Festival 2021
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FESTIVAL 2021 leedslieder1 @LeedsLieder @leedsliederfestival #LLF21 LEEDS LIEDER has ‘ fully realised its potential and become an event of INTERNATIONAL STATURE. It attracts a large, loyal and knowledgeable audience, and not just from the locality’ Opera Now Ten Festivals and a Pandemic! In 2004 a group Our Young Artists will perform across the weekend of passionate, visionary song enthusiasts began and work with Dame Felicity Lott, James Gilchrist, programming recitals in Leeds and this venture has Anna Tilbrook, Sir Thomas Allen and Iain steadily grown to become the jam-packed season Burnside. Iain has also programmed a fascinating we now enjoy. With multiple artistic partners and music theatre piece for the opening lunchtime thousands of individuals attending our events recital. New talent is on evidence at every turn in every year, Leeds Lieder is a true cultural success this Festival. Ema Nikolovska and William Thomas story. 2020 was certainly a year of reacting nimbly return, and young instrumentalists join Mark and working in new paradigms. We turned Leeds Padmore for an evening presenting the complete Lieder into its own broadcaster and went digital. Canticles by Britten. I’m also thrilled to welcome It has been extremely rewarding to connect with Alice Coote in her Leeds Lieder début. A recital not audiences all over the world throughout the past 12 to miss. The peerless Graham Johnson appears with months, and to support artists both internationally one of his Songmakers’ Almanac programmes and known and just starting out. The support of our we welcome back Leeds Lieder favourites Roderick Friends and the generosity shown by our audiences Williams, Carolyn Sampson and James Gilchrist. has meant that we have been able to continue our Our last season was our most ambitious to date, award-winning education programmes online, and we are unashamed in boasting about our commission new works and provide valuable growth in audience: a staggering 60% increase training for young artists. In 2021 we have invited in the past four years. Let’s keep this upward more musicians than ever before to appear in our trajectory! Our exciting Learning and Participation Festival and for the first time we look forward to programme which opens up creative music-making being hosted by Leeds Town Hall. The art of the to people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities song recital continues to be relevant and flourish allows many more individuals to take delight in in Yorkshire. our events. Around 1000 school children will learn As the finest Festival of art song in the North, songs through our education programmes this year we continue to provide a platform for international alone. stars to rub shoulders with the next generation of Ticket sales and public funding provide around half emerging musicians. However, at the 2021 Festival, of Leeds Lieder’s income and the remainder comes we want to place the audience centre stage – we from the most generous philanthropic support, have missed you, and we cannot wait to share music without which the scope of our programming with you once again! Turn to the closing recital and artistic vision would be compromised. Our and you can read more about your starring role! audiences prove to be our greatest supporters and We enjoyed socially distanced recitals in Leeds we remain immensely grateful to all our Friends. Town Hall in the Autumn and feel confident Every gift, no matter what size, really does make a that, Government Guidelines permitting, we can difference. Visit our supporters page on the website present a Festival you will enjoy in person and feel if you’d like more information about how you can safe attending. Please see the back inside page for help shape culture in Leeds. our Covid Safe Information. For those who have enjoyed our Livestreams, you can enjoy every event I hope you like what is on offer over the next few from the comfort of your home. Information about pages and I look forward to welcoming you to this purchasing livestream tickets can also be found at Festival. I feel confident it will be a very special the back of this brochure. few days. With all best wishes, Cover image and all images of Leeds Town Hall: © Tom Arber Joseph Middleton – Director The Leeds Lieder website has further details of programmes and artist biographies, as well as information relating to your visit to Leeds. 