The Ashburton Chamber Music Festival (ACMF) was conceived by Artistic Director David Yang along with Devon local, Andy Williamson, and aims to bring world-class chamber music to the region every July.

Now in its sixth year, we are busy planning the 10-day festival scheduled for July 2025. It will bring world-class musicians to perform in a number of traditional arts venues and non-traditional settings across rural South Devon. The programme so far will include: 

• Two “Hausmusiks,” where the audience chooses the music from a selection, and the musicians sight-read it! These are fun, informal gatherings in some beautiful private homes;
• A “Nachtmusik” concert held in the dark, about an hour long, with a mix of spiritual music, some of it selections from the summer’s programme;
• A relaxed Family performance of short pieces, with a bit of explanation about them, and all of the instruments;
• Five Concerts, which feature familiar works in the classical canon mixed with cutting-edge new sounds and a world premiere. At the centre of this summer’s programming is Beethoven’s titanic string quartet, Opus 127, one of the master’s late, great, works that went on to re-shape the direction of classical music. The concerts are all priced at three different levels so anyone can come;
• Open rehearsals, where people can wander in and out with a coffee and observe the process by which the music is put together; and
• Panel discussions, pre-concert talks with the composer, an after-concert “talk-back” with the artists.