In video: Summer Festival 2012 Highlights

So unfortunately Summer seems to be fast-fading… Three-and-a-half days left of the Paralympics, children back to school soon, and it seems to be dark by 9.00pm.

However, we’ve just put the finishing touches on a 2 minute round-up of this year’s Summer Festival, giving you a flavour of what we got up to during 16 crazy days in June. Press play below to find out more (and to enjoy snippets of footage from The Opera Group, Gabrieli Consort & Players, Matthew Barley, La Nuova Musica & Vignette Productions, Alan Gilbey and more)

(And if that’s whet your appetite, we’ll being announcing full programme details for our Winter Festival 2012 on Monday 10 September, with booking opening on Monday 24 September at 10.00am)

Booking now open for Summer Festival 2012!

So it’s still cold and miserable outside, and too dark in the evenings, but summer is hotting up Spitalfields Music HQ as booking is now open for our Summer Festival 2012!

Matthew Barley at Village Underground (Image: Alys Tomlinson)

Running from 8-23 June, the Festival is packed with more musical treats than ever! Leading the programme as our Associate Artists are the Gabrieli Consort & Players, cellist Matthew Barley and tabla player and music producer Talvin Singh. Between them they present an eclectic series of performances ranging from Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, and Stravinsky’s mass setting to a fusion of tabla, folk and electronic, a candle-lit performance of John Tavener’s The Protecting Veil and a search for the answer to the question, What’s Music For?

Paul McCreesh in Old Spitalfields Market (Image: Alys Tomlinson)

We welcome a number of music-theatre encounters, as The Sixteen return with a new commission from Alec Roth with Samuel Beckett’s Old Earth monologues. La Nuova Musica collaborate with Vignette Productions on Sacrifices: a new staging and installation around two baroque oratorios, and The Opera Group come together with the London Sinfonietta in Harrison Birtwistle’s tale of love and jealously, Bow Down.

Talvin Singh at Oxford House (Image: James Berry)

Alongside all this, Dutch cult sensation Night of the Unexpected makes its London debut, with a cocktail of experimental beats improvised jazz, composed repertoire and conceptual pop music. Late-night concerts from Melvyn Tan with Bach suites and new variations plus EXAUDI celebrating the beauty of John Cage’s vocal music. There’s also choral music of every flavour as the Monteverdi Choir go on a European choral pilgrimage, the Choir of Royal Holloway bring songs from the Baltic States and the distinct sounds of South American baroque from Florilegium and the Arakaendar Bolivia Choir.

All this and much, much more will be filling the extraordinary spaces of Spitalfields this summer! See our website for the full festival listings, or flick through the Festival brochure online.

Booking is now open: online 24 hours-a-day at spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk (just register an account if you’re new to us) or via the Box Office phone lines on 020 7377 1362 (open Mon-Fri, 10am-6pm).

Winter Festival Staff Pick: London Contemporary Orchestra

This year at our Winter Festival, the London Contemporary Orchestra bring us the world premiere performance of Martin Suckling’s ‘de sol y grana.’ This week Abigail Pogson, Spitalfields Music’s Executive Director, shares her excitement for this very special occasion…

London Contemporary Orchestra at Covent Garden © Jane Stockdale

Our Festival starts and ends with young performers – London Contemporary Orchestra and La Nuova Musica both have growing reputations as ensembles of fantastic young musicians who are performing music to the highest standards and in a contemporary way. The big difference, of course, is that George Frideric Handel is unlikely to be around to advise David Bates and his musicians, whereas Martin Suckling will be on hand to work with Hugh Brunt and the LCO musicians as they prepare the world premiere of his piece to open the Festival.

A world premiere is always a special occasion. What could be more exciting than being present as a new piece of music moves between a group of musicians and an audience for the first time. I like to think that the space between the two groups has a very special quality on these occasions!  The first performance of Messiah received a luke-warm reception in Dublin and it was only after its London premiere a year later that it started to establish itself. It seems unlikely that Handel would ever have dreamed that the piece would become what it is today in Western culture. But then perhaps this is not necessarily foremost in a composer’s mind as they create a piece of music.

