Page 369 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

painted on a rugged canvas that uplifts before a note has sounded. Clarinettist Emma
Johnson’s Orchestra for the Environment includes her own Clarinet Concerto alongside

Vaughan Williams, Puccini and Tchaikovsky; and among over 50 events, a rich harvest
of string quartets (including the Brodskys and The Revolutionary Drawing Room) goes

head-to-head with the four trombones of Bone-Afide. From Messiaen’s Quartet for the End
of Time to dry stone walling, Swaledale seduces!

Best UK classical music festivals: June 2024

Nevill Holt Festival

Market Harborough, Leicestershire, 1-26 June

nevillholtopera.co.uk
A new year. A new festival. Sort of. Erstwhile Nevill Holt Opera has rebranded itself, though
with its award-winning purpose-built opera house it has not quite abandoned the musical

stage. Directed by Melly Still, Mozart’s The Magic Flute launches Nevill Holt’s reincarnation,
and there’s more than a whiff of magic to what follows. Tenor Nicky Spence and soprano

Mary Bevan issue invitations to ‘A most Marvellous Party’; late Brahms and Chopin absorb
pianist Benjamin Grosvenor; and Britten Sinfonia premieres works by Benjamin Kwasi
Burrell and Sergey Akhunov.

Summer Music in City Churches

London, 6-15 June
summermusiccitychurches.com

No need to feel cheated that the festival is restricting itself to just one church this summer.
In St Giles Cripplegate, Oliver Cromwell was married, John Milton is buried, and William

Shakespeare had lodgings nearby – remembered in this year’s theme. The Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra sets the scene with Finzi’s Introduction to Love’s Labour’s Lost; the
Fauré centenary is variously observed; and love is in the air as violinist David Juritz heads

up the Curve Ensemble for Nuevo Tango.

Aldeburgh Festival

Snape Maltings and around, 7-23 June

brittenpearsarts.org
When EM Forster observed that a festival should be festive, distinctive and responsive to

its setting, he had Aldeburgh in mind: 75 festivals on, Forster’s vision and that of
founders Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears remains vibrantly intact. Aldeburgh’s landmark
edition isn’t the only anniversary celebrated; in majestic Blythburgh Church, 60 years after

its premiere there, Britten’s Curlew River is revisited.