It’s that time of year again… Spring has finally sprung, and along with the promised sunshine we welcome a brand-new season of glorious summer music. This year, festivals around the world have pulled out all the stops to offer a wonderful range of repertoire, from the crowd-pleasing to the obscure, featuring an even more dazzling line-up of artists. And we're beginning our rundown of this year's best festivals with the best UK classical music festivals for 2024.
Among the highlights, the UK cathedrals of Norwich and Gloucester host atmospheric performances, while the US mountain ranges of Colorado and Idaho draw such top names as Yo-Yo Ma and Renée Fleming. Not to be outdone, the historic cities of Prague and Amsterdam each muster 50 pianos to stage Georg Friedrich Haas’s 11,000 Saiten. And not forgotten are this year’s birthday boys – Holst, Puccini and Bruckner – who, from Granada to Matsumoto, receive due celebration.
Elsewhere we run through the festivals in Europe, the US and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and and the rest of the world. But here, we're kicking off with the UK's best classical music festivals for 2024. Reach for your diary, and prepare to be tempted!
Charlotte Smith Editor
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The UK's best classical music festivals in 2024
Best UK classical music festivals: May 2024
Tectonics
Glasgow, 4, 5 May
tectonicsfestival.com
Anchored by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Tectonics returns to the Old Fruitmarket and City Halls at the start of a second decade of genre-bending brio. Co-curated by conductor Ilan Volkov and Alasdair Campbell, it throws down a gauntlet on behalf of the new, with an international line-up that includes Japanese experimental rock band leader Koichi Makigami, New York vocalist Ka Baird and the world premiere of a piece for orchestra and tape by Charles Uzor. Plus, violinist Ilya Gringolts gives the UK premieres of works by Sciarrino and Mirela Ivičevič.
Brighton Festival
Brighton, 4-26 May
brightonfestival.org
Multi-arts Brighton has invited writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce to be this year’s guest director, and he’s promising ‘a cargo of wonders’ ranging from an installation involving 100 miles of string to mass table tennis participation.
Among the musical ‘wonders’, the LSO under Antonio Pappano venture Barber, Ravel and Rachmaninov; at Glyndebourne, harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani and members of the Britten Sinfonia are immersed in Bach; and asking ‘What’s so great about opera?’, mezzo Hilary Summers caps ‘I’m a Puccini heroine addict’ with a one-woman bite-sized version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute.
Norfolk and Norwich Festival
Norwich, 10-26 May
nnfestival.org.uk
Nothing quite says summer like the Chapelfield Gardens’s Spiegeltent where, from Ragroof Tea Dance to South American circus, festival afficionados let their hair down. Chamber Choir Ireland and late-evening Messiaen colonise the city’s Cathedral, while the medieval Guildhall screens specially commissioned films inspired by music.
The Octagon Chapel, however, is not to be outdone. As well as a BBC New Generation Artists series, Apartment House introduces a new work by Cassandra Miller, and organists James McVinnie and Eliza McCarthy buckle up for the eight-hours duration of Jonny Greenwood’s 268 Years of Reverb.
Chipping Campden Festival
Chipping Campden, 11-25 May
campdenmayfestivals.co.uk
Founding artistic director Charlie Bennett stepped down after last year’s festival, but his guiding spirit lives on. The Festival Academy Orchestra is at hand for Ravel from pianist Steven Osborne, and Strauss’s sublime Four Last Songs sung by Sophie Bevan.
Francesca Chiejina joins the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective for songs by Alma Mahler. And among a fine crop of pianists making their way to St James’s Church are Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Marc-André Hamelin and festival patron Paul Lewis.
Stamford International Music Festival
Stamford Arts Centre, 16-18 May
simfestival.com
Sharing its musical favours between the town’s Georgian Arts Centre and imposing St Martin’s Church, violinist Freya Goldmark’s compact celebration of chamber music returns as wide-ranging as ever. A Bohemian thread stretches from Smetana in the first concert to Dvořák in the last; and as well as Janáček’s Pohádka there’s a re-imagining, for string quartet and clarinet, of his piano cycle On an Overgrown Path.
