Spring/Summer 2022: UK Concerts & Festivals
12 festivals, concerts and operas over the coming six months that caught my eye in London, Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester, York, Nottingham, Birkenhead and Saffron Walden (plus one online). If you enjoy our content, please consider supporting us by buying us a cuppa on Ko-fi. Thank you 😘
30 March - 3 April, £14-£65 depending on the concert
Southbank Centre, London
A five-day new music festival on the Southbank, showcasing creativity and premieres that redefine what it means to make music in the 21st century. There’s an eclectic line-up of paid and free events celebrating daring new frontiers of sound, on topics from climate change to the female body. We’re especially looking forward to seeing Meredith Monk and Bang On a Can, over from New York, on the Friday night.
31 March - 1 May, £5-£35
Birkenhead, Saffron Walden, Nottingham, Leeds, Manchester, York, Bristol, London, online
Music makes time-travellers of us all. It connects us to the past, to the land, to ancestors and to forgotten songs. Long before we ever knew we were listening, our mothers, fathers, carers comforted us through song. In the beginning, music is family. South African cellist/composer Abel Selaocoe is backed by Manchester Collective and the beat of African percussion in this UK tour featuring stories, original compositions and masterpieces by Jean-Philippe Rameau, Igor Stravinsky and Mica Levi.
8-14 April, £10-£160
London Coliseum, West End
An opera based on Margaret Atwood’s seminal novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, in which women have been entirely stripped of their rights and freedoms in the Republic of Gilead. With Danish composer Poul Ruders’s score, with a libretto by Paul Bentley, influenced by minimalism, medieval chanting and gospel music, the dissonant brutality of Gilead is viscerally depicted in the opera’s music itself. Suggested age guidance is 15+ as this production contains scenes of sexual violence and strong language.
Thursday 14 April, 9pm, £24.50 (<30s £8.50)
Kings Place, King’s Cross
The 12 Ensemble presents an exploratory and evocative late-night performance to take you on an hour-long journey from the 11th century religious zeal of Hildegard von Bingen to Andrew Norman’s ode to supercars and Futurist art. The programme ends with Wagner’s transcendental prelude to Tristan & Isolde, his personal “yearning for Nirvana”.
Wednesday 20 April, 7.30pm, £9
Folklore, Hoxton
It’s the launch party for Counter Chamber: beautifully curated instrumental and electronic performances. This new collective aims to redefine what chamber music means in 2022, encompassing neoclassical, electronic, melodic, soundtrack, minimalist and ambient music. Their debut night features “indo baroque meets alt-folk minimalism” with string duo Balladeste, beautiful solo clarinet works performed by Heather Roche, and unique sonic landscapes via Samuel Sharp and his sax and electronics set.
Wednesday 27 April, 6.30pm-7.30pm, £18-£35 (£10-£15 Wildcard tickets, £5 <18s & 14-25s)
Barbican Centre, London
Go and hear the London Symphony Orchestra, named as one of the top five orchestras in the world by Gramophone magazine, at one of their hour-long concerts. There’s one piece, introduced by the conductor, a relaxed atmosphere, and digital programme notes to delve deeper into the music while the orchestras plays. On the programme is The Seven Deadly Sins composed by Kurt Weill in the dying days of Weimar Berlin. It’s full of insidiously catchy melodies, music that evokes a world of satire, sleaze and naked self-indulgence. Social comment has never been so shamelessly entertaining.
Saturday 30 April & Sunday 1 May
City Halls & Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow
“Britain’s hippest orchestral festival” (The Guardian) hosted by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra is back in person for the first time in three years! A desire to push boundaries is what brings a diverse line-up of artists together, whether it’s the genre-melting compositions and self-made instruments of Douglas R Ewart, or Kristine Tjøgersen creating a musical echo of nature’s ecosystem. Writing for an orchestra might be a centuries-old tradition but today’s composers are still questioning the old parameters. There are premieres from Joanna Ward, Pascale Criton, Amber Priestley, Liz Lim, James Weeks, Cassandra Miller and Sylvia Tarozzi.
30 April & 1 May, £5-£25
Barbican Centre, London
Bringing together the worlds of classical, electronic and pop, Anna Meredith is one of the most innovative voices in UK music. Excitingly, there’s an Anna Meredith double bill coming up in London: a great way to spend your May bank holiday weekend! On Saturday she teams up with the 55-strong London Contemporary Orchestra to present a live orchestral performance of Mercury Prize-shortlisted album FIBS. Stick around because on Sunday there’s a screening of Bo Burnham’s 2018 debut feature-length film Eight Grade, featuring the score by Anna Meredith performed live for the first time.
30 April, 8pm-9pm, £12 (£5 students)
St James's Church, Sussex Gardens
One of London’s newest ensembles, comprising musicians from the Royal College of Music, aims to raise awareness of the prevalence of sexual harassment in the UK. Their debut concert in Paddington, London, includes Errollyn Wallen’s Are you worried about the rising cost of funerals? And suffragette Dame Ethel Smyth’s String Quintet in E. Ticket proceeds go to Solace Women’s Aid, a charity that supports violence against women. The ensemble name refers to the stat that 97% of women aged 18-24 in the UK experience sexual harassment.
5-8 May, free-£18
Various venues across Bristol
A city-wide festival of contemporary music and sound, taking place in all kinds of cultural locations including the Arnolfini, St George’s, St Mary Redcliffe, Strange Brew, Vic Rooms and Spike Island, as well as the Vaults of Clifton Suspension Bridge (!). 17 concerts span four days with artists including the Ligeti Quartet, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Viridian Ensemble, Helena Celle and Áine O'Dwyer. All festival passes are now sold out but there are day passes still available, and tickets to individual events.
Saturday 2 July, 6.30pm, £20
Village Underground, Shoreditch
Founded just over a year ago, Her Ensemble was established to shine a light on the overlooked canon of music written by women over the last 1,000 years. The UK’s first orchestra for marginalised genders features today’s most talented young musicians and guest artists. The programme highlights glorious music by women, which even today makes up only 5% of the repertoire played by classical musicians each year.
📷 Tom Lovatt
Read more about Her Ensemble in Organisations Supporting Women Composers & Performers >>
22 July - 5 August, £22-£128
Opera Holland Park Theatre, London
The UK premiere of an opera that has become a modern classic in the USA – “some sort of masterpiece” in the words of the New York Times. Composer Mark Adamo has adapted Louisa May Alcott’s evergreen coming-of-age novel, set around the time of the Civil War. Independent and ambitious Jo, her sisters Meg, Beth and Amy, their devoted mother, boy-next-door Laurie and studious Friedrich Bhaer are brought to life in music of open-hearted immediacy. The creative team is majority female too, with Sian Edwards conducting, Ella Marchment directing, Madeleine Boyd designing and Lucy Schaufer artist producing.
Hannah Fiddy is a creative entrepreneur, developing new audiences for classical music. She has created and promoted numerous concerts outside of traditional spaces, including warehouses, pubs, clubs, museums, hospitals, prisons and even in Primark. Hannah is also an interviewer, writer and guest lecturer, and runs the Avon Chamber Choir in Bristol. In a past life she founded London Flashmob, producing quirky events from wedding proposals to cultural pranks for up to 1,000 people.
Follow Hannah on Twitter @Hannah_Fiddy.