Ground-breaking summer solstice music festival to be held at Chesterfield’s iconic Crooked Spire

Since their arrival in Chesterfield twelve months ago, the Crooked Spire music team of Peter Shepherd and Chris Black have spent much energy building new links in the community.

This includes the many school music departments and choral groups who, like the choir at Chesterfield Parish Church, have shown their resilience in growing to new heights of excellence following the disruption of the pandemic.

Their latest innovation is a music festival which will give choirs from all over North Derbyshire and South Yorkshire a chance to sing in the Church’s beautiful surroundings.

The Church attracts many thousands of visitors each year, and the event will also play a part in the ongoing regeneration of the town centre, vital to the community of Chesterfield.

The event marks the summer solstice which this year falls on Thursday 20th June. It will involve local choral societies, theatre troupes and other singing groups from schools and colleges, and it will showcase a wide range of choral singing to an audience of the town’s residents and visitors.

Peter Shepherd said: “We’re taking the risk of staging the event in the open air, in the churchyard but if the weather predictions show rain is likely, the whole event will take place inside the Church”.

There will be limited seating outside the Church but space for an audience of around 350. Around a dozen of Chesterfield’s best choirs have signed up to take part and support the church in raising awareness of the benefits of music-making, both to mental and physical health.

Admission will be free to all sessions of the Festival, giving over 7 hours of free and high quality music-making in a joyful celebration of nature, community and music.

The singers will all come together at the very end for a rousing performance of Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus and Simon & Garfunkel’s classic ballad, ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water.’

The Crooked Spire, which is officially lnown as the Church of St Mary and All Saints, is the parish church of Chesterfield.