£10m donation establishes major concert venue in rural Essex

A 730-seat state-of-the-art concert hall opens this weekend in Saffron Walden, a market town in rural North Essex with a population of under 15,000. Saffron Hall has been built as a result of a £10m donation by the Yellow Car Charitable Trust partnership to Saffron Walden County High School. Believed to be the largest gift of its kind to a state school, the venue is located in the school grounds and will provide a flexible high-spec performance space with dual-use front of house and backstage areas for use by the school and its 2,000 students during the school day. The artistic programme will feature events involving the school and the community, but these will be completed by world-class visiting artists, creating wider access to orchestral music, recitals and spoken word in the town. The Opening Concert will be performed by Britten Sinfonia, and the 2014 line-up includes pianist, John Lill; the Brodsky Quartet; Tasmin Little; Patricia Routledge and Piers Lane; and guest speakers, Germaine Greer and Andrew Motion. To coincide with the opening of Saffron Hall, the school is also opening a Post-16 Music Academy which aims to attract the best musicians from a wide geographical area and become a regional centre of excellence for music education.