Wigmore Hall’s 115th season – including a landmark survey of Schubert’s songs and major artist residencies – begins tomorrow

Season highlights include:

 Iestyn Davies and The English Concert in the opening concert  Schubert: The Complete Songs launches a two-season survey of the composer’s complete Lieder  Celebrating Magdalena Kožená series includes first UK recital with Sir Simon Rattle, who makes his Wigmore Hall debut  Bartók Chamber Music series  Borodin Quartet perform a Beethoven and Shostakovich Cycle  Jean-Guihen Queyras is Wigmore Hall’s Artist in Residence for 2015/16  Igor Levit Series and Introducing James Baillieu underline Wigmore Hall’s commitment to outstanding young artists  Henry Purcell: A Retrospective includes Iestyn Davies and Andreas Scholl in recital and concerts by The Sixteen, Vox Luminis and Trevor Pinnock  Conclusion of Wigmore Hall’s The Mozart Odyssey  Christian Gerhaher: Singer in Residence  The Sixteen Residency  Friedrich Cerha Focus Day explores Austria’s leading composer  Haydn and Dvořák Series from the Eggner Trio  Llŷr Williams continues Beethoven Piano Sonata Cycle  Elīna Garanča makes her Wigmore Hall debut

Adventurous artistic projects and world-class performers supply the essential spirit of Wigmore Hall’s 2015/16 Season. The new artistic programme, which begins tomorrow (Saturday 12 September), offers audiences the chance to explore a vast range of repertoire and to experience profound interpretations from great musicians and emerging artists alike.

Wigmore Hall’s place at the heart of British and international cultural life is reflected in a programme as rich and diverse as any on the global concert scene, boldly projected in the 2015/16 Season’s opening week and reinforced over its course with landmark series, compelling artist residencies and recitals destined to attract capacity audiences. Creative energy and the highest achievements of the human spirit will be celebrated throughout the season as part of Wigmore Hall’s long-term investment in promoting and developing the great legacy of chamber music and song.

Wigmore Hall enters its 115th anniversary season propelled by a prolonged and ongoing period of investment and development. Attendances at Wigmore Hall have almost doubled from 120,000 a decade ago to 200,000 in 2014/15, attracting close to full capacity audiences for the vast majority of concerts. In the coming season Wigmore Hall will promote 920 events, an astonishing number that comprises 460 concerts and 460 Learning events. The quality of the artistic programme and quantity of outstanding concerts, exceptional by the standards of any international recital venue, rest on Wigmore Hall’s success in securing £1.6 million each year in sponsorship and is driven by the sustained momentum of its other fundraising initiatives.

‘As the flagship national and a leading international organisation for chamber music and song, Wigmore Hall plays a significant role in nurturing the UK’s cultural ecology’, comments John Gilhooly. ‘People around the world want to engage with us, which is why we are determined to fulfil our role among leading cultural organisations. Wigmore Hall is committed to growing in all areas of its work and is determined to increase its reach and impact as part of what we see as our responsibility.’

Iestyn Davies, whose first Wigmore Hall Live album won Gramophone’s Recital Award in 2014, opens the Hall’s 2015/16 Season on Saturday 12 September. The acclaimed British countertenor joins forces with The English Concert and Harry Bicket in a programme of Handel arias. The season’s first week also sees the launch of the Borodin Quartet’s Beethoven and Shostakovich Cycle (15 & 17 September) and of Wigmore Hall’s eight- concert Bartók Chamber Music focus, the latter connecting to a relationship between Wigmore Hall and the Hungarian composer’s music that began during his lifetime. Canadian violinist James Ehnes starts the series on 18 September with Bartók’s virtuosic violin sonatas and returns to perform other works on 10 January. The gamut of Bartók concerts spans Cédric Tiberghien’s explorations of the piano works (24 November & 24 May), a complete survey of Bartók’s six string quartets by the Heath Quartet (11 & 13 May), a programme comprising the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion with Tiberghien, François-Frédéric Guy, Colin Currie and Sam Walton (19 March), and a recital by the young Hungarian violinist Barnabás Kelemen (11 June).

