Classical Vauxhall returns for its fourth edition in March 2023

Artistic director Fiachra Garvey at Classical Vauxhall 2022

Classical Vauxhall, artistic director Fiachra Garvey, is returning to St Mark's Church, Kennington for a weekend of classical events from 2 to 4 March 2023. The festival opens on Thursday 2 March 2023 with Comfort in Chaos, a programme of piano quartets, featuring early pieces by Beethoven (his own adaptation of his quintet for piano and winds) and Mahler alongside Brahms' mighty Piano Quartet No.1 in G minor Op.25 and Shifting Landscapes by Canadian composer Vivian Fung performed by English violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen, American violist Clifton Harrison, Turkish cellist Jamal Aliyev and Irish pianist Fiachra Garvey.

On Friday 3/3/2023, tenor Nicky Spence and pianist Sholto Kynoch present Songs of The Seasons, with Benjamin Britten's Holy Sonnets of John Donne, Tippett's Songs of Ariel plus music by RVW, Sondheim, Gershwin, Michael Horder, Johnnie Dankworth and Geoffrey Bush, and Margaret Bonds Songs of the Seasons. On Saturday afternoon, violinist Rakhi Singh combines solo violin and electronics in a programme of music that mixes Bach and Nicola Matteis with Sciarrino, Saariaho, and Oliver Leith. 

And the final concert on Saturday evening is the Julian Bliss Septet in The Sound of Film–Jazz in Hollywood, a programme of film music from the silent film and the early ‘talkies’ in The Great Depression years, to music from wartime movies, musicals and classic Disney blockbusters. 

On Sunday 5 March it is the turn of young people as the festival hosts an LPO Overture Day for Young Musicians as 40 local young people aged 11—14 will join with musicians from the London Philharmonic Orchestra for a day of side-by-side music-making. The day will end with a free public performance by the Overture ensemble at 4.30–5.00pm.

Read my 2022 interview with the festival's artistic director, Fiachra Garvey.

Full details from the Classical Vauxhall website.