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Season Previews from around the world
86 BBC Proms: 72 at the Royal Albert Hall and 14 at venues across the UK
The BBC Proms presents an eight-week celebration of music featuring over 3,000 artists, the first overnight Prom in almost half a century and more than 80 solo debuts
General booking opens at 9am on Saturday 17 May for more information click here.
The London Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2025/26 London season
Key highlights:
The LPO’s 2025/26 season theme, Harmony with Nature, explores humanity’s bond with the natural world and issues a call to protect it – through the power of music that confronts, celebrates and inspires.
Contemporary voices throughout the season such as Gabriela Lena Franks’s Contested Eden (responding to wildfires), Gustavo Díaz-Jerez’s Tajogaite (volcanoes) and Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s CATAMORPHOSIS (a sense of urgency driven by shifting polar forces) offer a contrasting reflection to the idyllic scenes of oceans, forests and mountains of Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Sibelius.
The season also features seven-time Grammy Award-winning composer and trumpeter Terence Blanchard, who, alongside his own jazz quintet, will perform the UK premiere of A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina) with the Orchestra.
An array of star guests includes legendary violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, pianists Yefim Bronfman and Alexandre Kantorow, soprano Jennifer France and baritone Stéphane Degout.
More guest soloists this season include pianists Paul Lewis, Anna Vinnitskaya and Pavel Kolesnikov, as well as violinists James Ehnes, Alina Ibragimova and Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider.
The LPO’s performing and community activity in its Brighton, Eastbourne and Saffron Walden residencies is also announced today. Highlights include an evening of song with Danielle de Niese in Brighton, and Edward Gardner conducting a selection of Elgar works in Eastbourne.
The LPO will perform 9 premieres across the season including (in London and Birmingham) Tan Dun’s Nine – an ‘ode to peace’ commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society as a companion piece to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in its 200th anniversary year.
LPO Principal Conductor Edward Gardner presents ‘Phoenix Lands’, a two-concert focus exploring his fascination of twentieth-century composers from Central Europe.
Edinburgh International Festival 2025
Breaks Boundaries in a Year Exploring ‘The Truth We Seek’
eif.co.uk / @edintfest
Edinburgh International Festival’s 2025 programme offers opportunities to experience world-class artists in thought-provoking and unconventional ways – including an eight-hour choral extravaganza, a distinctive outdoor promenade dance piece and a circus infused opera. Audiences can also get involved in many Festival performances, from an outdoor mass-singalong to interactive concerts where the audience chooses the repertoire.
BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA 2025
Antonio Salieri La locandiera (‘The Landlady’) (1773)
READ OUR REVIEW HERE
Performances:
The Deanery Garden, Bampton, Oxfordshire: Friday 18, Saturday 19 July
Westonbirt School, Gloucestershire: Monday 25 August
The Barn at Old Walland, Wadhurst, Sussex: Saturday 6 September
Smith Square Hall, London SW1: Tuesday 16 September
For more information CLICK HERE.
Shostakovich Festival Leipzig 2025
A tradition established by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra has been two-yearly festivals devoted to a single composer; these have been dedicated to Gustav Mahler, Felix Mendelssohn and J S Bach in recent years, and marking the fiftieth anniversary of the composer’s passing in 1975 Dmitry Shostakovich is to be the subject in a two-week festival covering almost all of his works. Dmitry Shostakovich visited the city of Leipzig several times in his career – the first time was for the Bach Festival in 1950, and he composed his Eighth String Quartet in the town of Görlitz in Saxony. His score for the feature film about the bombing of Dresden Five Days and Nights was composed after visiting the bombed city of Dresden. The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra gave the German premiere of Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony under the baton of Fritz Konwitschny in Leipzig.
This portrayal of Shostakovich’s works will be between 15 May and 1 June in a festival featuring all fifteen symphonies and string quartets in what will be one of the most comprehensive examinations of the works of the great composer.
The Barbican has announced its forthcoming season of classical music from September 2025 – July 2026
The season will champion new and radical performances, spotlighting diverse and groundbreaking artists whose work is profoundly engaged with the issues of the day. Across 2025 and 2026, there will be premieres from Bushra El-Turk, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Catherine Lamb, Blasio Kavuma, Tansy Davies, and Tyshawn Sorey among others, with performances by Davóne Tines, Seth Parker Woods, Compagnie Amala Dianor, Theatre of Kiribati and many more. The season will also feature Fragile Earth – a series of events that focus on our relationship with the natural world, including UK premieres of work by Julia Wolfe and Lemi Ponifasio. Alongside these will sit international ensembles, artist residencies, and major anniversaries showcasing the widest possible spectrum of classical music – from beloved favourites to groundbreaking new music, from internationally-renowned artists to rising stars.
MUSIC AT PAXTON FESTIVAL 2025
Music at Paxton festival unveils a dazzling programme of world class music with a truly global flavour from Friday 18 – Sunday 27 July 2024, Music at Paxton presents 10 days of glorious international music at Paxton House on the banks of the River Tweed in the Scottish Borders. The 2025 festival comprises 24 events and concerts from international, national and local artists in the famous Paxton House Picture Gallery, hung high with paintings from the National Galleries of Scotland’s collection. Following on from the success of last year, the festival ventures beyond the grounds of Paxton House for concerts in Norham, Berwick-upon-Tweed and Duns.
The Royal Ballet and Opera announces 2025/26 Season
Royal Opera’s first Season with new Music Director Jakub Hrůša featuring eight new opera productions
RBO/Shift – a new festival exploring the ever-evolving intersection between opera and technology
Royal Ballet world premieres by Wayne McGregor, Cathy Marston, Akram Khan and choreographic duo Sol León and Paul Lightfoot
First Royal Ballet presentation of work by Justin Peck
Tickets from £5 on sale from 2 July 2025
For more information click here