![Holywell Music Room in Oxford, England [Source: Wikipedia]](http://www.operatoday.com/Holywell_Music_Room.png)
10 Oct 2010
Oxford Lieder Festival 2010
The Oxford Lieder Festival is small, but is extremely important. It's quite an achievement, extremely well organized and comprehensive, a model for intelligently-presented festivals of any kind.
Recently in Commentary
ETO Autumn 2020 Season Announcement: Lyric Solitude
English Touring Opera are delighted to announce a season of lyric monodramas to tour nationally from October to December. The season features music for solo singer and piano by Argento, Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich with a bold and inventive approach to making opera during social distancing.
Eight Songs from Isolation: first opera written for a socially distanced world
Conductor Oliver Zeffman has commissioned the very first opera for a socially distanced world, which is now available to watch exclusively on Apple Music. Eight Songs From Isolation has been written by eight leading composers, specifically for streaming - rather than live performance - and is the first opera written for a time when the performers were unable to meet in person.
Let Music Live
Leading freelance musicians unite in Parliament Square to call for targeted support for colleagues in the arts and entertainment sector.
Murphy & Attridge celebrate performers' humanity with a creative response to lockdown
Duo Lewis Murphy (composer) and Laura Attridge (writer) have launched a charitable song project entitled Notes From Isolation. The resulting songs, featuring some of the UK's top singing talent, are being released online between August and October 2020 and can be enjoyed free of charge.
The Royal Opera House unveils programme of new work alongside much-loved classics for live audiences this Autumn
The Royal Opera House is thrilled to announce an exciting, wide-ranging new line-up for its autumn programme. For the first time, extraordinary performances will be accessible online for a global audience through livestreams and for socially distanced live audiences at our home in Covent Garden. In a global first, we present a new opera in hyper-reality, alongside repertory favourites from both artistic companies.
Wexford Festival Opera Gala Concert - Remote Voices: as part of Waiting for Shakespeare …The Festival in the air
Some of the most famous and outstanding stars from the opera world are to take part in a very special evening from Wexford Festival Opera, including Aigul Akhmetshina, Joseph Calleja, Daniela Barcellona, Juan Diego Flórez, Igor Golovatenko, Ermonela Jaho, Sergey Romanovsky, and many more.
OperaStreaming announces second season of nine new productions from the opera houses of Emilia-Romagna, free to view on YouTube
Following its successful launch in 2019, OperaStreaming streams nine operas on YouTube from the historic opera houses of Emilia-Romagna during the 2020-21 season, with fully-staged productions of Verdi's La traviata in October from Modena and Verdi'sOtello from Bologna in...
Connections Across Time: Sholto Kynoch on the 2020 Oxford Lieder Festival
‘A brief history of song’ is the subtitle of the 2020 Oxford Lieder Festival (10th-17th October), which will present an ambitious, diverse and imaginative programme of 40 performances and events.
Bampton Classical Opera 2020: Gluck's The Crown at St John's Smith Square
Bampton Classical Opera returns to the Baroque splendour of London’s St John’s Smith Square on November 6 with a concert performance of Gluck’s one-act opera The Crown, the first in the UK since 1987. The performance will also be filmed and available to watch on demand on the Bampton website from 9 November.
A new opera written during lockdown with three different endings to choose from to premiere this October as part of Wexford Festival Opera
While many of us spent lockdown at home taking it a little easier, composer Andrew Synnott wrote an opera.
Grange Park Opera presents Britten’s Owen Wingrave, filmed on location in haunted houses in Surrey and London
Owen Wingrave is part of the new Interim Season of 19 brand new events, all free to view online between September and December 2020.
Music and Theatre For All launches three major new projects supported by The Arts Council
The Arts Council has awarded innovative UK charity Music and Theatre For All (MTFA) a major new grant to develop three ambitious new projects in the wake of Covid 19.
English National Opera to reopen the London Coliseum with performances of Mozart’s Requiem
English National Opera (ENO) will reopen the London Coliseum to socially distanced audiences on 6 and 7 November for special performances of Mozart’s Requiem. These will provide audiences with an opportunity to reflect upon and to commemorate the difficulties the nation has faced during the pandemic.
The Royal Opera House launches autumn digital programme with a new series of Friday Premieres and screenings on Sky Arts
The Royal Opera House is proud to continue its curated #OurHouseToYourHouse programme into the autumn, bringing audiences the best of the ROH through a new series of Friday Premieres and cultural highlights.
