The Hampstead Arts Festival launched last year, and this September returns with nine classical events running from September 29 to December 3. Festival trustees, Eric Usadi and Jesper Groenvold explain their method of setting up an arts festival in North London.

Hampstead in London shared a music festival with Highgate for many years, but by 2011 this festival had closed shop. Two of its trustees in late 2011 sought out a few potential new members to discuss whether a reboot was possible and what form this might take. By January 2012, through a combination of happenstance and planning, a new team had come together with expertise in business development, accounting, fundraising, law and, of course, music. Most of us had no previous experience running a festival, but we did, and do, have enthusiasm, can-do spirit, time to invest in building something new, and a conviction that a music-based festival would be a welcome and lovely addition to Hampstead. We also recognised from the start that building a festival more or less from scratch would take a lot of thought, planning, advice from others with more experience and time to build a reputation.
  
By necessity we are a lean operation, with each team member performing necessary tasks with little or no overlap. The core team includes six trustees, including the music director Eric Usadi, and financial and business overseer, Jesper Groenvold. In addition to the trustees we have a part-time fundraiser and an ex-BBC producer who organises our spoken word events. We also have several renowned patrons, each of whom has committed to helping us each year by contributing advice or by participating in one of our events.
  
We launched on a small scale in 2012, with three concerts and several literary events, while we set about learning the craft of building a festival. This autumn we will be closer to our longer-term ambition of presenting between 10 and 15 concerts and several spoken word events each year.
  
Our 2013 programme took shape with the help of a few guiding principles. The quality of our concerts should be comparable to those available at the best halls in London. They should be in beautiful environs with good acoustics and sight lines. Each concert should have some unique element which cannot be heard elsewhere in London this season. Finally, the complete programme should be like a real-time playlist, bringing together perhaps disparate elements and themes into a compelling and beautiful whole.
  
This thought process has led to a very exciting lineup. The programme begins with Bach's complete Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin performed over two Sunday afternoons by the brilliant young American, Tai Murray. Then the Brodsky Quartet will bring us a four concert mini-series covering masterworks associated with Vienna, including the rarely heard complete cycle of quartets by Alexander Zemlinsky plus quartets by Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert. The extraordinary young soprano Sophie Bevan, accompanied by Sebastian Wybrew, will take a break from the great opera stages to present a recital of songs chosen especially for us. Cellist Jamie Walton, whose new recording of Schumann and Dvořák concertos with Ashkenazy and the Philharmonia has been collecting rave reviews, is bringing us an all-star string ensemble (including violinist Jack Liebeck and cellist Guy Johnston) from his own North York Moors Chamber Music Festival. And we have teamed up with the London Jazz Festival to present a solo recital by the extraordinary young pianist and Mercury Prize finalist, Gwilym Simcock.
  
Our concert venues are the spectacular Grade I listed, and deconsecrated, St Stephen's, recently unveiled after a multi-million pound restoration, and the 18th century Hampstead Parish Church, scene of historic recordings by the Amadeus Quartet and others.
  
On the question of ‘localness’, we think the festival should be a cultural resource within, and for, Hampstead first and foremost. Hampstead is not only a beautiful part of London, strewn with tree-lined 18th century paths, but one, which we believe can sustain the festival. But we absolutely want and intend to attract people from other parts of town and beyond. There are many examples of local arts institutions which nourish the local community while also presenting events compelling enough to attract non-locals.
  
We are also committed to the goal of attracting students and young adults in addition to regular concertgoers. This year we are offering very reduced price tickets for students, and we hope to do even more in the future to engage with younger people.
  
Various factors, including the proximity of Hampstead to central London and our desire to attract repeat customers, have led to our decision to spread our event calendar out to a comfortable frequency. So this year our nine concerts will take place over nine weeks from the end of September. This particular element of our planning will be kept under review.
  
Perhaps the best summary of our ambitions is that we aim to make the Hampstead Arts Festival a destination on the London music scene for listeners and musicians alike.