SPRING SONG 2020 CANCELLED

A MESSAGE FROM OXFORD LIEDER'S ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, SHOLTO KYNOCH:

With great regret, we are having to cancel Spring Song. This is an enormous disappointment but in this fast-changing situation, the health and wellbeing of our audience, team and artists is of primary concern, while venues are becoming unavailable, and artists are increasingly unlikely to be able to travel. After extensive discussion amongst the team and Trustees, this is an unavoidable decision. My apologies to all of you who were looking forward to it. Please read on…

As you may be aware, artists everywhere are losing swathes of work in this crisis and the nature of most freelance contracts – and the ‘force majeure’ clause – means that in almost all cases no fees are being paid. Weeks or months of income is being lost. I am keen that we at Oxford Lieder should look after our artists as far as we can and we have made the decision to pay at least 50% of fees and to reimburse any expenses already incurred (also not the case everywhere, hard though that may be to believe). I would like us to be able to do even better than that, but we have to balance this with the overall loss we face in an unprecedented situation like this.

If you have already booked tickets for Spring Song and would be willing to convert your ticket to a donation, I would be enormously grateful for your support of our artists. As a thank you, we’ll share a private link to the film of last year’s memorable ‘Winter Journey’ concert with Roderick Williams and Christopher Glynn. We also hope to release more online content for you to enjoy during the Spring Song period. If you are a UK tax payer, we will be able to claim Gift Aid on the value of your donation, increasing the value by 25%.

Naturally, if you would like a refund of your purchase, we will arrange this. If you have booked tickets, please do email boxoffice@oxfordlieder.co.uk and let us know how you would like to proceed (and please bear with us if it takes a little while for us to respond to everyone).

During the weeks ahead, we will certainly not be idle and will be using the time to put the finishing touches to an amazing Festival programme for October, and indeed to develop plans for our 20th anniversary Festival in 2021. I look forward to sharing these with you soon.

Above all else, I hope that you are all keeping well and not being too adversely affected by current circumstances. We will be in touch again soon and will stay positive about the future.

With very best wishes,

Sholto