8 months
3 weeks ago
From Meurig Bowen
Music Festival Director
Quite a few people wonder what people like me get up to during the ‘low season’ of a Festival year. After a welcome post-Festival summer break, the autumn months are spent busily putting the finishing touches to the following year’s programme — and I can now share with you some of the exciting things that are in place for 2–17 July 2010.
Next year, it’s 200 years since Robert Schumann was born. Cellist Steven Isserlis, probably the world’s most celebrated Schumann enthusiast and interpreter, will be Guest Director for a series of events based around Schumann’s music (principally 9–11 July). He will be joined in a wide range of chamber, orchestral and song repertoire by performers such as mezzo Sarah Connolly, clarinettist Michael Collins and actor Simon Callow. Other artists performing Schumann, as well as the other 1810 birthday boy Chopin, include pianists Imogen Cooper and Freddy Kempf, and violinist Alina Ibragimova. Alina will also give a special performance of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, with newly commissioned poems written and read by Andrew Motion (6 July).
Other concerts I’m really excited about presenting in the 2010 Cheltenham Music Festival include:
- A Rodgers & Hammerstein celebration from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, John Wilson and Kim Criswell (3 July)
- Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and their new Ukrainian Principal Conductor Kirill Karabits performing Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony and Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 1 (5 July)
- A performance of Monteverdi’s Vespers in Tewkesbury Abbey — 400 years after it was first heard (8 July)
- Alfie Boe, the Philharmonia and the Festival Chorus in an opera gala (17 July)
There’s a lot more planned, but I hope what I’ve described here gives you a sense of the range and riches planned for July 2010.
We’ll keep you further informed in the coming months, and the full programme will be available at the beginning of April. Priority booking (for Members only) begins on 7th April and public booking on 19th April 2010. To find out more about Members’ priority booking and discounts click here.
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We’ve tagged this post with Meurig Bowen, music, preview on Friday 11 December 2009.
