We can certainly dream! Tempting Summer plans for the largest classical music festival in Canada, the Festival de Lanaudière

Amphithéâtre Fernand-Lindsay, the main venue of the Festival de Lanaudière

International travel might be tricky at the moment, but we can certainly dream! And this Summer's Festival de Lanaudière in Canada certainly has plenty to tempt. Set in Lanaudière, a region in Quebec that is North East of Montreal and which is popular as a holiday destination, it is the largest classical music festival in Canada. Under artistic director Renaud Loranger, this year's festival is the 44th edition and is presenting four weekends of concerts from 17 July to 8 August 2021, featuring the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and its chorus, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Les Violons du Roy and Orchestre Métropolitain.

There is a diverse range of programmes from a new ballet to Brahms' German Requiem, soprano Karina Gauvin in arias by Mozart and Gluck, Poulenc's Concert Champetre,  pianist Marc-André Hamelin in all five Beethoven piano concertos over two concerts with Orchestre Métropolitain and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Piazzolla's Seasons of Buenos Aires,  Martinu's Frescoes of Piero della Francesca and a new work by Canadian composer Barbara Assiginaak. There are also smaller scale concerts in churches, and fifteen concerts in open air spaces.

Four concerts are being broadcast on-line, so we can catch some of the magic even if we can't travel:

• Songs of Love - OSM Chorus, 18 July 2021
• Destination Buenos Aires - Les violons du Roy, 24 July 2021
• Romanticism in the French style - OSM, Jacques Lacombe, Bryan Cheng (cello), 31 July 2021
• All Hamelin, All Beethoven - Marc-André Hamelin, OSM, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, 6 August 2021

The concerts will be available on the Thursday of the week following the concert,  and the video will be available for 14 days. Once downloaded, you have 48 hours to listen to it. Price : 15$ (CAN) 

Further information from the festival website.