A very big, friendly welcome to you all.

It was terrific to see so many performers taking part in our 2023 Festival. We were thrilled to welcome back our choir section after a three-year hiatus, while youth orchestras, jazz, brass and concert bands also made a welcome return.

The 69th Annual Festival will be the second time our dance section has been nominated an All England Dance Festival, where candidates may qualify for the AED area finals through our classes. Qualifying classes for this popular and prestigious event are limited in size, so do submit your entries early to avoid disappointment.

I'm also delighted to announce that the West Sussex Organists Association will be partnering with the Festival to run an organ section, which will take place at St George’s Church in Chichester

We have, as always, exceptional and professional adjudicators lined up to enthuse and inspire candidates in all our sections. Please encourage as many friends, family, schools, clubs and organisations who are involved in the performing arts to enter one or more of the classes on offer and we hope to see as many of you as possible at our Festival during January, February and March 2024.

All entries can be made online from our website at www.cfmds.org.uk, and must be submitted by no later than midnight on November 30th 2023.

Finally, a very big thank you to all our CFMDS volunteers who give up their time to make this wonderful Festival possible.

With all good wishes,

Alan Rodger Chairman

We are sorry to learn that Karen Blackburn will be unable to adjudicate our dance section in 2023. We wish her all the best over Christmas and we hope to welcome her to our Festival in the future.

In her place, Judith Vardy has been appointed adjudicator for the Dance section. You can read more about Judith below:

https://www.cfmds.org.uk/spotlight/adjudicators/judith-vardy

In light of the entries received so far, we have decided to create two additional Musical Theatre Solo Classes. Classes 907 and 908, previously for students in Years 7 - 10, will now be for Year 7 and Year 8 only. Year 9’s and Year 10’s can now enter the new Classes 909 and 910, exclusively for those year groups.

Because of this change, the class numbers for duologue, ensemble and championship classes have been changed. Make sure to check the Musical Theatre page to keep up to date with the new classes.

The Speech and Drama section, due to run on Sunday, 29 January and Sunday, 5 February, has been moved to Saturday, 4 February and Sunday, 5 February. Our Section Leader and Secretary have agreed that it would be better to run the section on consecutive days.

In order to make this change possible, the section has been moved from the Stephen Pimlott Building of the Chichester Festival Theatre to Oakwood Preparatory School, Chichester, PO18 9AN. The Speech & Drama webpage has been updated accordingly.

A very big, friendly welcome to you all. I’m delighted to be able to confirm our 68th Chichester Festival of Music, Dance & Speech for 2023 will once again be inviting live performance entries at all our venues throughout Chichester and Bognor Regis in February and March 2023.

I would like to thank Christopher Johnston, CFMDS Press/Publicity Officer, Mary Smith, CFMDS Hon. Secretary and Harry Smith, CFMDS Data Manager, for all the work they have put into our new look 2023 CFMDS syllabus and our updated CFMDS website.

Please also make a note in your diary to join us for our Showcase Concert on Sunday 26th March at 3pm at the Minerva Theatre to celebrate the most outstanding performers from the 2023 Festival. Performers will be chosen from across our fifteen sections, including dance, musical theatre, piano, strings, voice and many more. Special prizes will be awarded to our exceptional performers from each section, presented by our committee members and patrons.

We have, as always, exceptional professional adjudicators lined up to enthuse and inspire candidates in all our sections. Please encourage as many friends, family and pupils who are involved in the performing arts to enter one or more of the classes on offer and we hope to see as many of you as possible at our Festival in the new year.

The closing date for all entries is November 30th 2022.

With all good wishes,

Alan Rodger

Chairman of the Chichester Festival for Music, Dance & Speech

Jacquie Storey AED Chair, adjudicating at the Chichester Festival of Dance 2022 with scribe and committee member, Janet Topping. Thank you for a fantastic festival Jacquie, our first as part of All England Dance. We had 110 dancers receive the qualifying mark, congratulations.

Thank you for your entries in the 67th Chichester Festival of Dance which will be held at Bishop Luffa School from Sunday 20th - Wednesday 23rd February 2022. We look forward to an exciting festival, which will be our first as an All England Dance qualifying festival.

As you may be aware, All England Dance have a new online entry system. A comprehensive guide on how to create your teacher profile and enter your dancers is available on the website. All England Dance would like to encourage you to create your teacher profile (if you’ve not done so already) and enter your your dancers in advance of our qualifying festival.

Don't forget to enter any dances that have qualified at other nominated festivals to secure your place in the Regional Finals.

All England Dance website:

www.all-england-dance.org.uk

For technical issues with the online entry system, contact: contact entries@all-england-dance.org.uk.

