Page 188 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK

Alexandra’s second choice is also a pre-liberation digital one, saxophonist Jess Gillam
communicating across the board with style and verve as part of the excellent Classical Vauxhall
Festival (Gillam pictured above by Neil Massey with pianist Zeynep Özsuca). We’re banking on
the live experience in February 2022; the line-up is similarly good. Many of the smaller-scale
festivals did manage to get off the ground; Miranda Heggie experienced some Ryedale Festival
events live in Yorkshire but also praises the digital enterprise of RyeStream, “which comprises a
range of filmed performances interspersed with visuals of Rydeale's stunning surroundings and
is definitely in the upper tranche of digital output seen this year.”

For the first time in seven years, hospital visiting kept me from my favourite festival in the world,
showcasing Paavo Järvi's superband the Estonian Festival Orchestra in the blissful seaside town
of Pärnu, but all concerts are still available to view for free on the website, and still give a frisson,
especially Lars Vogt's Mozart, Joshua Bell's Dvořák and the revelation of just how wonderful the
Swedsh composer Berwald can be in the closing performance of his Fourth Symphony (Sinfonie
naïve'). The encores are terrific, as always.

Bernard Hughes has chosen two events of deep significance. The first was again online, Re-
wilding The Waste Land, Tamsin Greig performing extracts from The Waste Land alongside I
Fagiolini’s beautifully judged programme of mainly contemporary pieces celebrating the natural
world. Never to Forget, Howard Goodall’s tribute to care workers killed by Covid – “a choral
setting of all their names, that was extremely moving and a suitable living monument to the
dead”. A happier, and serendipitous, farewell came to the Estonian composer Ester Mägi in what
turned out to be the week before her death at the age of 99. The Sea is a little masterpiece,
performed superbly by the Northern Chords Festival Orchestra under Jonathan Bloxham – an
army of young generals from quartets and orchestras all over the UK – in the annual Europe Day
Concert in St John's Smith Square, reviewed for theartsdesk by Jessica. The film of the entire
concert, a fine piece of work, is still online, but here’s just the Mägi.