Sir Arnold Bax Society

Our Italian Representative, Ennio Caironi, has written an interview on the new CD titled ‘The Blessed Damozel’. You can read it here.

We are delighted to have made contact with a Brazilian oboist, Harold Emert, who has programmed Bax's Oboe Quintet for the next instalment of his RioWinds Festival in Rio de Janeiro. We believe this is the first time Bax has been played in Brazil, and possibly even the whole of South America, so this will be a completely novel experience for the audience and the musicians. 

We have chosen to financially support this concert in order to enable it to go ahead. 

We have heard news that the music critic Nasrollah Davoodi is hosting a talk on the film music of Arnold Bax this week in Tehran, the capital city of Iran. Nasrollah describes himself as the only film music critic in the country and hosts these talks once per month on a wide range of composers. We wish him the best for the evening. We suspect this might be the first public outing for Bax's music in Iran, and hope it may not be the last.

If anyone spots Bax in performance in any part of the world, please be in touch as we would love to hear about it.

Bax's final symphony has not been publicly performed since the 1980s, making the Bristol University Symphonia's upcoming concert at the Victoria Rooms rather special. Moreso as it will be the first Bax performance that our Society will be present for. We hope to encourage as many Baxians as possible to travel to Bristol for the performance, which will include Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto as well as a new student composition in the first half.

This concert aligns with all three of our objects as a society: to support the creation of new critical-performing editions; to support the performance of Bax's music; and to educate and inspire the next generation of musicians.

The conductor of the orchestra, George Owen, is also one of our trustees, and he has created a new set of orchestral music as part of the project. He reports that the orchestra are enjoying the music: “students take well to Bax - they are finely tuned to emotion and love melodies and harmonies that speak from the soul. Just two weeks into rehearsals and I have heard so many positive comments from individuals about the piece.”

When tickets are announced we will update this post along with travel arrangements. There are many pubs and restaurants near the concert venue and it is hoped that Bax fans can congregate under the auspices of the society.

If you would like to financially contribute to the project, head to our Donate page or Membership page - donors will be acknowledged in the conductor's score as a token of our thanks.

Upon recent application to HMRC we have been recognised as a charity under British law and can now claim Gift Aid at the end of the tax year. We are delighted to have received official recognition of our charitable status. Gift Aid will provide us with a generous tax rebate worth 25% of a British taxpayer's donation - which only makes your donations go so much further towards our aims.

Our next aim is to turn an income of £5000 a year as this will allow us to apply to the Charity Commission, who in turn would assign us an official Charity Number.

On Wednesday 24th July, the Sir Arnold Bax Society was brought to life by the signing of the constitution by the founding trustees, Richard Adams, Dr Claire Colebourn, and George Owen.

Addendum: two further trustees were presently added: Margaret Fingerhut MBE, and Christopher Atkinson, who will take over the role of Treasurer.