What do you do when live music concerts are cancelled?  Create a Bandstand Chamber Festival to play al fresco in the bandstand in Battersea Park.
That’s just what Anthony Friend did!

Anthony left DCPS in 2004 for Westminster and then studied music at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, and afterwards at the Royal Academy of Music. Alongside his love of classical music Anthony is also a keen advocate contemporary and twentieth-century music and is the co-founder of Filthy Lucre, an immersive, mixed-genre new music night which moves from concert halls to club nights.
 
When Covid restrictions stopped live performances it was hard for both musicians and concert goers. Performing in an outdoor space with a socially distanced audience became a possibility when lockdown rules eased and Anthony founded the Bandstand Chamber Festival. Gathering together various top string quartets he devised a programme for a number of free concerts to be performed in the beautiful Victorian bandstand in Battersea Park, with support from Wandsworth Council. The festival ran from 1-15 September 2020 and was a great success.  These high-quality outdoor chamber music concerts featured some of the greatest pieces of classical music. Anthony played his clarinet with the Solem Quartet playing Haydn’s Quartet in E-flat, Op, 76, No. 6 and Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115.