Classical Music's guide to UK festivals

Aldeburgh Festival

When: 11-27 June 2021

Where: Aldeburgh, Suffolk

Programme tbc. 

For more information click here. 

Bath Festival Finale Weekend 

When: 29-30 May 2021

Where: Bath

Programme tbc.

For more For more information click here.

Buxton International Festival

When: 8-25 July 2021

Where: Buxton, Peak District

Featuring: Malcolm Arnold’s The Dancing Master, a co-production with the Early Opera Company of Handel’s Acis and Galatea, and a brand new BIF production of Pauline Viardot’s Opéra comique, Cendrillon. 

For more information click here.

Cheltenham Music Festival

When: 2-11 July 2021

Where: Cheltenham

Programme:

• International artists including Albion Quartet, Matthew Barley, Martyn Brabbins and BBC NOW, Dame Sarah Connolly, Imogen Cooper, Jess Gillam, Kirill Karabits and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and Steven Osborne.

• The Carice Singers and a chamber ensemble from Chineke! give world premiere performances of 12 pieces written by this year’s Composer Academy students

• World premieres of works by Lillie Harris, Luke Styles, Matthew Whittall, Ayanna Witter-Johnson and Jonathan Woolgar, Sarah Nicolls and Maja Bugge, and a UK premiere from Alex Freeman

Members' priority booking opens on 4 June 2021; general public sale opens on 14 June 2021.

For more information click here. 

The English Music Festival

When: 28-31 May 2021

Where: Dorchester on Thames, Oxfordshire

Programme tbc. 

For more information click here. 

East Neuk Festival

When: 1-4 July 2021

Where: East Neuk, Scotland

Featuring: Visiting artists include Thomas Adès, Rihab Azar, Benjamin Baker, Castalian String Quartet, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Sean Shibe, The Tallis Scholars, Llŷr Williams and Christian Zacharias. ENF’s new ‘Band in a Van’ will travel around the East Neuk giving pop-up performances for local audiences.

For more information click here.

Grange Festival

When: 11 June - 18 July

Where: Alresford, Hampshire

Featuring: Britten's A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Rossini's La Cenerentola, Puccini's Manon Lescaut, and Lerner & Loewe's My Fair Lady.

For more information click here.

Glyndebourne Festival

When: 20 May - 29 August 2021

Where: Lewes, East Sussex

Featuring: Janáček's Kát’a Kabanová, Rossini's Il turco in Italia, Mozart's Così fan tutte and many more.

For more information click here. ​

Hertfordshire Festival of Music

When: 4-10 June 2021

Where: Hertford

Programme tbc, but violinist Chloe Hanslip is principal artist and will be leading masterclasses for violinists of Grade 8 and above. The festival's featured living composer is Judith Weir. 

For more information click here. 

Hidden Notes Festival

When: 25-6 September 2021

Where: Stroud, Gloucestershire

Featuring: Jonny Greenwood, Penguin Cafe, Oliver Coates, Erland Cooper and more.

For more information click here.

Investec International Music Festival

When: 16-25 September 2021

Where: Venues across the Surrey Hills

Featuring: The Tallis Scholars, lutenist Paula Chateauneuf, saxophonist Jess Gillam, and violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky.

For more information click here. 

JAM on the Marsh Festival

When: 8-18 July 2021

Where: Venues around Kent's Romney Marsh

Featuring: a programme curated by pianist Anna Tilbrook, singers Lesley Garrett and James Gilchrist, London Mozart Players, and Canterbury Cathedral Choir. 

For more information click here. 

Lammermuir Festival

When: 7-20 September 2021

Where: East Lothian, Scotland

Featuring: US pianist Jeremy Denk as artist in residence, Scottish Opera performing a semi-staged Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, Dunedin Consort, Roderick Williams, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Chloë Hanslip, Danny Driver, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, Joshua Ellicott, Coco Tomita, Maxwell and Navarra String Quartets, Red Note Ensemble, and many more.

For more information click here. 

