MORE GREAT FESTIVALS…
London Handel Festival When: 17 March – 16 April Where: St George’s, Hanover Square and around
Tel: +44 (0)1460 54660 Web: www.london-handel-festival.com
Emerging artists, many of them destined for major careers, have become indispensable to the London Handel Festival since Laurence Cummings took charge as its musical director in 1999. This year’s edition, focusing on Handel’s London years, is awash with top young talents, including those ready to contest the Handel Singing Competition’s prizes.
HIGHLIGHTS:
19 & 21 March Handel Acis and Galatea; Nick Pritchard (Acis), Lucy Page (Galatea), London Handel Orchestra/laurence Cummings
6 April Arne The Judgement of Paris; Ed Lyon (Paris) London Early Opera/ Bridget Cunningham
10 April Final of the Handel
Singing Competition
11 April Handel Giulio Cesare; Tim Mead (Cesare), Early Opera Company/ Christian Curnyn
16 April Handel Occasional Oratorio; London Handel Singers & Orchestra/ Laurence Cummings
Occupy the Pianos
When: 20-22 April
Where: St John’s Smith Square Tel: +44 (0)20 7222 1061 Web: www.sjss.org.uk Brainchild of pianist and composer Rolf Hind, Occupy the Pianos rolls out for its third full run in April. The iconoclastic enterprise offers radical perspectives on the piano’s place in contemporary culture, provoked this year by the themes of Protest and The Journey Within.
HIGHLIGHTS:
20 April Rzewski Coming Together; Maxwell Davies Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot; Loré Lixenburg (soprano) 21 April On a Queer Day; Finnissy Really living (world premiere)
21 April Eastern Cow Theatre; Loré Lixenburg (soprano/director); Siwan Rhys (piano); amateur musicians from COMA. Hind Way out East; Haiku This is the Cow; Kagel Scenes from Staatstheater.
Sounds and Visions
When: 11-13 May Where: Barbican, London Tel: +44 (0)20 7638 7211 Web: www.barbican.org.uk A weekend of deep immersion in the sights and sounds of contemporary classical music, curated by Max Richter and BAFTA Award-winning filmmaker Yulia Mahr. The boundary-defying, genre-hopping Barbican Centre minifestival presents works and musicians that have most inf luenced Richter together with the Berlin-based British composer’s scores, Infra, Three Worlds and Waltz with Bashir.
HIGHLIGHTS:
11 May Lutos awski Musique funèbre, Richter Infra; 12 Ensemble
12 May Ives The Unanswered Question, Reich Tehillim, Berio Sinfonia, Richter Three Worlds; Colin Currie Group, BBC Symphony Orchestra/andré de Ridder 13 May Richter Waltz with Bashir; Chineke!/fawzi Haimor
Opera Holland Park
When: 29 May – 28 July
Where: Holland Park, London Tel: +44 (0)300 999 1000 Web: www.operahollandpark.com Your starter for ten. Which opera by an Italian composer, based on the Lady Godiva story, proved a hit
in Germany on the eve of the First World War? Opera Holland Park has the answer in the shape of Mascagni’s Isabeau which receives its belated UK premiere in the annual summerfest’s canopied auditorium this July.
HIGHLIGHTS:
31 May – 22 June Mozart Così fan tutte; Eleanor Dennis (Fiordiligi), Kitty Whately (Dorabella) et al, City of London Sinfonia/dane Lam 14-28 July Mascagni (new libretto by Luigi Illica) Isabeau; Anne Sophie Duprels (Isabeau) et al, City of London Sinfonia/francesco Cillu o 17-27 July Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos; Mardi Byers (Ariadne) et al, City of London Sinfonia/brad Cohen
Proms at St Jude’s
When: 23 June – 1 July
Where: St Jude’s, Hampstead Garden Suburb
Tel: +44 (0)20 3322 8123 Web: www.promsatstjudes.org.uk While Hampstead Garden Suburb residents called time on the overuse of St Jude-on-the-hill as a recording venue in the 1990s, they’ve since rallied to the cause of the festival that bears its name. Proms at St Jude’s is set to draw capacity crowds to hear the Aurora Orchestra, Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, the Kanneh-mason Piano Trio and the Academy of Ancient Music.
HIGHLIGHTS:
23 June Mozart Symphony No. 40 etc; Aurora Orchestra/nicholas Collon
24 June Mozart The Marriage of Figaro; Nevill Holt Opera/nicholas Chalmers 29 June Handel & Vivaldi; Grace Davidson (soprano), Academy of Ancient Music/nigel Short
Darbar Festival
When: 25-28 October Where: Barbican Centre Tel: +44 (0)20 7638 7211 Web: www.barbican.org.uk Leicester-based Darbar Arts Culture Heritage Trust comes to London for its first Barbican Centre outing in October. Darbar’s festival of Indian classical music spans everything from Carnatic fiddle-playing and dazzling displays of sarod virtuosity to a set from master sitarist Ustad Shahid Parvez and the Hindustani singer Parveen Sultana, long-reigning ‘Queen of Indian classical music’.
HIGHLIGHTS:
25 October Rupak Kulkarni (bansuri) & Meeta Pandit (khayal singer)
26 October Soumik Datta (sarod) & Malladi Brothers (Carnatic vocals) 27 October Sanju Sahai (sarod)
28 October Ustad Shahid Parvez & Parveen Sultana
Wimbledon International Music Festival
When: 10-25 November
Where: Wimbledon
Tel: +44 (0)333 666 3366 Web: wimbledonmusicfestival.co.uk While London sprawl and high street chains have reduced Wimbledon’s charms, the village feel of its leafier parts remains intact. This year’s Wimbledon International Music Festival ref lects on change and tradition in a tenthanniversary programme spiced with past and new commissions and performances by festival favourites and newcomers. It also explores themes of musical diversity and international collaboration.
HIGHLIGHTS:
10 November Haydn Seven Last Words, Gesualdo; Tenebrae, Brodsky Quartet/ sitar & tabla
14 November Mozart, Bartók, Brahms; Takács Quartet
19 November Mozart Quintet for piano and winds, K452; Imogen Cooper (piano), London Winds