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Australian Festival of Chamber Music
When: 31 July – 9 August
Where: Townsville, Australia
Tel: +61 74771 4144
Web: www.afcm.com.au
The Australian Festival of Chamber Music has good reason to be in a celebratory mood, what with this year marking its 30th anniversary. To help push the boat out in style, artistic director Kathryn Stott has chosen a theme of ‘Carnival’ for a ten-day event that will see the likes of cellist Sheku Kanneh-mason and violinists Alexander Sitkovetsky and Lise Berthaud – and, of course, pianist Stott herself – flying over from Europe and pitching up in this handsome city on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Australian talent is, of course, well-represented too, ranging from 12-year-old violinist Christian
Li, the festival’s youngest performer, to didgeridoo legend William Barton and the Goldner Quartet, who are celebrating their own 25th anniversary this year.
DON’T MISS:
Beethoven 250th Anniversary Celebration 6 August
Three concerts pay homage to this year’s biggest anniversary, including an evening recital based around Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata.
Singapore International Piano Festival
When: 4-7 June
Where: Singapore
Tel: +65 6602 4245
Web: www.sso.org.sg/sipf
Beethoven plays a big part in this four-day festival devoted to the 88-keyed beast. And someone clearly has a nice sense of irony, as the event kicks off with his Sonata No. 26, ‘Les Adieux’. It’s played by Nelson Goerner, who also includes works by Albéniz and Godowsky in the programme. The three following evenings see Mei Yi Foo, Leon Mccawley and Christian Zacharias take to the Victoria Concert Hall stage, exploring nearly 300 years of pianistic history that runs from Scarlatti in the 18th century to Unsuk Chin in the present day. To complete the picture, Mccawley and Mei Yi Foo will be sharing their knowledge in afternoon masterclasses.
DON’T MISS:
Mei Yi Foo 5 June
The winner of the 2013 BBC Music Magazine Newcomer of the Year Award brings together 20th-century composers from France and Hungary, as works by Ravel and Messiaen sit either side of Bartók and György Kurtág.
Canberra International Music Festival
When: 1-10 May
Where: Canberra, Australia Tel: +61 2 6230 5880 Web: www.cimf.org.au
Bringing together some of the finest contemporary Australian composers and performers, this year’s festival puts the human voice at the heart of its programming. Branching out of the concert hall, venues include the High Court of Australia – which will provide the setting for an evening of protest and liberation music – and the Australian National Botanic Gardens, for a musical walk through the banksias. Didgeridoo player William Barton is doing the rounds of the festivals this year, and he’ll be stopping off at the Australian capital on his travels, this time joined by his mother Delmae – an opera singer and descendant of the Bidjara tribe – for performances of traditional indigenous songs at Canberra's Parliament House.
DON’T MISS:
Birdsong at Dusk 30 April
Ensemble Offspring – a group made up of the unlikely combination of flute, clarinet and percussion – celebrates the natural Australian landscape, in particular its birdlife. A new trio by Hollis Taylor and Jon Rose features real-life field recordings of the pied butcherbird, captured across all four seasons in the centre of Australia.
Abu Dhabi Festival
When: 31 March-9 April Where: Abu Dhabi, United
Arab Emirates
Tel: +971 (0)50 129 9103
Web: www.abudhabifestival.ae
As the United Arab Emirates prepares for its golden jubilee year, the country’s largest classical music festival joins in the celebrations with a programme of orchestral music, opera, ballet and jazz. As the first ever American ensemble to appear at the festival, the Cleveland Orchestra is joined by several formidable artists: British baritone Simon Keenlyside performs a selection of arias, before handing over to cellist and previous festival headliner Yo-yo Ma for Dvo ák’s Cello Concerto. The festival launches its very own youth orchestra this year, which joins the Emirates Youth Symphony Orchestra for a family-friendly concert featuring Saint-saëns’s The Carnival of the Animals and Ravel’s Boléro.
DON’T MISS:
Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet 3-4 April
The Cleveland Orchestra joins the American Ballet Theatre for one of the company’s signature productions: Kenneth Macmillan’s staging of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, with Prokofiev’s glittering score.
