Events

Events

The Society arranges occasional gatherings of members and friends for informal pub/restaurant lunches or pre-concert suppers whenever Committee members are able to attend concerts where Bliss works are being played. We have enjoyed meeting members and friends in London, Luton, Harrogate, Worcester, Hereford, Shrewsbury and elsewhere.

The 2020 Annual Lunch was held on Friday, February 14th at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel, Cheltenham. We welcomed Andrew Burn (Chairman of the Bliss Trust), who treated us to a really enthralling talk on ‘Recording Recollections’, with particular emphasis on the Chandos CD issued last November of The Enchantress, Mary of Magdala and Meditations on a Theme by John Blow. That year there were 36 diners, including our President Ian Venables, Mark Bebbington and Carol Secombe, granddaughter of Sir Arthur and Lady Bliss. As always it was a stimulating and convivial occasion and particularly well timed to take place before the strictures of Covid19 limited our ability to socialise in this way.

In May 2011 Rupert Luck and Matthew Rickard performed the restored Violin Sonata at an event jointly sponsored by the Arthur Bliss Society and the Ivor Gurney Society. In March 2015 the Society arranged to have a Bliss work included in one of the regular Lunchtime Recitals at Cheltenham Town Hall at which Rebeca Omordia played the Piano Suite.

At the Three Choirs Festivals in 2006 and 2015 (both in Hereford) we arranged highly enjoyable social events, each of them taking place before a concert featuring Bliss work – a lunch out in the country setting of Wyastone in 2006 and the Tea and Talk at The Left Bank complex, beautifully situated by the river Wye, in July 2015