The show can go on! Music society saved from closure

Tickhill Music Society feared the current season would be its last but a new committee has high hopes for the future.

Only one member of the former committee remains, with other positions taken on by current and former members.

The society aims to offer more opportunities for students to perform and to switch its season to the warmer months to encourage more people to attend concerts.

Tickhill Music Society – which has been offering performances ranging from classical to jazz and folk since 1977 — was hit hard by the Covid lockdown and saw membership and audiences reduce.

Former concert secretary and now chair Adrian Hattrell says “new blood” should help make the society a more popular attraction.

Concerts will still be performed at St Mary’s School or St Mary’s Church in Tickhill but there is a hope they can take place at other venues too.

Mr Hattrell said: “There has been some new life at the music society.

“It had been struggling for a while with declining membership and declining audiences.

“It was nothing to do with the quality of the music but maybe the way it was presented.

“We have now got some enthusiastic new blood and we have examined how the music society has presented itself in the past and how it might be more attractive in the future.

“Among other things, we are going to switch from a winter season to more of a summer season.

“We think coming out on a cold wet night in winter does not appeal to many people but we think a summer evening will be much more attractive.”

Mr Hattrell said that the society would still be hiring professional musicians to perform but also wanted to ask talented schoolchildren and students to play and gain valuable experience.

He added: “There will still be professional musicians but we are casting our net a little wider.”

Mr Hattrell said that because the society was “starting afresh” there has been little time to organise performances so although there will be some activity this summer efforts are being put into organising a shorter winter season to begin later this year.  

He said that would give the society the chance to “get stuck in” to its first summer season in 2024, adding that there may be lunchtime concerts in the future, too.

The new committee consists of “young and old”, said Mr Hattrell, who insisted there had been no disagreements amongst the previous team.

He added: “It was just that the previous committee thought the music society had run its course.

“We [the new committee] felt what was needed was a new approach instead of consigning it to history.”

Mr Hattrell said that audiences had been picking up over the last two or three concerts.

Tickhill Music Society will also be making better use of social media to contact more budding members, he added.

Further details about the society are available at www.tickhillmusicsociety.org and www.facebook.com/tickhillmusicsociety.