So next summer we will welcome you to The Grange, to be with friends, to watch live performance in a sublimely beautiful place, to reclaim some of the most important qualities of life. We tread carefully but optimistically.

It is not possible now to tell you precisely under what strictures you will be able to enjoy our performances. An impressive number of you have just come to The Grange for our outdoor promenade show, Precipice. By staging it, we learnt a lot and enabled young artists to perform. Everything was outside, as the weather Gods delighted in reminding us. Next year we fervently hope for a return to a full theatre. Perhaps we will all be inside, perhaps a mixture of inside and outside. The artists we intend to be performing fully on the stage. The important thing is to plan with confidence for live performance to a live audience at The Grange, presented wholeheartedly and safely. It goes without saying that your safety and your trust in our ability to ensure it are fundamental.

Soon we will be sending out our 2021 season booklet, as normal. The programme will look similar to what would have been performed this year. You will see that we have managed to preserve most of our 2020 programme and are thrilled to present it to you as our 2021 Festival. So many of the original performers managed to make themselves available to us. And we plan to surprise you with some extra events as the autumn progresses and as we know a little more about what will be possible. Your extraordinary generosity and support over the last six months enables us to present this full programme.

The future remains decidedly uncertain for us all and arts organisations in particular. Your continued support for The Grange Festival as Friends underpins everything we do and gives us the hope we need in a ravaged industry and the strength we need to plan with confidence for next year and beyond. I sincerely hope that as a Friend of the Festival, you feel both needed and profoundly thanked. Our Grange family has shown itself to be remarkable resilient during this crisis. I know that this will not change in a hurry.