One of the most ambitious projects ever presented at Wigmore Hall also begins this month. Schubert: The Complete Songs, spread over the course of two seasons, will encompass Franz Schubert’s 600-plus Lieder. Every programme in the series will unfold in chronological order, moving from little-known student pieces to sublime late songs. Austrian baritone Florian Boesch and Graham Johnson, one of the world’s leading experts on Schubert song, open Wigmore Hall’s landmark series on 22 September. Other contributing artists include Henk Neven, Sarah Connolly, Christoph Prégardien, James Baillieu, Malcolm Martineau, Lucy Crowe, Christianne Stotijn, Christopher Maltman, Luca Pisaroni, Simon Keenlyside, Ian Bostridge, Miah Persson, Angelika Kirchschlager, Helmut Deutsch, Robin Tritschler and Roderick Williams.

‘This Schubert series has been three years in the making’, John Gilhooly observes. ‘We are delighted to be collaborating with the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg and Hohenems Festival in this mammoth project, a new international partner for us, and one that truly believes as much as we do in preserving the song recital as a paramount concert-going experience.’

Wigmore Hall continues to enhance its programme by investing in dedicated artist profiles, residencies and focus events. Next season offers an unprecedented number of such special projects, embracing works from more than five centuries of musical history performed by artists recognised for the originality and insight of their music-making. Jean-Guihen Queyras has become an established favourite with Wigmore Hall’s audience. The French cellist will be Artist in Residence next season, performing four concerts and leading a masterclass session with postgraduate students from London’s conservatoires. His tenure begins on 19 September when he shares the stage with Emmanuel Pahud and Eric Le Sage. Queyras also performs piano trios by Schumann, Salvatore Sciarrino and Schubert with Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov (22 December), appears in recital with Alexandre Tharaud (13 March), and explores chamber works by Dvořák, Martinů and Schumann in company with Lisa Batiashvili, Antoine Tamestit and Jonathan Biss (17 May).

Wigmore Hall’s Celebrating Magdalena Kožená series explores the work of one of the most perceptive and versatile song recitalists of our time. The Czech mezzo-soprano is set to perform with Mitsuko Uchida on 2 and 5 October, presenting a carefully conceived programme of songs by Schumann, Wolf, Dvořák and Schoenberg. Kožená’s charismatic artistry can also be experienced on 29 January when she is joined by Sir Simon Rattle, making his Wigmore Hall debut as pianist, and accompanied by an ensemble of outstanding instrumentalists, Andrew Marriner and Amihai Grosz among them. Their programme includes Stravinsky’s rarely performed Three Songs from William Shakespeare, Janáček’s delightful Rikadla (‘Nursery Rhymes’) and Brahms’s elegiac Two songs with viola Op. 91. She returns on 8 March to work with the Baroque ensemble La Cetra in a concert that includes Monteverdi’s Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, Berio’s Sequenza III for solo voice and a new work by Czech composer Vit Zouhar. The series closes at the beginning of July in the atmospheric space of Wilton’s Music Hall in London’s East End, where Kožená will lead a programme of cabaret songs and others works from the 1920s and 1930s. This will be the Wigmore Hall’s first concert away from home.

Two other major programming strands continue. The Mozart Odyssey unfolds with seven concerts, with Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien concluding their survey of Mozart’s works for violin and piano (27 October & 30 January) and Francesco Piemontesi beginning his cycle of the complete piano sonatas (25 January & 13 July). Michael Collins and the City of London Sinfonia mark Mozart’s birthday on 27 January with a programme including the ‘Gran Partita’ and Clarinet Concerto, while Aurora Orchestra presents morning and late night concerts (24 April & 17 June) built around Mozart’s music. Henry Purcell: A Retrospective, meanwhile, moves through its second season with nine concerts given by peerless interpreters of the London-born composer’s works. The critically acclaimed series recommences on 13 October when Trevor Pinnock and a hand-picked ensemble of singers and instrumentalists perform Dido and Aeneas. Other series highlights include a programme of sacred anthems given by Vox Luminis (25 October), two concerts of royal welcome songs for Charles II and James II from The Sixteen and Harry Christophers (3 March & 7 June), and an evening of duets and arias for countertenor featuring the irresistible combination of Iestyn Davies, Andreas Scholl and The English Concert (19 November).

Two master composers of the piano trio occupy centre stage throughout the Eggner Trio’s Haydn and Dvořák Series. The ensemble, founded in Vienna in 1997, comprises three brothers who are each active as solo performers. Collectively they have attracted an ardent Wigmore Hall following with interpretations that crackle with exhilarating energy and musical intensity. The Sixteen and Harry Christophers, in addition to their part in Purcell: A Retrospective, also focus on the work of another pioneer of Baroque music. The Sixteen Residency opens on 3 November with a generous selection of Monteverdi’s sacred works, including the ‘Dixit Dominus’ from his Selva morale e spirituale, regarded today as the composer’s crowning achievement in church music. The programme also comprises Cavalli’s Magnificat and Monteverdi’s equally sonorous eight-part motet Confitebor Primo.

