Music Making Since 1929:
Benslow Music celebrates 90th anniversary

“It’s like a retreat with music, I’ve been three times now and find the courses, food and accommodation superb.”

“This is where happy and magical things happen.”

“Such a friendly place with outstanding coaching.”

The first Rural Music School, our forerunner, was established in Hitchin, Hertfordshire in 1929 by Mary Ibberson. Our January to July 2019 programme of courses, concerts and events aims to celebrate the enormous breadth of our activities to promote music education amongst students of all ages.

Whether your musical taste is for classical, early, jazz, popular or folk, Benslow Music has a music course to suit you. We run over 200 residential music courses annually at our beautiful purpose-built campus and our tutors are the best in the business! We offer discounts for under 27s and bursaries are available to assist attendance on our courses.

Course Highlights 2019

A Celebration of Lieder and Song with Simon Wallfisch
Fri 18 – Sun 20 January

Piano Trios with Ensemble DeNOTE
Mon 11 – Thurs 14 February

The Benslow Baroque Oratorio: Handel and Thomas Linley, the “English Mozart”
Sun 7 – Thurs 11 April

Brahms and the Gypsy with ZRI
Fri 14 – Sun 16 June

Piano Masterclass with Melvyn Tan
Thurs 20 June

Late Starter String Orchestra with Sebastian Müller
Fri 12 – Sun 14 July

Big Band Summer School with Paul Eshelby
Mon 22 – Sat 27 July

Come and Sing with John Rutter CBE
Sat 27 July

Additional courses offering the opportunity to try something new include Late Starter Piano, The Harpsichord and the Hispanic, Folk Dance of the British Isles and a course focusing on strategies for managing performance anxiety.

Click here for our full list of courses.

Members booking will open on 3 July 2018 at 9am (2 July for pre-formed string quartet courses only). Online and Non-Members booking will open on 6 August 2018 at 9am.

For details on how to become a Member of Benslow Music to take advantage of priority booking, click here.

Young Composers Competition 2019

In another initiative to celebrate the 90th anniversary of our formation and to further our engagement supporting young musicians, we are delighted to invite composers aged up to 25 from across the UK to compose a new work for string quartet, to be performed by the Coull Quartet.

A shortlist of entries will be put to a panel of judges, to include: Judith Weir (Master of the Queen’s Music and President, Benslow Music), the Coull Quartet and Peter Hewitt (Chief Executive, Benslow Music). Two winners will be announced, one for each of the two age categories (18 years and under; 19-25 years).

The winning works will then be premiered by the Coull Quartet on Friday 1 November 2019 at Benslow Music as part of our International Concert Series.

Click here for more details, competition rules and how to apply.