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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Answer Disservant at Sussex Newspapers, but
00:06also Chairman of the Festival of Chichester, and it's fabulous to introduce and to announce
00:10our new Principal Sponsor for the 2025 Festival of Chichester, Edward Cook, who runs Edward
00:17Cook Family Law. Now, Edward, you have had a long connection with our Festival over the
00:22years. It's fantastic that you are this year our Principal Sponsor. What's the thinking
00:26behind becoming our Principal Sponsor? Well, we're a firm of solicitors and mediators
00:31based in Chichester, Brighton and in Farnham in Surrey. We're very much a Chichester-based
00:36firm. We founded in Chichester in 2018. I was born and brought up in the city. I've
00:40always been passionate about the arts and about culture and about supporting local community
00:45events like this. So we're absolutely delighted to be the new main sponsors of the Festival.
00:50We've been involved for the last five or six years. So when the opportunity arose and you
00:55asked us, we were absolutely delighted to accept. Fantastic. And you've been so supportive
01:00of the Festival. Why do the arts matter so much in Chichester? And we're so wonderfully
01:04endowed with the arts in Chichester, aren't they? But why are they so important, do you
01:08think? Well, obviously you've got the iconic venues in the city, the Festival Theatre,
01:14Pallant House, New Park Cinema, Chichester Cathedral. We have got such rich cultural
01:19heritage and history of the arts. But I also think the Festival is very important in terms
01:24of bringing the city together once a year to celebrate not just those big events, but
01:28the small events, the smaller groups, the amateur musicians, as well as the professional
01:33musicians, and bringing the city together in a celebration of the vibrancy and our cultural
01:39heritage. So that's why, for me, the Festival is so important. And we've always thought
01:44of the Festival as creating opportunities for people. And that's something that you
01:47instantly picked up on when we were speaking just now, that it is a platform for everyone,
01:53Absolutely. No, it really is. I mean, I've been delighted for the last couple of years to take
01:56part myself, actually. So I'm a part-time musician, a church organist. So I've been
02:01involved in a couple of events last year, which was great fun. And that's the great
02:04thing. It's the openness of the Festival. You know, you have some fantastic world-class
02:09groups and orchestras taking part, for example. But you also have a huge variety of musical,
02:16dance, theatre, word-based events across the city, and huge numbers of people taking part
02:23in it. So that, for me, is the exciting thing about the Festival, seeing there's such a
02:29wide variety of events going on. And you are the ideal principal sponsor for us, because
02:34not only do you come and see events at the Festival, you have participated. Tell me
02:39about one or two of the events that you've really, really enjoyed being part of and offering
02:43yourself. Yeah, I really enjoyed two events that I was involved in last year. So one event
02:48was with my brother, who's a local music teacher, and we raised several hundred pounds
02:53through a cream tea concert at St Paul's Church. We were doing piano duets, organ duets,
03:00and also piano and organ duets together, which is quite unusual. And that was great fun. And
03:04I think the audience really enjoyed that. We played a piano and organ suite last year.
03:09And so that was great fun. The other event that I took part in last year was a come and sing
03:14Evensong at the church, where we had someone from the BBC Singers in London down, who did a
03:18community-based choir Evensong event. That was great fun. I paid the organ for that. So yeah,
03:24I do feel very much imbued in the Festival and the culture of it, and I love to be involved.
03:28But most importantly, as a firm more widely, we're just delighted to get involved and to
03:33support it in this way. And we are absolutely thrilled to welcome you as our principal sponsor.
03:39Always lovely to speak to you, Edward. Thank you so much for your support.
03:42Thank you, Phil.
03:43Appreciate it. Thank you.
03:44Your pleasure. Thank you. Thank you.