By

Published: Monday, 22 April 2024 at 20:16 PM


It’s that time of year again… Spring has finally sprung, and along with the promised sunshine we welcome a brand-new season of glorious summer music. This year, festivals around the world have pulled out all the stops to offer a wonderful range of repertoire, from the crowd-pleasing to the obscure, featuring an even more dazzling line-up of artists. And we’re beginning our rundown of this year’s best festivals with the best UK classical music festivals for 2024.

Among the highlights, the UK cathedrals of Norwich and Gloucester host atmospheric performances, while the US mountain ranges of Colorado and Idaho draw such top names as Yo-Yo Ma and Renée Fleming. Not to be outdone, the historic cities of Prague and Amsterdam each muster 50 pianos to stage Georg Friedrich Haas’s 11,000 Saiten. And not forgotten are this year’s birthday boys – Holst, Puccini and Bruckner – who, from Granada to Matsumoto, receive due celebration.

Elsewhere we run through the festivals in Europe, the US and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and and the rest of the world. But here, we’re kicking off with the UK’s best classical music festivals for 2024. Reach for your diary, and prepare to be tempted!

Charlotte Smith Editor

The UK’s best classical music festivals in 2024

Best UK classical music festivals: May 2024

Tectonics

Glasgow, 4, 5 May
tectonicsfestival.com
Anchored by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Tectonics returns to the Old Fruitmarket and City Halls at the start of a second decade of genre-bending brio. Co-curated by conductor Ilan Volkov and Alasdair Campbell, it throws down a gauntlet on behalf of the new, with an international line-up that includes Japanese experimental rock band leader Koichi Makigami, New York vocalist Ka Baird and the world premiere of a piece for orchestra and tape by Charles Uzor. Plus, violinist Ilya Gringolts gives the UK premieres of works by Sciarrino and Mirela Ivičevič.

Brighton Festival

Brighton, 4-26 May
brightonfestival.org
Multi-arts Brighton has invited writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce to be this year’s guest director, and he’s promising ‘a cargo of wonders’ ranging from an installation involving 100 miles of string to mass table tennis participation.

Among the musical ‘wonders’, the LSO under Antonio Pappano venture Barber, Ravel and Rachmaninov; at Glyndebourne, harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani and members of the Britten Sinfonia are immersed in Bach; and asking ‘What’s so great about opera?’, mezzo Hilary Summers caps ‘I’m a Puccini heroine addict’ with a one-woman bite-sized version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

Norfolk and Norwich Festival

Norwich, 10-26 May
nnfestival.org.uk
Nothing quite says summer like the Chapelfield Gardens’s Spiegeltent where, from Ragroof Tea Dance to South American circus, festival afficionados let their hair down. Chamber Choir Ireland and late-evening Messiaen colonise the city’s Cathedral, while the medieval Guildhall screens specially commissioned films inspired by music.

The Octagon Chapel, however, is not to be outdone. As well as a BBC New Generation Artists series, Apartment House introduces a new work by Cassandra Miller, and organists James McVinnie and Eliza McCarthy buckle up for the eight-hours duration of Jonny Greenwood’s 268 Years of Reverb.

Chipping Campden Festival

Chipping Campden, 11-25 May
campdenmayfestivals.co.uk
Founding artistic director Charlie Bennett stepped down after last year’s festival, but his guiding spirit lives on. The Festival Academy Orchestra is at hand for Ravel from pianist Steven Osborne, and Strauss’s sublime Four Last Songs sung by Sophie Bevan.

Francesca Chiejina joins the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective for songs by Alma Mahler. And among a fine crop of pianists making their way to St James’s Church are Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Marc-André Hamelin and festival patron Paul Lewis.