Scotland & Northern Ireland
Tectonics Glasgow When: 4-5 May
Tel: +44 (0)141 353 8000 Conductor
Web: tectonicsfestival.com
Conductor Ilan Volkov’s contemporary music festival took its first Glasgow bow in 2013 and has blazed a trail through City Halls and the Old Fruitmarket ever since. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra supplies the orchestral heavy lifting, but this year Mahan Esfahani slips in a solo harpsichord set of new and recent works, and some of the orchestra’s brass and percussion team up with a set of highland bagpipes for the world premiere of a work by Genevieve Murphy.
DON’T MISS:
BBC Scottish Symphony Orch 4 May One of three BBC orchestral commissions for the weekend, Old Shoe, New Shoe gives American experimentalist Christian Wolff a festival footing. It showcases jazz drummer Joey Baron and percussionist Robyn Schulkowsky (above).
Perth Festival of the Arts
When: 16-25 May
Tel: +44 (0)1738 621 031
Web: perthfestival.co.uk
Perth boasts some fine venues – a onestop concert hall and theatre among them – but is happy to take a swerve offpiste when festival time puts a spring in its step: this year’s events include art in a tent and pop-up opera out of a roadside trailer. Conductor Thomas Sanderling leads the Russian Philharmonic of Novosibirsk through an all-russian programme; soprano Laura Ruhí Vidal and pianist Danny Driver surf the first two decades of the 20th century, and Harry Christophers and The Sixteen take the long view, spanning half a millennium of choral music.
DON’T MISS:
English Touring Opera 16 May Heading north of the border is Shakespeare’s ‘Scottish’ play as reimagined operatically by Verdi. James Dacre’s new production of Macbeth is sung in English, incorporating some of the Bard’s words, and features
Grant Doyle as the title character. The conductor is Gerry Cornelius.
St Magnus Festival
When: 21-27 June
Where: Orkney, Scotland
Tel: +44 (0)1856 871445
Web: stmagnusfestival.com
Orkney’s festival has been looking to its Nordic neighbours over recent years,
and neighbourliness prevails once more as Ars Nova Copenhagen, the Helsinki Chamber Choir and Norwegian Soloists Choir bring 2019 to a choral close. There’s even Viking Skaldic poetry combined with a gin tasting! But Scottish talent is never far away. The
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra appears in three different incarnations; the Maxwell Quartet splices Sweelinck and Norwegian folk music; and festival founder Peter Maxwell Davies is remembered alongside 60th-birthday boy James Macmillan.
DON’T MISS:
Anna Szalucka 26 June
The young Polish pianist traces a path through the music of her homeland from Chopin to Bacewicz via Szymanowski and Roxanna Panufnik.
OUR FESTIVAL CHOICE
East Neuk Festival When: 26-30 June
Tel: +44 (0)131 473 2000 Web: eastneukfestival.com People have been banging a drum for this Fife festival ever since its inception 15 years ago, but this summer East Neuk is doing it for itself! Percussionist Colin Currie and his new quartet premiere a work by Huw Watkins and mastermind the massed percussion ‘Big Project’. They’re festival debutants, but East Neuk has the knack of luring back its favourites. A five-concert series in the Bowhouse barn reunites the Belcea and Pavel Haas quartets with pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja; and for night owls, there’s kora balm from Senegalese maestro Seckou Keita.
DON’T MISS:
Belcea and Pavel Haas Quartets 29 June Mendelssohn’s Octet gets the dream team when quartet royalty combine for what should be a glorious earful. Before it, the Czech foursome tackle Shostakovich’s Eighth Quartet, leaving the Fifth of Haydn’s Op. 33 set to the Belceas. Music at Paxton
When: 19-28 July
Where: Paxton House, Berwick-on-tweed
Tel: +44 (0)131 473 2000 Web: musicatpaxton.co.uk There might be choral music on the lawn and a family-friendly introduction to the string quartet in Kelso Old Parish
Church, but at Palladian Paxton the house’s Picture Gallery bags the lion’s share of July’s music-making. Winner of the 2017 Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition, the Maxwell Quartet embarks on a threeyear residency as associate ensemble, and pianist Tom Poster celebrates emerging new talent as well as The Great American Songbook.
