Grand open-air celebrations in the Boboli Gardens of Florence’s Palazzo Pitti for this year’s transformed New Generation Festival
In an exceptional manifestation of hope and renewal, the 4th edition of The New Generation Festival will be transformed into The ReGeneration Festival, co-presented with the Uffizi Galleries and in association with the City of Florence at the landmark Palazzo Pitti and Boboli Gardens, from 26 August – 29 August 2020. Introducing a budding cast of tomorrow’s stars in a staged production of the Cinderella story in Rossini’s magical La Cenerentola, the ReGeneration Festival will host opera, jazz with Anush Hovhannisyan, and concerts at the Palazzo Pitti in collaboration with Musica con le Ali and in the charming ornamental gardens of Palazzo Corsini al Prato.
Read moreOxford Piano Festival to go online, with enterprising recitals from young stars, webinars and masterclasses
Welcoming young alumni Ignas Maknickas, Kausikan Rajeshkumar, Oda Voltersvik, Julius Asal & Nuron Mukumi The Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra and Artistic Director Marios Papadopoulos announce the 22nd Oxford Piano Festival will take place online from Monday 3 August to Friday 7 August 2020. The Festival typically welcomes some of the world’s most distinguished pianists and teachers for a week-long series of varied concerts and masterclasses; this year, it will offer free webinars, clinics, and archive masterclasses augmented by evening concerts from five of the Festival’s young alumni, recorded especially for the Festival.
Read moreGuy Johnston announces the 9th Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival will take place online with behind-the-scenes tours by Lord Salisbury
Artistic Director Guy Johnston announces the 9th annual Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival, with four chamber concerts to be made available as free online streams. The private concerts will be filmed in late July in the historic rooms of Hatfield House, and will premiere on the Festival’s YouTube channel on Friday evenings during September, with forewords by Lord Salisbury. Each concert will offer a rich cultural feast with programmes augmented by exclusive interviews with artists, curators, historians, and the Salisbury family who have owned Hatfield House since 1607. While maintaining local support, filming opens the Festival up to a new audience worldwide for a truly unique experience, going behind the scenes at one of Britain’s most celebrated historic houses, the childhood home of Elizabeth I.
Read moreLes Talens Lyriques announces 20-21 season with first modern performances of Salieri’s Armida
Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques announce their 2020-21 season championing heroines, with the first modern performances of Salieri’s breakthrough success Armida, 250 years after the work’s premiere. A recording of Armida to be made during the season is complemented by the release of Mozart’s Betulia liberata on Aparté this autumn. In June 2021, Les Talens Lyriques join the centennial Mozartfest Würzburg with performances of Idomeneo. Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques express their love of the French Baroque, pairing ballets by Lully and Pascal Collasse to tell of the birth and life of Venus. On tour in Europe, Les Talens Lyriques make multiple visits to Germany and Austria, and give three concerts at London’s Wigmore Hall in Spring 2021. At home in Paris, Les Talens Lyriques are joined by Calixto Bieito for a staged production of Bach’s St. John Passion at the Théâtre du Châtelet.
Read more#OPatHome: Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra makes music-making fun with videos for primary school children
The Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra goes online during lockdown with #OPatHome, a six-week video series of entertaining and resourceful virtual music-making for primary school children. In the series, members of the Orchestra introduce their instruments, tell stories, perform legendary musical excerpts, and suggest interactive activities to do at home, even if you don’t play an instrument. The series has been created by musicians from the Orchestra during lockdown in hopes of sending music, fun and creativity from their own homes to children watching at home and in school.
Read moreManchester Collective broadcast genre-bending Sirocco with Abel Selaocoe
This Summer Manchester Collective refocuses towards recordings and broadcasts, with the Collective’s weekly Isolation Broadcast series culminating in a filmed performance of Sirocco on Saturday 27 June with the cellist Abel Selaocoe. In August 2020, Manchester Collective will release their debut EP, Recreation, on the Bedroom Community label and will head back to the studio to make further recordings.
Read moreInsula orchestra continues its series of radical multimedia productions, staging works by Mozart, Beethoven and Schumann
Insula orchestra announce a bewitching 2020-21 season headlined by radical new multimedia productions of Magic Mozart by stage magicians Cie 14:20, and Schumann’s Night of Kings, culminating in the orchestra’s second performance at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. Magic Mozart, the orchestra’s new studio recording of the arias involved in the production, is released on 18 September 2020 with Warner Classics. Led by founder and director Laurence Equilbey, the period orchestra completes its European tour of Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony in Brussels, staged by La Fura dels Baus, and visits London on tour with Mozart’s celebrated Requiem.
Read moreCellist Guy Johnston performs at the Wigmore Hall and continues lockdown concerts in Cerne Abbas
On Wednesday 24 June, cellist Guy Johnston joins pianist Melvyn Tan for a concert from the Wigmore Hall, broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and live-streamed in HD video on the Wigmore Hall website. Guy Johnston and Melvyn Tan begin their programme for the special lockdown concert with Beethoven’s 7 Variations on ‘Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen’, the composer’s tribute to Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. The British duo continue with Schumann’s Fantasiestücke for clarinet in their arrangement for cello, while Chopin’s Cello Sonata of 1846 is one of only nine works he wrote for instruments other than the piano.
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