Friday 2 August 2013

Wigmore Hall new season - November/December 2013-14

Wigmore Hall, new season, 2013 - 2014
November at the Wigmore Hall starts with Julian Anderson as composer in residence. Anderson, whose first opera is being premiered by ENO in 2014, is the Wigmore Hall's second composer in residence. The Aurora Orchestra give two concerts on 2 November, mixing Anderson's music with that of Oliver Knussen, George Benjamin, Hans Abrahamsen and Salvatore Sciarrino. (2/11)

There are two farewells. Baritone Wolfgang Holzmair, who made his Wigmore Hall debut in 1989, gives his farewell concert accompanied by Imogen Cooper in a programme of Schubert songs (16/11). And Dame Felicity Lott , who made her Wigmore Hall debut in 1975, also makes her final solo recital accompanied by Graham Johnson in a programme of music by Schumann, Wolf, Strauss, Bridge, Britten, Bizet, Bernard, Yvain. Mireille and Offenbach (15/11)

Bass-baritone Andrew Foster-Williams and pianist Simon Lepper present a programme entitled A Journey - Songs of Passage in French and English, with songs by Ibert, Stanford, Duparc, Keel and Stephen McNeff. (17/11) And baritone Jacques Imbrailo is accompanied by Alisdair Hogarth in a programme of Vaughan Williams, Stephen Hough and Liszt, concluding with Butterworth's A Shropshire Lad. (30/11)

Austrian composer Joseph Marx (born 1882) is not as well known as his contemporaries. Simon Lepper is curating a three concert series which explores Marx's songs. In the first, Marx's settings from Heyse's Italienisches Liederbuch are compared and contrasted with Hugo Wolf's settings, performed by Elizabeth Watts, Clara Mouriz and Roderick Williams accompanied by Simon Lepper (15/12).

Britten's centenary day (22/11) is marked with a guitar recital by Fabio Zanon and a recital by the Prince Consort (Anna Leese, Jennifer Johnston, Tim Mead, Andrew Staples, Jacques Imbrailo and Alisdair Hogarth) with Tanya Houghton (harp), Nicolas Fleury (horn), performing the canticles interspersed with new commissions including works by Cheryl Frances Hoad and Gwilym Simcock (22/11)

The English Concert continues its 40th anniversary celebrations with a concert where they are joined by soprano Sally Mathews for an all Mozart programme which includes concert arias, arias from Mitridate plus the bassoon concerto in B flat (20/11). Les Arts Florissants and William Christie perform a selection of airs de cour by Lambert, Charpentier, Moulinie, Le Camus, Couperin and D'Ambruis (19/12).

Robert King and the King's Consort perform a Christmas programme, Wachet Auf! on 23 December with music by Bach and Kuhnau and solists including Robin Blaze and David Wilson-Johnson (12/12).

The Christian Curnyn and the Early Opera Company return with Handel's Acis and Galatea with Robert Murray, Sophie Bevan and Derek Welton (27/11). Theatre of the Ayre, director Elizabeth Kenny, with Sophie Daneman, Anna Starushkevych and Paul Agnew, are performing Charpentier including his pastorale Acteon (22/12). Italian contralto Sonia Prina performs a programme of arias by Handel written for the great alto castrato Senesino. Prina is accompanied by Ensemble Claudiana, directed by Luca Pianca (30/12).

Vocal ensemble Exaudi compares and contrasts the music of Gesualdo with contemporary responses to his work by Michael Finissy, Christopher Fox and Stefano Gervasoni (6/11).

Michael Tippett is the focus for a series of events which encompasses the Wigmore Study Group (26, 28/11, 3/12), a Come and Sing: Tippett session (30/11) and a concert by the Heath Quartet with Mark Padmore and James Baillieu performing Tippett's String Quartets nos 1 & 3, plus The Heart's Assurance and Boyhood's End (3/12).

The Britten Sinfonia's At Lunch series brings music by Mozart, Lutoslawki and Faure, plus a new piece by Sally Beamish (11/12).

The Nash Ensemble, the Wigmore Hall's Chamber Ensemble in Residence, is presenting a series themed around America with music by Europeans in America and by Americans in Paris. The first two programmes look at European Composers in the USA, and include music by Bartok Rachmaninov, Mahler and Dvorak (9/11), and by Stravinsky and Dvorak (24/11). Then there are a pair of programmes themed on Americans in Paris with music by Copland, Ravel, Gershwin, Cole Porter, Vernon Duke and more (7/11).

The Wigmore Hall's New Year's Eve concert is always great fun and this year is no exception. Ian Page and his Classical Opera Company perform a selection of Mozart rarities including music from Mitridate, Die Gartnerin aus Liebe, Bastien und Bastienne,  the Mass in C minor and the Vesperae solennes de confessore, plus Ian Page's attempt to compress Le Nozze di Figaro into 5 minutes.

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