We were so happy to be invited to the launch of The Haslemere Festival in April 2025 at St. Christopher’s Church. We watched a great presentation given by artistic director, Adrian Stent, which showcased the programme of events, concerts and talks that will be on offer in Haslemere in May.

Adrian explained that behind the Haslemere Festival is a small committee of volunteers from across the whole community. Aside from seeing the huge range of events on offer, it is hugely impressive to hear of the number of hours given by local volunteers in the planning of Haslemere Festival! It was also wonderful to meet so many community groups involved in the programming for the festival, including Imagine That Productions, Grayshott Folk Club, HHH Concerts, Haslemere Fringe Festival, Haslemere Players, Haslemere Society, the VE80 team and many of the local speakers who will be giving talks at Haslemere Museum.

About Haslemere Festival

Haslemere Festival returns in May 2025 with a programme of over 50 events, once again celebrating and showcasing the remarkable depth of local talent, with invited guests from further afield. The programme includes classical, jazz, choral and folk concerts, family and weekend events, as well as a series of 20 talks.

The Festival in its current incarnation has been running since 2004, but 2025 marks the centenary of the founding of the original Haslemere Festival of Early Music, which holds a distinguished place in musical history and was at the heart of the early music revival in Britain and internationally.

The Haslemere Festival of Early Music

The story of the original Haslemere Festival begins with the pioneering work of Arnold Dolmetsch, a French-born musician and instrument maker who emigrated to England in the early 1880s to study at the Royal College of Music. It was here that he first came across music for viol consort and began restoring surviving original instruments. Within a decade he had made his first lute and clavichord.

In 1917 the Dolmetsch family moved from Hampstead in London to Surrey, setting up home at Jesses, an Arts and Crafts house in Grayswood Road, Haslemere. Arnold established an instrument-making workshop at Jesses and proceeded to make copies of instruments dating from the 15th to 18th centuries including viols, lutes and keyboard instruments. In 1919, after losing his antique treble recorder on a platform at Waterloo station, and following months of experimentation, Arnold successfully produced the first recorder of modern times. Thus began the Dolmetsch family association with recorders for which they are most famous.

Arnold encouraged the members of his family to learn the skills of instrument-making and musicianship, and the family frequently appeared together in concerts, playing instruments made in the Dolmetsch workshops. In 1925 he established the Haslemere Festival of Early Music, which became an internationally recognised meeting point for musicians, scholars, and enthusiasts of early music. Held at Haslemere Hall, with events at other venues including St Christopher’s Church and Haslemere Educational Museum, the Festival featured concerts, lectures, and demonstrations of instruments, often with contributions from prominent performers and researchers in the field. What set the Festival apart was its commitment not only to the music itself but to the means of performance. The musicians played on carefully reconstructed period instruments and observed historical performance practices, an approach that would be widely adopted by early music ensembles across the world.

After Arnold Dolmetsch’s death in 1940, the Festival continued under the stewardship of his son Carl, who had taken part in the family music-making from the age of 4, and who made his debut on the recorder during the second Haslemere Festival in 1926. Following the success of this concert Arnold handed over the entire responsibility for recorders production to Carl, even though he was only 15 at the time.

From this moment on, Carl dedicated his life to the recorder, and through his skill as a designer, craftsman and virtuoso performer he elevated the status of the instrument, so that it was once more regarded seriously by the musical world, as it had been in the 18th century.

During the Second World War the workshop at Jesses was used to manufacture precision plastic parts for the Military. Carl saw the potential of this technology for recorder production, and the result was an affordable plastic recorder that revolutionised musical education and made ‘recorder’ a household word.

After his first performance at the Festival in 1926 Carl performed in every Festival up to the 72nd in 1996 at the age of 86, and directed every Festival from 1940, the year his father died. During his tenure as Festival Director Carl fulfilled the role with imagination and flair, broadening the scope of the Festival and introducing concerts for schools, entertaining and educating many generations of children. Following his death in 1997, Carl’s daughter Jeanne assumed the role of Festival Director through to its final appearance in 2001.

In all, the Haslemere Festival of Early Music ran for 77 years without interruption, leaving a rich legacy in the fields of music history, performance practice, and instrument making.

A New Haslemere Festival

In 2003 Hamish Donaldson approached the Dolmetsch family to ask for permission to use the name “Haslemere Festival” for a new biennial arts festival in Haslemere. The family readily agreed and the new Haslemere Festival ran for the first time in 2004. It has since run every other year, alternating with the Haslemere Fringe Festival from 2014.

For May 2025 the 11th Haslemere Festival will include:

• VE Day celebrations on Lion Green on Saturday 10 May,

• Evening and weekend concerts including Classical, Jazz, Folk, Opera and Choral. Special guests include internationally renowned concert pianist Angela Hewitt and Classic FM Rising Star Jeneba Kanneh-Mason. Local favourites include Haslemere Musical Society, Harlequin Chamber Choir and Mates & Godfree.

• London Mozart Players with the joint winners of Haslemere International String Competition 2025,

• Weekend and family events including Little Lumpy Cycling Sportive, RSPCA Dog Show and Haslemere Classic Car Show.

• Weekday talks on a wide variety of topics including Jane Austen, Gustav Holst, Artificial Intelligence, Benjamin Britten, Crossing the Atlantic at 89, The Meaning of Music, The Great Escape, Composing for the Movies, Wham, The Geology of Wine, What Music Means, JMW Turner and much more. Check out our events calendar and click on the Haslemere Festival tab.

On the weekend of 17/18 May Haslemere Festival will pay tribute to its illustrious predecessor and to the remarkable Dolmetsch family, celebrating the centenary of the founding of the Haslemere Festival of Early Music with a programme of workshops and recitals. To join in the celebration we are delighted to welcome early music musicians Palisander, Chris Orton, and Slava Sidorenko, with special guests Marguerite Dolmetsch, Brian Blood and Philip Thorby.

For full details of the Dolmetsch centenary celebrations and Haslemere Festival 2025 here are some online links:

Haslemere Festival website 

Haslemere Festival online brochure 

Haslemere Festival on Facebook 

Haslemere Festival on Instagram 

Dolmetsch Centenary Festival on Instagram