Looking ahead: Baroque at the Edge asks you to Imagine!

Lindsay Kemp and Lucy Bending's Baroque at the Edge festival will be returning in January 2019 for its second instalment. Running from 4 to 6 January 2019 at LSO St Lukes, the festival will be featuring a number of artists whose performances move away from pure period performance, and represent an interesting commentary, with the festival proclaiming that it has no rules! 

This year's festival asks you to Imagine if Bach was a jazzman, Purcell a folk-fiddler, and Monteverdi a minimalist…

Venezualan pianist Gabriela Montero is best known for her use of improvisation and she will be including her own responses to the music of the Baroque alongside Bach-inspired works by Liszt and Busoni. Dutch chanteuse Nora Fischer combines classical, jazz, cabaret and more and with lute-player Mike Fentross she will be re-working songs by Purcell, Peri and Monteverdi.

Clare Norburn's new concert drama Burying the Dead visits the mind of Restoration composer Henry Purcell, with Norburn mixing her own text performed by actor Niall Ashdown with Purcell's music performed by the ensemble Ceruleo. The production is directed by Thomas Guthrie.

Viola da gamba player Liam Byrne is known for his combination of period performance with contemporary music and he recently featured in Alex Mills' new opera Dear Marie Stopes [see my review] performed at Tête à Tête:The Opera Festival . Byrne will be giving a recital which features pieces by contemporary composers including Nico Muhly and Edmund Finnis.

Full information from the Baroque at the Edge website.