It’s a wrap! The 76th Stroud Arts Festival took place last week from 19-23 October in Stroud. Eight shows over five days, a week-long art exhibition, sold out performances, a wonderful programme mix from broadly accessible to sophisticated, from joyous to deeply thoughtful and—if one word could summarise the whole event —magical.

The festival’s theme of Connections ran like a complex weave through the performances and accompanying vibrant art exhibition, linking people and landscape, local and national talents, music, spoken word and visual performance.

Starting as it meant to go on, with the world-renowned Le Page ensemble delivering a sumptuous mix of rurally themed music, including Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending. The next night, Jan Carey’s one-woman show about local WW1 poet Ivor Gurney proved one of those plays that is difficult to characterise without seeing it — how she gently, carefully held the audience in the palm of her hand was something to behold.

Over two days, we were treated to an eclectic mix of jazz, classical music and poetry, with the combined talents of Patsy Gamble’s trio and Adam Horovitz on one evening, then the Carducci Quartet and Dave Ayre trio on the next.

The Festival even managed an extra connection between two art forms on these events when artists Chris James and Tigga Goode each painted the musicians as they performed.

And then it was the weekend, opening up to a series of family-oriented and highly accessible shows. Pam Ayres and Louis Mander’s Peter Pan - A New Musical brought fun and laughter to a packed-out Sub Rooms, whilst in parallel, Lisa Fitzgibbon’s folk-based Down In The Valley song cycle took the enthralled Lansdown audience on an equally magical journey inspired by Laurie Lee’s Slad Valley.

The next day’s two Relaxed Opera performances continued the magic, showing the timelessness and broadest possible appeal of opera, as Alistair and Abigail took special needs and younger audiences on a journey through the forest following the story of a lost boy. Rounding off and taking the festival to an even higher plane was Elizabeth-Jane Baldry’s spellbinding harp accompaniment to the extraordinary classic silent film Sunrise: A song of two Humans.

And not forgetting the visual art exhibition showing in Lansdown Gallery, where 11 very distinct local artists expressed the Festival’s theme of Connections in highly original ways.

Says Artistic Director Dave Ayre, “What can we say? It’s been a truly memorable Festival, with exciting events, fabulous performances and wonderful feedback from our audiences.

Our thanks to all the performers and artists, of course, who brought their time and talents to Stroud and gave us such great memories. And our utter gratitude to all the volunteers and people working behind the scenes, moving chairs, working on sound and lights, helping people to their seats and every other role to make it all happen. It wouldn’t have been possible without you!

Thank you all for coming along and supporting us and we hope to see you again soon. Roll on next year! In the meantime we continue to support and sponsor other artistic activities in and around Stroud, so check our website www.stroudartsfestival.org for the latest news”.