A Glastonbury Festival in 2012 - It is going to happen!

OK, this may not be THE Glastonbury Festival we all know and love, but with camping at the famous Worthy Farm, courtesy of Michael Eavis and a stage set in the beautiful 36 acre grounds of Glastonbury Abbey this could be the next best thing!

Orchestra in a Field will be held over the weekend of June 30th/July 1st and is the brainchild of local yet internationally renowned conductor Charles Hazlewood, who in 2009 hosted a similar event on his farm near Bruton. "Play the Field' in 2009 attracted an audience of around 4000 people with the aim of bringing classical music to the people and allowing everyone (especially younger people) to engage with it.

Charles is no stranger to Glastonbury of course, playing the Festival in 2008, 2010 and 2011 with his avant-garde All-star group (featuring Adrian Utley of Portishead and Will Gregory of Goldfrapp) and he has also conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Extravaganza in the Abbey Grounds in 2006 and 2007.

Highlights of the weekend will doubtless be the All Star Collective's performance of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells (hopefully not in the rain as it was on the Spirit of '71 stage at Glasto this year) as well as a Rainbow in Curved Air; the world premiere of the UK's first ever national disabled orchestra, The British Paraorchestra; and Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture performed by The Scrapheap Orchestra (which as the name suggests use instruments made from junk, broken furniture and other miscellaneous pieces of scrap).  The Orchestra featured on a BBC4 documentary this week which will be shown again at 7.30pm on Wednesday 14th and 2am on Thursday 15th December.

Early bird tickets have now gone on sale here, with prices for both single days as well as for the weekend both with and without camping.