WATCH: Chichester Music Society welcome the Endymion Ensemble

​It will also be Chichester Music Society’s last concert for the festival before the society – after three autumn concerts – moves to a different basis early next year.

The concert will be on Tuesday, June 13 at 7.30pm and will see the Music Society welcome the Endymion Ensemble at the University of Chichester Chapel. The Endymion last visited CMS as a trio in June 2019 for their summer buffet. In this evening’s concert the ensemble will be playing music for three, four and six players including Mozart’s Piano Quartet in G Minor and Dohnanyi’s Sextet. Tickets £15 through the Festival of Chichester website.

CMS chairman Chris Hough said: “We remember David with great affection. He was a tireless and enthusiastic champion of live music and he really worked energetically and endlessly to promote excellent music performances in Chichester. I think the city is really indebted to his efforts but he was also jolly good fun. He was very good company and our meetings were always very amusing and entertaining. This is a society formed by a group of friends and we were all very upset when we lost David.”

It has been a tough few years for the society which changed its name from Funtington Music Group to Chichester Music Society just as the pandemic hit: “When you change your name is the time when you need the maximum exposure and parties and things happening and so on and we just weren't able to do that. We were able to run a pretty full programme throughout the pandemic online even when we couldn't have an audience and that kept us going. And during the last year or so we have run a full programme and we have had good audiences but we've not had the audiences come back in the way that they did before the pandemic. We must be about 25 to 30 per cent down, and that is significant and that has had a real impact on what we're going to do in the future. What is happening is that we're going to have an autumn programme of three concerts for September and October and November. We are contracting artists for that but as far as next year goes I and a number of others are resigning from the committee. We're getting into our late 70s and it doesn't really make sense for us to continue.”

But the key point is that the society will continue albeit in a different guise. CMS effectively is being handed over to the University of Chichester with whom they have always had a very close relationship. The University will pick it up and run it – Chris is anticipating – on a similar basis to now. However it will be called the Friends of the University of Chichester Conservatoire.

“The Friends will have a regular concert programme and we hope our membership will go across to them. Our current committee have been active for many years and all of us are getting older. The whole thing of contracting artists and running a programme and so on is taking an increasing toll on the committee and we have not been able to bring newer younger people onto the committee. But fortunately the university is very keen to continue running some kind of music group and we will hand it over to them. They're looking for a new music director for the society to start from January next year. We've had a lot of conversations with the university and we have agreed with them the new shape and the new format and we are looking forward to it.”