Take a Bow: Royal Opera House opens its doors for the first time in six months as part of Open House London
After six months of closure, the Royal Opera House is thrilled to be opening its doors to the public as part of Open House London weekend, giving visitors a taste of one of the world’s most famous theatres for free.
Academy of St Martin in the Fields presents re:connect - a series of autumn concerts at St. Martin-in-the-Fields
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields is thrilled to announce re:connect - an eight concert series with live socially distanced audiences at its namesake church, St. Martin-in-the-Fields. The autumn concerts will take place at 5pm & 7:30pm on two Saturdays per month with guest artists including baritone Roderick Williams, soprano Carolyn Sampson and composer-conductor-pianist Ryan Wigglesworth performing a wide range of repertoire.
Connections Across Time: The Oxford Lieder Festival, 10-17 October 2020
Music and poetry unite and collide across centuries, from the Medieval to the Enlightenment to the present day. This year, the Oxford Lieder Festival will present a thrilling and innovative programme comprising more than forty events streamed over eight days.
The English Concert Autumn 2020 series: Handel and Purcell, Britain’s Orpheus
The English Concert with artistic director Harry Bicket is delighted to announce a series of concerts from 1-15 October 2020. The concerts take place in historic London venues with star soloists and will be performed and streamed live to a paying audience at 7pm GMT on each performance date. The programmes include first-class vocal and instrumental works from the two pillars of the English Baroque, covering different aspects of the repertoire.
Glyndebourne announces first indoor performances since lockdown, and unveils 2021 Festival repertoire
Glyndebourne has announced plans for a ‘staycation’ series of socially-distanced indoor performances, starting on 10 October 2020.
Royal Opera House announces autumn opera and ballet concerts
The Royal Opera House is delighted to announce two packed evenings of opera and ballet, live from our stage in Covent Garden and available to view wherever you are in the world online.
OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »
Commentary
At Oxford Lieder, you can can experience what Schubertiades may have been like. In Oxford, most concerts take place in the Holywell Music Room, built in 1740, the oldest dedicated public recital space in the world. The building seats only about 100 people. Seats are arranged on three sides, the platform extending into the room Interaction between performers and listeners is intense, much more direct than in an ordinary concert hall.
Moreover, the atmosphere is as intimate as the Schubertiades would have been. Oxford Lieder feels like “family”, since it’s so nurturing and supportive. People come together here because they’re united in their love of the genre and want it to thrive. An intimate genre like Lieder can’t — and perhaps shouldn’t — generate mass sales. Funding is backed entirely by private and trust contributions.
The opening recital on 15th October features Wolfgang Holzmair with Julius Drake, performing Schumann. Indeed, all through the festival there will be Schumann recitals and events, including “Lunch with Schumann” — refreshment for the soul!
A measure of how far the festival has come is that it has been able to co-commission Ned Rorem to write a song “My Love is a Fever”. The Prince Consort, who specialize in Rorem will give the premiere on 21st October, at which a second co-commission, a setting of Rilke by pianist Stephen Hough will also be unveiled. The Prince Consort, whose members include Jacques Imbrailo, have been associated with Oxford Lieder almost from the start.
Oxford Lieder programmes blend well known with unusual repertoire. This year part-songs figure prominently and Schubert settings for guitar (Christoph Denoth and Nathalie Chalkley). Katarina Karnéus and Julius Drake perform Grieg, Sibelius and Ture Rangström There’ll be an evening of Polish song with Maciek O’Shea and Festival Director Sholto Kynoch. Hugo Wolf’s complete Mörike setting will be heard over two days. Among the singers this year are : James Gilchrist, Anna Grevelius, Sophie Daneman, Stephan Loges, Felicity Palmer, Sophie and Mary Bevan, and Jonathan Lemalu. Oxford Lieder has a reputation for spotting new talent early on, and many of its “discoveries” return loyally.
Ian Partridge leads this year’s main Masterclass programme, but this year there are three, the others, led by Stephan Loges and Henry Herford, encourage non-professionals to enjoy the experience of singing. There are schools events and even an open air Brahms and Schumann concert. Oxford Lieder is much more than an annual festival — it’s aims are long term and benefit the wider community.
For more information, please visit the Oxford Lieder site.
Anne Ozorio