Celebrating 70 years, the Bath Festival

This year is the Bath Festival's 70th anniversary, and between 11 and 26 May the festival is presenting more than 180 events over an extended period of 17 days, bringing some of the world’s leading writers, musicians and cultural figures into the iconic buildings and onto the streets of Bath.

Baritone Roderick Williams and pianist Ian Burnside will be performing all three of Schubert's great song cycles, and Bath's Camerata choir will be performing Williams' own choral music. And there will be a series of Haydn piano sonatas across 10 Coffee Concerts from pianist Roman Rabinovitch.
The orchestra Spira Mirabilis will be bringing its unique collaborative approach to a conductorless performance of Beethoven's Symphony No 7. Pianist Lars Vogt will be directing the Royal Northern Sinfonia from the piano in a cycle of Beethoven piano concertos.


There is a performance of Bernstein's West Side Story with Jason Thornton conducting the Bath Sinfonia with soloists from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. And Thornton and the Bath Philharmonia return for a concert featuring BBC Young Musician of the Year, Sheku Kanneh-Mason in Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1, and BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, Catriona Morison in Elgar's Sea Pictures.

Other events include the Gould Piano Trio focussing on Schubert and Shostakovich, the Marian Consort, the Vision String Quartet, pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet in Schumann, Debussy and Prokofiev,   and pianist Stephen Hough in Debussy, Schumann and Beethoven.

Full details from the Bath Festival website.