A Note from the Chairman – October 2022 There are several mysteries associated with Sir Charles Villiers Stanford.  I have spoken in this letter before about a number of works that he composed which were not published and where the original scores have disappeared. These include

Melissa (nee Stanford) Webb The Stanford Society is sad to report the death of Dr. Melissa (nee Stanford) Webb, a Vice President of the Society, on Sunday August, 28th, 2022 after a long illness. Dr. Webb was descended from William Henry Stanford, the brother of Sir Charles Villiers S

A Note from the Chairman – June 2022 One of the works included in the orchestral concert given by the Durham University Orchestral Society during their Stanford Weekend concert in Durham Cathedral on Saturday March 5th 2022, was the Overture to The Wreckers, an opera by Dame Eth

A Note from the Chairman – February 2022 This year is the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of one of Stanford’s most famous students, Ralph Vaughan Williams. The Vaughan Williams Society is arranging a number of events to mark this anniversary and VW’s music is being

A Note from the Chairman – February 2022 Hats off to Finghin Collins and his team at the Galway Festival for putting on an outstanding programme of music, talks and a film relating to Stanford and a number of his contemporaries and leading students in Galway, Ireland during the

More on Stanford’s Missing Works In November I wrote about the three missing Masses that Stanford apparently wrote for Richard Terry and the Choir of Westminster Cathedral. We are fortunate that we can account for almost all of the music that Stanford composed. Much of it was pu

Stanford’s Missing Masses I recently watched an archived streamed talk by Patrick Russill on Sir Richard Terry and the music that he commissioned for Westminster Cathedral during 1912 to 1919, when he was Music Director there. This was in a series of talks presented by the Royal Schoo

A Note from the Chairman – October 2021   I’m pleased to be able to report that Stanford Society members and friends were able to gather for our fourteenth annual Stanford Festival Weekend in Gloucester Cathedral on October 2nd and 3rd. This event had been postponed from Oc

A Note from the Chairman – September 2021 The past few months have seen the release of a bumper crop of books on British composers. These have included volumes on Stanford students Ralph Vaughn Williams, Ivor Gurney and Ernest Moeran as well as books on Frederick Delius, and Sir

A Note from the Chairman – August 2021 During the last week of July I attended this year’s Three Choirs Festival in Worcester. The 2020 Festival planned for Worcester had to be cancelled because of Covid and the decision was taken to remain in Worcester for the 2021 Festival. Th