Page 368 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

in-residence and 2024 BBC Music Magazine Awards winner Sean Shibe, whose questing
guitar explores Virginia Woolf’s Orlando with mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska, and

dances Boccherini’s Fandango in the company of the Carducci Quartet. Beneath the
Abbey’s glorious fan vaulting, Stile Antico revisits the Renaissance, while the Maxwell

Quartet pair late Beethoven and Scottish folk music.

Sheffield Chamber Music Festival

Various venues, Sheffield, 17-25 May
musicintheround.co.uk

For its 40th anniversary, the festival invites cellist Steven Isserlis to be its guest curator;
and given his Francophile leanings plus the Fauré centenary, Sheffield will be wearing its

beret at a jaunty angle. Ensemble 360 and friends devote a day to Saint-Saëns,
baritone Roderick Williams adds Fauré’s La bonne chanson and Ravel to the mix, and those

up with the lark should convene at 5am, when Barber and Messiaen greet the dawn at
Samuel Worth Chapel.

Perth Arts Festival

Perth, 22 May-1 June

perthfestival.co.uk
It’s not just opera divas who like to change frock mid-concert. In their tercentenary mash-

up of the Four Seasons lassoing Vivaldi, Max Richter and Piazzolla, Il Giardino d’Amore
sport seasonal costume adjustments at every turn. Meanwhile, Scots Opera Project sets

Mozart’s The Magic Flute in an asylum, while Scottish Opera pop-ups propose ‘A Little Bit
of The Merry Widow’ and ‘A Little Bit of Don Giovanni’. The Hebrides Ensemble reforges the

Auld Alliance, and the Czech National Orchestra bestrides Bruch and Beethoven.

English Music Festival

Dorchester-on-Thames, 24-27 May
englishmusicfestival.org.uk

And still they come! The English Music Festival continues its happy knack of ferreting
out Vaughan Williams premieres: this time, opening night’s unveiling is his concert
fantasy Richard II. It is followed by Holst’s ‘Cotswolds’ Symphony in a BBC Concert

Orchestra evening that also heads east for Doreen Carwithen’s Suffolk Suite. Her music
also features in the closing concert, which falls to the English Symphony Orchestra.

Swaledale Festival

North Yorkshire, 25 May-8 June
swalefest.org

With Swaledale, Wensleydale and Arkengarthdale supplying the backdrop, the festival is