Live choice
Paul Riley picks the month’s best concert and opera highlights in the UK
New Music Biennial
Southbank Centre, London,
1-3 July
Web: southbankcentre.co.uk
From electronic Middle Eastern rave-jazz to a meditation on breathing uniting Armonico and saxophonist Amy Dickson, the tenth-anniversary edition takes the pulse of contemporary music in all its diversity. The National Youth Orchestra immerses itself in Errollyn Wallen’s Mighty River, and there’s anarchy from the London Sinfonietta.
Opera Holland Park
Ilchester Place, London, 1-3 July Web: operahollandpark.com Delius’s Margot la rouge and Mark Adamos’s Little Women fly the operatic flag over London W8, but a parallel song series includes a three-day Schubertiad devoted to the song cycles, sung by baritones Roderick Williams (Winterreise) and Julien Van Mellaerts (Die schöne Müllerin) and mezzo Ema Nikolovska (Schwanengesang, coupled with the premiere of Errollyn Wallen’s The Lake).
Academy of Ancient Music
Barbican, London, 1 July
Web: barbican.org.uk
Laurence Cummings’s debut season as artistic director concludes with a programme given over entirely to Mozart. Bookended by the ballet music from Idomeneo and the ‘Jupiter’ Symphony, the composer’s Concerto for three keyboards, K242 assigns the solo fireworks to Cummings, erstwhile director Richard Egarr and Robert Levin.
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Symphony Hall, Birmingham, 2 July
Web: cbso.co.uk
One hundred-and-twenty-five years after it was premiered at the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival, Sir Charles Villiers Stanford’s Requiem is coming home. University of Birmingham
Voices supply the vocal heft for a performance conducted by Martyn Brabbins (See ‘Backstage with…’, right). Soprano Carolyn Sampson heads the solo team.
Christian Gerhaher
Wigmore Hall, London,
3 & 6 July
Web: wigmore-hall.org.uk
Who’s afraid of Hugo Wolf? Certainly not the German baritone, who revisits the Italian and Spanish song books.
Mezzo Anna Lucia Richter is his companion for the Italian leg, while three nights later soprano Julia Kleiter accompanies him to Spain – Gerold Huber is the pianist for both excursions.
London Conchord Ensemble
Gower Peninsula, 4-6 July Web: gowerfestival.org
In residence for the first three days of the Gower Festival, the
London Conchord Ensemble shares its musical largesse in churches in Newton, Reynoldston and Oystermouth. Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet is tickled on opening night, and nonets by Martinu˚ and Spohr partner Beethoven on the last.
Buxton Festival Opera
Buxton, 8-22 July
Web: buxtonfestival.co.uk
Inspired by Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake, Rossini’s La donna del lago launches an operatic strand that includes Hasse’s Antonio e Cleopatra, Jonathan Dove’s Mansfield Park and Tom Coult’s Violet. The Rossini, conducted by Adrian Kelly and directed by Jacopo Spirei, has Irish soprano Máire Flavin – making her debut at the festival – as the much-pursued Elena, while Buxton regular Catherine Carby plays Malcom.
Orchestra of the Swan
Hellens Manor, Much Marcle, 7 July
Web: orchestraoftheswan.org
The harp reveries of Debussy’s Danse sacrée et danse profane and Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro are bolstered by arrangements of Satie and Rameau in a Franco-american dialogue that fields landscapes by Cage and William Grant Still, plus works by John Adams and Philip Glass.
Gonzaga Band
NCEM St Margaret’s, York, 10 July
Web: ncem.co.uk
‘Connections’ is the thread that binds this year’s York Early Music Festival, and Venice insinuates itself into several programmes including the Gabrieli Consort’s recreation of the 1595 coronation of Doge Marino Grimani. The Gonzaga Band turns the clock forward, however, and to music from the class of 1629 by Schütz, Monteverdi, Castello and Marini.
Classical Mixtape
Gloucester Cathedral, 11 July Web: cheltenhamfestivals.com Cheltenham Festival might be ending on an elevated high with Mahler’s ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ (also in Gloucester Cathedral), but first it renews its penchant for the ‘mixtape’. Dispensing seamless soundbites from platforms around the cathedral are Manchester Collective, accordionist Samuele Telari and the Choir of Merton College, Oxford.