Glyndebourne
Lewes, Sussex, 16 May-25 August
glyndebourne.com
There’s more to Glyndebourne than black-tie picnics on the lawn and bosky evenings of operatic opulence. Last December’s One Voice Festival of Singing convened some 2,000 schoolchildren; Glyndebourne Sinfonia and Chorus toured over 130 Sussex care homes; and a freshly configured autumn season juggled opera, recitals, masterclasses and concerts.
Still, there’s no denying that the summer festival is at the heart of the Glyndebourne experience – and has been for 90 years. Five productions gild 2024, with Bizet’s Carmen opening the season in a new staging by Diane Paulus conducted by Robin Ticciati. The other new production, a house ‘first’, is Lehár’s The Merry Widow, spearheaded by Danielle de Niese as the widow.
Among the revivals is a tercentenary nod to Handel’s Giulio Cesare (seasoned with a sprinkling of Bollywood, no less); and Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s veteran production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, which unites Miina-Liisa Värelä and Stuart Skelton as the ill-starred lovers.
Bath Festival
Bath, 17-26 May
bathfestivals.org.uk
Party in the City has become something of a Bath speciality, and with over 20,000 attendees last year, it fires the starting gun on a festival that combines the erstwhile music and literary festivals. At the heart of this year’s music programme is artist-in-residence and 2024 BBC Music Magazine Awards winner Sean Shibe, whose questing guitar explores Virginia Woolf’s Orlando with mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska, and dances Boccherini’s Fandango in the company of the Carducci Quartet. Beneath the Abbey’s glorious fan vaulting, Stile Antico revisits the Renaissance, while the Maxwell Quartet pair late Beethoven and Scottish folk music.
Sheffield Chamber Music Festival
Various venues, Sheffield, 17-25 May
musicintheround.co.uk
For its 40th anniversary, the festival invites cellist Steven Isserlis to be its guest curator; and given his Francophile leanings plus the Fauré centenary, Sheffield will be wearing its beret at a jaunty angle. Ensemble 360 and friends devote a day to Saint-Saëns, baritone Roderick Williams adds Fauré’s La bonne chanson and Ravel to the mix, and those up with the lark should convene at 5am, when Barber and Messiaen greet the dawn at Samuel Worth Chapel.
Perth Arts Festival
Perth, 22 May-1 June
perthfestival.co.uk
It’s not just opera divas who like to change frock mid-concert. In their tercentenary mash-up of the Four Seasons lassoing Vivaldi, Max Richter and Piazzolla, Il Giardino d’Amore sport seasonal costume adjustments at every turn. Meanwhile, Scots Opera Project sets Mozart’s The Magic Flute in an asylum, while Scottish Opera pop-ups propose ‘A Little Bit of The Merry Widow’ and ‘A Little Bit of Don Giovanni’. The Hebrides Ensemble reforges the Auld Alliance, and the Czech National Orchestra bestrides Bruch and Beethoven.
English Music Festival
Dorchester-on-Thames, 24-27 May
englishmusicfestival.org.uk
And still they come! The English Music Festival continues its happy knack of ferreting out Vaughan Williams premieres: this time, opening night’s unveiling is his concert fantasy Richard II. It is followed by Holst’s ‘Cotswolds’ Symphony in a BBC Concert Orchestra evening that also heads east for Doreen Carwithen’s Suffolk Suite. Her music also features in the closing concert, which falls to the English Symphony Orchestra.
Swaledale Festival
North Yorkshire, 25 May-8 June
swalefest.org
With Swaledale, Wensleydale and Arkengarthdale supplying the backdrop, the festival is painted on a rugged canvas that uplifts before a note has sounded. Clarinettist Emma Johnson’s Orchestra for the Environment includes her own Clarinet Concerto alongside Vaughan Williams, Puccini and Tchaikovsky; and among over 50 events, a rich harvest of string quartets (including the Brodskys and The Revolutionary Drawing Room) goes head-to-head with the four trombones of Bone-Afide. From Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time to dry stone walling, Swaledale seduces!
