Schwanengesang and other lieder: Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper at Leeds Lieder 2022

The thirteen songs, setting poems by Rellstab and Heine, that Schubert’s publisher Tobias Haslinger grouped together, supplemented with an additional setting of Johann Seidl and published as Schwanengesang in 1829,…

The Revolution Smells of Jasmine: Wallis Giunta, Sean Shibe and Adam Walker at Leeds Lieder

The Irish-Canadian mezzo-soprano, Wallis Giunta, described her late-night programme with guitarist Sean Shibe and flautist Adam Walker as ‘the sound track of revolution … an homage to protest music in…

Song Illuminated: Samling Institute Showcase at Leeds Lieder 2022

English song of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries was the focus of this lunchtime recital by two Samling Artists, mezzo-soprano Shakira Tsindos and baritone Dominic Sedgwick, on the opening day…

Leeds Lieder Festival: Benjamin Britten’s Five Canticles

Benjamin Britten’s five Canticles span his compositional career, from 1947 to 1974, and reflect the eclectic musical, poetic and cultural influences and idioms which he integrated into an independent expressive…

Natalya Romaniw and Iain Burnside: a wonderful lunchtime recital at Leeds Lieder 2021

Natalya Romaniw’s compelling but frustratingly foreshortened debut as Cio-Cio San at English National Opera in February 2020 was one of the last live performances I heard before the theatres of…

Leeds Lieder announces 10th anniversary Festival, 17-20 June 2021

Leeds Lieder, the finest festival of art song in the North, returns from 17-20 June 2021 with its most diverse and ambitious programme yet. Hosted for the first time by Leeds Town Hall,…

A magical marriage of Occident and Orient: Fleur Barron at Leeds Lieder

‘Dreams, Homeland and Childhood’ was an apt title for Fleur Barron’s Leeds Lieder Festival recital with pianist Joseph Middleton.  Born in Northern Ireland, to a British father and Singaporean mother,…

Fatma Said and Joseph Middleton open Leeds Lieder’s spring festival with ravishing Ravel

“Asie, Asie, Asie.  Vieux pays merveilleux des contes …”  At the start of Ravel’s Shéhérazade, Tristan Klingsor’s Arabian princess proffers a languorous introduction to that ‘old marvellous land of tales’, and…