I first heard Martin’s music when he was on the spnm Shortlist which, each year, represented a group of composers who were ‘breaking through’ and offered them a helping hand in this process. The clarity and unique personality of Martin’s music was distinct even then and (having not heard recent new works) it will be fantastic to hear his music six years down the line. The LCO musicians – his own generation – will surely do a wonderful job of premiering the work.  After only three years as an orchestra they have built up an impressive track record in premiering new works and in performing contemporary classics. Indeed for their concert to open the Festival they have chosen stunning works by French composers Claude Vivier and Gerard Grisey to accompany the world premiere.

I’ll be there for the Handel and I’m sure it will be fantastic, but I’ll also be there for the Suckling and I’ve got no idea what it will be. What could be more exciting!

The London Contemporary Orchestra will be performing at our Winter Festival on Monday 12 December 2011 from 7.00pm to 8.30pm at Shoreditch Church.  To book tickets please click here.

Winter Festival Playlist online NOW!

As you might expect, we’re pretty excited about the Winter Festival. So we can share this with you we’ve put together a Winter Festival 2011 Playlist on Spotify. Now you can get a sneak peek at what to come in December and explore the artists such as La Nuova Musica, Jogalresa, London Contemporary Orchestra and Gallicantus, and bits of the festival repertoire before heading down to Spitalfields!

Happy Listening!

An alternative end to the year…Winter Festival 2011

Early music banquets, drawing-room performances, 15th century carols, songs of love and intoxication, ghostly tales, concerts for young ears and a Messiah debut – just some of what you can experience at this year’s Winter Festival. So as we excitedly reveal our 2011 Winter programme, we thought we’d ask our Executive Director to share a little bit about how this diverse, yet carefully constructed programme has come together…

How to put together an alternative end to the year – a festival for December? I suppose the unwritten rule is that there should be a sense of party pervading everything, but a very Spitalfields party. Not West End, not Southbank, just E1.  So, some time just after the previous one is complete – January, February – off we set, thinking about our Winter Festival.

Our aim is to come up with a programme which is warm, inviting, varied and offers some surprises – an end to the year which feels unusual, whilst at the same time being of the highest quality.

After the success of The English Concert’s Tafelmusik in the summer, we started talking to other local restaurants about musical feasts and Galvin La Chapelle seemed like the natural next choice with their beautifully restored chapel building – perfect for The Sixteen. We’re aiming for a kind of end-of-year party feel (we’re aware that the main clash in people’s diaries to attending Winter Festival events is often end of the year parties). A different kind of party will take place in The English Restaurant with story-tellers White Rabbit. Together with six musicians they will tell a series of ghost stories by candlelight.

Gallicantus have been making waves with their CD Dialogues of Sorrow  – a gloomy title, but seeringly beautiful music, very well executed by this new group. So they make their debut. In sharp contrast to I Fagiolini who have been involved in many Festivals and make a welcome return to celebrate their 25^th birthday. Tom Waits’s new album is out mid autumn and Gavin Bryars and friends bring their circus band to town, performing arrangements and tributes to the great songwriter. Meanwhile London Contemporary Orchestra, who first performed in the Festival in Summer 2010, make their second visit with a world premiere of a new work by young composer Martin Suckling. The piece is ‘crowdfunded’, so rather than commissioned by a single person, the work is the collective effort of over 50 donors.

One of our questions along the way was whether to include Messiah, which of course will be performed in concert halls in London through December. In this sense not unique at all.  In the end the answer was yes, because it’s a debut for La Nuova Musica – the first time they have tackled the piece – and because to hear this piece in a building such as Christ Church will be very special.

No theme this year then – no point forcing one if it isn’t there – but hopefully a series of events which will bring a special feel to Spitalfields this winter.

Winter Festival booking opens 19 December, with priority booking for Patrons opening on 12 September. For full programme details, please visit spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk or view our online brochure.

Tickets are available from our website, or you can call our box office between 10am and 6pm, Mon-Fri on 020 7377 1362.