Opera Holland Park
London, 28 May-10 August
operahollandpark.com
Cue persecution, murder… and battlements! Italophile Opera Holland Park was never going to pass up marking the centenary of Puccini’s death, and it opens with Tosca (Amanda Echalaz in the title role). But OHP is also noted for following the path less travelled and obliges with three semi-staged performances of Puccini’s early ‘dramma lirico’ Edgar, featuring Peter Auty as the conflicted knight.
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Add in a close shave with Rossini’s The Barber of Seville plus a Wolf-Ferrari/Leoncavallo double bill, and the reign of the Italian composers is maintained. But not without contest – Handel’s Acis and Galatea and Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Yeomen of the Guard stand their ground with pomp, circumstance and pastoralism.
Garsington Opera
Wormsley Estate, Buckinghamshire, 29 May-31 July
garsingtonopera.org
With the handsome new studio complex up and running, Garsington has a smile on its face this summer. There’s rollercoaster comedy from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro plus spells and enchantment as Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream works its magic.
Space travel beckons courtesy of a new community opera by Andrew Norman, but A Trip to the Moon isn’t the only novelty. Directed by Paul Agnew, the Garsington debut of Rameau’s sumptuous extravaganza Platée returns The English Concert to bucolic Bucks and, postponed during lockdown, Verdi’s early comedy Un Giorno di Regno finally claims its belated crown in a new production by Christopher Alden.
Best UK classical music festivals: June 2024
Nevill Holt Festival
Market Harborough, Leicestershire, 1-26 June
nevillholtopera.co.uk
A new year. A new festival. Sort of. Erstwhile Nevill Holt Opera has rebranded itself, though with its award-winning purpose-built opera house it has not quite abandoned the musical stage. Directed by Melly Still, Mozart’s The Magic Flute launches Nevill Holt’s reincarnation, and there’s more than a whiff of magic to what follows. Tenor Nicky Spence and soprano Mary Bevan issue invitations to ‘A most Marvellous Party’; late Brahms and Chopin absorb pianist Benjamin Grosvenor; and Britten Sinfonia premieres works by Benjamin Kwasi Burrell and Sergey Akhunov.
Summer Music in City Churches
London, 6-15 June
summermusiccitychurches.com
No need to feel cheated that the festival is restricting itself to just one church this summer. In St Giles Cripplegate, Oliver Cromwell was married, John Milton is buried, and William Shakespeare had lodgings nearby – remembered in this year’s theme. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra sets the scene with Finzi’s Introduction to Love’s Labour’s Lost; the Fauré centenary is variously observed; and love is in the air as violinist David Juritz heads up the Curve Ensemble for Nuevo Tango.
Grange Park Opera
West Horsley Place, Surrey, 6 June-14 July
grangeparkopera.co.uk
Grange Park Opera’s purpose-built theatre-in-the-woods is the opera house that refuses to sit still – in prospect are two new panoramic roof terraces and a treetop studio. Anchored by the great Bryn Terfel, Rachmaninov and Puccini kickstart the new season as Stephen Medcalf stages Aleko and Gianni Schicchi.
They’re conducted by Stephen Barlow, who also shoulders Janáček’s harrowing Kát’a Kabanová. Donizetti’s Daughter of the Regiment, meanwhile, enlists Nico Darmanin to brave its notorious salvo of top ‘C’s while, following 2021’s premiere of The Life and Death of Alexander Litvinenko, Grange Park once again champions Anthony Bolton as it unveils his Tempest-based opera Island of Dreams.
