Page 185 - FINAL_The Sixteen Coverage Book 40th Anniversary Year
P. 185
10 August 2019
10 must-see shows at the Edinburgh
festivals this week
The Sixteen, Queen’s Hall, 11am Thursday, August 15
Soprano Amber Wagner (who will sing Gutrune in the closing concert of the Festival,
Richard Wagner’s Gotterdammerung) is a late-replacement for Christine Goerke (who
is Brunnhilde in that conclusion of the Ring Cycle). A substitution that happened after
both the print editions of the EIF programme, that may mean there is a fighting chance
of a ticket to hear Wagner perform her composer namesake’s Wesendonck Leider,
alongside songs by Strauss, Bellini and Barber. Local hero Malcolm Martineau is still
in place at the keyboard.
Two days before the choir takes its place alongside the Scottish Chamber Orchestra to
give the world premiere of Sir James MacMillan’s Symphony No.5 “Le grand
inconnu” in the Usher Hall – without question one of the major events of his 60th
birthday year and this year’s Festival – The Sixteen and conductor Harry Christophers
have their own concert in the Queen’s Hall, in what is their own 40th anniversary
year. It is a programme of Baroque and Renaissance polyphony from across Europe,
and no-one sings that music better.
Keith Bruce
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