Plea for help from one of Harrogate's oldest festivals after 80 years of nurturing talent of the future

Harrogate Competitive Festival for Music, Speech and Drama was first established in 1936 as an Educational Trust by the then Harrogate Town Council.

The aim was simple – improving and enhancing the performing skills of musical, singing and speech and drama students..

Since then it has produced generation after generation of talented youngsters, many of whom have gone on to enjoy successful careers.

After the Covid lockdown saw a truncated festival in 2020 followed by cancellation in 2021, this year’s Harrogate Competitive Festival for Music, Speech and Drama got off to a great start last weekend with the number of entries exceeding the 2022 figure by about 100.

Held at Harrogate High School, 988 people have entered one or more of the 149 classes on offer in this year’s event – some with cash prizes.

Scheduled to run over the first three weekends of March, the total is in line with the sort of figures it has always achieved.

But Trustee Alan Connell says the charity now faces a range of new challenges, partly financial, partly changing habits and partly because music is now being given less priority in the education system.

"Festivals like Harrogate Competitive Festival for Music, Speech and Drama are a vanishing breed, partly because music is so underrated now in schools.

"HCFMSD is arranged and run entirely by an ageing group of volunteers, many having given years of service.

"It is a registered charity, funded from operational income and generous donations from supporters.

"It needs more, younger volunteers for all roles and money.

"We have stopped using most of the 237 trophies we have accumulated over the years, some of them from the 1930s because, we no longer have the volunteer resources to manage them.”

The final of the Young Musician of the Festival competition will take place on March 19 with the winner receiving a prize of £250 plus entry to an appropriate summer school.