Monday 9 March 2015

Seriously good for you - Wigmore Hall summer season

Labels:
Roger Vignoles
Roger Vignoles who celebrates his 75th birthday
with a concert on 11 July 2015
The Summer season at the Wigmore Hall is seriously full of good things, so much so that any preview can only be a taster and you are well advised to explore the halls whizzy new website. This was intended to be a brief summary, but just expanded. Delights include Roger Vignoles 75th birthday, a fine series of song recitals with major pianists as accompanist from Paul Lewis to Menahem Pressler. Besides chamber music and song, there is a chance to hear groups such as the Monteverdi Choir, Classical Opera and Collegium Vocale Ghent.

John Butt and the Dunedin Consort make a welcome appearance in Bach's St John Passion, sung one to a part with Nicholas Mulroy as the Evangelist and Matthew Brook as Jesus (4 April). Harry Bickett and the English Concert are exploring a major Easter work by one of Bach's predecessors, Buxtehude's Membra Jesu nostri (2 April). Star counter-tenor Andreas Scholl is joined by mandolin player Avi Avital for a programme of 18th century Italian music (7 April). Soprano Sophie Bevan and counter-tenor Daniel Taylor join Adrian Butterfield and London Handel Players for music Handel wrote for his stars, soprano Anna Maria Strada (who created Alcina) and castrato Giovanni Carestini who created Ariodante (14 April). Soprano Robert Invernizzi, Fabio Biondi and La Risonanza perform music from operas by Handel and Vivaldi (21 July).

There is more Handel and Buxtehude from Jonathan Cohen, Arcangelo and Christiane Karg including Handel's Nine German arias (12 June) and Arcangelo returns with tenors Samuel Boden and Thomas Walker and baritone Stephane Degout for Couperin and Blow (14 July). The Brook Street Band and bass-baritone Matthew Brook combine Bach and Handel (6 July). Fantasticus give us a musical portrait of the French baroque (19 June), whilst Herve Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel give us Venetian splendours from Campra and Vivaldi (25 June). The Cardinall's Musick continue their exploration of the music of Robert Fayrfax with The Passion of Christ (20 June). 


There is a chance to hear John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra in a more intimate setting with music by Monteverdi, Schubert and Brahms' Liebeslieder walzer (4 May). Ian Page and Classical Opera are joined by tenor Allan Clayton exploring music written for the great Handelian tenor John Beard who was born in 1715 (6 May). Philippe Herreweghe and Collegium Vocale Ghent are performing Gesualdo madrigals (2 June).

Wigmore Hall
The Wigmore Hall's multi-season Mozart Odyssey has four concerts exploring Mozart's chamber music from duos to quintets (10, 13, 26 30 April). Henry Purcell: A Retrospective continues with further wonderful concerts including the Gabrieli Consort in Purcell odes and Phantasm in the Fantasias (8, 12, 13 May, 9 June, 16 July). As part of his residency, baritone Florian Boesch and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen perform Schoenberg's chamber version of Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (5 June) and he returns with pianist Malcolm Martineau in Wolf, Brahms and Schumann (7 June).

BBC Lunchtime Concert's include soprano Miah Persson, violinist Birgit Kolar and pianist Malcolm Martineau performing Handel, Spohr, Donald Waxman and Strauss (20 April); contralto Sara Mingardo, violinist Ivano Zanenghi and harpsichord player Giorgio del Monte in early Italian baroque (11 May) and soprano Ailish Tynan and pianist James Baillieu in Hahn and Poulenc (22 June)

Menahem Pressler
Menahem Pressler accompanies Matthias Goerne
on 2 July 2015
Tenor Allan Clayton and pianist Paul Lewis make a strong combination for Schubert's Die schone Mullerin (29 April). Lewis has a solo recital in Beethoven sonatas (11 June, performed twice). And Schubert's Die Winterreise is performed by tenor Christoph Pregardien and pianist Michael Gees (15 June).

In another interesting combination soprano Dorothea Roschmann joins pianist Mitsuko Uchida for Berg and Schumann (2, 5 May). Baritone Henk Neven and pianist Imogen Cooper (another strong pairing) perform Mendelssohn, Schumann and songs from Maher's Des Knaben Wunderhorn (29 May). Soprano Christiane Iven and pianist Igor Levit, a Wigmore Hall Emerging Talent, perform Wagner, Debussy, Wolf, Mahler and Schoenberg (10 June), and Levit has solo recital where he moves away from the ordinary and performs Cornelius Cardew and Frederic Rzewski (20 July). In perhaps the most intriguing combination of all baritone Matthias Goerne joins Menahem Pressler (from the Beaux Arts Trio) for Schumann (2 July). Focus is firmly on the accompanist in Roger Vignoles' 75th birthday concert, in which the veteran pianist is joined by Christine Brewer, Miah Persson, Joan Rogers, Elizabeth Watts, Bernada Fink, Angelika Kirchschlager, Renata Pokupic, Michael Chance, John Mark Ainsley, Mark Padmore, Florian Boesch and Roderick Williams (11 July).