DON’T MISS:
Louise Alder and Gary Matthewman 20 July
Soprano Louise Alder (who picked up the Audience Prize at 2017’s BBC Cardiff Singer of the Year) ends a song journey that starts with Mozart in the company of Puccini and Verdi. Along the way, Liszt addresses Petrarch and Fauré visits Venice.
Edinburgh International Festival
When: 2-26 August
Tel: +44 (0)131 473 2000
Web: eif.co.uk
Landmark birthdays are always tempting targets and Edinburgh has two in its sights: actor Sir Ian Mckellan marks his 80th with a one-man show, while composer Sir James Macmillan’s 60th is celebrated across a series. Macmillan and Edinburgh have form: he was a featured composer in 1993 and his first opera, Inès de Castro, premiered in the festival three years later. Full details of the programme are still under wraps, but Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring receives a Chinese twist and a staged concert performance of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung will bring a four year Ring cycle full circle.
DON’T MISS:
Details of the 2019 International Festival will be announced on Wednesday 27 March.
Lammermuir Festival
When: 13-22 September
Tel: +44 (0)131 473 2000
Web: lammermuirfestival.co.uk
It’s not just the East Lothian Festival’s programmes that entice. It’s the venues too – over the past decade, these have included Concorde and the rugged ruins of Tantallon Castle. As a second decade begins, there’s no letting up. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Dunedin Consort and Scottish Opera head for the hills once more. Baritone Roderick Williams offers all three Schubert song cycles, and composer-inresidence Stuart Macrae completes a Promethean trilogy.
DON’T MISS:
Vox Luminis 16 September
Choral conductor Lionel Meunier’s vocal consort and instrumentalists are increasingly regular visitors to the UK, notching up residencies with the likes of Wigmore Hall and Aldeburgh Festival. Here, they bring Lent to Lammermuir with a performance of Scarlatti’s searingly beautiful Stabat Mater.
Prague Spring Festival When: 12 May – 4 June
Tel: +420 (0)227 059 234
Web: www.festival.cz/en
There’s been more than one false start to the Czech capital’s pre-eminent festival. But it must be doing something right – next year will be its 75th edition. By tradition it always opens with a performance of Má Vlast on the anniversary of Smetana’s death. This year the honour falls to the Bamberg Symphony under conductor Jakub Hru a, and other visiting orchestras include Antonio Pappano’s Santa Cecilia ensemble from Rome. Berlioz’s Te Deum resurfaces after 40 years away and, in the Rudolfinum, violinist Isabelle Faust plays Bach.
DON’T MISS:
Czech Philharmonic 31 May Conductor Louis Langreé makes his Prague Spring debut in a Frenchbelgian programme. Flanked by Berlioz and Franck is Ravel’s G major Piano Concerto, played by Javier Perianes. Bergen International Festival When: 22 May – 5 June
Tel: +47 (0)55 210630
Web: www.fib.no
Bergen is never going to forget its most famous son, though recitals in Grieg’s villa at nearby Troldhaugen are somewhat upstaged by this year’s opening offering: Waiting uses the composer’s music in a symphonic Passion imagining Peer Gynt from Solveig’s point of view. Unsuk Chin is the festival’s featured composer, and to the world’s most northerly orchestra, the Arctic Philharmonic, falls a performance of her Double Bind in Bergen’s ancient Cathedral. Should the kaleidoscopic programme leave you feeling peckish, never fear: DJ Frietmachine is a street theatre potato installation culminating in… chips!
DON’T MISS:
Bergen Philharmonic 5 June
The orchestral home team signs off the festival with Unsuk Chin’s glittering Piano Concerto, before mezzo Ekaterina Gubanova and tenor Toby Spence join Edward Gardner for Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde.