The Grange Festival
Alresford, Hampshire, 6 June-6 July
thegrangefestival.co.uk
To describe the splendid neo-classical Grange as a ‘roofed ruin’ sells it short. For some two decades, an award-winning theatre has repurposed the Orangery, and not one but two opera series have taken root in halcyon Hampshire.
The second incarnation, Grange Festival, is masterminded by countertenor Michael Chance who adds jazz and dance to a predominantly operatic mix. Scheming passion and madness inform a 2024 edition orbiting Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, Puccini’s Tosca and Stravinsky’s Hogarth-inspired The Rake’s Progress.
Aldeburgh Festival
Snape Maltings and around, 7-23 June
brittenpearsarts.org
When EM Forster observed that a festival should be festive, distinctive and responsive to its setting, he had Aldeburgh in mind: 75 festivals on, Forster’s vision and that of founders Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears remains vibrantly intact. Aldeburgh’s landmark edition isn’t the only anniversary celebrated; in majestic Blythburgh Church, 60 years after its premiere there, Britten’s Curlew River is revisited.
All told, 26 premieres – world and UK – underscore Aldeburgh’s continuing commitment to the new. But the ‘old’ isn’t sidelined, as Vox Luminis recreates the enchanted world of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen. 2024’s featured composers are Unsuk Chin and Judith Weir, whose opera Blond Eckbert launches the festival in a new production by Robin Norton Hale.
Northern Aldborough Festival
Aldborough, N Yorks, 13-22 June
aldboroughfestival.co.uk
Not to be confused with its Suffolk sound-alike, Northern Aldborough also coincidentally boasts a performance of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, this one by the Armonico Consort. Orbiting St Andrew’s Church, the festival will be celebrating its 30th anniversary in the company of violinist Viktoria Mullova, who mulls over Beethoven and Schubert with pianist Alasdair Beatson; and, with a jury including Sir John Tomlinson and Edward Gardner, a second iteration of the new Singing Voices Competition has an eye on vocal futures.
Longborough Festival Opera
Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, 16 June-6 August
lfo.org.uk
Leafy Longborough’s operatic adventures start a little later this summer. Perhaps the company is keeping its powder dry because, five years in the forging, three complete cycles of Wagner’s Ring beckon – directed by Amy Lane and conducted by Anthony Negus.
An enterprising Wagnerian ‘fringe’ is wrapped around the season engaging the likes of Simon Callow, John Tomlinson and Susan Bullock, and there’s also just enough room to accommodate the Puccini centenary, as Alice Farnham conducts six performances of La bohème.
Stour Music
Boughton Aluph, Kent, 21-30 June
stourmusic.org.uk
There are fireworks both visual and musical, as I Fagiolini’s director Robert Hollingworth continues his guardianship of the festival Alfred Deller founded over 60 years ago. Steven Devine conducts Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks alongside the Water Music (just in case anything needs dousing!) And there’s more Handel as Liberata Collective presents a staging of Orlando complete with Baroque gestures.
The irrepressible Barokksolistene alongside soprano Mary Bevan are let loose in ‘Purcell’s Playground’; and, following an afternoon in Vienna wrapped around Haydn’s Wind Band Mass, a Viennese-style tea in the marquee is serenaded by the period instruments of Boxwood and Brass.
Thaxted Festival
Thaxted, 21 June-14 July
thaxtedfestival.co.uk
Gustav Holst took up residence in the picturesque Essex village on the eve of the First World War, and in his 150th birthday year, Thaxted is in celebratory mood. It opens with his Fugal Concerto No. 2; the Echo Ensemble salutes The Planets in words and music; meanwhile, Voces8 showcases some of the choral music alongside works by Caroline Shaw and Giovanni Croce. Composer-in-residence is Noah Max, and the premiere of his Symphony No. 1 comes courtesy of the London Mozart Players.
St Magnus Festival
Orkney, 21-28 June
stmagnusfestival.com
As the white nights of an Orcadian summer blend almost imperceptibly into day, the festival, in part instigated by composer Peter Maxwell Davies and Orkney poet George Mackay Brown, reaffirms its twin allegiance to the international and local.
