Guiting Music Festival – Fantasia Orchestra & Anita Monserrat

The BBC Proms orchestra that stops in Guiting the week before the Royal Albert Hall

Fantasia Orchestra is returning to the BBC Proms this August for two concerts in its tenth anniversary year, broadcast on BBC television and radio. Before that, it plays the festival marquee at Guiting Power. The ensemble, founded by conductor Tom Fetherstonhaugh in 2016, has built its reputation on programming that ranges freely: the Guiting evening pairs Strauss and Alma Mahler with arrangements of Ellington, Kern and Gershwin.

The mezzo-soprano is Anita Monserrat, who won first prize at the SWR Junge Opernstars competition in 2024, came second at Neue Stimmen the same year, and is currently a Hildegard Zadek Scholar at the Wiener Staatsoper. The Alma Mahler songs and the Kern numbers are well matched to a mezzo voice.

Tickets are £45. This is the 55th Guiting Music Festival, running since 1970; the marquee on the playing field is the larger outdoor format.

Saturday 1 August 2026 · Festival Marquee, Guiting Power Playing Field, Guiting Power, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL54 5UX · 6:30pm