United Kingdom
Chipping Campden Festival
Chipping Campden, 5-22 May Web: campdenmusicfestival.co.uk
A prequel series of the complete Beethoven piano sonatas couldn’t be more apposite for a festival replete with distinguished pianists. András Schiff and Piotr Anderszewski make their Chipping Campden debuts; Paul Lewis and Emanuel Ax have Schubert in their sights; and Alfred Brendel moves away from the keyboard to mentor string quartets! In this, Charlie Bennett’s last year as director, Schubert is ubiquitous, and the Byrd anniversary occupies The Tallis Scholars; there’s Bach from the Academy of Ancient Music; and the lid is lifted on Stravinsky and Diaghilev.
Brighton Festival Brighton, 6-28 May Web: brightonfestival.org
For over half a century, the south coast festival has been turning heads with a mixture of sheer ambition and chutzpah. Since 2009, it has invited guest directors, and in the shadow of Anish Kapoor, Brian Eno and Laurie Anderson comes Nabihah Iqbal and her 2023 motto ‘Gather Round’. With 609 performances in total there’s plenty of gathering to be done. Conductor François-xavier
Roth, the London Symphony Orchestra and Yuja Wang collaborate on Magnus Lindberg’s Piano Concerto No. 3; the Takács Quartet promises Pärt at Glyndebourne; and Brighton-born Frank Bridge is included in an English programme from the Festival Chorus and Britten Sinfonia which also premieres a new work by Joseph Phibbs.
London Festival of Baroque Music St John’s Smith Square, London,
12-20 May
Web: lfbm.org.uk
In the first twist of the kaleidoscope – the festival’s 2023 theme – Albert Recasens’s La Grande Chapelle focuses on 17th-century Spain and the music of the great Madrileño Juan Hidalgo. L’apothéose heads for the Madrid Court
half a century later, and there’s more Spanish Baroquerie from Concerto
1700 and the vihuela and Baroque guitar of José Miguel Moreno. But other nationalities apply! Le Concert de l’hostel Dieu lingers in France; Bach, Telemann, and Handel shake hands with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; and Steven Devine issues a threefold invitation to ‘Meet the Harpsichord’.
Bath Festival
Bath, 12-21 May Web: bathfestivals.org.uk
Yehudi Menuhin, Michael Tippett and pianist Joanna Macgregor are among past artistic directors who have left their mark on a festival that has been enlivening the honey-coloured Georgian city for three quarters of a century. In this 75th anniversary year, the resurrected Festival Orchestra teams up with Bath Camerata for a performance of Mozart’s Requiem; there’s high-octane John Adams and Jonathan Dove; five-part Byrd from Siglo de Oro; and the opening night party colonises the city’s streets.
Norfolk and Norwich Festival Norwich, 12-28 May Web: nnfestival.org.uk
It’s not every string quartet whose repertoire includes Beethoven and Kate Bush, but the resident Solem Quartet isn’t afraid of countering expectations. Across three concerts, it premieres works by Bushra El-turk and Edmund Finnis, and decamps to the Spiegeltent for late-night Steve Reich. Music has always been at the heart of Norfolk and Norwich – it started life in 1772 with a benefit concert – and it doesn’t play safe. 12 Ensemble and GBSR Duo premiere Laurence Osborn’s tombeau-inspired Tomb; Britten Sinfonia is conquering ‘Musical Everests’; and the Hallé orchestra bookends Missy Mazzoli with Rachmaninov and Dvořák.
Chiltern Arts Festival
Various Chiltern venues, 13-20 May Web: chilternarts.com
Great Missenden to Wycombe Abbey and Henley-on-thames, the festival dispenses its artistic largesse across the Chilterns and proposes a contemplation of ‘Love, Loss, and the Passage of Time’. Soprano Rowan Pierce and tenor Ed Lyon create a Shakespearean Songbook under the gaze of Byrd and Morley, Vaughan Williams and Finzi; in
Dorchester Abbey Rachmaninov’s Allnight Vigil lends a sonorous glow; and guitarist Craig Ogden takes on Rodrigo, Villa-lobos and Falla.
