The Edington Festival of Music within the Liturgy
Edington is a small village on the edge of Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. Forty minutes' drive from Bath or Salisbury , it lies four miles east of Westbury on the B3098. For one week in August every year since 1956, Edington has hosted a Festival of Music within the Liturgy in its magnificent fourteenth-century priory church. Singers from many of the great cathedral and collegiate choirs come together to take part in the week's daily services. There are no tickets for the services and seats cannot be reserved.
Throughout the week Matins and Compline are sung to plainsong by the Schola Cantorum (directed by Andrew Carwood, Director of Music at St Paul's Cathedral and conductor of The Cardinall's Musick), whilst the principal services are led by a Nave Choir of men and boys (conducted by Matthew Martin, Assistant Master of Music, Westminster Cathedral) and a Consort of mixed voices (directed by Jeremy Summerly, Sterndale Bennett Lecturer in Music at the Royal Academy of Music and conductor of Oxford Camerata). The festival is directed by Julian Thomas, formerly Assistant Organist of Norwich Cathedral.