Nestling on the Kent coast between Ramsgate and Dover, the historic town of Deal is the distinctly pleasant home of a Summer Music Festival which in its 21 seasons has come to incorporate a fair amount of important contemporary music alongside more traditional offerings. This year's programme featured a welcome performance of the Seventh Piano Sonata (1956) by Harold Truscott (1914–92), marking the tenth anniversary of the death of this composer (resident in Deal from 1954); the world première of the choral work Town and Country (2002) by the Festival's new President, Kent-born Sir Richard Rodney Bennett (b.1936); and two compositions (and one arrangement) by David Matthews (b.1943), part-time Deal resident and the Festival's Artistic Director since 1989.