60 Minutes of Classical Music in Bognor Regis celebrates 15 years

A string trio comprising Jonathan Strange violin, Jonathan Welch viola and Roger cello will perform two one-hour-long concerts on Wednesday, February 7 at 4.30pm and 7.30pm in the series’ new home at the Bognor Club, 2 Sudley Road, Bognor Regis, PO21 1EU. Tickets are £8 or under 25s £4 from Clayden & Co Jewellers, 14 The Arcade, Bognor Regis, PO21 1EU; or call 01243 821871. The programme will be: J S Bach – Three Part Inventions; Kodaly – Trio Intermezzo; Beethoven – String Trio II Opus 9 No1Adagio, Allegro con brio, Adagio, ma non tanto, e cantabile; Scherzo, Presto – followed by glass of wine or orange juice and birthday cake

Roger is proud and delighted to have reached the 15-year landmark: “It is incredible really to have lasted all those years especially when you think about all the things that have happened, like Covid and all the financial problems and also the fact that the theatre was closed down.”

The closure for refurbishment of the Regis Centre has meant they've had to find somewhere else, and Roger is pleased with the new venue.

“And yet despite all this we have managed to keep going. We have had a small grant from the council and the fact is that audiences have turned up. Towards the end at the theatre we were getting very, very good audiences and for our opera night we were getting a couple of hundred. We were doing well.”

It wasn't easy finding an alternative venue but Roger believes the Bognor Club will work well: “It's very good up there.

"We can't get as many people in as we used to because of fire rules. We can only get in about 60 which is why we're doing the two concerts on the same day but I do think that will work well.”

Over the years “it has been great to get all the musicians down to do the concerts. There are wonderful people. They really are. And I have managed to get a better piano now that's up there and I'm hoping that I can piano recitals there as well from next year. The room is ideal for us. It is a beautiful room. It's a 20-foot high ceiling and the room is rectangle in shape and I'm sure that we can build on things there. For the time being I would say that that is going to be our home.”

The move is the latest chapter in a success story which now dates back a decade and half: “I was sitting there thinking about a beautiful London concert that I did and I thought down here nobody knows anything about it and down here people just don't get the chance to hear this beautiful music and go to this kind of concert.

"So I started thinking that we could get musicians to come down here once a month and just keep it short and quite snappy because people weren’t used to going to this kind of concert and that's how I came up with the idea of 60 Minutes of Classical Music.”