'We couldn’t get people here without quarantine': West Cork festival moves online
Francis Humphrys, director, West Cork Chamber Music Festival. Picture Denis Minihane
The champagne corks should have been popping in Bantry last summer as the West Cork Chamber Music Festival marked its 25th year in existence. But it wasn’t to be as festival founder and CEO Francis Humphrys and the team behind the event were forced to put together a virtual programme due to lockdown restrictions.
“We keep putting off the 25th anniversary because we want to have a live festival. I’m looking at this year as 24c — 24a was live in 2019, 24b was last year. Presuming we get a live festival next year, I will treat it as the 25th,” he says.
In normal circumstances, Humphrys, who was from England and moved to Bantry in the 1970s, would have every reason to celebrate, having steered the festival to become an internationally-acclaimed chamber music event, drawing musicians of the highest calibre from around the world to the scenic Cork town.
While the festival team had hoped to offer a live programme this year, with smaller, socially distant audiences, it ultimately proved unworkable, and they have instead compiled an ambitious programme of virtual pre-recorded concerts, entitled Bantry and Beyond, featuring musicians performing from a selection of concert venues in Europe and the US.
A series of weekend concerts has been streaming since May, while the main strand of the festival — under the title ‘Festival Echoes’ — opens on June 25, with the world premiere of Dark Matter Hunting, a specially commissioned work by Belfast composer Deirdre Gribbin. That strand will be followed by a ‘Coda’ and ‘Encore’ of performances until the end of July. The logistical challenge has been immense.
“It is pretty mad at the moment,” says Humphrys. “It is actually much more work than putting on a live festival. We didn’t really have a choice but to go fully virtual. The key thing for us is international travel — around 35% of our audience comes from abroad but it is the musicians who are the problem in terms of getting them here. Most of the Irish musicians are working abroad as well. Even if we had hung in there, we couldn’t get people here without quarantine. It is a complete killer, it really is. Cork Airport was down to three flights a week at one point… it is frightening actually because we really depend on the airport.”
The Chamber Music Festival, West Cork Literary Festival and Masters of Tradition, which showcases Irish traditional music, all fall under the umbrella of the West Cork Music organisation. Humphrys’ great wish is to have a dedicated music centre in Bantry, as the festivals depend on venues such as Bantry House and St Brendan’s Church for their live performances.
“Our next job, apart from keeping the festivals going, is our project to build a music centre in Bantry. Having no venue has been a huge problem. The Government regulations regarding Covid were related to professional venues…we had things really well organised last year but we had to cancel a gig at six hours notice because no-one would take responsibility. We went from Fáilte Ireland to the county council, to the Department of Arts to the Arts Council, round and round in a circle. But if we had our own place it would be less of a problem.”
Humphrys says a venue along the lines of the Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen would be of huge value to Bantry.
“Bantry House has been a great asset but we need somewhere not only for performances but for residencies throughout the year. If you look at the Uilinn: West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen, they have artist residencies all the time and that is something I would love to have in Bantry. Musicians are gagging for good places to rehearse and play.
"At the moment, we are paying a venue fee every time we open the doors. I have always said I will hang up my socks after I have done one programme in the new venue and then I will pass it on to someone else. It would be great to make it happen. It is one of those things, build it and they will come.”
While Humphrys says he struggles with the technological demands of streamed performances, there are advantages to streaming online, not least for the audience, who get a virtual ringside seat in a magnificent concert hall in Vienna or an abbey in France.
“My feeling is very much that we will do this every year now, as an add-on to live performances,” he says. “One of the positives is the intimacy of the filmed performance — you are getting closer than front-row access to the musicians and state-of-the-art audio. The other thing is the reach. We have an opening in Ireland at 8pm, five hours later there is an opening in the US and that is followed by 48 hours of on-demand.”
Every effort has been made to ensure the performances are of the highest possible quality, with production teams involved at all venues, and the concerts being broadcast on OurConcerts.live, an American streaming platform which specialises in classical music.
“Last year, we kind of made it up as we went along. This time we knew a bit more what we were doing, so we knew what to ask for. We recorded in 17 venues around Europe and the US, with 15 different production crews — that is the tricky bit. We are in deadline territory every single week now — desperately hassling production crews to let us have the footage. Time is a huge issue. We have to get them to the platform in the US three days ahead of each broadcast. It is very tight.”
At the centre of it all is a top-class slate of classical musicians, who Humphrys says have been delighted to be involved, and most of all, playing.
“The musicians have been fabulous. Part of the rationale for doing this was to make sure that every musician who had been booked for the festival got a gig and a fee out of us. They were all delighted to have the opportunity to perform.”
Ticket prices for the concerts have been kept at a very reasonable level and Humphrys is conscious that people get value for money — he adds that the provision of free content is a concern for the industry.
“I feel quite strongly that this endless free music that is going out is not sustainable. We have all been given grounds this year to try and make things happen, but in a normal year and normal time, top-quality free music is not right because someone has to pay the musicians, the camera people, the sound technicians, and all those who work behind the scenes.”
As if running the festival, and trying to get a music centre off the ground is not enough, Humphrys also has a farm to tend. While he was originally a sheep farmer, he is now changing tack.
“I am trying to plant trees because I am too stiff in the knees to run after sheep anymore. Oddly enough, trees require a lot of attention as well but it is slightly less demanding than livestock. If I live long enough, I will be surrounded by forest in a few years time.”
But for now, there is no time to dwell on the present, never mind the past, as he is already organising next year’s festival and hoping for the best in terms of offering live performances.
“I am planning next year but please someone tell me what to plan for,” he sighs. A sentiment with which we can all empathise.
- West Cork Chamber Music Festival: Bantry and Beyond continues throughout July.