Mladenovi -wilson Duo
Portico of Ards, Portaferry, 17 July
Web: porticoards.com
Irish composer-pianist Ian
Wilson and violinist Du ica Mladenovic´ give the premiere of a new version of Satie Ungraved, Wilson’s 2018 concerto reworking of Satie’s Socrate. The duo also performs Wilson’s From
the Book of Longing in a recital that prefaces Arvo Pärt’s Fratres with Schubert.
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Glenrothes and Musselburgh, 22 & 23 July
Web: sco.org.uk
The orchestra’s summer tour resumes, visiting some 25 Scottish towns and cities, and for the first time invites along the SCO Chorus. In Glenrothes and Musselburgh, Philip Higham is the soloist in Haydn’s C major Cello Concerto, framed by symphonic Mozart and Vranick´y. Maxim Emelyanychev conducts.
Fretwork
Great Hall, Dartington, 24 July Web: dartington.org
The Dartington Music Summer School and Festival opens in 16th-century Germany, but the following day viol consort Fretwork turns spotlights on England and the 400th birthday of Matthew Locke, whose consort music is paired with that of his pupil Henry Purcell. There’s also music by Gavin Bryars, inspired by Purcell.
Triple Concert
Castle Howard, 27 July
Web: ryedalefestival.com Troubadour Trails and ‘100 years of jazz in 99 minutes’ are among Ryedale Festival’s 2022 boasts, but the traditional triple-decker concert at Castle Howard remains a must-hear. In the Long Gallery, baritone Ashley Riches and pianist Joseph Middleton navigate a ‘Musical Zoo’, the Great Hall resounds to Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet, and in the Chapel, the Gesualdo Six contemplates Compline.
Music in Country Churches
St Margaret’s, Cley-next-the-sea, 26 July
Web: musicincountrychurches.org.uk Two Norfolk concerts crown the 32nd series parachuting music into exquisite ecclesiastical spaces. Directed by Stephanie Gonley, the English Chamber Orchestra succumbs to serenades by Elgar, Dag Wirén and Tchaikovsky. Craig Ogden premieres William Lovelady’s new Guitar Concerto.
Pavel Kolesnikov
Paxton House, Berwick-upontweed, 27 & 28 July (see p58) Web: musicatpaxton.co.uk
It’s 100 years since the death of Marcel Proust, and Kolesnikov marks the centenary with a programme orbiting works by Proust’s sometime partner Reynaldo Hahn spliced with Schubert, Franck and Fauré. The following day he’s joined by piano duo partner Samson Tsoy for more Schubert, plus Brahms.
Corbridge Chamber Music Festival
St Andrew’s Church, Corbridge, 28-31 July
Web: corbridgefestival.co.uk Guests joining the Gould Piano Trio and clarinettist Robert Plane in Roman Corbridge include the Elias Quartet and composer-inresidence Piers Hellawell, two of whose works are stitched into four days also featuring the music of Pamela Harrison.
Elisabeth Leonskaja
St John the Evangelist Church, Oxford, 30 July
Web: oxfordpianofestival.com
The young Brahms’s barnstorming piano sonatas wowed the Schumanns but are intermittent visitors to recital programmes these days. Leonskaja braves all three for an Oxford Piano Festival that also welcomes Ingrid Fliter, Víkingur Ólafsson and Nikolai Lugansky.
Philharmonia & Festival Chorus
Hereford Cathedral, 30 July
Web: 3choirs.org
The Three Choirs Festival opens with Dvoˇrák’s Requiem, musters eight premieres alongside works from over 40 living composers, and ends with one of its own: Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius (the very text Dvoˇrák had rejected in favour of writing his Requiem). For the Elgar, conductor Geraint Bowen assembles a compelling trio of soloists: mezzo Sarah Connolly, tenor Nicky Spence and bassbaritone Neal Davies.
Aurora Orchestra
Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden, 31 July
Web: saffronhall.com
For nearly a decade, the Aurora Orchestra’s performances from memory have become something of a calling card, and here they duly oblige with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. But, even with them playing from the score, Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 should be no less of an edge-of-seat experience, what with Patricia Kopatchinskaja as the soloist.