Angela

Entries for the 67th Annual Festival will close in one week at midnight on Wednesday, 1 December. We do not accept late entries, so make sure you have submitted yourself for all the classes you wish to participate in before the deadline!

We are pleased to announce that competitors in our Dance section will be presented with medals at the Festival next year.

Congratulations to Jacquie Brunjes on her new appointment as Chair of All England Dance. Our 2022 Festival will be the first year that we are a part of All England Dance, and we are thrilled to have Jacquie adjudicating for us next year.

The South Regional Finals of the All England Dance competition will be held between 28 May and 12 June 2022 at the New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth. For full details please visit the All England Dance website by clicking here.

We are delighted to announce that our 2022 Festival Concert will be held at the Minerva Theatre in Chichester. The Minerva is part of Chichester Festival Theatre, one of the most prestigious venues in the country, and those performers chosen to appear by our section leaders and adjudicators will have a unique opportunity to appear on one of the most famous stages in the UK. The lighting, sound and facilities are all you would expect, and this promises to be a truly memorable occasion.

Tickets are available to book now through the CFT website.

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Our syllabus for the 2022 Festival is now available.  Please visit our Syllabus page for details of dates, venues, classes, entry fees and adjudicator profiles.  Printed copies of the Syllabus are available at Ackerman Music, West Street, Chichester, priced £3.

We are now accepting entries.

A very big welcome to you all. What a year we’ve had, particularly in the performing arts!

I’m delighted to be able to confirm our 67th Annual Chichester Festival for Music, Dance & Speech will return to live performances at all our venues throughout Chichester and Bognor Regis.

Running the Festival in our normal “live” way was not possible in 2021, as total compliance with government rules and guidelines to ensure the safety of the entrants, our Festival volunteers and the general public was an absolute imperative. Consequently, we had to devise processes and procedures for an online Festival from a base of zero and at very short notice. This was a massive undertaking and was possible only after enormous amounts of work from our organising team.

Amazingly, we were able to have a “virtual” format, where solo performers could upload a digital video of their performance and enjoy sharing the experience with us all via Zoom. We had many entries in all solo classes and our adjudicators were able to give live feedback to every performer on each section’s given date throughout February and March 2021.

This year sees us losing both our Chairman and Treasurer to a well-deserved retirement. On behalf of the Festival Committee, I would like to thank both Jenifer Pressdee and John Pressdee for all the years of exceptional service they have dedicated as Chairman and Treasurer to the Festival Committee. We will miss them dearly but look forward to seeing them still attending many of our class performances and the Festival Gala Concert in 2022.

Looking forward to our 67th Annual Festival I do hope we will get many entries for both group ensembles as well as soloists to make this a fully inclusive, live performing arts experience.

We have, as always, exceptional and professional adjudicators lined up to encourage and inspire candidates in all our sections. Please encourage as many friends, family and pupils who are involved in the performing arts to enter one or more of the classes on offer and we hope to see as many of you as possible at our Festival in February and March 2022.

With all good wishes,

Alan Rodger

Chairman of the Chichester Festival for Music, Dance & Speech

Thank you to everyone who entered our 2021 Virtual Festival and helped to make it a resounding success. You can download the results using the button below.

“Congratulations on another festival weekend, it seems like yesterday that you had your good husband selling tickets at the CFT. The comments that have been flying over the WhatsApp is how very lucky all the kids are to have you giving them such direction, enthusiasm and a love of arts! It was as a joy to hear such from Peter Dayson, what an accomplished and encouraging mediator. I have to say I thought the format worked exceptionally well and was a joy to have something ‘go ahead’ despite all restrictions. Huge congratulations to you and Mrs Hall for all the efforts you put in, they are most gratefully received. Also to Peter Dayson a wonderfully inspiring man from the theatre & performance world! Hope you manage to get time out in the glorious sunshine over the weekend as we put the January blues behind us!”

“Thank you so much for the brave decision to go ahead with the virtual festival, what a great day we all had. It was great for the students to have a focus for their practice and for me to see how they are progressing from a performance angle. Sasha did a wonderful job with the complex technicalities! Chris was wonderful, as always, giving all of us encouragement and elements to work on. Best of luck with the other sections, and hopefully we will be back to normal next year!”

“My son Gabriel won 2nd place in 2 of the classes today and I just wanted to let you know how delighted he was. We both enjoyed all of the performances that we watched and thought that they were all of a very high standard. The feedback from yourself and the adjudicator was very useful and extremely thoughtful too. Thank you for a great event.”

“Just wanted to thank you all for organising such a brilliant virtual festival. Peter Dayson was one of the best adjudicators I have seen - so encouraging and energetic and with a lot of insight as to how pupils could improve. And Mini - a breath of fresh air!! Thank you all SO much”.