Henley Festival was set up in 1982 as a charity, its mission being to stage a music and arts Festival for the local community. 40 years on, our core purpose remains the same and our aspiration is to support emerging talent across all genres of music and the art. Talent is everywhere but opportunities less so, last year to coincide with our 40th anniversary, we launched a new charitable programme called RISE to support emerging talent in front of and behind the spotlight. RISE gives talented individuals or groups, whatever their story, the opportunity to take the first steps into the exciting world of performance and creativity both public facing and back of house. We feel it’s our mission to nurture the next generation of creative talent, especially after the devastating effect of the pandemic on the cultural sector, so across our programme we’ll be providing opportunities for young musicians, comedians and visual artists to perform or show their work, as well as helping them before and after with marketing and production. Talent, of course isn’t just on the stage, it’s also the people ‘behind the scenes’ that bring the creative process together and we’re going to introduce a work experience programme for these disciplines including sound engineers, lighting designers, stage managers etc to give aspiring young people the chance to experience working in an industry that’s notoriously difficult to get into. Watch out for our RISE performers across the Festival week!
In 2022, we were lucky enough to have eight RISE personnel in four different sectors of our Festival; Sound Engineering, Marketing, Visual Arts and Performance. Read our blog post about their on-site experience here.
‘I am so grateful to Henley Festival for giving me this opportunity, it’s been such a good experience and the exposure I’m know will do all sorts of good for my career.’ – Lizzie Wheeler, RISE Visual Arts
‘Although the hours were long and tiring in the heat, the experience I gained was so worth it. My highlight was being able to watch the floating stage artists and interact with brand new, top of the range equipment.’ – Sheridan Burns, RISE Lighting Engineer
‘It was a wonderful experience to perform at such a unique festival. I made a lot of connections that day with other artists, staff and made new genuine listeners. Thank you for the opportunity!’ – Henjila, BBC Music Introducing Berkshire & RISE
‘We would urge all upcoming artists to reach out to Henley Festival to get the exposure, experience and opportunity to play at such a beautiful event under their RISE programme’ – Miya Miya, BBC Music Introducing Berkshire & RISE
Alongside this we open Henley Festival’s Family Sunday to families who use Camp Mohawk in Wargrave and Nomad in Henley and a range of other young people who otherwise would not be able to attend the Festival.
If you’d like to find out more information about RISE please contact info@henley-festival.co.uk
