The Hampstead Arts Festival celebrates the joy of live music in our local community. Led by Artistic Directors Gemma Rosefield and Benjamin Nabarro, we bring together world-class musicians to perform chamber masterpieces, jazz, family concerts, and new works.
Welcome to 2025
We are hugely excited to present our first season as Artistic Directors of the Hampstead Arts Festival and to welcome audiences back for three days of exceptional live music in our home community.
As long-standing residents of the area that we love so much, we feel particularly strongly about the importance of a community-serving festival of the highest quality, involving as many people as possible of all ages, locally and beyond!
This year’s programme features our colleagues from Ensemble 360, bringing together some of the UK’s most distinguished musicians to perform a rich and varied collection of works that celebrates the spirit of chamber music: intimacy, collaboration, and community. From Bach and Beethoven to Janáček and Zoë Rahman, the festival spans centuries of sound and style - from the deeply familiar to the joyfully unexpected.
We’re especially delighted to include a free concert for children and families, a reminder that the magic of live performance truly belongs to everyone.
Our heartfelt thanks go to our fellow artists, our audiences, and to everyone in Hampstead who has supported the festival’s return. We can’t wait to share this wonderful weekend of music with you.
Warmest Wishes,
Gemma & Ben, Artistic Directors
Artistic Directors
Gemma Rosefield
Gemma Rosefield is a cellist with an international career. Winner of the Pierre Fournier Award, and described by The Strad on her 2003 Wigmore Hall debut as ‘a mesmerising musical treasure’, Gemma performs regularly with Ensemble 360, Royal Philharmonic Society Medal Winners, and the Leonore Piano Trio, and has recorded extensively for Hyperion Records. She is a professor of cello at the Royal College of Music, London.
Benjamin Nabarro
Described by Musical Opinion as “an outstanding artist,” Benjamin Nabarro performs internationally as a violin soloist, director, and conductor. He has played many of the UK's leading orchestras, with concerto performances praised for their “purity of style, elegance of phrasing and unsurpassed perfection of technique.” As first violin of Ensemble 360 and the Nash Ensemble, and violinist of the Leonore Piano Trio, he has toured widely.
Our History
The Hampstead Arts Festival began, on a very small scale, in 2012 as a successor to the former Hampstead & Highgate Festival. Our aim is to engage, interest and move our audiences with unique and beautiful presentations at Hampstead’s most intimate venues. Chamber music, jazz, song, literature, politics and film, with international stars, up-and-coming artists and - in rich supply in Northwest London - local talent. We’re building a strong local following and also attracting audience members from across greater London and even California!
Our distinguished Patrons are:
Steven Isserlis CBE
Gavin Henderson CBE
Tom Conti
