Such stuff as dreams are made on… Spring Festival 2025

5 days, 6 venues, 22 events, 24 performers, 80 composers, 3,500 seats taken. The 2025 Spring Festival was a banquet of energy, beauty, brilliance, variety, laughter, tears and friendship.

Performances took place at all times of day and night…

… and rehearsals in every corner of town.

Music was old and new….

… familiar and extreme….

… written by composers of every creed, colour and era.

Concerts were traditional…

… and less so.

Musicians and audience travelled from afar…

… with particular congratulations to Thomas Howell from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire who won the Dame Gillian Weir Messiaen Prize, and to our superhero soprano Charlotte Bowden who wowed audiences with her last-minute jump-in.

Martin Roscoe took the audience on a profound journey through Schubert’s late sonatas; other programmes were built around the story of Mary Wollstonecraft, or of Paris in the 1920s.

The town of Beverley put on a magnificent show…

… and the festivalgoers made the most of its offerings.

Of course none of this would have been possible without our incredible behind-the-scenes team and our generous festival donors…

… and the extraordinary talent, generosity, energy and spirit of our stellar team of musicians.

Feedback tells us over and again that by the end of the week, hearts were full and spirits lifted. Discoveries were made, imaginations fuelled, hopes offered, dreams dreamt, losses mourned, friendships rekindled.

At New Paths we are excited for the future. We can’t wait to see you in September.