HYF 2011 News
12 March 2011 : Alumni of Henley Youth Festival
It’s great to see some of the young people who have appeared on the Kenton stage during the Festival over the years take their love of performing into their professional adult lives. Megan Henwood is one such person who took to the Youth Festival stage for the first time at the tender age of 9 to perform a song with one of her friends. Since then she has not only appeared at many subsequent HYF events, but is now professional singer/songwriter who has played at festivals across the UK including Glastonbury, Cambridge Folk Festival and Cropredy and supported artists such as Mumford and Sons, Cara Dillon and Eric Bibb. In 2009, together with her brother Joe (also a Henley Youth Festival veteran), Megan won the BBC Radio2 Young Folk Award and she is now about to release her debut album ‘Making Waves’.
You can hear Megan talk about her music and how the Henley Youth Festival helped her musical journey by following this youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-rB7gKfY8g.
We are really pleased that Megan will also be joining us again this year, not on the stage this time, but out in front in the audience as one of our Specialist Advisors who watch the performers and provide valuable feedback to everyone taking part. Megan will attend the Junior Singer event at the River and Rowing Museum on Sunday 27th March 2011.
4 February 2011 Getting ready for the 2011 Festival
Event Organisers are busy putting the finishing touches to the plans for the fantastic list of activities available this year.
We have:
- 21 Workshops, some in school and some out of school ones you can book yourself
- 5 school sports tournaments
- 6 bookable sports activites
- 7 performing arts events
- 5 Competitions
There is also another fun day planned for families to just turn up and try out some fabulous art activities - come to Falaise Square on Saturday 26th March and see what's on offer. Dont be put off if the weather is not too great, as this we we have booked the Barn behind the square so artistic fun is guaranteed whatever the weather!
This event is made possible by the support of HEDFAS (the Henley branch of the National Association for Decorative & Fine Arts)
Once again the HENLEY STANDARD is giving us wonderful support and has already featured articles on the plans for 2011. Below is an extract of the article on the role HEDFAS plays in the development of our art projects.
HEDFAS has been supporting the art activities of Henley Youth Festival for many years and this year is no exception.
HEDFAS is providing very substantial funding for the art activities of HYF 2011 including art workshops for teenagers in Henley Youth Centre and art activities during the original and lively Art in the Square event on Saturday, March 26. This event has become a public centrepiece for the festival — an opportunity for young people to devise installation art, present improvised theatre and perform music.
This year art and design diploma students from Gillotts who study at Henley College helped devise the 2011 festival theme — Fantasy and Fairytale — and will design the poster and promotional materials for Art in the Square and the HYF Art Exhibition, sponsored by the Henley Festival. “Part of their diploma course is on the theme of Festival,” explains HEDFAS young arts representative and festival art co-ordinator Charlotte Purchas, “so HYF art activities give them a focus for their work.”
HEDFAS has around 650 members in Henley. Members make an annual subscription and each year a proportion is pledged to youth arts projects. HEDFAS representatives for Young Arts, Kim Shard and Charlotte Purchas, said: “HEDFAS meets at Phyllis Court every month and is very active though its work is not widely known. Our young arts projects focus on four- to 18-year-olds. We aim to give young people access to professional artists and crafts people, enriching the art they do at school, inspiring them to appreciate and create for themselves.
“In 2010 HEDFAS-sponsored art activities for the festival included artist-led workshops in all local primary schools and in previous years has included silver-smithing workshops and, in 2006, helping produce props and banners during the festival to be used in the Henley Festival’s Carnival.”
Jane Gray, joint festival art event co-ordinator, said: “Art in the Square evolves each year — sometimes it is an open air art exhibition, sometimes a space for installation art. It’s also a chance for young people to perform live in the open air, both music and theatre.
For more information on the Henley Standard articles visit their website at www.henleystandard.co.uk and search for Henley Youth Festival