The season showcases the exceptional talents of two young artists widely tipped to join the pantheon of great performers. The Wigmore Hall’s Igor Levit Series opens with two solo recitals from the Russian-born, German-based pianist, hallmarked by the intelligence and imagination of his programme selection. Levit performs Beethoven’s ‘Diabelli’ Variations together with works by Georg Muffat and Shostakovich (5 November) and explores compositions by Bach and Busoni (5 May). He is joined by Julia Fischer in the summer of 2016 for three concerts comprising Beethoven’s complete Sonatas for violin and piano (4, 5 & 6 July). Wigmore Hall’s commitment to the art of song accompaniment underpins its Introducing James Baillieu strand. The prodigiously gifted pianist, ranked by the Daily Telegraph ‘in the Gerald Moore/ Graham Johnson bracket’, will appear in eleven concerts throughout the season, including Wigmore Hall’s 115th anniversary Schubert Gala on 31 May and in partnership with, among others, Henk Neven, Iestyn Davis, Allan Clayton, Johnny Herford and Ailish Tynan.

One of the world’s greatest Lieder interpreters appears in four concerts and a lunchtime masterclass session at Wigmore Hall in 2015/16. The Christian Gerhaher Singer in Residence series opens on 8 November when the German baritone performs a programme rooted in old and modern Vienna. His recital presents Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte in company with Schoenberg’s expressionist Das Buch der hängenden Gärten and songs by Haydn, Berg and Beethoven. Subsequent concerts in the series include an all-Schumann evening shared with the soprano Christiane Karg (8 February).

Other significant song recitals include the Latvian mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča’s Wigmore Hall debut (11 December), an evening of Mahler and Wagner songs from Waltraud Meier (15 December), an all-French programme from Patricia Petibon (16 December), and recitals from Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis (22 January), and Matthias Goerne and Daniil Trifonov (8 June). Bezhod Abduraimov’s recital on 16 September opens the London Pianoforte Series, which also includes performances by Nelson Goerner (28 September), Bertrand Chamayou (23 October), Richard Goode (12 November), Christian Zacharias (16 November), Piotr Anderszewski (9 February), Daniil Trifonov (14 February & 9 June) and Sir András Schiff (2, 6 & 9 April).

Llŷr Williams reaches the midway point of his Beethoven Piano Sonata Cycle, a major project offered over three seasons at Wigmore Hall (3 October, 13 January & 19 April). The Welsh pianist, who presented his first complete cycle of Beethoven’s piano sonatas five years ago, offers mature interpretations that gain in depth and vision with every performance. The music of JS Bach is set to occupy Steven Isserlis on 17 February when he will perform the Six Cello Suites in one evening.

Wigmore Hall celebrates the forthcoming ninetieth birthday of one Austria’s greatest living composers with a day devoted to the often serene and elegiac work of Friedrich Cerha. The Viennese musician made his mark in the late 1950s as co-founder with Kurt Schwertsik of the pioneering new music ensemble Die Reihe. Friedrich Cerha Focus Day presents a major retrospective of the composer’s chamber works performed by close colleagues and musicians intimate with his multi-faceted art, Ensemble Modern, Andreas Schablas and HK Gruber among them. Other highlights of Wigmore Hall’s extensive Contemporary Music Series include performances by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Ensemble intercontemporain, Apartment House, the JACK Quartet and Anssi Karttunen, and the premières of 40 new Wigmore Hall commissions by Sir Harrison Birtwistle, John Casken, Aurélio Edler-Copes, Nico Muhly (with four new choral works) and Sean Shepherd.

Wigmore Hall’s Early Music and Baroque Series continues to expand and now, with over 40 concerts each season, stands among the UK’s most important platforms for pre-Classical music. Highlights of the coming season, in addition to events in the Purcell series and The Sixteen Residency, include Robert Levin’s all-Mozart recital (9 October), Stile Antico’s tenth anniversary concert (27 November), the debut appearance of La Compagnia del Madrigale (7 February), Bach’s Six Brandenburg Concertos performed by the Dunedin Consort (26 February), and an evening with Les Arts Florissants and William Christie (4 April).

For further press information, tickets and images please contact: Victoria Bevan [email protected] 020 3077 4930

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