Welcome to Wye Valley Music, providing live classical chamber music to the lower Wye Valley. For over 50 years, we have brought high calibre musicians to venues in St Briavels, Monmouth and Chepstow. For the past two and a half years, we have also conducted live music workshops in 8 local schools for over 1,000 children with the help of two grants from the Lark Trust and donations from our members.

Although we have been unable to provide live concerts for the past 11 months, we have not been standing still. 

We have an exciting line-up of musicians lined up for later this year and for 2022. As soon as we can begin holding live concerts again, we will be doing so with musicians such as Emma Abbate, Reiko Fujisara and the violin and piano duo Mary Hofman and Richard Ormrod.

In the interim, we have been keeping our members updated on online musical highlights that can be enjoyed either livestreamed or pre-recorded (sign up to our mailing list below to receive these!). We are also exploring the possibility of online concerts by working with other regional music groups to sponsor musicians and underwrite their recording costs. 

We are continuing to expand our Wye Valley Music In Schools programme and are applying for a third grant this year which we hope will allow us to look into ways to bring music education and instrumental tuition to schools where many kinds of musical experience have slowly been reduced and, in some cases, entirely eliminated. We have also been heartened by a very generous, recent donation to the programme by a member.

Last but not least, we are hoping to launch a new programme this year that will be focussed on care homes, both residential and day care centres, that will bring music to people living with dementia. A new campaign called Music For Dementia (www.musicfordementia.org.uk) launched last year outlines the important difference music can make. We agree wholeheartedly with the views of that initiative and have been inspired to do our bit locally, starting small in 2021 but with hopes of expanding in the coming years.

So despite the constraints of Covid this past year, we are very optimistic about the future, working towards the day when our talented musicians will perform not just in concert halls but for those members of our community for whom they can make such a difference.