Swedish folk music and Bach from artists-in-residence Musica Vitae bounce off each other; O Duo and soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn undertake the UK premiere of George Crumb’s percussion-rich American Songbook II; and in the ancient Kirkwall cathedral after whose saint the festival is named, Orff’s atavistic Carmina Burana unites the Festival Chorus in song.
Proms at St Jude’s
Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, 22-30 June
promsatstjudes.org.uk
From Tango to Tabakov, Motown to Mozart, NW11 is out to prove that South Kensington doesn’t have the Proms all to itself. And as the festival enters its fourth decade, lunchtime and evening concerts collide with heritage walks and an al fresco family day welcoming the recycled instruments of the Junk Orchestra. Inside lofty St Jude’s, the Fantasia Orchestra sizes up Uncle Sam; an expanded Kanneh-Mason Trio tickles Schubert’s Trout Quintet; and the Echo Ensemble slips Noah Max’s Axiom into an otherwise all-Mozart programme.
East Neuk Festival
Fife, 26-30 June
www.eastneukfestival.com
Zulu fishing boats, Celtic harping, a trio of leading string quartets, and pianist Boris Giltburg gild Fife’s musical finery as East Neuk embarks on a two-year celebration of two decades crafting ear-opening, exquisitely-fashioned festivals. The Pavel Haas Quartet and Belfiato Wind Quintet salute Janáček, Suk, Smetana, and Haas as part of the ‘Year of Czech Music’; the Julian Bliss Septet delves into the Gershwin Songbook; and in the Bowhouse, St Monans’ foodie heaven, Mozart and Beethoven go head-to-head as pianist-director Maxim Emelyanychev heads up the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival
Peasmarsh, East Sussex, 27-30 June
peasmarshfestival.co.uk
The much-missed Florestan Piano Trio may no longer be with us but, presided over by the sometime trio’s violinist and cellist Anthony Marwood and Richard Lester, the Sussex festival it established flourishes still. Guests for 2024 include the Barbican Piano Quartet and Britten Sinfonia. Peasmarsh’s Church of St Peter & St Paul hosts an eclectic programme spanning Byrd and Tallis to Elliott Carter and Valentin Silvestrov, while an excursion to Rye culminates in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1.
Penarth Chamber Music Festival
Penarth, South Wales, 27-30 June
penarthchambermusicfestival.org.uk
It all started with a sound check 10 years ago. And so was born a festival with a unique selling point: home is the Pavilion at the end of Penarth Pier. But not exclusively so in this special anniversary year – a Cardiff Gala features soprano Rebecca Evans and conductor Carlo Rizzi in the closing scene from Richard Strauss’s Capriccio (cut down to size by David Matthews).
A late-night sequel samples Poulenc, Ligeti and Britten; while the last day references Schoenberg’s Ode to Napoleon and actor Sam West’s Flat Holm Island Discs – played live by an ensemble led by festival directors, violinist David Adams and cellist Alice Neary.
Best UK classical music festivals: July 2024
JAM on the Marsh Festival
Romney Marsh, Kent, 4-14 July
jamconcert.org
In its more than 20 years of existence, JAM has premiered nearly 200 works, and as it returns to Romney Marsh, new music by John Frederick Hudson and Joseph Phibbs touches Kentish base. Tenor Mark Padmore makes his JAM debut during one of three concerts by the London Mozart Players. So too does Stephen Layton conducting the Holst Singers, and the class of 1934 teaches the chamber music strand a thing or two.
Buxton International Festival
Buxton, 4-21 July
buxtonfestival.co.uk
Go for the opera. Stay for the chamber music, jazz, dance, or the Pavilion Arts Centre’s love affair with books. There’s more to Buxton’s allure than the opera productions that slip so seductively into Frank Matcham’s intimate theatre.
