The Festival of Chichester is delighted to confirm that its principal sponsor for 2025 will be the award-winning Edward Cooke Family Law.
Edward is a long-standing supporter of the festival and has performed at a number of events over the past few years as part of the festival.
Edward Cooke Family Law (www.ecfamilylaw.co.uk) is a specialist firm of divorce solicitors, family lawyers and mediators in West Sussex, East Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire, with offices in Chichester, Brighton and Farnham.
“This is our fifth year with the festival and it’s wonderful to see how the festival goes from strength to strength,” Edward said. “It’s the phoenix from the ashes story (after the demise of the old Chichester Festivities), and it’s so important that Chichester with its rich history and very rich cultural history can bring all these events together. There are so many great institutions involved in the festival, the cathedral and the theatre groups and the dance groups and Pallant House and all the other organisations. But it’s so important every year to bring them together and to have a festival that really embraces the whole community. It is so important to celebrate our cultural diversity in the city and in the area. This is a way of doing that and giving people civic pride and bringing enjoyment to people while recognising their talents.
“I can remember the old festival (the Chichester Festivities) as a child and going to see some absolutely fantastic events, and it just really resonated with me what a fantastic cultural history Chichester has, whether it’s Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms or the art of Pallant House or Laurence Olivier’s connection with Chichester Festival Theatre. It’s an absolute jewel.
“And if you look, you see that the theatre is thriving and the cathedral has a fantastic array of events as does Pallant House. Right across the city there are pockets of cultural excellence everywhere.”
And as a part-time organist at St Paul’s, Edward knows the enjoyment of being part of them: “I think the city has really bounced back post-pandemic. Having been through those two years I think we really value culture and beautiful arts even more than before. We’ve got the theatre and we’ve got the cinema. New Park is another fantastic institution. And I do think that our appreciation of all these places is even greater because of the pandemic.”
Last year Edward took part in two festival events offering a piano duet, piano/organ duet and organ duet concert with his brother Matthew: “That was great fun. We had a full turn-out and it raised hundreds of pounds for Chestnut Tree House.”
Edward also took part in a festival evensong at St Paul’s.
“It is great to be involved. I am not a professional musician but I love music and I love to be able to perform and the great thing about the festival is that anybody can put something on within reason. It’s a platform and that’s what’s so exciting. You don’t know what you are going to discover. There are some really high-quality professional events but there are also some great non-professional events. I love going along to the festival. I really enjoy events in on St John’s Chapel which is a wonderful venue. It’s a great place for chamber music or jazz concerts. Chichester really does have a lovely array of venues.
“And the reason that we wanted to become principal sponsor is because we passionately want to support the festival. We want to see it continue to go from strength to strength. As a local firm we are rooted in the community and we support lots of local organisations. By being involved as the main sponsor we hope that people will become more aware of our services but really we just want to see the festival will continue to flourish and continue to grow.”
As for Edward Cooke Family Law: “We are committed to supporting our clients in reaching constructive solutions upon divorce and separation. through mediation, collaborative law, arbitration and other non-court dispute resolution methods, including Consensus, our one-couple, one lawyer approach. We however recognise that sometimes court proceedings are unavoidable and as a full family law service, we are hugely experienced in representing clients in all forms of family court proceedings.”
Watch a video of festival chairman Phil Hewitt in conversation with Edward on SussexWorld.
