Aldeburgh Festival announces 2023 programme
Florence Lockheart
Wednesday, January 4, 2023
This year's festival will run from 9 to 25 June with four featured musicians and 35 world premieres
Suffolk-based arts event, Aldeburgh Festival, has announced the programme for its upcoming 2023 edition. Featuring 35 world premieres, as well as featured musicians, the festival will also provide focuses on string quartets and on the music of Ligeti to mark the composer’s centenary.
The festival opens on 9 June with the world premiere of Sarah Angliss’ new opera, Giant, which tells the story of surgeon John Hunter and his obsession with ‘Irish giant’ Charles Byrne. As well as the premieres of 21 Britten Pears Arts commissions, the 2023 festival includes the UK premiere of Bushra El-Turk’s opera Woman at Point Zero which will be co-presented by both Aldeburgh and Shubbak Festivals at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre.
Roger Wright, chief executive of Britten Pears Arts said: ‘From the beginning, when the vision of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears created the festival with their friends back in 1948, composers and performers have always shaped the programme. We are delighted to welcome composers Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Cassandra Miller; pianist Pavel Kolesnikov and baritone and composer Roderick Williams as featured musicians. They have helped us curate the festival and their work runs like a shining thread through the programme.’
As part of his residency, Kolesnikov who will give seven concerts across his residency including collaborations with pianist partner Samson Tsoy and with Britten Sinfonia on the final day of the festival. Featured composers Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Cassandra Miller will also offer premieres, performances and collaborations centred around their work throughout the 17-day festival.
Williams will offer masterclasses throughout his residency as well as performances with collaborators including pianist Allyson Devenish and soprano Nardus Williams as well as Carducci Quartet, Sinfonia of London and the Knussen Chamber Orchestra. He will close the festival with the world premiere of Die schöne Müllerin, celebrating 200 years since Schubert first composed the work with Williams’ own new arrangement.
The 2023 festival provides a focus on the string quartet with performances by eight quartets in varying contexts. The Kreutzer Quartet will respons to Angliss’ Giant opera with two concerts including world premieres. The Danish String Quartet will make its debut at Aldeburgh with a programme featuring a new work by featured composer Thorvaldsdottir. The Bozzini Quartet will also embrace the festival’s featured composer, Miller, with a performance of her new work, About Bach.
The string quartet focus will also include performances by the Brodsky Quartet, Carducci String Quartet, Heath Quartet and Van Kuijk Quartet. The Ligeti Quartet will mark the centenary of Hungarian-Austrian composer György Ligeti with three concerts across one day alongside performances by the King’s Singer’s, pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard and the Knussen Chamber Orchestra, which will give the UK premiere of Ligeti’s Little Serenade, led by conductor Ryan Wigglesworth.
Tickets for this year’s Aldeburgh Festival will be available from 10am on 28 January on the festival website. The full Festival brochure can be viewed here.
