Alumnus Andrew Arceci relaunches Winchendon Music Festival

Alumnus Andrew Arceci (Magdalen, 2011) is Festival Director of the Winchendon Music Festival (WMF), which is relaunching in September 2024. Andrew is a multi-instrumentalist, concert performer, recording artist, arranger/composer, scholar and teacher, and having worked with Collegium Musicum Den Haag (The Netherlands), Venice Music Project (Italy), and a number of British organizations (including Dunedin Consort, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Oxford Baroque, and the BBC), Andrew founded WMF in 2016 and has built a festival showcasing international solo and chamber artists from a variety of genres including classical, folk, jazz, historical performance, and world music. 

The festival takes place in Winchendon, MA, and is a non-profit organisation, relying on individuals, businesses, and grants to sustain the events, which are all free to the community. This year this festival runs from 25-29 September and includes concerts by Colin Davin (guitar), John McKean (clavichord), John Arcaro & Band, Yoko Hagino (piano), and a finale concert given by Andrew and the WMF Artists.

One ensemble that has returned to the festival several times is folk collective Floyds Row, founded in Oxford and so named after the street which runs alongside the Music Faculty. Their debut album, The Oxford Sessions, was released in 2018 with Centaur Records.