OUR FESTIVAL CHOICE
Ravenna Festival When: 5 June – 16 July
Tel: +39 (0)54 424 9244
Web: www.ravennafestival.org
In its 30th-anniversary year, Ravenna is looking to its ancient maritime past in a festival that sets sail for Greece – most ambitiously of all in a mammoth Grecoitalian collaboration under conductor Riccardo Muti that shares Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Athens. Violinist Leonidas Kavakos cements the rapport; and the burnished Byzantine mosaics of the city’s basilicas come into their own when the Tallis Scholars undertake a seven-church, midnight-to-11.30pm traversal of the canonical hours of the divine office. Elsewhere, feet will tap as a
drumming strand ranges from Reich to Uganda techno.
DON’T MISS:
Orchestra Giovanile
Luigi Cherubini 5 June
Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage weighs anchor before Mozart from pianist Maurizio Pollini. Conductor Riccardo Muti ends with another boat journey: Rachmaninov’s Isle of the Dead. Leipzig Bachfest
When: 14-23 June
Tel: + 49 (0)3871 211 4191 Web: www.bachfestleipzig.de
There can be no doubt about where Leipzig Bachfest’s priorities lie – the clue’s in the title! But the city has a rich musical heritage to draw on, and links to Mendelssohn and the Schumanns don’t go unremarked. As for Johann Sebastian himself, ‘Bach the Court Composer’ fuels four series teasing out works for Weimar, Köthen, Dresden and Berlin; last year’s Ring of Cantatas is re-forged to embrace all of those written for Weimar; and keyboard supremos Ton Koopman and Andreas Staier go head-to-head, recreating the ‘contest’ between Louis Marchand and Bach.
DON’T MISS:
Tölzer Knabenchor 23 June
Conducted by David Stern and accompanied by French ensemble Opera Fuoco, Bach’s B minor Mass brings the Festival to a close. Soloists include alto Andreas Scholl. West Cork Chamber Music Festival
When: 28 June – 7 July Where: Bantry, Ireland
Tel: + 353 (0)27 52788 Web: www.westcorkmusic.ie
With up to six concerts and four masterclasses daily, West Cork packs it in! And many of the artists who flock to the 18th-century splendour of Bantry ★ouse and St Brendan’s Church also support a fringe that spawns ubiquitous pop-ups. Next year’s Beethoven celebrations come early to The Wild Atlantic Way: the Op. 18 quartets are paired with Mozart’s half-dozen dedicated to ★aydn; pianist Dénes
Várjon tackles the Hammerklavier Sonata; and the last three piano trios detain
Barry Douglas (see p22) and friends.
DON’T MISS:
Festival finale 7 July
Violinist ★enning Kraggerud, pianist Alexei Grynyuk and the Azahar Ensemble are among those united in a festival farewell of Liszt, Britten and Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. Aix-en-provence Festival When: 3-22 July
Tel: + 33 (0)4 3408 0217 Web: www.festival-aix.com
It’s all change at the top. Pierre Audi unveils his first festival as director, and predictably challenging it is too! Three of the six operas are by living composers – the world premiere of Adam Maor’s The Sleeping Thousand is unwrapped beside Michel van der Aa’s Eight and Wolfgang Rihm’s Jakob Lenz. Even the first ‘opera’ turns out to be a staging of the Mozart Requiem. It’s accompanied by Ensemble Pygmalion who also give two concerts of the late symphonies, illustrating the way in which Audi is keen to link operas and concerts in a cross-fertilising vision.
