The Canterbury Festival is delighted to announce Susannah Stevenson as its next Festival Director and Chief Executive.

Susannah is currently the Artistic Director of the Charleston Festival – the Charleston Trust’s flagship 10-day interdisciplinary festival of books, arts and ideas. Based near Lewes, it features a mixture of ‘in-conversation’ events, as well as scripted performances, commissions, readings, music, poetry and visual arts. Prior to that she was Cultural Events Producer for the British Library and held various roles at the Southbank Centre. She was educated at Chatham Grammar School for Girls, Queen’s College Cambridge, the Humboldt University of Berlin, and University College London.

Susannah will lead the delivery of the Festival’s mission and objectives, producing an internationally respected annual two-week extravaganza of music, performance, talks, comedy, family events, science and more. The Festival showcases Canterbury as a diverse and dynamic centre of culture and welcomes both loyal and new audiences of all ages and backgrounds to be inspired and delighted in a celebration of creativity. The Festival is amplified by a vibrant year-round public engagement programme, providing creative opportunities and career development, particularly for young people, as well as workshops, performances and events. All of which contribute towards making Canterbury an exciting place to live, work, learn and play. 

Professor Keith Mander (Chair, Board of Trustees of the Canterbury Festival) said: “In our 40^th year, we are really excited to welcome Susannah to the Canterbury Festival. She brings enthusiasm and dynamism to help us develop and grow our already successful Festival, exploring new themes and partnerships. We look forward to innovative and varied programming, and a host of year-round community and engagement projects, presented in an interactive and accessible style, in the context of a resilient, entrepreneurial and future-facing cultural organisation”.

Susannah Stevenson (Festival Director and Chief Executive of the Canterbury Festival) said: “I am delighted to be joining the Canterbury Festival this autumn as Festival Director and Chief Executive. I look forward to building upon the Festival’s long and prestigious tradition of giving audiences brilliant and varied artistic experiences in this historic city, and am excited by the opportunities to grow and refresh the Festival programme and its projects as we look ahead to the next 40 years. As a Kent girl who had a truly formative childhood experience performing as part of the Canterbury Festival many years ago, I am passionate about the role that the Festival plays in the community year-round as a conduit for local talent, and as a source of inspiration for people of all ages and backgrounds.”