Spitalfields Music's 2023 Festival

Looking at the programme for Spitalfields Music's 2023 Festival you feel that the festival is back with a bang. The programme features 16 premieres alongside neglected historical repertoire performed in iconic locations in and around the East End from 30 June to 12 July 2023. From premieres of music by Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre to a programme about Henry VIII's wives mixing Libby Larsen and Julian Phillips with original Tudor music to Michael Finnissy setting Hans Christian Anderson. The festival is opened by soprano Nardus Williams, baritone Roderick Williams, pianist Allyson Devenish and poet Rommi Smith in evening of protest songs through the ages from Schubert to Britten to Kit & the Widow.

Soprano Mimi Doulton and pianist Ben Smith collaborate on a programme exploring story-telling and poetry centred on Michael Finnissy's Hans Christian Anderson settings alongside new companion work from Danish composer Rasmus Zwicki, and a further premiere from Finnissy. Composer Ian Wilson explores his late father’s battle with Alzheimer’s, and the role memory and music has in making a person in a new music theatre piece, Beside the Sea. 

Soprano Anna Dennis, pianist John Reid, The Choir of the Chapels Royal, H M Tower of London, conductor Dr Colm Carey join forces for Try Me, Good King, a programme centred on Libby Larsen's piece based on the final letters and gallows speeches of the first five wives of Henry VIII, and this is performed alongside Julian Philips’ setting of texts by the great Tudor poet Sir Thomas Wyatt (rumoured to have had an affair with Anne Boleyn) and music from the Tudor Court. Sopranos Carolyn Sampson, Anna Dennis and Alys Roberts, with the Dunedin Consort, performed three of Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre’s biblical cantatas

The Maxwell Quartet joins with pianist Alistair Beatson for the English premiere of Sir James MacMillan's new piano quintet, We Are Collective alongside music by Eleanor Alberga, and Cesar Franck. Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani and violinist Fenella Humphreys give the London premieres of pieces written for the 2022 Cheltenham Composers Academy along with Darius Milhaud's Calme, his 1945 work for harpsichord and violin. The festival ends with Byrd at the Tower, the Odyssean Ensemble in Byrd's three masses.

Other visitors include Kabantu, who weave together folk, classical and world musics, Explore Ensemble in a collaboration with composer Klaus Lang, and musicians from the Engines Orchestra in 'an immersive mindfulness experience', 

Full details from the Spitalfields Music website.