DON’T MISS:
Rihm’s Jakob Lenz 5, 8, 12 July Director Andrea Breth brings her award-winning production of Rihm’s opera inspired by Büchner to the Grand ThéJtre de Provence. Ingo Metzmacher conducts Ensemble Modern. Riga-j rmala Festival When: 19 July – 1 September Where: Riga and Jurmala, Latvia Tel: + 371 (0)29 116 146 Web: www.riga-jurmala.com
Take four summer weekends. Allot to each a visiting orchestra. Season with soloists and chamber music, and divide between venues in Riga and seaside J rmala. The result? Latvia’s newest and most ambitious festival. The four inaugural orchestras are the Bavarian Radio Symphony, the Israel Philharmonic, the London Symphony and Russian National. Soloists include pianist Murray Perahia. To set the ball rolling, who more appropriate than Riga-born Mariss Jansons conducting his Bavarian forces in their 70th-anniversary year?
DON’T MISS:
Bavarian Radio Symphony 19 July Riga Opera ★ouse hosts the debut concert which opens with a suite from
Strauss’s late opera Der Rosenkavalier before scaling Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1 and Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 (soloist Julian Rachlin). Salzburg Festival
When: 20 July – 31 August Tel: + 43 (0)662 8045 500 Web: www.salzburgfestival.at
On the cusp of its centenary, Salzburg plunges back into ancient mythology for the sequel to its Easter and Whitsun warm-ups. And its operas get straight down to mythological business, with Peter Sellars’s new production of Mozart’s Idomeneo conducted by Teodor Currentzis. Myth-making then follows thick and fast, what with Cherubini’s Medée and Enescu’s Oedipe. But a festival that likes to limber up with a meditative ‘Ouverture Spirituelle’ isn’t afraid to loosen its collar, as mythology takes a satirical swerve in Orphée aux enfers, Offenbach’s twinkly take on the subterranean tale.
DON’T MISS:
Berlin Philharmonic 25, 26 August The Berliners’ two programmes under music director Kirill Petrenko include Berg’s Lulu Suite and the Schoenberg Violin Concerto as well as Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. Lucerne Festival When: 16 August – 15 September
Tel: +41 (0)41 226 4480
Web: www.lucernefestival.ch
The clean-lined, uncluttered ‘Salle Blanche’ is Lucerne Festival’s spiritual home, and this year it doubles as an opera house when the Musicaeterna Orchestra and chorus of Perm Opera under Teodor Currentzis dish up all three Mozart-da Ponte operas in quick succession – cheered on by mezzo Cecilia Bartoli as the wily Despina in Così fan tutte. Riccardo Chailly conducts four concerts with the Festival Orchestra, including Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, and the Stravinsky Violin Concerto with Le nidas Kavakos. Kavakos also makes an appearance with conductor Yannick Nézet-séguin performing the Beethoven Violin Concerto. The Swiss Thomas Kessler is composer-in-residence; and, with an eye to next year’s celebrations, Igor Levit begins his Beethoven piano sonata cycle.
DON’T MISS:
Vienna Philharmonic 6 September Pianist Murray Perahia and Bernard Haitink team up for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 before Haitink turns to one of his favourite symphonies: Bruckner’s Seventh.
Spoleto Festival USA When: 24 May — 9 June
Where: Charleston, SC
Tel: 843-579-3100
Web: www.spoletousa.org
The multi-disciplinary Spoleto Festival USA features more than 140 music, theatre and dance performances. They include Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles, a vocal work inspired by the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain, and Bach’s St John Passion, both sung by the Westminster Choir. The St Lawrence String Quartet’s Geoff Nuttall oversees the midday chamber music concerts for a tenth season, and look for film-maker Bill Morrison’s three short films about three American cities – New York, Los Angeles and Miami – presented to a live score by Michael Gordon.
DON’T MISS:
Strauss’s Salome 24 May – 5 June ★aving made their Spoleto debut in 1987 with a Salome set in 1930s Germany, directors Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser return to reimagine Richard Strauss’s opera in the present day. Melanie Henley Heyn sings the title role; Paul Groves is Herod.
