AFTER two years at Farnham Maltings, the annual music festival organised by the Martin Read Foundation is coming home to Alton College, where Martin was head of music.

Alton College students will once again feature in exploring and celebrating contemporary music and composition. They will be joined by pupils from Eggar’s School in a new work for percussion by Andy Light, the college’s current head of music who was taught by Martin.

The Martin Read Foundation was established in 2014, following Martin’s sudden death in 2012. The annual festival is the highlight of the Foundation’s year – a platform from which Martin’s passions for music teaching, composition and contemporary music continue.

The festival is an inspiring day full of concerts and workshops. Past festivals have presented many world premieres. This year’s festival showcases works commissioned from the five young composers being supported by the Foundation during the current academic year.

Performing the Martin Read Foundation commissions and other contemporary and older works will be the exciting Spanish-German Broncano-Mnich Duo (clarinet and piano), and Joseph Spooner (cello), who is well known to regular Martin Read Festival attendees and ‘a joy to listen to’ (The Times). Joseph is a trustee of the Martin Read Foundation and worked with Martin for more than 20 years.

Gwyneth Herbert (singer and composer), a former student of Martin’s and widely known in jazz-listening and Radio 3 circles, returns with a premiere from her new album project, Letters I Haven’t Written, with her appreciation – Letter Song to Martin.

There’s still time to join a larger ensemble for the evening concert, rehearsing on the day, to perform contemporary pieces for instruments and voices. Use the Contact form on the website. Included will be Sir John Tavener’s haunting Svyati for chorus and solo cello; Michael Nyman’s Draughtman’s Contract and Martin’s Hampshire Folksong: On the Steps of the Buttercross. The text of this folksong proves particularly fitting for the festival’s timely return to Hampshire: ‘I will give you the forest and the road to the sea, if you come and spend your life in Hampshire with me’.

The two public concerts begin at 3.45pm and 7.30pm on Sunday, May 7, in the Martin Read Hall at Alton College. For more details or to buy tickets at £5, £10 or £15, visit martinreadfoundation.org/mrf-festival.