Only a few weeks until the opening night of our first festival and the Grange is a hive of activity in preparation for this great moment. Come and see what’s happening there at our Spring Open Day on 7 May. Last September, The Grange Festival announced its arrival with its first ever Open Day to which over 1200 people came for talks, guided tours, concerts, local pop-up food and drink stalls, cookery lessons, and much else. Join us from 12.30pm, and see the substantial improvements to the park, the house and the theatre, hear about the festival, and be the first to sit in the new seats in the theatre for a performance of Handel’s magical Acis and Galatea given by students from the Royal Academy of Music.

In addition, well-known musical animator Peter Gritton will lead you into the mysteries of the music of the operas in the Festival. Peter has worked with fans at Chelsea Football Club and devised their own symphony of chants. He can get you singing opera arias without you even realising it, and shed light on what opera is really about and why some great tunes just stay in our minds and hearts for ever.

The Grange is such a famous Hampshire landmark and we at The Grange Festival are excited to launch our first season on such a beautiful site. Running from 7 June to 9 July, we will have nineteen performances of three operas and two concerts.

In September, for the Bi-Centenary of the death of Jane Austen, we have a fourth opera, Jonathan Dove’s scintillating Mansfield Park which will be given at The Grange for the first time with an orchestra, specially commissioned by The Grange Festival. To complete our 2017 programme, we launch our first International Singing Competition, with both the semi-final and final open to the public at The Grange.