2 All ticket prices are inclusive of a Box Office booking fee. Thursday 17 June 1pm Victoria Hall Lunchtime Performance © Julie Kim The View from the Villa Susan Bickley Susan Bickley mezzo-soprano Matthew Brook bass-baritone Victoria Newlyn actress Iain Burnside piano Tickets: £16.50, £14.30 (conc) FREE (U26/students) Livestream Tickets: £11 In 1855 Wagner’s patron, Otto Wesendonck, and his wife, Mathilde, built a sumptuous villa © Gerard Collett Matthew Brook Matthew overlooking Zürich. Two years later they bought the house next door, Asyl, and invited Wagner and his wife Minna to move in. The Wagners were at one another’s throats. Mathilde was young, beautiful and highly intelligent. What could possibly go wrong? Mathilde was a prolific writer of plays, poetry and prose. Music lovers are indebted to her for five poems that Wagner set, now known as the Wesendonck-Lieder, several of them marked Sketches for Tristan and Isolde. The comings and goings between house and villa culminated in a public scandal. This music theatre piece explores the spaces Victoria Newlyn Victoria between those songs. All the music is by Wagner. It was specially created for the 2018 St Endellion Summer Festival. Thursday 17 June 3–6pm Victoria Hall Risers Festival Masterclass I with Iain Burnside Iain Burnside Iain © TallWall Media Tickets: £16.50, £14.30 (conc) FREE (U26/students) Livestream Tickets: £8.80 Iain Burnside is well-known to Leeds Lieder audiences as a familiar and highly popular presence on BBC Radio 3, as well as being the Artistic Director of the inaugural Leeds Lieder Festival. In addition to his rare talent for programming, Iain is also an engaging educator and will share his expertise with a new generation of singers and pianists, specifically invited to be Leeds Lieder Young Artists. 0113 376 0318 : leedslieder.org.uk 3 Thursday 17 June 7–7.30pm The Crypt Pre–Concert Talk with Richard Stokes Tickets: FREE Please book in advance Stokes Richard Professor of Lieder at the Royal Academy of Music, and Leeds Lieder Patron, Richard Stokes: there’s no one better to give the first of this year’s pre-concert talks. Mahler’s Rückert Lieder stand as some of the greatest achievements in the song repertoire. Richard will introduce these masterpieces and illuminate the opening recital of the Festival. Alice Coote Thursday 17 June 8pm © Jiyang Chen Victoria Hall 10th Festival Opening Gala Recital Alice Coote mezzo-soprano Christian Blackshaw piano Tickets: £27.50, £25.30 (conc) £5.50 (U26/students) Livestream Tickets: £13.20 Programme to include: Favourite songs by Schumann, Strauss and Tchaikovsky Mahler Rückert Lieder The Tenth Leeds Lieder Festival opens with a gala recital given by one of the great artists of our day. Equally famed on the great operatic stages as in concert and recital she has been named ‘the superlative British Mezzo’ by the San Francisco Chronicle. Joining Alice is star pianist Christian © Herbie Knott Blackshaw, her regular duo-partner at Wigmore Hall, whose deeply expressive artistry is well matched with her own. Heady Romanticism sits Christian Blackshaw at the heart of this recital. 4 All ticket prices are inclusive of a Box Office booking fee. 0113 376 0318 : leedslieder.org.uk 5 Friday 18 June 10am–12.30pm Victoria Hall Risers Festival Masterclass II with Dame Felicity Lott © Trevor Leighton Tickets: £16.50, £14.30 (conc) Dame Felicity Lott FREE (U26/students) Livestream Tickets: £8.80 Our Young Artists programme continues to go from strength to strength, with alumni such as Elizabeth Watts and Nicky Spence now featuring on the world’s great stages. Duos from around the globe have been selected from highly competitive entry to take part in the Festival as Leeds Lieder Young Artists. Patron of Leeds Lieder, the great British soprano Dame Felicity Lott gives the second of four masterclasses in this year’s Festival. Friday 18 June 2.30–3.30pm Victoria Hall Lunchtime Recital Natalya Romaniw soprano Iain Burnside piano © Patrick Allen Tickets: £16.50, £14.30 (conc) FREE (U26/students) Natalya Romaniw Natalya Livestream Tickets: £11 Strauss Allerseelen, Ruhe meine Seele, Ständchen, Morgen, Cäcilie Rimsky-Korsakov Softly the spirit flew, Through the realms, The Nymph Grieg from Sechs Lieder op 48, I, II, V & IV Rachmaninov Arion, O do not sing to me again, The Answer, Spring Waters Iain Burnside Iain Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw is one of Europe’s © TallWall Media most promising young stars. Recent winner of the 2016 Critic’s Choice Award for Music, for her ‘big toned, generous, gut-wrenching performances’ (The Sunday Times), and her ‘glowing voice capable of astonishing power’ (FT), she is often hailed by the British press as ‘the outstanding soprano of her generation’ (Telegraph). Success of the 2020/21 season includes being awarded Young Artist of the Year at the Gramophone Awards and Singer of the Paul Cook © Year at the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards. In her Leeds Lieder début she performs repertoire Dr Lucy Walker from her award-winning CD, alongside regular collaborator Iain Burnside. 6 All ticket prices are inclusive of a Box Office booking fee. Friday 18 June 7–7.30pm The Crypt Pre–Concert Talk with Dr Lucy Walker Mark Padmore Mark Tickets: FREE Please book in advance © Marco Borggreve Dr Lucy Walker is Head of Public Engagement at Britten Pears Arts and is based at The Red House, the former home of Benjamin Britten.