Peter Brook’s pared-back Bizet Carmen heralds a new production of Verdi’s Ernani, Handel and Haydn, plus Ethel Smyth’s Boatswain’s Mate, which puts to sea directed by Nick Bond. Stile Antico delivers a concert trilogy in a single day; the Sitkovetsky Trio also appears in triplicate; and Paul Lewis performs Schubert’s last three piano sonatas.
Lichfield Festival
Lichfield, 4-14 July
lichfieldfestival.org
When it comes to associate artists, the festival in the city of Dr Johnson’s birth can call on a veritable dictionary of in-post performers. Among them, the BBC National Symphony Orchestra of Wales remembers Holst 150 with Egdon Heath; the Brodskys traverse the complete Shostakovich string quartet cycle; and, in the medieval cathedral, pianist Danny Driver plays candlelit Bach.
Deal Festival
Deal, Kent, 4-14 July
dealmusicandarts.com
With responses to Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos by composers including Brian Elias and composer-in-residence Florence Anna Maunders spliced into Chamber Domaine’s traversal of the complete set, Deal all but wraps up an edition charting French Connections in film and music.
The theme is apt. From the pier, spotting boats ferrying cross-Channel connections every few minutes is inescapable! Soprano Lucy Crowe combines a little French je ne sais quoi with songs by Schubert and Handel, and the Fidelio Trio dons life jackets for Sally Beamish’s ingenious piano trio reimagining of Debussy’s La Mer.
York Early Music Festival
York, 6-13 July
ncem.co.uk
‘Metamorfosi’ is the motto for York’s eight-day delve into the human voice – from medieval to Baroque and the South American beyond. Concerto Soave explores the vocal side of Frescobaldi; The Sixteen pursue parody in Lassus; the Gesualdo Six are on the trail of Josquin’s legacy right up to a recent work by Indian-American composer Shruthi Rajasekar; and Vox Luminis seeks the sacred in Monteverdi.
Florilegium, meanwhile, fetches up at the early-18th-century French Court, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment enjoys a convivial evening at Zimmermann’s Leipzig coffee house.
Cheltenham Festival
Cheltenham, 6-13 July
cheltenhamfestivals.com
With the composer’s birth house just a short stroll from the elegant Pittville Pump Room, the festival was never going to forget Holst 150. From a musical tour of Holst’s Cheltenham to the Hymn of Jesus in Gloucester Cathedral and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in the Edwardian Town Hall, he’s roundly fêted.
Other composers apply. Sean Shibe introduces a new guitar concerto by Cassandra Miller, and he joins the now-trademark Mixtape melange alongside pianist Clare Hammond, the Chaos String Quartet and the choir of Merton College, Oxford. The Dunedin Consort traces the Scottish-Canadian diaspora, while the green-fingered Marian Consort takes a trowel to Spain’s late-Renaissance choral horticulture.
Ryedale Festival
North Yorkshire, 12-28 July
ryedalefestival.com
The Castle Howard triple-decker concert has long been one of Ryedale’s hot tickets, but this year the house’s architecture comes in for special scrutiny in a new work by Sarah Frances Jenkins. Contemporary music flourishes, with UK and world premieres including a new string quartet from Julian Anderson and piano trios by Gabriel Prokofiev and Robert Zuidam.
At Ampleforth Abbey, Tenebrae performs the Howells Requiem, the Royal Northern Sinfonia prove themselves single-minded Mozartians in seaside Scarborough, and artist-in-residence Fleur Barron fuses kabuki theatre with Schubert’s Winterreise in her Spring Snow project.
Bampton Classical Opera
Bampton, Oxfordshire, 19 July-13 September
bamptonopera.org
Giovanni Gazzaniga anyone? Bampton regulars might remember his Don Giovanni – twice staged by the Oxfordshire-based company. This year it rehabilitates L’isola d’Alcina, composed some four decades after Handel’s more familiar take on Ariosto’s tale, and probably unseen in the UK since 1777.
