Season Previews

Season Previews from around the world

North Shore Chamber Music Festival – onstage/offstage in-person and livestream concerts

by

Live concerts with live audiences (as well as with worldwide streaming) return to Chicago with an unusual series of chamber music at the North Shore Chamber Music Festival North Shore Chamber Music Festival would have celebrated its 10th anniversary season in June but, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, the celebrations had to be cancelled. This … Read more

The London Symphony Orchestra will return to live work in late August 2020

by

LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA RETURNS TO WORK

  • Sir Simon Rattle conducts LSO at BBC Proms Sunday 30 August
  • Three orchestral concerts at LSO St Luke’s conducted by Sir Simon Rattle including Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle
  • A full programme of live and recorded concerts broadcast with a range of international media partners
  • Lunchtime and drivetime concerts open to the public
  • LSO St Luke’s to become orchestra’s temporary performance base

The London Symphony Orchestra will return to live work in late August 2020, moving to LSO St Luke’s, newly equipped with state of the art facilities for live and recorded concerts until the reopening of the Barbican Hall.

Read more

BBC Proms turns 125 years old – live programme from 28 August to 12 September 2020

by

From Bernstein to Benedetti, Haitink to Hvorostovsky, Mackerras to Kanneh-Masons

Musical greats, from the past and the present, brought together in one extraordinary Proms season

17 July – 12 September 2020

Update 2 September – The pandemic means a different Proms this year and one of the consequences, under COVID-19 restrictions, is we are not able to bring together massed voices. For that reason we took the artistic decision not to sing ‘Rule, Britannia!’ and ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ in the Hall.  

We have been looking hard at what else might be possible and we have a solution. Both pieces will now include a select group of BBC Singers.  This means the words will be sung in the Hall, and as we have always made clear, audiences will be free to sing along at home. While it can’t be a full choir, and we are unable to have audiences in the Hall, we are doing everything possible to make it special and want a Last Night truly to remember.

We hope everyone will welcome this solution. We think the night itself will be a very special moment for the country – and one that is much needed after a difficult period for everyone. It will not be a usual Last Night, but it will be a night not just to look forward to, but to remember. 

Read more

Live indoor performances with audience at Cadogan Hall from 30 September

by

Cadogan Hall resumes indoor live performances with audience

Cadogan Hall is resuming live indoor performances with socially distanced audiences from Wednesday 30 September. Throughout the rest of the year, the Hall will host a series of concerts and events with its usual range of genres and offer for everyone, including three performances from players from resident ensemble the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the EFG London Jazz Festival.

For more information click here

Read more

ROMA ÆTERNA: Salzburg’s Whitsun Festival from 21 to 24 May 2021  

by
Rudolf Hradil, Porta Flaminia, watercolour, c. 2000

ROMA ÆTERNA

In 2021 Cecilia Bartoli and the Salzburg Whitsun Festival (21 – 24 May 2021) pay homage to Rome, the eternal city and her hometown. Rome has long inspired poets, composers, film-makers and painters as a metropolis of many faces: for 150 years Rome has been the capital of modern Italy and has retained its contradictory identities, of proud splendour on the one hand and decadence and decay on the other.

For more information and how to get tickets click here.

Read more

Musikfest Berlin 2020

by

Beethoven and the Music of our times

The Musikfest Berlin takes place from 25 August to 23 September and is organized by the Berliner Festspiele in cooperation with the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation. The new festival programme can be viewed online if you click here.

‘Musikfest Berlin digital‘ is a joint initiative of Berliner Festspiele’s Musikfest Berlin and the Berliner Philharmoniker‘s Digital Concert Hall. To mark the occasion of the 2020 festival edition, 18 guest performances out of a total of 33 events scheduled to take place from August 25 to September 23 as part of the Musikfest Berlin in the the Philharmonie’s large concert hall will be streamed live in the Digital Concert Hall or broadcast with a time delay. They will then be available on the Berliner Festspiele’s streaming platform at ‘Musikfest Berlin on Demand‘ for a further 72 hours.

Read more

September to December will see concerts live-streamed from Wigmore Hall and some will have a small audience

by

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR JOHN GILHOOLY CONFIRMS 100 CONCERTS FOR NEWLY REVISED WIGMORE PROGRAMME FROM 13 SEPTEMBER – 21 DECEMBER

  • Over 200 artists confirmed, of which over two-thirds are UK born or UK based, underlining Wigmore Hall’s efforts to get artists earning again.
  • Reaffirming Wigmore Hall’s ongoing commitment to diversity of repertoire and artists, performances include Apartment House, Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, Tai Murray (violin), Elizabeth Llewellyn (soprano), Fatma Said (soprano), Roderick Williams (baritone), Arditti Quartet, Elena Urioste (violin), Kit Armstrong (piano), Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord), Claron McFadden (soprano) and Matthew Wadsworth (lute) and a digital fundraising concert for Chineke!.
  • Special focuses on Samuel Coleridge-Taylor in song and chamber music, Polish-Jewish-Russian composer Mieczysław Weinberg, and the pioneering 20th century minimalist Julius Eastman who expressed his black and gay identity through music.
  • Special documentary on internationally acclaimed double bassist Leon Bosch and his early anti-apartheid activism which saw him jailed as a teenager in South Africa, and Rabbi Baroness Julia Neuberger on Anti-Semitism. To celebrate the release of their respective new books, Graham Johnson will give a talk on Poulenc, and Natasha Loges and Katy Hamilton will present a discussion on Brahms.
  • Concerts will go ahead with or without an audience. All concerts will be live streamed in high definition on Wigmore Hall’s website and will be free to view worldwide.
  • 28 lunchtime concerts to be broadcast in association with BBC Radio 3 as well as a New Generation Artists weekend.

Read more

Opera Philadelphia’s 2020-21 season

by

Opera Philadelphia reinvents the 2020-2021 season

With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing opera companies away from gathering large audiences in theaters, Opera Philadelphia is taking the next step into the art form’s future with the launch of the Opera Philadelphia Channel. This global broadcast platform will bring a revised 2020-2021 season into opera lovers’ homes via their television screens and streaming devices.

Read more