Page 79 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

Classical

Abel Selaocoe

St David’s Hall, Cardiff and Brangwyn Hall, Swansea

Music pours out of shapeshifting South-African cellist Abel Selaocoe, who straddles
Western classical and African traditions in performances just as likely to see him
singing, improvising or creating body-percussion as playing the cello. He makes his

debut as Artist in Residence with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales this spring with
his own cello concerto. First heard in Scotland last year, Four Spirits blends musical
languages and worlds across four dazzling, virtuoso movements – Selaocoe’s cello
often in dialogue with his voice as well as the orchestra. Also look out for the UK
premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer (and Kanye-collaborator) Caroline
Shaw’s The Observatory – exploring the “chaos and clarity” of the observable
universe. AC

9 and 10 May (stdavidshallcardiff.co.uk, 02920 878444; brangwyn.co.uk, 01792
475715)

Opera

L’Olimpiade, Irish National Opera

Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House, London

Partner-swapping, secret identities, long-lost fathers and ferocious rivals. Today’s elite
sportsmen and women have nothing on Vivaldi’s Olympic athletes and their
scandalous tangle of lives – L’Olimpiade is as much Footballer’s Wives as The Four
Seasons. Irish National Opera won an Olivier for their last Vivaldi staging
(2022’s Bajazet), so smart money’s on this for the win. The show brings Peter Whelan
and the Irish Baroque Orchestra (whose collective energy could power a stadium)
together with director Daisy Evans, who rarely serves up the expected. AC

13 – 25 May (roh.org.uk, 020 7304 4000)

Pop

Girls Aloud UK & Ireland tour

The Girls Aloud reunion tour – which kicks off in Belfast and ends in Leeds – is
definitely not a comeback. Instead, it’s an unashamed greatest hits show to serve those
who loved them the first time around (they recently celebrated their 20 anniversary),
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and to commemorate former member Sarah Harding, who died of breast cancer in
2021. Girls Aloud are part of a generation of girlbands from the peak talent show era,
and are unlikely to get the recognition many would say they deserve – but perhaps the