London Capital Gains City of London looks down under, while Spitalfields keeps it edgy
city sounds: St Paul’s Cathedral sets the scene for the City of London Festival; while conductor Harry Bicket (below) takes an artistic lead at Spitalfields
CITY OF LONDON FESTIVAL The didgeridoo is the giveaway. And sure enough, the festival that once cultivated Alpenhorns and Swiss Bollywood is heading down under. ‘We’ve covered 60 degrees North and the Portuguese- speaking world of late, but the one big gap has been the Oceanic region,’ says director Ian Ritchie, ‘and with it we get this interplay of the indigenous with classical contemporary’. So the Percy Grainger anniversary had nothing to do with the choice? ‘Absolutely not. But it’s very fortuitous because he was Grieg’s favourite pianist; he came over from Australia to England, and then went to the US. He embodies that spirit of “trading places” which is the festival’s ongoing theme.’ No fewer than 26 living Australian and New Zealand composers are featured, ranging from elder statesmen (and women) such as Peter Sculthorpe, through
regular visitor Brett Dean, to names less known in the UK. From Maori war canoe on the Thames to Haka dance in Paternoster Square and nose rubbing on Hampstead Heath, Ritchie is rising to the challenge. Last year’s street pianos are augmented by the noise- recycling Organ of Corti and, in St Paul’s Cathedral, mortality- mindful Bach and Fauré are merged with a haunting acuity. WHEN 26 June-16 July WHERE City of London TEL 0845 120 7502 (UK only) WEB
www.colf.org HIGHLIGHTS John Williams, English CO/Paul Watkins: Elgar, Sculthorpe, Dvoπák (27 June); Nigel Short, LSO, Tenebrae: Bach Partita BWV1004, Fauré Requiem (28
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June); City of London Sinfonia/ Michael Collins: Mozart, Dean, Kats-Chernin (29 June); Piers Lane (pno)/William Barton (didgeridoo): Beethoven, Grainger (1 July); Nash Ensemble: Grieg, Vaughan Williams, Dvoπák, Dean (4 July); Peter Wright, William Barton, Choir of Southwark Cathedral: Sculthorpe Requiem (4 July); King’s Singers: Gibbons, Ligeti, Kats-Chernin (7 July); Jonathan Lemalu, New Zealand String Quartet: Barber, Cresswell, Bartók (11 July); Gillian Weir, CBSO/ Simone Young: Messiaen, Poulenc etc (12 July).
QUARTET FESTIVAL In June and early July, al fresco Greenwich and Docklands Festival weighs anchor with a theme
GREENWICH INTERNATIONAL STRING
working its passage through the elements. Last year’s ‘earth’ sparked a ‘Bolero Remixed’; 2011 is burning its fi ngers with ‘fi re’. Come November, early music hoists its festive mainsail over Wren’s Royal Naval College. But when April slips over the yardarm into May, Greenwich is a place with many strings to its many bows as the International String Quartet Festival docks. The UK debut of the US Turtle Island Quartet in a programme of Jimi Hendrix underlines 2011’s focus on the development of repertoire – the Smith Quartet is also doing its bit with Nyman and Riley. The Kopelman Quartet fl y the Russian fl ag, while among nine participating ensembles, the Carduccis need no introduction among Greenwich friends. WHEN 29 April-1 May WHERE Royal Naval College Greenwich, London TEL +44 (0)20 8463 0100 WEB www.
trinitylaban.ac.uk/whatson HIGHLIGHTS Carducci Quartet (29 April); Turtle Island Quartet: Hendrix, Balakrishnan (29 April); Wihan Quartet, Allegri Quartet (30 April); Kopelman Quartet (1 May); Smith Quartet: Nyman String Quartet No. 2, Terry Riley Good Medicine (1 May).
LUFTHANSA FESTIVAL OF BAROQUE MUSIC ‘Hanseatic to Adriatic’ – and a lot of terra fi rma in between – Lufthansa Baroque is on a ‘journey through the heart of Europe’. And if the geography and chronology don’t quite collide, who’s to quibble when the opening concert is a Bach B minor Mass from Philippe Herreweghe and Collegium Vocale Gent. As ever, Queen Anne’s Footstool (aka St John’s Smith Square) provides the fi rst-class waiting room, while Westminster Abbey’s choir recreates the sonic splendours of a Biber Requiem. But this year the festival’s more local journey also takes in St Gabriel’s Warwick Square that welcomes Gustav Leonhardt’s Lufthansa debut. Other fi rst- timers include Ensemble Inegal, who curate the Bohemian leg of
Festival Special STEPHEN PAGE, ALYS THOMLINSON
Festival Special
Festival Special
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