A Year in Review
Wed 14 Apr 2021
Celebrating the outstanding financial success of our digital programme and its audience reach, including many millions of new audience connections worldwide. We are very grateful to each and every person who has supported us.
Wigmore Hall shut its doors for the first time on 16 March 2020 – since then you have rallied around us, collectively raising more than £900,000 in online donations (over £1 million including Gift Aid). Your invaluable support has shaped the last 12 months for us and our artists in a remarkable and transformative way. We are grateful to all of you; those who have donated once, twice or many more times and, as always, our community of Friends - both longstanding and the many we have welcomed over the past year. This is the journey you have made possible.
More than 200 concerts in the last year
In June 2020 Wigmore Hall became the first venue in the UK to resume live performance after 11 weeks of silence. Since then we have been able to present and broadcast over 200 concerts – making us the busiest music venue in the world over the last 12 months.
While other venues stay shut and silent, Wigmore Hall surges on. That’s thanks to a far-sighted investment in online technology enabling it to stream concerts even during lockdown – and, incidentally, earn nearly £1 million in donations from grateful music-lovers round the world.
Over 400 artists in work
For many this has been their only performance and earning opportunity since the pandemic struck. We have importantly been able to support younger and emerging artists – many of whom have had their burgeoning careers put at risk.
Everything about his recital with the pianist Mishka Rushdie Momen spoke of a performer carried away by a reunion with his instrument and his art.
The pandemic has meant that singers have had to learn how to deliver meaningful sung texts to row upon row of empty seats. Rand met that challenge (…) and Lepper’s piano lines inked in further light and shade, his melodies singing as surely as Rand’s.
Over 6 million views
We have reached a cumulative audience of over 6 million all over the world through our live streams and now extensive archive of online content. Live performances in our 550-seat auditorium have become available to an unlimited global audience, for free.
If anyone thought chamber music was a dying art form, this venture will have silenced them. A new, young audience has appeared, joining Wigmore Hall’s live concerts from around the world.
Words cannot express how much these concerts have done to bring light into these dark days, and I know that many other people feel exactly the same.
Diverse and adventurous programming
We have been able to maintain the high threshold for quality and creative programming for which the Hall has become renowned. Our ambition remains to give a platform to a diverse span of artists and repertoire – showcasing new works, composers and lesser-known voices.
A Morton Feldman day, focusing on the infrequently performed music of the maverick American composer, was watched by seven or eight times the number of people online than it would have drawn in the Hall (…) and that could have an impact on the viability of adventurous programming going forwards.
An eye and ear opener. Superb artists performing the traditional repertoire – but the real revelation has been the wide range of composers and compositions unfamiliar to me which I might never have experienced otherwise.
A new way of connecting
We quickly moved our extensive Learning Programme online, and have connected with a broad digital community of people from all walks of life, reaching some of society’s most isolated and vulnerable through collaborative workshops and creative sessions.
[This] is the most exciting, creative, inclusive and inspirational of all the Zooms I have been involved in during our various confinements in the last year.
Your donations made all the difference
On average each of our broadcasts cost between £3,000-£5,000, not including artists fees (which we have been paying in full throughout this time). Your many generous donations have provided the foundation for us to keep music making alive at Wigmore Hall. All that we have received has been invested straight back into paying artists and covering core operational costs. Together with major grants, individual concert sponsorship and a steady flow of annual membership donations, you have allowed us to move forward and maintain the scale and ambition of what we are offering.
We want to thank you for everything you have done for the Hall and for the many musicians who have benefitted from your support. It is not over yet, and we will continue to need your help, but we remain truly grateful for the role you have played in this extraordinary journey.
Every possible good wish,
John Gilhooly
Director of Wigmore Hall