This is the 2007 Frome Festival website!
This 2007 dates were Friday 6th to Sunday 15th July 2007.
The Frome Festival for 2007 has now drawn to a close.
We would like to extend our sincere thanks to everyone who helped to make this our most successful year ever - performers, volunteers, sponsors and audience alike - we couldn't do it without you!
Festival Director Martin Bax is pleased to offer a warm welcome to the 2007 Frome Festival. As always there was a programme bursting with variety and colour, reflecting the wonderful array of events on offer.
This year we are gave special prominence to Art. Frome and its surrounding villages hide a rich variety of unusually talented artists and makers. On the opening weekend of the festival you were able to observe art in action by following the Artists at Work trail.
Also many enjoyed the wonderful exhibition entitled 'Ground' - inspired by the land around us - in Rook Lane Gallery. The Black Swan Gallery also carried forward the landscape theme with its Festival show, featuring a range of work on the theme of countryside.
Landscape and nature were important themes throughout the festival this year, which had a prevailing 'Green' theme. We had a day out for all the family at the Green Fair, which will be opened by Kevin McCloud, and a Gardener's Question Session, both at the Cheese & Grain. And you could take part in the Sustainable Trail, which located environmentally friendly projects in the area.
We had exciting activities lined up for the young this year. FROGS (Frome recreation and open ground support) held workshops all along the river walk, with a grand finale of drumming outside the Cheese & Grain.
Throughout the festival the Youth Council ran a series of dynamic workshops and a Youth Café at the United Reformed Church Hall in Whittox Lane .
This year we ventured out further into the surrounding countryside. In particular I recommeded the events at the beautiful Longleat Estate, which was a festival venue for the first time by kind permission of Lord Bath. The ancient family seat has a long history of association with Frome and this year you were able to hear talks, take a tour of the historic house and attend a unique Elizabethan concert in the Great Hall. The concert not only featured music of the period but also included works from some of our finest poets and writers, brought to life by the celebrated Shakespearean actor Michael Pennington.
Michael is not the only celebrity name we had at the festival this year. After last year's sell-out show I was delighted that Paul Merton agreed to return to Frome, in what was his only UK show in 2007! At Rook Lane Chapel Timothy West performed his own show about Casanova, with Sophie Yates on harpsichord. Ken Dodd appeared at the Memorial Theatre, The Stranglers and Show of Hands at the Cheese & Grain, and Cara Dillon at the Merlin Theatre.
Music, of course, featured as strongly as ever. This year our ever-popular summer school staged Brahms Requiem and Saint Saens Organ Symphony involving the Somerset Youth Orchestra conducted by Jason Thornton. Once again this event also went on tour. Last year there was a successful visit to Germany, and in 2007 we visited our twin town Chateau Gontier, before performing in Paris. And we had a world exclusive - the festival brought together for the first time celebrated Mali musician Vieux Farka Toure and jazz legend Pee Wee Ellis.
One of our biggest events this year was 'Soundbeam', a unique children's project presented in collaboration with the Merlin Theatre. Young people from Frome Community College and Critchill Special Needs school staged an extraordinary event featuring storytelling, drama and movement and a computer-generated soundscape. This is something you will not have seen before and was not to be missed.
The literary element offered a tempting array of treats for readers and writers, with appearances from well-respected authors such as Salley Vickers, Gerard Woodward, children's favourite Judith Nicholls and performance poet Elvis McGonagall. The hugely successful short story competition continued into its fourth year and a wide range of other events including writers' surgeries and inspirational workshops led by creative professionals.
Martin Bax MBE, Festival Director
