London Festival of Baroque Music returns to the capital this month

Southbank Sinfonia at St John’s Smith Square it set to present the 2024 London Festival of Baroque Music this month. The festival runs from 14 to 18 May and focuses on the theme of ‘overtures’ through a wide-ranging repertoire of Baroque chamber music.

This year’s festival will welcome artists including The Gesualdo Six, Early Opera Company with Iestyn Davies and Mary Bevan, Spanish ensemble Forma Antiqva and St John’s Smith Square’s organist in residence Roger Sayer.

The season opens with Sayer performing works by JS Bach, Vivaldi, and Felix Mendelssohn at the 2024 festival’s first lunchtime concert. This is followed by The Gesualdo Six performing Hear O Heavens: The English Verse Anthem involving an interplay between solo voices and the full choir, alongside works including John Bull’s Star Anthem and This is the Record of John, written by Orlando Gibbons.

The festival will also see Forma Antiqva, a classical music group from Spain, performing Farándula Castiza, including symphonies of composers Nebra, Conforto, and Corselli and Baset, Castel, and Mele.

Lunchtime concerts will continue with Southbank Sinfonia alumni, cellist Erlend Vestby and violinist Flora Fontanelli teaming up with baroque oboist Andrés Gabriel Villalobos-Lépiz and harpsichordist Petra Hajduchová to perform trio sonatas by composers including Vivaldi, Telemann, Quantz and Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre. The concert will also see solo works for oboe, cello and harpsichord.

This is followed by two evenings of performances, beginning with The Brook Bank performing their programme titles The Power of Three, bringing together JS Bach, Handel and Telemann. Friday evening will see former BBC New Generation artist mezzo soprano Helen Charlston teaming up with Consone Quartet for On the Wings of a Song featuring music including Robert Schumann’s Frauenliebe und-leben.

The festival closes with the Early Opera Company joining forces with Iestyn Davies and Mary Bevan to perform Streams of Pleasure featuring arias, duets and overtures by Handel.