Ravinia Festival
When: 31 May – 15 September
Where: Highland Park, IL
Tel: 847-266-5100
Web: www.ravinia.org
Ravinia presents a sizable coda to last year’s Leonard Bernstein centenary. Marin Alsop conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in two theatrical works by her teacher – Mass and Trouble in Tahiti – both featuring baritone
Paulo Szot. Recitalists include baritone Matthias Goerne performing songs by Berg, Schumann and Shostakovich, and rising soprano Angel Blue in a programme spanning Strauss to spirituals. Visiting orchestras include the Shanghai Symphony, conducted by Long Yu, and the Lucerne Symphony, led by James Gaffigan and featuring Anne Akiko Meyers as soloist in the Barber Violin Concerto.
DON’T MISS:
Mahler Symphony No. 8 26 July
Marin Alsop conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in Mahler’s ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ with soloists Angela Meade, Leah Crocetto, Joélle Harvey, Michelle Deyoung, Kelley O’connor, Joseph Kaiser, Paulo Szot and Ryan Speedo Green.
OUR FESTIVAL CHOICE
Ojai Festival When: 6-9 June
Where: Ojai, CA
Tel: 805-646-2053
Web: www.ojaifestival.org
Barbara Hannigan, the intrepid soprano, conductor and new music champion, is the 2019 music director in Ojai. On the podium, she leads Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, with singers from Equilibrium Artists and Ojai’s house band, LUDWIG.
Sans baton, Hannigan performs vocal works by Schoenberg, Gershwin, Grisey and Zorn. The JACK Quartet and pianist Stephen Gosling present an evening of atmospheric works by Debussy, Ravel, Messiaen and Schoenberg. Also slated is a tribute to the late Oliver Knussen, and a pairing of William Walton’s Façade with Terry Riley’s minimalist landmark, In C.
DON’T MISS:
Finale Concert 9 June
For the season’s closing concert, Hannigan conducts Stravinsky’s Pulcinella and Haydn’s Symphony No. 49 ‘La Passione’, then revives a specialty, Gershwin’s Girl Crazy Suite.
Tanglewood
When: 15 June – 25 August
Where: Lenox, MA
Tel: 888-266-1200
Web: www.tanglewood.org
Tanglewood unveils the Linde Center for Music and Learning, a $33m four-building auditorium and rehearsal complex. The facility hosts 140 events, including masterclasses, films and lectures by such notables as Madeleine Albright and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. On the main stages, Andris Nelsons conducts the Boston Symphony in Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, Verdi’s Requiem and the premiere of Kevin Puts’s The Brightness of Light, a work inspired by letters between Georgia O’keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz and featuring soprano Renée Fleming and baritone Rod Gilfry. Recitals include solo Bach by Yo-yo Ma and Hilary Hahn.
DON’T MISS:
Wagner’s Die Walküre 27-28 July Nelsons conducts a concert performance of the second of Wagner’s Ring operas. Starring Amber Wagner (Sieglinde), Christine Goerke (Brünnhilde) and Simon O’neill (Siegmund), the three acts will be staggered over two days.
Caramoor Festival
When: 15 June – 29 July
Where: Katonah, NY
Tel: 914-232-1252
Web: www.caramoor.org
This Westchester County festival has a broad agenda for 2019. Mandolinist Avi Avital joins the Venice Baroque Orchestra for music by Vivaldi and contemporaries. The resident Orchestra of St Luke’s presents Dvo ák’s Cello Concerto with Alisa Weilerstein, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with Christian Tetzlaff and the New York premiere of Caroline Shaw’s Watermark. Shaw’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Partita for Eight Voices also opens a programme by a cappella group Roomful of Teeth. And pianist Pierre-laurent Aimard presents Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux as part of a weekend of birdwatching tours, birdthemed talks and related performances.
DON’T MISS:
American Modern Opera Company 25 July
‘Hidden desires’ is the theme of a programme by AMOC’S countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and tenor Paul Appleby, who together present Britten’s dramatic canticle Abraham and Isaac. Also planned are works by Monteverdi, Matthew Aucoin and Harold Meltzer.
