Rest of the World
Abu Dhabi Festival
United Arab Emirates, year-long Web: abudhabifestival.ae
Abu Dhabi is a festival that likes to spread its wings – and with a year-round programme, soars as it shares François Giraud’s staging of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman at New York’s Metropolitan Opera and flies Naseer Shannon’s Arabic Music Days over to Berlin. Back home, tenor Juan Diego Flórez, the Middle Eastern premiere of Tan Dun’s Buddha Passion and cellist Jian Wang have lit the fuse that ignites December’s appearance by Jordi Savall and Hespèrion XXI and La Capella Reial de Catalunya.
Weiwuying International Music Festival
National Kaohsiung Centre for the Arts, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 14-23 April Web: npac-weiwuying.org
With its opera house, concert hall, playhouse and recital hall, the breathtaking Centre for the Arts is the largest performance space under one roof in the world.
An ambitious festival was surely inevitable.
Composer Unsuk Chin is the artistic director, and this second edition revels in bold statements.
It opens with a bang as David Robertson conducts John Adams’s
Doctor Atomic Symphony; plus, pianist Francesco
Piemontesi unites
Schubert and Debussy, and Ligeti's centenary gets a look-in too.
Canberra International Music Festival
Canberra, Australia, 27 April – 7 May Web: cimf.org.au
As next year’s 30th-anniversary edition beckons, Canberra is bonding with its inner child – a theme that pairs Britten’s The Children’s Crusade with fairy-tale
Ravel and lifts the lid on sibling rivalry.
The Ligeti centenary is remembered; the Brodsky Quartet premieres a new work by Andrew Ford in a concert that also includes didgeridoo maestro William Barton; and the Australian Haydn Ensemble plays happy families with the Mozarts, Haydns and Wolfgang’s London friend, JC Bach.
Coriole Music Festival
Mclaren Vale, Australia, 20, 21 May Web: coriolemusicfestival.com Coriole doesn’t just feed the soul
– its small-but-perfectly-formed programme nourishes with food and local wine. This year’s theme ponders ‘Isolation and Reunion’ in an adroitly plotted trajectory that starts with Paul
Stanhope’s Monteverdi-inspired piano trio Dolcissimo Uscignolo and culminates in Britten’s Les Illuminations. New works by Gerard Brophy and Anne Cawrse rub shoulders with Nielsen and Messiaen, Bach and Stravinsky.
Michael Hill International Violin Competition Queenstown & Auckland, New Zealand, 2-10 June
Web: michaelhillviolincompetition.co.nz
Its associate Whakatipu Music Festival might be taking a breather, but for fiddlefanciers the Michael Hill International Violin Competition generates a festival all of its own. En route to the grand finale featuring the Auckland Philharmonia, there’s solo Bach and a new work by Michael Norris in Queenstown; as the action heads north, expect Piazzolla, Mozart and pianist Piers Lane
Suntory Hall Chamber Music Garden Suntory Hall, Tokyo, 3-18 June
Web: suntory.com
Herbert von Karajan called Tokyo’s Suntory Hall a ‘jewel box of sound’, and for over two decades the shining gem in the crown of the venue’s intimate Blue Rose auditorium has been a chamber music festival that, by tradition, now wraps itself around a complete cycle of the Beethoven string quartets – shouldering the set for 2023 is the Elias Quartet. Meanwhile, a seven-year project devoted to the piano trio showcases Beethoven, Debussy and Rachmaninov courtesy of the Aoi Trio; and Brahms is fêted twice-over.
Stellenbosch Chamber Music Festival Stellenbosch, South Africa,
30 June – 9 July
Web: sicmf.co.za
Building on the success of last year’s resumption of activities, Stellenbosch is back and raring to go. 2022 was spearheaded by a faculty of some 32 international artists who mentored, gave masterclasses and performed alongside over 200 participants. Making his festival debut this year is conductor Julien Benichou, who joins returnees including violinist Daniel Rowland and percussionist Jauvon Gilliam.
Jerusalem Lyric Opera Festival
Jerusalem, Israel, 8-25 July Web: www.lyric-opera.org
Heralded by an International Opera Competition at the beginning of July, Jerusalem’s annual celebration of the musical stage is bookended by two works: Handel’s 1735 hit Alcina and
Bizet’s Carmen (a femme fatale also homaged with an evening including Ravel and Falla). Recitals reference the Rachmaninov anniversary and, in billets-doux by Monteverdi and Handel, the art of the love letter. Plus, an evening of bel canto experiences a Spanish swerve.
Tel Aviv Summer Opera Festival Tel Aviv, Israel, 10-29 July
Web: summeroperatlv.co.il
Summer’s go-to for young singers wanting to hone their operatic craft, the festival mixes coaching and masterclasses with fully-staged opera, a music-theatre concert and a gala finale of arias and ensembles. For 2023 the operas under consideration include Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Handel’s Giulio Cesare, Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha and Britten’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Music in Pyeongchang
Gangwon, South Korea, 26 July – 5 August
Web: mpyc.kr
It’s all change at Music in Pyeongchang as cellist Sung-won Yang takes over as artistic director in time for the 20th anniversary edition of a programme bringing solo recitals, masterclasses, orchestral music and song to Gangwon Province. He follows in the footsteps of violinist Kyung-wha Chung. Check the website for up-to-date information.
Australian Festival of Chamber Music
Townsville, Queensland, 28 July – 6 August Web: afcm.com.au
What with a spot of After Party koala cuddling, not to mention the whale watching, music could easily play second fiddle at violinist Jack Liebeck’s Queensland festival. No chance of that, however, when the roster of artists musters the Goldner String Quartet, pianist Katya Apekisheva and composerin-residence Sally Beamish. Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, a chamber reduction of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony and some of the artists’ ‘Guilty Pleasures’ give the koalas a run for their money!
Taipei Music Academy and Festival
Taipei, Taiwan, 29 July – 13 August Web: taipeimaf.com
With so many distinguished American musicians on its faculty, when Covid threatened to cancel the 2021 festival the solution was a no-brainer – it simply relocated to San Francisco. Back in Taiwan, last year Kent Nagano took charge of the concluding orchestral tour that crowned a chamberfest and the All-star Concert in the National Concert Hall. Leonard Slatkin takes over the baton this year for a programme of Rossini, Hindemith and Sibelius.
Tasmanian Chamber Music Festival
Hobart and New Norfolk, 20-22 October Web: taschamberfestival.com.au
The moveable feast that is Tasmania’s springtime dalliance with chamber music alights on the island’s capital, where the Ballroom of Government House resounds to Mendelssohn and Schubert from the Orava String Quartet. In a candlelit St David’s Cathedral, The Song Company has the William Byrd 400th anniversary covered.