WHAT IS ABBEYFEST?

Welcome to Abbeyfest 2009. It’s with great pleasure and delight that im able to bring you a wonderful festival this year.

The heart and Soul of Abbeyfest is our free events particularly the Friday night jazz and blues concerts, these are truly outstanding events and by the nature of them being free makes the need for sponsorship so vital for the festival to take place. In these challenging times it's particularly important that we recognise this support and I would like to start these notes with saying a massive thank you to our site owners Office Estates, they really understand the philosophy of Abbeyfest and are integral to the event taking place. To the owners of the Tandem Centre who once again have given the festival a fantastic boost with their contribution, to Virgin Active who have been superb with their support for the past 4 years to Shepherd and Neame Brewery, to The local Guardian as our media partners, to Evonprint, Boldscan, Samuel Estates and to Nick and Paul at Coraider.

Theatre this year is as strong as ever, our Artistic Director Mark Marlowe has done a superb job of putting together an exciting and vibrant line up of 13 shows including his very own extravaganza to finish. We open the festival with a cracking version of Romeo and Juliet, and unique to Abbeyfest it will be performed promenade all around the Mills site, from the Colour House to the Chapter House a must see for all! There are many great choices of shows in between so what ever your taste im sure we won’t disappoint!

I’m also delighted to welcome back many of our favourite jazz artists for the ever popular series of free Friday night jazz concerts, and to welcome some new artists including a wonderful singer from New Orleans Lillian Boutte and special guest vocalists Katie Leone and Johanna Harman from "In the Groove" Also don’t forget we programme free weekend lunchtime jazz featuring many favorite jazz standard that are performed by a fresh collective of duos, trios and jazz quartets from around London. Come and experience the vibe for yourself and soak up the atmosphere with some of the hottest jazz talent on the scene from 1pm – 4pm

The blues this year (Blues at the Mills) as always runs over the August Bank Holiday Weekend and as well as the free Friday night concert we get one on the Saturday night as well! A big thank you to Buffalo Bill Smith who together with Bob Brunning have put together a stunning line up of bands and performers which this year will see more than 20 gigs, a real treat for all you Blues lovers out there!

To complement the festival's music theme, a couple of delightful chamber concerts have been programmed (Sunday Evening Music Among Friends).

Our Comedy line up (Slaughterville at the Watermill) is only running throughout July this year with 4 Edinburgh preview nights. We have an extremely strong line up, all credit must go to Brett Vincent from Underbelly promotions for putting this together as we bring you a top quality gathering of some of the best comedians on the circuit today, guaranteeing lots of laughter along the way.

A first for Abbeyfest and in association with the Wimbledon Film Club we will be screening an open-air film short night (Sat 15th Aug) This has never been done at the Mills before (open-air cinema by the wandle who would have guessed!) I must say I’m really looking forward to this new element of entertainment at Abbeyfest. It's going to be a great opportunity to see lots of movies made by up-and-coming local film directors. There will be a terrific collection of films ranging from tense thrillers to quirky animation, arty film montages and scary horror stories. The only common feature is that they are all less than 15 minutes. Come and celebrate one hundred years of filmmaking in Merton!

We are scheduling the outstanding Kidsfest for Monday 31st August, a truly wonderful and memorable day is in store for all the little ones. This will be a day where children will take centre stage and like last year the whole day is totally free and one most definitely not to be missed!

Abbeyfest’s success is down to more than just me. There are so many people who are integral in getting it on. I would like to thank my wife Helen who is always there for me, to my son Thomas for all his help this year. A very big thank you to Steve Ruby and his team at the 606 Club who from day one have been putting together fantastic Jazz line ups every year! Thanks to Tim, Michael and Ian and to all the staff at Merton Abbey Mills for all their help and assistance. Thanks to Andy Wheeler, Conrad Thomas of Smooth C Entertainments and to all the volunteers and many friends. Thank you.

Finally thank you, the public, for supporting Abbeyfest, without you we would not be here! Tell a friend, bring the whole family and enjoy one of London’s best riverside festivals!

......... Peter Wallder Festival Director