Page 187 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK

I felt proud and happy that the first three Proms I attended all happened to be shaped by first-rate
women conductors: the most vivid of Sibelius Second Symphonies in a fascinating interpretation
by yet another Finn, Dalia Stasevska – don’t be surprised when the country’s training programme
puts conductors in front of full orchestras from an early age; Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's
deliciously individual Symphony sounding sleek and chameleonic from Chineke! Players under
Panamian American Kalena Bovell (pictured above by Robert Allan); and the annual visit – it
will be her last as chief conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra - from Mirga
Gražinytė-Tyla. This, as it happened, culminated in the first disappointment I’ve experienced from
this team live, an uncertain Brahms Third Symphony. I have to slip in a word of praise for
Catherine Larsen-Maguire’s debut with the LPO down in Eastbourne with a translucent, supple
Brahms Two, absolutely fresh and much praised by Ian.

For Sebastian Scotney, the joy of returning to live music making was best summed up by
"Patricia Kopatchinskaja lunging towards BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra leader Laura
Samuel to invite her to start an encore at the "Bartók Roots" Prom, Ligeti's violin duet Baladă și
Joc (ballad and dance)". No surprise, perhaps, that another favourite Prom, this time Boyd’s
second choice, happened to be Bach and Handel delivered by John Eliot Gardiner, his
Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists. Alexandra Coghlan loved their Bach St John
Passion, on film only from Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre. I had problems with the relative pallor of
some of the soloists, especially alongside the lustre of a classy Stockholm line-up, but I agree
totally with Alexandra about the vividness of the from-memory singing and the utterly original
Evangelist of Nick Pritchard.