An integral part of the Festival activity each year is its education work. In recent years the Festival has offered much musical interaction with local school children. The festival has included large-scale schools concerts at the Theatre Royal in Winchester, attended by hundreds of local school children, and other years groups of musicians going into individual schools to give more interactive sessions fitting into the school curriculum and really inspiring the children.

In 2024 animateur Sam Glazer will welcome local schoolchildren to join him on a creative journey to devise original songs culminating in a public performance with Festival musicians as part of the main Festival.

Children and their teachers will work creatively with our team to devise and compose their own original songs from scratch – and then rehearse and perform alongside professional classical musicians at a special showcase concert. The workshops will be fun, inclusive and richly rewarding, offering children the chance to develop their confidence, musicianship and collaboration skills.

In 2021 our aim was to benefit thousands of schoolchildren who suffered through lack of musical interaction through the lockdown period, by creating a video resource, a film all about the string quartet, featuring a session performed by Festival artists led by animateur, Sam Glazer.

The film was sent out to every primary school in Hampshire and was warmly received by the teachers as an additional teaching resource.