Long Play Festival
Brooklyn, NYC, 5-7 May
Web: bangonacan.org
Described as ‘Bang on a Can’s supercharged musical ride through the right now’, the three-day prequel to July’s MASS MoCA festival barely pauses to draw breath. Over 50 concerts showcase the exuberant diversity of contemporary music – starting with the redoubtable Meredith Monk whose vocal ensemble joins forces with Bang on a Can All-Stars. The JACK Quartet wraps music by Christopher Otto and Catherine Lamb around Xenakis’s Tetras, while the Philip Glass Ensemble revisits Glassworks and Act II of The Photographer.
May Festival
Cincinnati, OH, 19-27 May
Web: mayfestival.com
The May Festival has been putting a spring in Cincinnati’s choral step for 150 years now, and the 2023 anniversary edition also coincides with Juanjo Mena’s last season as principal conductor. He’s not going quietly, though – the concluding work is Mahler’s gargantuan ‘Symphony of a Thousand’. Alongside Bach’s Magnificat (given its US premiere at the 1875 Festival), he conducts the world premieres of works by James MacMillan and James Lee III; and nestling between Barber and Copland, Marin Alsop turns the clock back to a festival premiere from 1937 as she conducts excerpts from Robert Nathaniel Dett’s The Ordering of Moses.
Spoleto Festival USA
Charleston, SC, 26 May – 11 June
Web: spoletousa.org
A port city, Charleston has never been a place for navel-gazing. Instinctively it looks outwards, and the 47th incarnation of a festival nourished by its distinctive vibe draws on, Spoleto isn’t just about music, but with composer Gian Carlo Menotti as its founder, it does loom large. Menotti himself was the librettist for Barber’s opera , part of a varied programme that includes the US premiere of Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 14. The Festival Orchestra is newly showcased, and in historic Dock St Theater, chamber music thrives.
