Festival Director's Message

An earlier Easter allows us to hold the Spring Weekend in March and to explore some wonderful music on the theme of the Passion of Christ. We are also able to include young musicians from Chetham's School of Music as we coincide with their project of Mendelssohn's ever-popular oratorio telling the story of the Old Testament Prophet Elijah. We are delighted to welcome the Chetham's Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, with whom we share a Patron, on their first visit to Windsor Castle.

We continue to develop our programme for young people as we celebrate joining forces with the Theatre Royal, one of the Festival's original venues, for a series of performances of 'The Gruffalo' and an exciting opportunity to hear Dame Jacqueline Wilson, former Children's Laureate.

The Festival continues to develop new projects, and many of you have told us what you think via the website review option, and I would encourage more of you to do so. This year we are launching an International String Competition for instrumentalists aged between 16 and 26 and we will use our lunchtime concerts in September as the auditioning forum.

I hope you will enjoy that which the Spring Weekend has to offer.

Martin Denny, Festival Director

Message from Honda (UK)

The Spring Weekend of the Festival is not only a "taste of things to come" but a true celebration to lift the spirits in the late throes of winter. It's a time of year for trying new things, stretching young talent, rising to new opportunities. The Spring Weekend of Windsor Festival has all of this - in abundance. Once again we're proud and pleased to have played a part in bringing on new talent and partnerships, particularly our new link with the Theatre Royal as well as some outstanding performances from Chetham's School of Music and their Symphony Orchestra and Chorus making their debut performance. At Honda we strive to make dreams come true, through our engineers we try to create better, cleaner cars, motorcycles and power products for people all around the world. We hope, through our support for the Windsor Festival and this important Spring Weekend, that we can start to make some dreams come true for our young, talented musicians and performers.

Ken Keir
Managing Director Honda (UK)
Executive Vice-President,
Honda Motor Europe Ltd

The Festival is presented by Windsor Festival Society Ltd a limited liability company, constituted not for profit, and registered under the Charities Act 1960. Windsor Festival Society Ltd, Registered Charity 258888