Elly Ameling
Soprano Elly Ameling, who gives a masterclass
on 3,4 June 2015
2002 Kathleen Ferrier Award winner Karen Cargill, and pianist Simon Lepper perform a programme of Grieg, Mahlers husband and wife, and Wagner (15 April). The great soprano Elly Ameling will be giving master-classes (3, 4 June).  Mezzo-soprano Alice Coote and pianist Julius Drake have a recital on 20 April, whilst mezzo-soprano Christianne Sotijn and Julius Drake perform Strauss, Korngold, Eisler and Weill (11 May). Julius Drake returns with tenor Ian Bostridge in Schubert (16 May), and tenor Matthew Polenzani joins Julius Drake for Beethoven, Liszt, Ravel, Satie and Barber's Hermit Songs (24 June).

Mezzo-soprano Bernanda Fink and pianist Anthony Spiri combine Schumann with Argentine composers Gustavino, Lopez Buchardo and Ginastera (22 May). Tenor Mark Padmore and Roger Vignoles combine Britten's Sechs Holderlin-Fragmente and The Holy Sonnets of John Donne with Schubert (17 June).  Soprano Camilla Tilling and pianist Paul Rivinius perform Linde, Stenhammer, Sibelius, Mahler and Strauss (17 July). Bass Matthew Rose and pianist Helen Collyer combine Brahms, Loewe and Britten's Purcell arrangements (22 July). Mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager and pianist Helmut Deutsch perform Brahms, Wolf, Hahn and Schumann (24 July). Soprano Ailish Tynan and pianist Iain Burnside perform an interestingly mixed programme of Faure, Parry, Stanford, Poulenc, Ned Rorem, Dominic Muldowney, Dave Frishberg, Judith Bingham and Jake Heggie (25 July).

London Conchord Ensemble is presenting a programme of French chamber music by Durufe, Loeffler and Faure, his Piano Quartet No. 1 (19 April). The Borodin Quartet is offering cycles of quartets by Beethoven and Shostakovich (18, 19 April, 26, 28 June, further concerts 2015-2017). For the Tana Quartet's recital, playing Arriaga, Turina and Hector Parra, they will be playing with music on iPads and the music will be projected onto a screen at the back of the stage (25 April). Joshua Bell, Pamela Frank, Lawrence Power, Steven Isserlis and Jeremy Denk form a high powered quintet with Dvorak, Janacek, and Smetana (23 May).

Trumpeter Alison Balsom, soprano Lucy Crowe and counter-tenor Tim Mead join Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert for a late concert of baroque music with trumpet (8 May), one of a lovely array of Friday Lates which include saxophonist Trish Clowes joins pianist Gwilym Simcock and the Heath Quartet in their own music plus Weill, Gershwin and John Taylor (15 May), and El Sistema-trained Simon Bolivar String Quartet from Venezuala bring Ginastera and Ravel (29 May). Friday Lates also include the late night opening of the bar, with jazz after the concert.

Composer Jonathan Harvey - photo credit Maurice Foxall
Composer Jonathan Harvey
photo credit Maurice Foxall
Pianist Alice Sara Ott makes her Wigmore Hall debut on 23 April with Beethoven, Bach, List and the wonderful Bach/Busoni Chaconne.(23 April).

Composer Jonathan Harvey has a study day devoted to him on 9 May. Nicholas Collon and the Aurora Orchestra celebrate Judith Weir as Master of the Queen's Music with mezzo-soprano Alice Coote (6 June). The Carducci String Quartet and cellist Guy Johnston perform new music by Anthony Gilbert (14 June). Soprano Carolyn Sampson, and the Heath Quartet combine John Musto, Webern, Schoenberg and Bach (1 July). Hugo Ticciati's festival O/MODERNT from Sweden has a weekend residency (3-5 July). Composer Julian Anderson continues his residency with a concert by the Aurora Orchestra (7 July).

This year's Kathleen Ferrier Awards take places on 24 April, with the semi-final on 22 April.

Elsewhere on this blog:
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Popular Posts this month