The Festival was the brain child of Mr Douglas Smith, who was a keen Rotarian and music lover. His Lancastrian background led him to suggest to his Rotarian colleagues that what this town needs is a music festival'. With the backing of Hatfield Rotary Club, the Herts County Music School and the then Hatfield Polytechnic, the first festival took place in 1980 and was a great success.

We aim to provide a happy and relaxed atmosphere where making music is a shared pleasure. Our adjudicators are all specialists and are most complimentary about our aims and organisation. We also have a good relationship with our excellent local symphony orchestra, which offers a performance opportunity to the overall winner. This is of great interest to any young musician hoping to start on a career.

Mrs Ann Dymoke - founder member.

We enjoyed another very successful festival last Easter, with competitors ranging from the ages of 7 to 70, from pre Grade 1 to post diploma standard, travelling to us not only from Herts, London, and the Home Counties, but even from as far afield as Cardiff and Manchester! There were a great many delightful performances from our young musicians in the early classes - definitely some potential future Finalists amongst them! Once again the standard in the Open Diploma classes was excellent, allowing for a wonderful Finals Competition which was won by the talented saxophonist David Wigram (20) – a loyal supporter of the festival who has been taking part since the age of 7. David will be performing a concerto with the Philharmonic at UH next year as part of his prize.