FESTIVAL GUIDE 2022
Welcome!
It’s with very great pleasure that we welcome you to this year’s summer festival guide! The last two seasons have been particularly challenging for live music making, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and many festivals have been forced to downgrade activities or cancel performances altogether.
It’s hugely gratifying, then, to see most events back up and running at full capacity in 2022, in what promises to be a summer of top-notch musical activity. From the complete Bartók string quartets in Aldeburgh, to La bohème in Jackson Hole, to Brahms and Mendelssohn symphonies in Sapporo, there’s something to suit all tastes and budgets. We’re greatly looking forward to what this festival season has to offer – and please do get in touch to share your own experiences over these next exciting months. Charlotte Smith Editor
United Kingdom
The Bridge Festival
Glasgow, 21-24 April
Web: www.bridgestrings.eu
The cancellation of last year’s debut edition was a blow. But the waiting is over as string ensembles representing Scotland, Germany, Norway and Estonia build bridges across Glasgow’s cafes, warehouses and pavements! The Scottish Ensemble, Trondheim Soloists, Ensemble Resonanz and PLMF Music Trust join forces on opening night for a pan-European celebration in the Barrowland Ballroom, with composers ranging from Hildegard of Bingen to Jonny Greenwood. There are world premieres, too, of works by Erkki-Sven Tüür and Mica Levi.
Leeds Lieder Festival
Leeds, 28 April – 1 May
Tel. +44 (0)113 234 6956
‘Song Illuminated’ is the strapline under which Leeds Lieder returns to the handsomely refurbished Howard Assembly Room. It takes the broad view. There are new works by Jonathan Dove and Deborah Pritchard, ‘SongPath’ walking trails and protest songs by the likes of Joni Mitchell to ring the changes on more mainstream fare such as Mahler from soprano Dorothea Röschmann and Schubert’s Schwanengesang performed by tenor Ian Bostridge with Imogen Cooper.
Brighton Festival
Brighton, 7 – 29 May
Tel. +44 (0)1273 709709
Sculptor Anish Kapoor was the first guest director of the festival back in 2009, and successors have included Laurie Anderson and Ali Smith. This year the mantle falls on writer-architect Marwa Al-Sabouni and site-specific theatre artist Tristan Sharps – their theme, ‘Rebuilding’. Brighton certainly rebuilds with a vengeance. Over 150 events gets the Big Top treatment from Circa; the Marian Consort pairs Schütz’s with a new work by David Fennessy; and under Ilan Volkov the Festival Chorus and Philharmonia Orchestra weigh anchor on Vaughan Williams’s and Kaija Saariaho’s .
