THE additional events organised as part of the 27th South Cumbria Music Festival are to be repeated again next year following their overwhelming success, writes Zoe Casson.

A choral workshop, which saw more than 250 children from schools all around the area perform together as a choir on Thursday night, and the brass band event on Sunday that attracted 13 groups, are just a couple of activities that were added to this year's timetable.

All the extra events held during this year's nine-day festival, which ran from Saturday, April 5, to this Sunday, will be repeated in the Coronation Hall, in Ulverston, for the 28th event.

The highest achiever in the whole nine-day festival was violinist Warren Brookfield, of Lowick Green, who scored 91 for his performance of Elgar's Chanson de Nuit in the String Solo Open class on Thursday.

The first bassoon player to compete in the long-running festival, Ruth Rosales, from Lancaster, was awarded this year's Esther C. Croskery Performance Award. She was chosen from a showcase of festival performances on Saturday night including speech, dance and pianoforte, and was presented with a specially commissioned Waterford Crystal Award, which she will keep.

The award was introduced only a few years ago following the death of Mrs Croskery, the founder of the festival.

Her daughter, Aprille Bonner, is the chairman of the festival, which costs £10,000 to stage. She said: "The festival was again very successful. On the administration side of it, it was the happiest and smoothest festival so far because the committee really rallied together this year.

"There was some extremely high standards and the adjudicators were impressed with the talent we have within the area.

"We would like to thank all the schools that took part for preparing the youngsters for the festival and to private tutors as well."

Meanwhile, the festival was brought to a stunning climax in Sunday night's brass band competition when Flookburgh Brass Band staged an award- winning and momentous performance of Verdi's The Force of Destiny, landing the band the Kimberly-Clark Shield.

April 17, 2003 09:30