Welcome!
It’s with great pleasure that we welcome you to this year’s summer festival guide! 2022 was the first season in three years to return to full-capacity events following the Covid-19 pandemic, and despite new financial pressures and straitened budgets, 2023 looks set to build even further on that sense of joy and exhilaration at live music-making.
From an embarrassment of pianists in Chipping Campden to Puccini and Verdi in Bergen; from established American behemoths like Ravinia and Tanglewood to intimate chamber music in Townsville, Australia, music is celebrated in all its forms this year. And so, we look forward to this season’s festival offering with huge anticipation. Please do get in touch to share your own experiences over the wonderful months ahead. Charlotte Smith Editor
Chipping Campden Festival
Chipping Campden, 5-22 May
Web: campdenmusicfestival.co.uk
A prequel series of the complete Beethoven piano sonatas couldn’t be more apposite for a festival replete with distinguished pianists. András Schiff and Piotr Anderszewski make their Chipping Campden debuts; Paul Lewis and Emanuel Ax have Schubert in their sights; and Alfred Brendel moves away from the keyboard to mentor string quartets! In this, Charlie Bennett’s last year as director, Schubert is ubiquitous, and the Byrd anniversary occupies The Tallis Scholars; there’s Bach from the Academy of Ancient Music; and the lid is lifted on Stravinsky and Diaghilev.
Brighton Festival
Brighton, 6-28 May
Web: brightonfestival.org
For over half a century, the south coast festival has been turning heads with a mixture of sheer ambition and chutzpah. Since 2009, it has invited guest directors, and in the shadow of Anish Kapoor, Brian Eno and Laurie Anderson comes Nabihah Iqbal and her 2023 motto ‘Gather Round’. With 609 performances in total there’s plenty of gathering to be done. Conductor François-Xavier Roth, the London Symphony Orchestra and Yuja Wang collaborate on Magnus Lindberg’s Piano Concerto No. 3; the Takács Quartet promises Pärt at Glyndebourne; and Brighton-born Frank Bridge is included in an English programme from the Festival Chorus and Britten Sinfonia which also premieres a new work by Joseph Phibbs.
London Festival of Baroque Music
St John’s Smith Square, London, 12-20 May
Web: lfbm.org.uk
In the first twist of the kaleidoscope – the festival’s 2023half a century later, and there’s more Spanish Baroquerie from Concerto 1700 and the vihuela and Baroque guitar of José Miguel Moreno. But other nationalities apply! Le Concert de l’Hostel Dieu lingers in France; Bach, Telemann, and Handel shake hands with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; and Steven Devine issues a threefold invitation to ‘Meet the Harpsichord’.
