 |
| Antonio Pappano |
Brighton Festival is soon upon us, and as ever, there is a great line-up of classical music on offer. Opening the Festival, new Chief Conductor, Sir Antonio Pappano brings the London Symphony Orchestra to the Dome Concert Hall to play Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2. They open with Barber’s Adagio for Strings, and are joined by pianist Bertrand Chamayou for Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major (Saturday 4 May, 7pm).
Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani is joined by Britten Sinfonia soloists for a concert of Bach at Glyndebourne, performing two Keyboard Concertos, and the Brandenburg Concertos Nos 2 & 5 (Sunday 3 May, 3pm). Slipping through the net of the printed brochure, a late addition to the Festival is the wonderful Baroque ensemble, Solomon’s Knot, performing Scarlatti, Bach and Handel’s Dixit Dominus (Thursday 9 May, 8pm, Corn Exchange).
 |
| 12 Ensemble |
12 Ensemble will perform Strauss’ Metamorphosen alongside an immersive holographic visual experience created by Ben Ditto. A new work by Edmund Finnis drawing on Byrd, and an instrumental aria by Oliver Leith from his opera about Kurt Cobain’s suicide will sit alongside Claude Vivier’s Zipangu (Thursday 16 May, 8pm, Corn Exchange). Then The Heath Quartet will be in the glorious Music Room at the Royal Pavilion to play Haydn, Korngold, Lyadov and Henriëtte Bosmans (Wednesday 22 May, 8pm).
Ed Hughes' new opera, States of Innocence, based on John Milton’s Paradise Lost, will be premiered at the Corn Exchange, with cast including Sir John Tomlinson. Texts are adapted from Milton by Peter Cant, and Ian Winters provides video projection design (Sunday 19 May, 6.30pm & 8.45pm).
 |
| Danielle de Niese |
Soprano Danielle de Niese, lead in this summer’s Glyndebourne production of The Merry Widow, comes to the Corn Exchange to share an evening of song by Debussy, Gershwin, Sondheim and James MacMillan (Monday 20 May, 7.30pm). And contralto Hilary Summers and pianist Andrew West take a humerous swipe at opera in What’s So Great About Opera? (Wednesday 8 May, 6pm, Studio Theatre).
The Brighton Festival Youth Choir, conducted by Juliette Pochin, perform Cecilia McDowall’s cantata, The Girl from Aleppo (Saturday 11 May, 6pm, All Saints, Hove). For more on this piece, I reviewed the National Children’s Choir of Great Britain’s recording of it back in 2020 here. They are followed the same evening by the Brighton Festival Chorus, performing the UK premiere of Kim André Arnesen’s The Stranger, weaving together refugee poems and multi-faith texts emphasising our common humanity (Saturday 11 May, 8.30pm, All Saints). Meanwhile, Brighton and East Sussex Youth Orchestra bring us Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, with storyteller Alia Alzougbi retelling some of the tales of the 1001 nights. Former BESYO trumpeter, Alan Thomas returns to join the orchestra to perform Artunian’s Trumpet Concerto (Monday 13 May, 7.30pm).
 |
| Apollo's Cabinet |
Lunchtime concerts return to the Dome complex. In the newly refurbished Studio Theatre, Pianist Hao Zi Yoh plays Haydn, Ravel, Rachmaninov & Albéniz, as well as a piece by Malaysian pianist composer, Chong Lim Ng (Tuesday 7 May, 1pm), then counter-tenor Hugh Cutting and mezzo-soprano Rebecca Leggett, with George Ireland on piano, perform words and music by Butterworth, Belloc, Vaughan Williams and Virginia Woolf (Wednesday 8 May, 1pm). BREMF Live! artists, Apollo’s Cabinet explore the travels of Charles Burney, with music by Telemann & Schmelzer (Thursday 9 May, 1pm), then the Elmore Quartet play Webern and Brahms (Friday 10 May, 1pm). There are two more pianists – first Lithuanian Ignas Maknickas plays Schumann, Bortkiewicz, Chopin and Charles Vine (Wednesday 15 May, 1pm), then over to the Corn Exchange for Japanese pianist, Shunta Morimoto, playing Schubert, Bach, Chopin and Schumann (Friday 22 May, 1pm). In between, the Fibonacci Quartet play Mozart & Mendelssohn (Friday 17 May, 1pm) and the ever-popular Glyndebourne Jerwood Young Artists perform a range of favourites – this year, two sopranos and two tenors (Monday 20 May, 1pm).
Details of all concerts, venues and tickets here.
No comments:
Post a Comment