Peter Roberts has been Festival Administrator since 1998 and has managed to prepare, coordinate, and administrate the Edington Music Festival in his spare time from jobs teaching in and leading Choir Schools. His academic background in Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies (specialising in Medieval and Renaissance Language and Literature), having been a Choral Scholar at King’s College, London in the 90s, and his former career as a barrister, make him uniquely suited to what is a huge and complex role.
Tom Bennett began as Peter’s assistant in 2014, having sung in the Festival since 2011. In more recent years he has taken on a greater share of the burden. When not at Edington, Tom is a freelance operatic bass working across Europe. He was a Choral Scholar and chorister at Christ Church, Oxford and has spent some of his career as a prep school master, most recently as Assistant Housemaster and Director of Music at Horris Hill School. This makes him especially well qualified for looking after the choristers, which is the majority of his role during the Festival.
Their roles involve working closely with the festival Director and the Directors of the three choirs to choose and agree the theme and music choices for the next festival. Working with a small team of additional volunteers, Peter designs and prepares the festival literature (leaflets and the 48 page Festival Companion), acts as Safeguarding Coordinator and, as Secretary of the Festival Society, keeps minutes of meetings and stays abreast of all legal issues around copyright, safeguarding and contracts. Tom is responsible for the recruitment of choristers and servers and liaising with their Directors of Music and parents. In the days immediately before the opening of the festival, they also visit, accompanied by the festival Director, every person hosting the festival musicians.
During the festival, Peter and Tom are the ‘go-to’ people for any problem, large or small, working closely with the parish’s churchwardens and Benefice Safeguarding team.