Sung in English, Jeremy Gray’s production also visits Westonbirt, Wadhurst and London (St John’s Smith Square). By way of curtain-up, Haydn’s The Apothecary dispenses sizzling comedy in Dorchester-on-Thames (6 May).
BBC Proms
London, 19 July-14 September
bbc.co.uk/proms
There was valedictory Mahler, Mozart in C minor and ‘Orrible Opera’ at last year’s Proms. Anniversaries were observed, visiting orchestras welcomed, and sometimes forsaking sunny South Kensington, the moveable feast took to the road. We've got the full 2024 Proms listings for you.
Music at Paxton
Berwick-upon-Tweed, 19-28 July
musicatpaxton.co.uk
Palladian perfection meets bucolic bliss where Paxton House nestles high above the Tweed. And for ten days every summer in its marbled picture gallery, painting and music mingle. Artists-in-residence the Consone Quartet oblige with three concerts, the last swelling the quartet’s numbers to accommodate the Scottish premiere of Gavin Bryars’s The Bridges of Königsberg. There’s a Bach walk with violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen; Ensemble Hesperi takes a ramble through 18th-century London; and a veritable smörgåsbord of world musics collide with Corelli and Piazzolla as Kosmos nurtures diversity.
Dorset Opera Festival
Bryanston, Dorset, 22-28 July
dorsetopera.com
Cheerfully acknowledging a landmark 50th-birthday season, the renowned summer school celebrates with something that speaks to its native soil: a specially commissioned operatic treatment of Hardy’s Under the Greenwood Tree. With music by Paul Carr, and conducted by Jeremy Carnall, it’s interleaved with Puccini’s Madam Butterfly and an anniversary gala concert.
Summer at Snape
Snape Maltings, 26 July-31 August
brittenpearsarts.org
Scarcely has The Maltings got its breath back after June’s Aldeburgh extravaganza than Snape’s freewheeling summer sequel arrives – trailing an eclectic musical mix, family-friendly frolics and a shout-out for the visual arts. Vilde Frang performs Elgar’s Violin Concerto with the LSO under Antonio Pappano; the Gesualdo Six dispenses choice vocal music sacred and secular; and Gambian multi-instrumentalist-singer Sona Jobarteh joins those creating the soundtrack to a Suffolk summer.
Lake District Summer Music
Cumbria, 26 July-4 August
ldsm.org.uk
As Lake District Summer Music approaches its 40th edition, the natural world is beckoning. And, enveloped by glorious lakes and fells, the call is heeded. Part walk, workshop and informal concert, the Aurora Percussion Duo sounds the forest; and in Hawkshead, framed by Purcell, the Alkyona String Quartet and mezzo Jess Dandy trace the trajectory of ‘Sunrise to Sunset’.
Fretwork and soprano Ruby Hughes also favour Purcellian bookends; and on her farewell tour, pianist Kathryn Stott includes a new piece by Graham Fitkin.
Three Choirs Festival
Worcester, 27 July-3 August
3choirs.org
Alternating between Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester, the Three Choirs Festival was something of a spiritual home for Holst. And in this anniversary year, both the Hymn of Jesus and The Cloud Messenger feature in a festival whose environmental theme also encompasses the Stanford centenary.
Championing the UK premiere of Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Mass for the Endangered, the Festival Chorus also keeps faith with Elgar’s The Kingdom. Poulenc’s Figure humaine falls to the BBC Singers, and the Three Cathedrals Choir gives the first performance of a new piece by Paul Mealor.
Best UK classical music festivals: August 2024
Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh, 2-25 August
eif.co.uk
Edinburgh 2023 asked, ‘Where do we go from here?’ Festival director Nicola Benedetti’s latest edition supplies the answer: ‘The Rituals that unite us’. It’s a theme resonating across a programme that includes a three-concerts residency by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, who preface Hans Rott’s Symphony No. 1 with Bruckner and Mahler. And bolstering the orchestral big guns are the Philharmonia, whom Marin Alsop conducts in the UK premiere of Julia Wolfe’s Fire in my Mouth.
