. Please and Cheltenham Poetry Society of give CAC as much support as you their events at Cheltenham Literature can in the search to fill this important Festival in October, and by a look ahead position. The email address to to Cheltenham Poetry Festival’s packed respond to these announcements is programme for April. Literature, cheltenhamartsperspectives local history and architecture come @gmail.com together in an article by David Elder Finally, the nomination period for about his recently-published book, the 2018 Cheltenham Arts Council Cheltenham in 50 Buildings. The visual Awards is now open. CAC member arts are represented by anticipation organisations have been asked to of the town’s second Fresh Art Fair at submit their nominations to me by Cheltenham Racecourse in May. We the closing date of 14 February. The also highlight the Gloucestershire Ceremony will be held at The Playhouse Young Photographer of the Year on 22 March. Competition, held by Cheltenham I hope you enjoy reading this Camera Club (closing date 23 March). information-packed edition of Prints accepted for display will be Perspectives! shown alongside the Camera Club’s Sharon Larkin, Annual Exhibition at Chapel Arts CHAIR, CHELTENHAM ARTS COUNCIL in April. Cheltenham Camera Club We look forward to hearing your response also highlights the 6th Cheltenham to Perspectives. Please provide feedback International Salon of Photography, a – and ideas and suggestions for future competition which celebrates the best articles to appear in the magazine – to [email protected] 2 CULTURE SHAPED BY OUR BUILDINGS DAVID ELDER inston Churchill once commented, world’s first purpose-built Masonic hall; the “We shape our buildings; thereafter Montpellier Rotunda, where Gustav Holst W they shape us.” In David Elder’s premiered his ‘Duet in D’ with his father new book, Cheltenham in 50 in 1899; and the Pittville Pump Room, Buildings (Amberley, 2017), the well-known built from 1825 to 1830 at a cost of £90,000 local author takes us on a fascinating and considered by many to be England’s guided tour of the town, revealing the finest spa building. However, one of the stories behind both how we have shaped most remarkable buildings dating from and been shaped by our architectural this period is Thirlestaine House, which heritage, from the medieval period to the features on the front cover of David’s present day. A resident in Cheltenham for book. Its construction began in 1823, but 27 years, David was surprised to discover took more than eight years to complete, the full range and diversity of styles by which time more than £100,000 (the which are on our doorstep and perhaps equivalent of £8 million) had been spent! overlooked or taken too much for granted Described by the topographical print amid our busy lives. He also enjoyed maker George Rowe as ‘by far the noblest researching some of the buildings’ inner private mansion of which Cheltenham can secrets, delving behind the facades to boast’, it was considered the only suitable reveal some interesting facts and unusual abode ‘worthy of the Repose of His Majesty’ stories. if William IV were to honour the town with another royal visit. Renowned as ‘the most complete Regency town in Britain’ it is perhaps surprising that the only Regency building in the town currently open to the public is the Holst Birthplace Museum. Despite this, the town is principally defined and characterised by the buildings that stem from the golden age of Regency architecture, i.e. from 1811, when the Prince Regent took over from the ailing George III, to 1830, when George IV’s reign concluded. This Thirlestaine House period included construction of the Royal Crescent, the town’s oldest surviving Regency building, originally designed as Another surprise was the rare, surviving fashionable lodgings for visitors to the spa, parts of the town’s medieval heritage. whose visitors included Princess Victoria Whilst it’s probably well-known that the (on her only visit to the town) and Lord town’s oldest building is St Mary’s Church Byron who sought treatment from George (renamed Cheltenham Minster in 2013), IV’s physician extraordinary, Dr Boisragon, the arches under the tower dating from in 1812. Interestingly, this era also includes c.1170, less well-known is the fact that the Masonic Hall, built in 1820-23 and the oldest surviving medieval house is distinguished for being outside London the Leckhampton Court, now a Sue Ryder Care perspectives CULTURE 3 hospice, with parts of that building dating from c. 1330. Another major surprise in David’s book is the range and diversity of architectural styles prevalent throughout the town. Who’d have thought that ‘the most complete Regency town’ also has good examples of the Italian Renaissance (see the former County Court building), the Gothic (see, for example, the Ladies’ College), Arts and Crafts-inspired interiors (as exemplified in Alma House), the Edwardian baroque (see the Town Hall), or Art Deco, as displayed by The Daffodil when it was designed as the town’s first purpose-built cinema? There are also a number of other surprises relating to specific buildings. Who’d have known, for example, that when the Queen’s Hotel was built in 1837–38, it had the distinction of being Britain’s biggest hotel? Or that it was used during the First QUEEN'S HOTEL World War as a social refuge for women and a military hospital? Or that Bob Hope visited the hotel during the Second World fact that the 2003-constructed GCHQ War when it became an American Services ‘Doughnut’ could fit the Royal Albert Club? Hall inside its central courtyard, or that The book also pays homage to examples the Princess Royal Stand at Cheltenham of innovative design which are there if you Racecourse, completed in November 2015 know where to look. A good example is as part of a £45-million redevelopment, can The Everyman Theatre. Opened in 1891 as accommodate 7,000 race-goers. As David the New Theatre and Opera House, it is comments in his book, whilst the Eagle the oldest surviving example of the work Tower architects achieved part of their of Frank Matcham, one of the country’s aim which was to signal the dawn of a new great theatre architects, who also designed era, its construction came at a cost to our the London Coliseum. Matcham’s clever local heritage, i.e. the demolition of three design made use of steel cantilevers to Regency buildings, which sadly included support balconies. This enabled increased Westal, the family home of the Antarctic audience capacity and avoided the spoiling explorer Edward Wilson who resided there of sightlines through obviating the need for from 1874. Winston Churchill was right. We pillars. do shape our buildings, and they shape us. This makes it as important as ever for the Finally, perhaps the biggest surprise of local community to be involved in helping all is the sheer size and scale of some of to make the right planning decisions about the town’s modern buildings. The obvious which parts of our architctural heritage are example is the 1968-built Eagle Tower preserved and which are destroyed.