education and community

The Henley Festival Trust is the Henley Festival's parent charity dedicated to providing in depth and quality experiences of the arts for the young, talented and under privileged of all ages.

The Trust funds a year round music therapy service for the brain injury charity Headway, and SHOUT!, one of the country's most respected and large scale education projects in schools in and around Henley. It funds its own 'start-up' orchestra for beginners, and supports young, up and coming performers and artists across the board.

The Trust additionally seeks out groups of the disadvantaged where music and performance can be of therapeutic, developmental or transformative value. All net proceeds generated by The Henley Festival goes directly to the work of the Trust.

The Festival profoundly believes that the arts have the power to transform lives at every level by

Unlocking talent
Raising aspirations
Improving self-esteem and confidence
Developing intellectual, social and emotional skills
Developing physical skills
Encouraging creativity, experimentation and fun
Changing behaviour and attitudes to learning

did you know that ...

It has long been recognized that the Henley Festival is one of the largest and most significant of England's arts festivals. Each July the Festival welcomes large audiences to one of England's most beautiful locations for five nights 'under the stars, with the stars': José Carreras, Kiri Te Kanawa, Katherine Jenkins, Dionne Warwick, Status Quo ...

What is not commonly recognised is that the Festival's success over recent years has resulted in one of the most active and go-ahead of all community and education units in the British arts world. 100% of the Festival's net profits and 100% of the Festival Friends membership fees go to the Trust, all in support of a growing programme that has seen:

In excess of 800 school children each year from 17 schools and colleges involved in the Festival's year round SHOUT! projects with nationally recognized performance companies in residence, ranging from carnival to dance, from singing to theatre
Since 2003, groups of 30+ brain injured clients receiving year round music therapy sessions funded by the Henley Festival Trust in association with national brain-injury charity Headway and the Nordoff-Robbins music therapy charity
The purchase of an entire symphony orchestra's worth of instruments (50!) to create an orchestra of new young musicians
Special one-off projects with Bishopswood (SEN) School
The commissioning of 6 major performance pieces
A county-wide poetry slam competition involving over 1,000 teenagers from 12 Oxfordshire secondary schools
Grants given to 16 separate local amateur performance and arts organizations to help them develop their work - Henley Symphony Orchestra, Henley Choral Society, Kids @ Art, Henley Art Trail, St Mary's Parish Church, The Henley College Pathways Course, Langtree Sinfonia, Kenton Drama Festival to name but a few .....
The funding of research into the development of plans for a new purpose built arts centre for Henley
Assistance given to talented young performers to help with specialist courses and musical instrument purchase and with opportunities to perform at Henley Festival
The championing and support of the annual Henley Youth Festival
The organization of the Festival's special free events in Henley town centre
The purchase of special facilities to aid the redevelopment of performance venues in Henley such as the historic Kenton Theatre and the Henley College's drama studio
Visual arts residencies and workshops in local schools
Subsidised musical theatre courses in school holidays

And much, much more ...

We are confident that few, if any, other arts organizations offer so much. It's time to SHOUT! it from the roof tops!