Stamford International Music Festival
Stamford Arts Centre, 18-20 May Web: simfestival.com
Under the leadership of violinist Freya Goldmark, the chamber music festival has expanded to include a winter edition as well as one-off recitals. Its morning coffee concert with Mozart is answered by late-night Messiaen; and Messiaen features in the opening concert alongside Adès’s Court Studies from The Tempest. The middle day, meanwhile, migrates from Ligeti to a French evening culminating in Chausson’s Concert for Violin, Piano and String Quartet.
Perth Arts Festival Perth, 18-27 May
Web: perthfestival.co.uk
It’s not just Artay’s tented exhibition of contemporary Scottish art that’s flying the Saltire at this year’s Perth Festival – the customary excursion into opera falls to Scots Opera Project’s revival of The Seal-woman, a Celtic folk opera by Marjory Kennedy-fraser and Granville Bantock. Vocal ensemble The Marian Consort is on a 500-year quest in search of ‘A Winged Woman’; and should the visiting Estonian National Symphony Orchestra require any guidance, ‘An A-Z of Orchestral Triangle Playing’ obliges!
English Music Festival
Dorchester-on-thames, 26-29 May Web: englishmusicfestival.org.uk
There are world premieres aplenty as the English Music Festival unfolds its latest incarnation in leafy Oxfordshire. Dorchester Abbey shoulders most of the concerts, but there are excursions to Radley College and Sutton Courtenay’s All Saints’ Church. Raphael Wallfisch is the soloist in Moeran’s Cello Concerto as Martin Yates leads the BBC Concert Orchestra through first night Alwyn, Delius and Vaughan Williams; soprano Sara Stowe celebrates the finely crafted charms of Walter Leigh; and guitarist Fábio Fernandes dallies with Dowland.
Swaledale Festival
North Yorkshire, 27 May -10 June Web: swalefest.org
Swaledale 2023 is focusing on place and community – something etched into the stones of its ancient churches and well-trodden footpaths. ‘Astronomy on Reeth Green’ trains a telescope on the night skies, but there are stars to be experienced closer to home. Natalie Clein wraps Britten, Taverner and Deborah Pritchard around two of Bach’s solo cello suites; in Arkengarthdale, the Ligeti
Quartet celebrates its namesake; and violist-composer Brett Dean multi-tasks with a new work for mezzo and viola.
Leeds Lieder Festival
Leeds, 9-17 June Web: leedslieder.org.uk
Topped and tailed by Gala Recitals featuring tenor Mark Padmore and mezzo Dame Sarah Connolly (who premieres a new cycle by Errollyn Wallen), Leeds Lieder’s guest of honour is another great mezzo: Dame Janet Baker. Pianist and artistic director Joseph Middleton masterminds an arresting skein of masterclasses and outreach activities to complement recitals including chansons from soprano Véronique Gens and a 200th-anniversary salute to Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin.
Aldeburgh Festival
Snape Maltings and around, 9-25 June Web: brittenpearsarts.org
No visit to Aldeburgh is complete without visiting The Red House, Britten’s home tucked away from the bustle of the seafront. During the festival weeks, however, how do you fit it all in? Time is indeed at a premium, with 35 world and nine British premieres, eight visiting string quartets and five orchestras in a programme that spools back to a 1595 Venetian Coronation, laces up for a Britten Song Trail and spotlights composers Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Cassandra Miller. Opening this year’s proceedings is Ghost, a new opera by Sarah Angliss that unites five voices, 18th-century instruments and 21st-century musical technology.
Festival of Chichester
Chichester, 10 June – 9 July Web: festivalofchichester.co.uk
The city’s month-long rendezvous is the sort of festival that likes to say ‘Yes’! From music in all its guises to arts and crafts, cinema and dance, all are grist to Chichester’s mill. Vocal quartet Sonare journeys through 900 years of music by women composers; the Endymion Ensemble pairs quartet