Celebrating 10 years of lieder in Leeds - Leeds Lieder's 2021 festival welcomes audiences back for an action-packed weekend in June

Leeds Lieder, artistic director Joseph Middleton, is 10 this year and having kept the lieder flag flying in Leeds with a series of live-streamed concerts from Leeds Town Hall, Leeds Lieder is plannnint to welcome audiences to Leeds Town Hall for its 2021 festival from 17 to 20 June 2021, though the concerts will be live-streamed as well.

It is an exciting programme and an action packed four days including:

• Alice Coote (mezzo-soprano) and Christian Blackshaw (piano) in Mahler's Rückert Lieder
• Iain Burnside's exploration of Richard Wagner and the Wesendoncks,  A View from the Villa
  
• Natalya Romaniw (soprano) and Iain Burnside (piano) in Strauss, Rimsky-Korsakov, Grieg and Rachmaninov
• Britten's five canticles with Mark Padmore (tenor), Joseph Middleton (piano), Iestyn Davies (counter-tenor), Peter Brathwaite (baritone), Olivia Jageurs (harp), Ben Goldscheider (horn)
• A late-night show from the Hermes Experiment with music by Errollyn Wallen, Raymond Yiu, Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Emily Hall, Hannah Peel, Clara Schumann, Lili Boulanger
  
• Ema Nikolovska (mezzo-soprano) and Joseph Middleton in a striking programme exploring the singer's British, Canadian, American and Germanic links
• Soraya Mafi (soprano), Ema Nikolovska (mezzo-soprano), William Thomas bass and Graham Johnson (piano) in a programme entitled I f Fiordiligi and Dorabella had been Lieder singers which I remember Johnson doing with the Songmakers Almanac in the early 1980s!
• James Gilchrist (tenor) and Anna Tilbrook (piano) in Jonathan Dove's Under Alter’d Skies, plus some of Barber's Hermit Songs and music by Purcell and Schubert
• Carolyn Sampson (soprano), Roderick Williams baritone and Joseph Middleton in He Sings, She Sings, They Sing, You Choose, a programme which combines a new commission from Hannah Kendall with an examination of gender politics in song and an invitation to the audience to contribute to the debate

Plus of course, pre-concert talks, lectures, masterclasses and a concert from the young artists being coached during the weekend. 

Full details from the Festival website.