Classical Music From Across The Spectrum At This Year's Brighton Festival

This year’s Brighton Festival classical events (6-28 May) include international artists and broad musical influences.

It reflects the invitation of Guest Director, musician, DJ and broadcaster, Nabihah Iqbal, to Gather Round in an ambitious celebration of collaboration and exchange. Alongside brand new and well-loved classical compositions, Iqbal’s love of folk music as a mode of storytelling can be seen across the programme.

On 26 May, the sensational pianist Yuja Wang joins London Symphony Orchestra for a performance of Magnus Lindberg’s new Piano Concerto No.3, led by pioneering French conductor Francois-Xavier Roth. Written especially for Wang, the piece is a huge three-movement work of almost operatic dimensions and drama, with two flamboyant cadenzas designed to showcase the soloist’s virtuosity. To end the concert, Beethoven’s profound love of the countryside is expressed in a performance of the evergreen Pastoral Symphony.

World leading ensemble Britten Sinfonia perform Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending, part elegy for the culture of folksong-singing lost to the Great War and part tribute to the English pastoral tradition, on 17 May. The concert features the Brighton Festival Chorus, led by Adam Hickox, son of renowned conductor Richard Hickox, and includes a world premiere of new work from British composer Joseph Phibbs and Brighton-born Frank Bridge’s folk-inflected lament for Shakespeare’s Ophelia alongside Vaughan Williams’ desperate plea for peace, Dona nobis pacem.

On 7 May, the multi-award-winning Takács Quartet return to Brighton Festival from their base in Colorado, bringing together musicians from Hungary, Britain and America. In an afternoon concert at Glyndebourne, Arvo Pärt’s Summa offers a wordless setting of the Credo in the style of a musical mantra and a pair of quartets by Schubert span his teens up to two years before his death.

Two of the UK’s finest recitalists, tenor Mark Padmore and baritone Roderick Williams, join actors Rory Kinnear and Pandora Colin and peerless pianist Julius Drake on 25 May, for a programme of words and music inspired by Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man. The performance will also include poetry by Donne, Yeats and Carol Ann Duffy, with music from Purcell and Schubert and Copland and Barber, via Frank Bridge and Benjamin Britten.

On 13 May, virtuoso a cappella choral group Tenebrae sing Joby Talbot’s dazzlingly polystylistic Path of Miracles. A vocal tour de force, the piece evokes both the physical challenges of the pilgrims’ path to Santiago de Compostela and the spiritual rewards upon arrival at St James’s shrine.

Tenebrae - Photo by Nick White

Brighton & East Sussex Youth Orchestra perform a series of folk and dance-inspired pieces on 15 May, in a concert put together with mentoring support from members of the London Symphony Orchestra. The region’s finest young musicians play Doreen Carwithen’s Suffolk Suite and Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring. Elgar’s achingly nostalgic Cello Concerto is performed by prize-winning young Polish cellist Maciej Kulakowski.

Additional Highlights:

Lunchtime Concerts (dates throughout the Festival)

A series of hour-long concerts at venues across the city celebrate classical music stars of the future from around the world. Performances include award-winning Scottish pianist and composer Yuanfan Yang, British-Indian cellist Meera Priyanka Raja and French-Korean violinist Irene Duval. The Paddington Trio present the world premiere of a trio by the composer Diana Burrell, Glyndebourne’s Jerwood Young Artists and Agate Quartet also perform and Londinium Consort, an ensemble of recent graduates and current students from leading London conservatoires, bridges the gap between early and contemporary music.

All Sounds at All Saints (9-12 May)

Collaborative performances from a new generation of classically trained musicians who have evolved into genre-defying artists and are leading new adventures in music and sound. Including Londinium Consort performer and multi-instrumentalist Otto Hashmi, leading early music performer Liam Byrne and string duo Balladeste. Expect ethereal soundscapes, contemporary classical and chamber pop. Alongside these evening performances, All Saints is the venue for a series of Lunchtime Concerts across the week, in a celebration of music without boundaries. The event series culminates with Tenebrae’s evocative performance of Path of Miracles in the evening of 13 May.

Anoushka Shankar (14 May)

The world-leading sitar player, who last year performed alongside Britten Sinfonia, showcases her command of traditional ragas and ability to meld sounds as diverse as Spanish flamenco and electronica. Support is from Petit Oiseau, a collaboration between Indian classical musician Jatinder Sing Durhailay and experimental musician Suren Seneviratne.

Different Folks (20-21 May)

A weekend at Brighton Dome’s Concert Hall that celebrates the heritage and diversity of folk music. Performances include the legendary Martin & Eliza Carthy and Shirley Collins alongside East London’s Stick in the Wheel, who fuse folk, electronica and spoken word and Angeline Morrison, whose latest album won The Guardian’s Folk Album of the Year, among others.

Brighton Festival was established in 1967 and is the largest annual curated multi-arts festival in England. The Festival takes place from 6-28 May and stages a host of music, theatre, dance, art, film, literature, debate, outdoor and community events in venues and locations across Brighton, Hove and Sussex.

Explore the full programme at brightonfestival.org