Leeds Lieder Festival announces 2024 programme
Florence Lockheart
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
Running from 13 – 21 April, this year’s edition celebrates the festival’s 20th anniversary – and Joseph Middleton's 10th year at the helm
The Leeds Lieder Festival is set to make its return in April with a programme marking both its 20th anniversary and its 10th year with pianist Joseph Middleton at the helm. Running from 13 – 21 April the festival will take over an expanded range of venues across the city.
Following a 100 per cent cut to the festivals funding from Arts Council England, last year’s festival relied on Leeds Lieder’s reserve funding and prompted a crowdfunding campaign to enable it to continue presenting performances. However, the 2023 edition of the festival welcomed a record number of first time concert attendees and festival director Joseph Middleton is looking to build on this growth with an inclusive 2024 programme.
He said: ‘For this year's anniversary theme, I have turned to one of the most beloved lyrics in all of Lieder, Heine’s Auf Flügeln des Gesanges, made immortal for song lovers by Mendelssohn. Heine describes being carried “On wings of song…To the sweetest place I know…” The sweetest place must surely be one of mankind’s greatest faculties – our own imagination.’
Across venues including Opera North’s Howard Assembly Room and Leeds Conservatoire’s The Venue, as well as Hyde Park Book Club, the Leeds Sikh Centre, Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds Minster and to Pudsey Civic Hall the 2024 festival promises performances from established artists including Benjamin Appl, Fleur Barron, Graham Johnson OBE, Carolyn Sampson and Roderick Williams OBE.
The Festival will also embrace emerging talent with its Young Artists masterclasses led by vocal legends Sir Thomas Allen and Dame Felicity Lott. It will also host the return of the Composers and Poets Forum and the continuation of last year's Leeds Songbook project as well as a range of lecture recitals, film screenings, talks, community events, education engagement – and even a musical walking trail.
The 2024 edition will present two world premieres; Tansy Davies’s Thunder: Perfect Mind written for Ema Nikolovska and Joseph Middleton and a new collection of miniatures by Cheryl Frances Hoad setting Punjabi Proverbs. This work has been written especially to be performed in the Leeds Sikh Centre, and will be performed by Chennai Music Conservatory’s Nina Kanter, baritone Oscar Castellino, and British-Indian pianist, Keval Shah.
