Rest of the World
Abu Dhabi Festival
United Arab Emirates, year-long
Web: www.abudhabifestival.ae
After last year’s bold declaration that ‘The Future Starts Here’, the Festival is in pursuit of ‘Creation, Innovation and Joy’ as it unpacks ‘Crafting the Emirates’ State of Mind’. It’s nothing if not outwardlooking. ‘Discover Arab Music Days’ in Berlin vie with Verdi from Spain’s Teatro Real and a collaboration with the Festival d’aix-en-provence.
Whakatipu Music Festival
Queenstown, New Zealand, 15-18 April
Tel: +64 (0)21 434432
Web: michaelhillviolincompetition.co.nz
Fringed by mountains and washed by the sparkling waters of lake Whakatipu, the festival nurtures emerging talent alongside seasoned professionals and grassroots initiatives. The result is both hands-on and eclectic. Amid the chamber music, a Taonga pūora seminar spotlights traditional Māori instruments, while featured artists include soprano Madeleine Pierard, pianist Stephen De Pledge and composer Lucy Mulgan (whose festival commission receives its first performance).
Canberra International Music Festival
Canberra, ACT, Australia, 29 April – 8 May
Tel: +61 (0)2 6230 5880
Web: www.cimf.org.au
Anyone for an ‘Ears Up’ concert specially conceived for dogs and owners blessed with hypersensitive hearing? It’s one of artistic director Roland Peelman’s more left-field fancies in a festival journeying from ‘Pole to Pole’. Navigating trails through the natural world, Peelman puns deftly on his chosen theme, showcasing Polish musicians as well as Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles painting. Across 41 events, early music from Spain rubs shoulders with new Australian works; and Haydn looms large – from The Creation to the ‘Sun’ quartets by way of breakfast summons.
4MBS Festival of Classics
Brisbane, Queensland,
Australia, 8-29 May
Tel: +61 (0)7 3847 1717
Web: www.4mbs.com.au
Come October, 4MBS’S festival focus will be turning to Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet, but first up is May’s musical extravaganza – a south-east Queensland fixture and Australia’s most extensive celebration of classical music. For 2022, celebrating its 150th anniversary, the Queensland Choir squares up alongside Ensemble Q and the Gold Coast Piano Quartet to a theme that cunningly preempts October’s brush with the Bard: ‘The Great Romantics’.
Coriole Music Festival
Mclaren Vale,
South Australia, 21-22 May
Tel: +61 (0)8 8236 7499
Web: www.coriolemusicfestival.com
South of Adelaide in the Mclaren Vale wine region is a winery that for over 20 years has been perfecting the art of blending good food and music. ‘The Sense of an Ending’ hangs over this year’s offering, which explores late works by Liszt, Shostakovich, Lili Boulanger and Richard Strauss among others. The Seraphim Trio gives the Australian premiere of Brett Dean’s Imaginary Ballet and there’s the world premiere of Andrew Ford’s The Blessing.
Stellenbosch Chamber Music Festival
Stellenbosch, South Africa, 1-10 July
Tel: +27 72 531 3235
Web: www.sicmf.co.za
2022 marks a return to live music making at the Stellenbosch Konservatorium,
where for 16 years until the pandemic intervened some 300 young musicians from South Africa and further afield convened under the nurturing gaze of an international faculty drawing on musicians from the US, Europe and South Africa. Public masterclasses as well as chamber and orchestral concerts are on offer. South African-born, New York-based Kathleen Tagg is composer-in-residence.
Music in Pyeongchang
Gangwon, South Korea, 2-23 July
Web: www.mpyc.kr/en
Violinist Kyung-wha Chung and cellist Myung-wha Chung are among past directors of a festival which celebrates its 20th anniversary next year. Spread across Gangwon Province, its main home is the Alpensia Concert Hall and Music Tent; and as well as some 30 masterclasses, over 20 concerts run the gamut from solo recitals and song to orchestral music from the Pyeongchang Festival Orchestra. Pianist Yeol Eum Son is the current artistic director, which might account for this summer’s particularly fine keyboard line-up including Simon Trpčeski and Alexander Melnikov.
Pacific Music Festival
Sapporo, Japan, 16 July – 2 August
Web: www.pmf.or.jp/en
Each summer, young musicians from around the world come together at the festival founded by Leonard Bernstein in 1990. And while a faculty including players from the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics put them through their paces, outreach work is just as important. Principal conductor this year is the music director of the Israel Philharmonic
Lahav Shani, and he’s assisted by the Milwaukee Symphony’s Ken-david Masur. Works include Brahms’s Symphony No. 2 and Mendelssohn’s ‘Reformation’ Symphony.
Australian Festival of Chamber Music
Townsville, Queensland,
Australia, 29 July – 7 August
Tel: +61 (0)7 47714144
Web: www.afcm.com.au
Australia’s pre-eminent chamber music festival has long been fortunate in its artistic directors, and the latest of them, violinist Jack Liebeck, hits the ground running after business-as-usual resumes following a two-year abeyance. The festival musters at least one postponed act of salvage: the premiere of variations on Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ theme by 25 Australian composers to mark the quarter-century of the Goldner Quartet. Threaded throughout are works by
Paul Dean, including a new Concerto for Chamber Orchestra. Science is ‘illuminated’; a new festival garden envelops an outdoor stage; and in a trail of ‘guilty pleasures’, accordionist James Crabb salutes Bon Jovi.
Taipei Music Academy and Festival
Taipei, Taiwan, 31 July – 14 August
Tel: +886 2 2511-5383
Web: www.taipeimaf.com
Taipei has always taken the lofty view – its Festival HQ clings to a mountainside, after all. So, having played to full houses in 2020, after Covid struck it relocated to San Francisco last year. Now it’s home again and with a faculty that includes conductor Kent Nagano, the New York Philharmonic String Quartet and violinist-director Cho-liang Lin. Conducted by Nagano, the concluding orchestral tour pairs Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Mahler’s Symphony No. 4.
Brisbane Festival
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 2-24 September
Tel: +61 (0)7 38335400
Web: www.brisbanefestival.com.au
It’s promising ‘wonder, delight and celebration’, but Brisbane 2022 has big boots to fill. Last year’s jamboree notched up 128 sold-out performances and reached some one-and-a-half-million people. Camerata – Queensland’s own chamber orchestra – teams up with singer-songwriter Lior for Compassion, his 2013 collaboration with composer Nigel Westlake. There’s a tri-lingual reworking of Shakespeare’s Othello; Israeli conductor Asher Fisch continues his Brahms symphony cycle with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra; and Poulenc’s opera for solo soprano, La voix humaine, partners an intriguing new operatic update with a twist.
Tyalgum Music Festival
Tyalgum, New South Wales, Australia, 16-18 September
Web: www.tyalgumfestival.com.au
Tyalgum’s 30th-anniversary programme last year was unavoidably cancelled, but if at first you don’t succeed… let it live to fight another day (especially given such a strong one!). Between opening Debussy and closing Franck, there's a showing of the 1908 film scored by Saintsaëns, L’assassinat du Duc de Guise, and horn-playing director Peter Luff takes part in the work that first brought him to the festival – the Schubert Octet. It’s performed alongside Nielsen and a new work by Catherine Likhuta.