Norfolk and Norwich Festival

The Norfolk & Norwich Festival is one of the oldest city festivals in England, having been held since 1824 and tracing its roots back further to 1772. It was initially conceived as a fundraiser for the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital. For most of its history was a purely classical musical festival which saw performances by many famous artistes, composers and conductors. In recent years the festival has moved away from this focus, and has diversified to include a variety of circus, dance, visual arts and children's events.

Today the Norfolk & Norwich Festival is an arts organisation based in Norwich, England which is primarily responsible for the eponymous international arts festival held in annually every May, with events also held throughout the wider county of Norfolk. The Festival organisation works on creative learning schemes across Norfolk with support from Arts Council England and Norwich and Norfolk councils and has received funding to become a "bridge organisation" for Arts Council England from 2012.

The festival was established as a triennial event in 1824 to support the ongoing construction of the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital, and grew out of earlier musical fundraisers for the hospital dating back as far as 1772 including the annual performance of an oratorio at Norwich Cathedral.

In its early days, the festival was mainly held in St. Andrew's Hall and St Peter Mancroft. These events consisted primarily of oratorios and other large scale choral works performed by the Norwich Festival Chorus, then 300 strong. Noted premieres from this time included The Last Judgement by the German Romantic composer and conductor Louis Spohr.

The triennial festival continued to develop a reputation throughout the Victorian and Edwardian period, and saw the premieres of significant classical works including Edward Elgar's Sea Pictures in 1899 (sung by Clara Butt), E. J. Moeran's Rhapsody No. 2 for the 1924 centenary concert (based on a Norfolk folksong),Frank Bridge's Enter Spring in 1927, Ralph Vaughan Williams's Job: A Masque for Dancing in 1930, Arthur Bliss's Morning Heroes also in 1930 and Benjamin Britten's Our Hunting Fathers in 1936.

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