Hey there, folks!
This is a planning post for the Courtly Music Recital at next year’s Rowany
Festival. (This message has also been shared in the Lochac Musicians and
Performers Facebook group.)
The Courtly Music Recital is an indoor event for period music and spoken
word performances, which has been held each Festival for almost a decade
now (time flies, doesn’t it?). It’s open to anyone who wants to perform, at
any skill level, as long as the performance is under five minutes and
suitable for a mixed-age audience. If you’re interested in performing at
the recital, or attending as an audience member, please read on.
At the most recent recital, I asked the people who were present for
feedback about how the event had evolved over time, and how they would like
it to evolve in future. The three main points that came up were:
1.
Now that Sunday is FAT/RAT day, the recital should move to a different
time so that it’s easier for people to attend.
2.
We should advertise the recital more to encourage the general populace
to come and watch.
3.
We should try out inviting Royal and/or Baronial guests, so that the
Recital has a higher profile and performers get more visibility.
All of these are things I’m very willing to try out, but I want to make
sure I’m hearing from people who WEREN’T present this year as well. Would
it work to move the recital to another time - Monday morning, maybe, since
there’s usually heavy war that day? Do we want to encourage a larger
audience? And finally, do we want the more formal kind of activity that
comes with having thrones in the room?
If we did invite Royal/Baronial guests, I feel like a good way to handle it
would be to book a two-hour timeslot, with the first hour for the formal
part of the recital, and the second hour available for anyone who wasn’t
comfortable performing before the Crown. That would also allow us to maybe
have advance sign-ups, with early sign-ups getting first dibs on
performance slots in the first hour, so that we could tell if we needed to
seek out more performers in order to have a full program, while still
having extra time available for people who decided to perform after getting
to the event. But the question of HOW we manage having a potential
Royal/Baronial presence is one that comes after WHETHER we should do that.
So please, if you have thoughts on the three points above, as a potential
performer or audience member at the recital, let me know!
Yours in Service,
Mistress Gwen verch David
