Welcome from the Tenby Arts Festival Chairman

It is Tenby Arts Festival time again – our eighteenth year – and we look forward to receiving the same splendid support that you gave to us last year, when we enjoyed record attendances.Once more we appreciate the generosity of the local businesses that have enabled us to plan the 2009 entertainment with such pleasure.

This year’s programme offers, as always, an interesting mix to suit all tastes. Classical music lovers will be thrilled to see the Allegri String Quartet and Catrin Finch topping our line-up, while Jacqui Dankworth continues the jazzy tradition of her parents Cleo Laine and Johnny Dankworth.

In a new venture for the festival, Hatstand Opera will be offering a truly gourmet experience at St Brides Spa Hotel in what will undoubtedly prove a night to remember. Where else could you begin to contemplate a top-class 3-course meal, with fantastic views over the sea, interspersed with highly entertaining operatic highlights, for less than the price of simply a theatre seat alone in Swansea or Cardiff – never mind Covent Garden! Truly, the standard of performance has to be heard to be believed.

Local talent has always been an integral part of the Tenby Arts Festival, and the opening concert of the massed male choirs of West Wales is a fine example of what can be achieved in an area low in population but high in talent. Two performing bodies that have taken part in every festival since its start in 1992 are the Tenby Male Choir, and Laurie and Pauline. Both are back this year by popular demand.

As for Alison Neil’s unique one-woman show and the glamorous young Symposia String Quartet – miss them at your peril!

The festival booking office is at the Tenby de Valence Pavilion, where new credit card facilities will be of enormous benefit, making advance bookings for the various shows far more straightforward for everybody.

This week of entertainment, where prices are being held at an extraordinarily reasonable level, despite (in common with almost all UK arts events these days) lack of arts council support and funding, has basked in favourable reviews from both the local and national press over the years. That it happens at all is due to the entirely voluntary work of the festival committee. Our gratitude goes to all those involved, to the local businesses that continue to show faith in this enterprise – and most of all to you, the audience, for continuing to come. Thank you.