Among operatic stagings of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Komische Oper Berlin’s The Marriage of Figaro there are concert performances of Strauss’s Capriccio as well as Mozart’s Così fan tutte. And in the spirit of unity and ritual, Orquesta La Pasión and musicians from the RSNO, the National Youth Choir of Scotland and Schola Cantorum de Venezuela come together for the Scottish premiere of Golijov’s La Pasión según San Marcos.
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Clandeboye Festival
Bangor, County Down, 17-24 August
camerata-ireland.com
Established by pianist Barry Douglas in response to the Belfast Good Friday Agreement, Camerata Ireland is celebrating its quarter-century this year – and celebrations are at the heart of the County Down festival Douglas and the Camerata founded two years later at aristocratic Clandeboye. The intimate Chapel and Banqueting Hall host some dozen concerts and recitals as well as providing a stimulating backdrop to the integral Festival Academy. Details of the 2024 edition are under wraps, but check the website for updates.
Machynlleth Festival
Y Tabernacl, Machynlleth, 18-24 August
moma.cymru
In Y Tabernacl, a former chapel turned gallery and arts centre, there’s tragedy afoot as Argentinian soprano Mercedes Gancedo is the sole protagonist in Poulenc’s piano-accompanied one-act opera La voix humaine. At the keyboard is the festival’s co-director Julius Drake, and joining him in Machynlleth are fellow pianists Llyr Williams and, as part of Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, Tom Poster.
The Collective’s programme might end with Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet, but en route there’s a Divertimento by the splendidly-named Duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, as well as Mark Simpson’s brooding Nachtstück for horn and piano.
Waterperry Opera
Waterperry House, Oxfordshire, 9-18 August
waterperryoperafestival.co.uk
What with alfresco performances of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, serenades by Mozart and Fanny Mendelssohn in the ornamental garden and Jonathan Dove’s song cycle Nights Not Spent Alone staged in Waterperry House’s elegant ballroom, the festival maintains its reputation for eye-catching programming. Gracing the amphitheatre for 2024 is Britten’s chilling The Turn of the Screw while, indoors, Charlotte Corderoy conducts John Wilkie’s new staging of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville.
Presteigne Festival
Presteigne, Radnorshire, 22-26 August
presteignefestival.com
Not every festival cleaves to the observance of anniversaries. Independent-minded Presteigne is backing Britten with an astute selection of some of his less well-known works. And having always made a point of approaching new music with ears wide open, it conjures 12 premieres including a piano quintet from Michael Zev Gordon, Richard Blackford’s Spirit of Delight and, in a finale that concludes with the young Britten’s ebullient Sinfonietta Op. 1, a Harp Concerto by Lynne Plowman.
IF Opera
Belcombe Court, Bradford-on-Avon, 23-31 August
ifopera.com
Based on the runaway success of Walter Scott’s novel, mental fragility, feuding and a celebrated mad scene are the hallmarks of Donizetti’s 1835 Lucia di Lammermoor. As IF Opera animates a Wiltshire high summer, it’s paired with a deliciously bittersweet contrast: Johann Strauss II’s irresistible Viennese-whipped-cream-comedy Die Fledermaus. Off-piste, Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes and the venerable Picnic Prom colonise Belcombe’s delectable gardens.
Best UK classical music festivals: September 2024
Lammermuir Festival
East Lothian, 5-15 September
lammermuirfestival.co.uk
After Creative Scotland’s shock decision to remove funding from the festival, Lammermuir might be down, but it’s far from out. Even under threat, the programming has lost none of its flair and cogency. A four-concerts residency brings Concerto Copenhagen to Scotland for the first time; and pianist Jeremy Denk is similarly ‘resident’, honouring the Fauré centenary with the Valo Quartet and tackling the complete Charles Ives violin sonatas with Maria Włoszczowska. Completist Lammermuir also secures all the Beethoven piano trios from the Van Baerle Trio.