Singing Words: Poets & their Songs
A preview of some highlights of the forthcoming Oxford Lieder Festival: 16-31 October 2015.
Full Festival brochures will be sent out at the end of May: if you are not already on our mailing list and wish to receive the brochure as soon as it is ready, click here to sign up. Some Festival highlights are listed below. Over the course of the Festival lunchtime series, we hear the complete Fauré songs and throughout the Festival there will be many other events, including 'pop-up' masterpiece concerts, poetry readings, talks, workshops and masterclasses. Priority booking for Friends of Oxford Lieder and members of The Schubert Circle will open in mid-May; general booking will open at the start of July.
FRIDAY 16th OCTOBER
DAYTIME
Poets, composers & song: a one-day symposium looking at the relationship between poetry and music, introducing the themes of this year's Festival
7.30pm
Sarah Connolly and Graham Johnson begin the Festival in spectacular style with a programme of Schubert, Brahms and Wolf in Christopher Wren’s magical Sheldonian Theatre
SATURDAY 17th OCTOBER
DAYTIME
Gabriel Fauré: A Life Through Song
Part one of Graham Johnson’s survey of the life and works of Gabriel Fauré, following last year's hugely popular series 'Schubert's Life & Times'
7.30pm
Settings of Éluard and Mörike, performed by star soprano Sophie Karthäuser with Eugene Asti
SUNDAY 18th OCTOBER
DAYTIME
Gabriel Fauré: A Life Through Song
Part two of Graham Johnson’s survey of the life and works of Gabriel Fauré
7.30pm
Settings of Goethe, performed by Katarina Karnéus, Neal Davies and Sholto Kynoch
MONDAY 19th OCTOBER
1.10pm
Lunch with Schubert and Fauré: the first of our lunchtime series, which will encompass the complete songs of Gabriel Fauré, always paired with songs by Schubert
7.30pm
Settings of Burns, Byron and Moore, with performers including Gillian Keith and Simon Lepper
TUESDAY 20th OCTOBER
1.10pm
Lunch with Schubert and Fauré, including La bonne chanson performed by James Gilchrist and Anna Tilbrook
7.30pm
Settings of Verlaine and Hugo, performed by Elizabeth Watts and Julius Drake
WEDNESDAY 21st OCTOBER
1.10pm
Lunch with Schubert and Fauré
7.30pm
Settings of Shakespeare, with performers including John Mark Ainsley and James Baillieu
THURSDAY 22nd OCTOBER
1.10pm
Lunch with Schubert and Fauré
7.30pm
Settings of Pushkin and A.K. Tolstoy, performed by Joan Rodgers, Mark Stone and Sholto Kynoch
FRIDAY 23rd OCTOBER
1.10pm
Lunch with Schubert and Fauré
7.30pm
Settings of Kerner and Hofmannsthal, performed by Wolfgang Holzmair and Imogen Cooper
SATURDAY 24th OCTOBER
DAYTIME:
A study day on Hector Berlioz, in association with the Berlioz Society, with speakers including David Cairns
7.30pm:
Berlioz and his contemporaries, performed by Christine Rice and Julius Drake
SUNDAY 25th OCTOBER
DAYTIME:
Song in Translation: a study day on the history, art and performance traditions of song in translation
7.30pm:
The Fair Maid of the Mill: Schubert’s glorious cycle, performed in an exciting new translation by Jeremy Sams, with Toby Spence and Christopher Glynn
MONDAY 26th OCTOBER
1.10pm
Lunch with Schubert and Fauré
7.30pm
Schumann, Mendelssohn and Mahler, performed by Henk Neven and Imogen Cooper
TUESDAY 27th OCTOBER
1.10pm
Lunch with Schubert and Fauré
7.30pm
Shining Armour: Brahms’ Die schöne Müllerin performed by Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside, with Alison Rose and Victoria Newlyn
WEDNESDAY 28th OCTOBER
1.10pm
Lunch with Schubert and Fauré
7.30pm
Flower songs, performed by Anna Stéphany and Sholto Kynoch, including the world-premiere of a newly-commissioned cycle by Rhian Samuel, setting Anne Stevenson
10pm
Late-night solo recital, given by Imogen Cooper
THURSDAY 29th OCTOBER
1.10pm
Lunch with Schubert and Fauré
6.30pm
A Shropshire Lad: A.E. Housman’s complete cycle, heard narrated and in settings by various composers, devised and performed by Graham Johnson
FRIDAY 30th OCTOBER
1.10pm
Lunch with Schubert and Fauré
7.30pm
An evening of Ballads, performed by Matthew Rose and Joseph Middleton
SATURDAY 31st OCTOBER
DAYTIME:
The culminating concert of this year’s Mastercourse (led by Robert Holl and Roger Vignoles)
7.30pm
Closing concert: settings of Heinrich Heine, performed by Christoph Prégardien and Roger Vignoles