Edinburgh Competition Festival Association

Welcome to the Edinburgh Competition Festival Association

We provide an Opportunity to Perform

About our Festivals

We run an annual festival which provides an opportunity for amateur musicians and speakers of all ages to perform their pieces in a friendly environment and, along with other performers of a similar ability, receive constructive feedback and advice from a specialist adjudicator.

Our programme of competitive and non-competitive classes allows performers of all abilities to take part. There are classes in a wide range of instruments, or combinations of instruments, as well as for singers and for the spoken voice. Full details are contained in our annual Syllabus, accessible on this website.

If you have participated in our festival before and benefitted from it, please tell your friends and encourage them to participate too. Newcomers are very welcome. More generally, if you have any comments or suggestions about our festival, we would like to hear them: please email us at email@ecfest.org.uk.

2012 and 2013 Festivals

The Edinburgh Competition Festival 2012 was held from 29 February to 10 March. An estimated 1700 performers took part in 140 different classes over the 11 days. The children's choir classes were particularly well-supported with 10 different choirs and over 300 children taking part.

The Final of the Concerto Class was won by Raymond Wuiman Yiu playing Prokofiev's 1st piano concerto. The other finalists were:

Hannah Foster playing Neilsen's flute Concerto, mvt1,
David Lee playing J C Bach's cello concerto in C minor, mvts 1&2, and
Ewan Zuckert & Robert Digney playing Franz Krommer's double clarinet concerto in Eflat, mvts 1&2.

The 2013 Festival will be held from 27 February to 9 March. the Syllabus will be available from September

2011 Festival

The Edinburgh Festival of Music and Speech 2011 was held from Wednesday 2nd March to Saturday 12th March 2011. The Final concert on 12th March in The Queen's Hall (7pm) comprised an hour of performance Highlights from the 130 classes during the Festival and the Final of the Concerto Class in which the four soloists, selected from 40 competitors in the First Round which took place on 4th/5th February, were:

Jean Noel Attard - Samuel Barber Violin Concerto
Jessica Coleman - Lalo Symphonie Espagnole (violin)
Ana Docolin - Mozart Bassoon Concerto in B flat
Matthew Fields and Phoebe Rees - Mozart Sinfonia Concertante

The winner was Jessica Coleman. The winner of the Traves Trophy for the Festival's Half-hour Recital class was also announced: this was Mairi Chaimbeul for her harp recital. Also highly commended in the Recital class were: Matthew Field, Calum Macleod, Kirsty Main, Ailsa Ramage, and George Todica.

2010 Festival

The 90th Edinburgh Festival of Music Speech & Dance was held from Wednesday 24 February to Saturday 6 March 2010. The Final Night in The Queen's Hall attracted the largest audience for many years, to hear an hour of Festival Highlights and the Final of the Concerto Class Competition, won by Matt Bain playing the Britten Violin Concerto.

2009 Festival

The 2009 Edinburgh Festival of Music Speech & Dance was held from Thursday 26 February to Saturday 7 March. Over 1700 performers took part in 150 separate classes. The final concert of the Festival was held in The Queen's Hall on 7 March. It began with an hour of Festival Highlights, comprising outstanding performances from across the Festival, and continued with the Final round of the Festival's Concerto Competition in which the four finalists were accompanied by the Friends of the Festival Orchestra. The Concerto Final was won by Emily Hoile playing Debussy's Danses Sacree et Profane for Harp and Strings.


Affiliation

We are affiliated to the British Federation of Festivals, an organisation which represents the interests of the Amateur Festival Movement. To find out more about the Federation, visit their website.

Your feedback is welcome

The Festival website is under review. It aims to provide essential information about our festivals and how and when to take part in them. If you have suggestions for other information which would be helpful to have available online, or have a comment on the current pages, please Contact us.