Greyton Genadendal Classics for All Festival
When: 21-24 May Where: Greyton and Genadendal, South Africa
Tel: +27 28 254 9564
Web: www.classicsforall.co.za
This intimate and friendly festival takes place in two villages at the foot of the Sonderend Mountains on South Africa’s Western Cape. Some of the country’s top musicians descend on Greyton and Genadendal for four days of music, community engagement and education, with the majority of the concerts taking place in the Moravian and Dutch Reformed churches. This year’s festival will see performances by Intonga Reed Quintet, Ubuntu Ensemble (featuring double bassist Leon Bosch), Trio Goede Hoop and the Cape Town Philharmonic Youth Wind Ensemble.
DON’T MISS:
Gala Concert 23 May
Expect music from famous operas, popular classical songs and more at this year’s popular Saturday evening gala, which takes place at Genadendal’s Moravian Church. It features the Classics for All Ensemble (including saxophonist Liam Burden and violinist Valentina Koleva Vorster), tenors Johannes van Staden-slabbert and Thobela Ntshanyana, baritones Raimondo van Staden-slabbert and Van Wyk Venter, pianist Philippus Hugo and the Berea Moravian Primary School Choir.
Tokyo Summer Festival
When: 13 March – 18 April 2020 Where: Tokyo, Japan Email: info@tokyo-harusai.com Web: www.tokyo-harusai.com
This year’s festival kicks off in style with the legendary Riccardo Muti conducting Verdi’s Macbeth, featuring a Japanese and Italian cast. And the opera highlights continue with Marek Janowski at the helm of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, starring Andreas Schager and Petra Lang; and Il trittico, starting a new Puccini series for the festival. But it’s Beethoven whose music is threaded through this year’s programme, from Stefan Winter’s sound-art homage The Ninth Wave – Ode to Nature to Beethoven’s complete piano trios. Painting meets piano in Yoshihiro Kondo’s recital inspired by the Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershoi, while a tango group adds a hint of Argentine atmosphere to proceedings.
DON’T MISS:
Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis 12 April Beethoven’s choral masterpiece, written to go ‘from the heart, to the heart’,
comes to the main hall of Tokyo Bunka Kaikan this April. Conductor Marek Janowski, particularly renowned for his performances of music by the German Romantics, joins the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and Tokyo Opera Singers. And his first-rate soloists are soprano Iwona Sobotka, mezzo-soprano Elisabeth Kulman, tenor Christian Elsner and bass Ain Anger.
OUR FESTIVAL CHOICE Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival
When: 3-12 July
Where: Stellenbosch, South Africa
Tel: +27 21 808 2343
Web: www.sicmf.co.za
Performance and education are at the heart of this unique South African festival, which invites students from across the country and beyond to participate in ten days of coaching, masterclasses and concerts with local and international musicians. Tickets are available to watch both masterclasses and a selection of chamber and orchestral concerts throughout the festival. Teachers and performers include violinists Madeline Adkins and Nicholas Dautricourt, violist Juan Miguel Hernandez, cellist Alexander Buzlov and pianist Nina Schumann – who is also the festival’s artistic director.
DON’T MISS:
Finale Concert 12 July
The Festival Symphony Orchestra, made up of both teachers and students, performs The Rite of Spring in this festival finale performance. As the culmination of ten days of music-making, it promises to be a rousing experience for audience and participants alike, as South
Africa’s top student musicians take on Stravinsky’s work under Portuguese conductor Pedro Carneiro.
Mozart at Angkor
When: 16-20 November Where: Angkor Archaeological Park, Cambodia
Web: www.mozartatangkor.org
A Cambodian Magic Flute brings together Western and Cambodian culture with live performances in the sensational setting of Angkor’s historic Chau
Say Tevoda Temple. The Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra supports an international cast of 120 performers, including 50 traditional Cambodian musicians and dancers. They merge Mozart’s famous Masonic ritualinspired opera with a similarly themed Cambodian tale (called Reamker), performing alternately in German and Khmer. The performances, spread over five days, also feature several ‘Unescolisted Intangible Cultural Heritage’ treasures such as The Royal Ballet of Cambodia, Sbek Thom shadow puppetry and Lakhon Kohl masked dancing.
DON’T MISS:
Gala Performance 18 November
The cast and performers are sure to be on top form for this special performance, which is to be attended by His Majesty Norodom Sihamoni, King of Cambodia.