Bravo! Vail
When: 20 June – 4 August
Where: Vail, CO
Tel: 877-812-5700
Web: bravovail.org
Chamber Orchestra Vienna-berlin, an ensemble comprised of members from the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras, makes its North American debut with Anne-sophie Mutter performing all five of Mozart’s violin concertos. Jaap van Zweden conducts the New York Phil in six programmes that include Britten’s Violin Concerto, with soloist Augustin Hadelich. Also in residence are the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Dallas Symphony. Look out, too, for four casual concerts at the Shakedown Bar in downtown Vail, and Third Coast Percussion premiering Perpetulum, Philip Glass’s first-ever percussion quartet.
DON’T MISS:
Puccini’s Tosca 11-13 July
Yannick Nézet-séguin conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra in Puccini’s Tosca, the festival’s debut opera production, with Julianna di Giacomo in the title role, Yusif Eyvazov as Cavaradossi and Marco Vratogna as Scarpia. Aspen Music Festival and School When: 27 June – 18 August
Where: Aspen, CO
Tel: 970-925-9042
Web: www.aspenmusicfestival.com
For its 70th season, Aspen explores the theme ‘Being American’. Look for works by Adams, Barber, Bernstein, Gershwin, Glass and Ives, settings of American poets (from Dickinson to Poe), and two American stage works: Missy Mazzoli’s opera Proving Up (about Nebraskan homesteaders in the 1870s) and Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music. Other highlights include an Escher String Quartet premiere of a new string
quartet by Andrew Norman; piano recitals by Stephen Hough, Conrad Tao and Vladimir Feltsman; and Robert Spano conducting Mahler’s Second and Seventh Symphonies.
DON’T MISS:
Daniil Trifonov 31 July
The Russian pianist is increasingly looking like a modern music specialist, as this thrilling programme of Berg, Prokofiev, Bartók, Messiaen, Ligeti, Stockhausen, Adès, Corigliano and John Adams shows.
Santa Fe Opera
When: 28 June – 24 August Where: Santa Fe, NM Tel: 800-280-4654 Web: www.santafeopera.org
Santa Fe promises a lively mix of five main stage operas including the premiere of The Thirteenth Child,a fairy tale thriller by Danish composer Poul Ruders; Janá ek’s Jen fa, adapted from David Alden’s English National Opera production; Mozart’s Così fan tutte, directed by RB Schlather; and a revival of Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers. Plus, Renée Fleming headlines an evening of songs by Richard Strauss and Kevin Puts.
DON’T MISS:
28 June – 24 August
Suggesting a nod to the #Metoo era, director Mary Birnbaum brings a new production of La bohème that focuses on the two female leads,
Mimì (Vanessa Vazquez) and Musetta (Kirsten Mackinnon). It also stars Mario Chang (Rodolfo) and Zachary Nelson (Marcello) under the baton of Jader Bignamini. Bard Summerscape and
Bard Music Festival When: 29 June – 18 August
Where: Annandale-on-hudson, NY
Tel: 845-758-7900
Web: fishercenter.bard.edu
In the leafy Hudson River Valley, Leon Botstein, the American Symphony Orchestra and visiting musicians focus on the music and times of Korngold. The line-up includes the Austrian composer’s 1927 opera The Miracle of Heliane (billed as the fully staged American premiere); a film series exploring ‘Korngold and the Hollywood Film Score’; and Michael Gordon’s Acquanetta, a ‘filmic opera’ about a 1940s B-movie starlet. The Bard Music Festival – a festival-within-a-festival – will comprise two weekends: Korngold and Vienna (9-11 August) and Korngold in America (16-18 August).
DON’T MISS:
Korngold’s Die tote Stadt 18 August
This lush and sensuous 1920 opera about a man’s obsessive love for his dead wife is presented by the American Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leon Botstein.
Music @ Menlo
When: 12 July – 3 August
Where: Atherton, CA
Tel: 650-330-2030
Web: www.musicatmenlo.org
‘Incredible Decades’ is the theme of this Silicon Valley festival, directed by the husband-and-wife team of cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han. Concerts and scholarly talks spotlight seven