Into 2017: Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras looking forward to Monteverdi 450

Vivienne Westwood, Andreas Kronthaler & women
from the Monteverdi Choir

The Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras, artistic director John Eliot Gardiner, are having a busy summer with a tour of Bach's St Matthew Passion, Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette at the BBC Proms and Schumann's Manfred at the Edinburgh Festival. This turns into an equal busy Autumn as the choir performs Mendelssohn's Lobesgesang with a number of different orchestras under John Eliot Gardiner's direction, the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique tours a Brahms, Beethoven and Schubert programme, and the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists will celebrate the Advent with Bach's Magnificat in E flat. But of course, what most people will really be anticipating is the group's Monteverdi 450 celebrations in 2017, these will take Monteverdi's three operas, Vespers of 1610 and a programme of Madrigals on a tour from Bristol to Chicago.

And the women of the Monteverdi Choir will have new outfits for their tours, as Vivienne Westwood and Andreas Kronthaler have designed jackets for the women to wear in concert. The design was developed by the Vivienne Westwood couture team and tailored specifically for each performer.

At the Edinburgh Festival, John Eliot Gardiner conducts the Monteverdi Choir and Scottish Chamber Orchestra in a rare performance of Schumann's complete Manfred, the melodrama inspired by Lord Byron. Mendelssohn's Lobesgesang is perhaps not quite as rare, but it still crops up pretty infrequently. John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir are touring the work performing with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchester in Leipzig and then touring Germany with the London Symphony Orchestra, luckily there are a couple of London dates too, 16 & 20 October at the Barbican. Soloists for the tour are Lucy Crowe, Jurgita Adamonyte, Michael Spyres and Patrick Grahl.

It is then the turn of the Orchestra Revolutionnaire et Romantique, as they and John Eliot Gardiner are joined by pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout for a programme of Brahms Serenade No. 2, Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 and Schubert's Symphony No. 5. No London date I'm afraid, the tour goes to Paris, Bruges, Zurich, Luxembourg, Eindhoven and Amsterdam. Finally John Eliot Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists are touring an all-Bach programme which includes his cantata Süßer Trost BWV 151, Lutheran Mass in F major and the Magnificat in E flat, with soloists Hannah Morrison, Eleanor Minney, Reginald Mobley, Hugo Hymas and Gianluca Buratto. The tour starts in Frankfurt and finishes at the Barbican in London, taking in Gronigen, Berlin, Munich, Vienna and Versailles.

The Monteverdi 450 project starts off in Aix-en-Provence in April 2017 and then works is way through Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France and the USA. There is a UK date but not in London, Bristol's Colston Hall is the venue in April and May 2017. Sir John Eliot Gardiner will be conducting the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists, and Elsa Rooke will be staging L'Orfeo, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria and L'incoronazione di Poppea with an impressive list of soloists (see the Monteverdi 450 website) including Krystian Adam, Hana Blažíková, Gianluca Buratto, Robert Burt, Michal Czerniawski, Peter Davoren, Anna Dennis, Marianna Pizzolato, Zachary Wilder and Furio Zanasi.

Full information about the Monteverdi 450 tour from the website, other concerts on the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras concert page.