Leeds Lieder Festival

When: 17-20 June 2021

Where: Leeds Town Hall

Featuring: Performances by Alice Coote, Mark Padmore, Iestyn Davies, James Gilchrist, Roderick Williams, Carolyn Sampson, Ema Nikolovska, William Thomas and pianists Graham Johnson, Iain Burnside, Anna Tilbrook, Joseph Middleton and Christian Blackshaw.

For more information click here.

Lichfield Festival

When: 8-18 July 2021

Where: Lichfield, Staffordshire

Featuring: BBC National Orchestra of Wales, I Fagiolini, Ballet Cymru, and Chloë Hanslip as artist in residence

For more information click here. 

London Handel Festival

When: 29 September - 24 October 2021

Where: Venues across London

Featuring: Handel Festival musical director Laurence Cummings leading the London Handel Orchestra in a Concerti Grossi programme; recitals by Morgan Pearse, Jessica Cale, Lucy Crowe, David Bates, La Nuova Musica; a full performance of Handel’s Samson by The English Concert and Harry Bicket with soloists Stuart Jackson, Sophie Bevan and Matthew Brook.

For more information click here.

London International Festival of Early Music

When: 10-13 November 2021

Where: Blackheath Halls, London

Featuring: Performances by ensembles Hesperi and Pro Victoria, viol player Liam Byrne and lutenist Jonas Nordberg, Lucy Crowe and Laurence Cummings.

For more information click here. 

Longborough Festival Opera

When: 1 June - 3 August

Where: Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire

Featuring: Four performances in total: Die Walküre, Cosi fan tutte, The Return of Ulysses, and The Cunning Little Vixen, three of which take place in a new venue - the 'big top', a purpose-built auditorium with socially distanced seating.

For more information click here. 

Manchester International Festivals

When: 1-18 July 2021

Where: Venues across Greater Manchester

Featuring: Manchester Camerata, Dobrinka Tabakova and Hugo Ticciati present the world premiere of The Patience of Trees; new dance piece Sea Change, and much more.

For more information click here. 

The Menuhin Hall Summer Festival

When: 3-13 July

Where: The Menuhin Hall, and local venues around Surrey

Featuring: Events for all the family, including children's TV and radio star Chris Jarvis bringing to life the myths and legends that inspired the world's most famous compositions; a presentation of the 1925 silent film Lady Windemere's Fan, with a live performance by Yehudi Menuhin School pupils of Carl Davis's original score. 

For more information click here. 

Music@Malling

When: 24 September - 3 October

Where: West Malling, Kent

Featuring: a performance of Mark-Anthony Turnage's new work Concerto for Clarinet with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, a music education project based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, recorded in lockdown by Chamber Domaine with music by Eleanor Alberga OBE and art by artist Rosie Brookes, the world premiere of Brain Elias' Capriccio for Bassoon and Strings, with Opera North's Adam Mackenzie and Chamber Domaine. 

For more information click here. 

Music at Paxton

When: 16-25 July 2021

Where: Paxton House, Scottish Borders

Featuring: Imogen Cooper, Steven Osborne, Gould Piano Trio, Brook Street Band, James Gilchrist and more. Plus, new online pre-event talks, sessions for babies and toddlers, and a pre-festival and festival series, in partnership with Live Music Now Scotland, showcasing young talent in classical and folk.

For more information click here.

Nevill Holt Opera

When: 4-25 August

Where: Market Harborough, Leicestershire

Featuring: Verdi’s La traviata and Mozart’s Don Giovanni, this year outdoors, under a giant, covered stage. Audiences will be able to sit on picnic blankets on the lawn, or (for a premium) in a tiered and covered grandstand. 

Tickets start at £35 with free tickets for under 18s.

For more information visit www.nevillholtopera.co.uk.

Norfolk & Norwich Festival

When: 17-30 May 2021

Where: Norwich and the surrounding areas

Featuring: Manchester Collective, I Fagiolini, Elias String Quartet, Britten Sinfonia and Norwich Cathedral Choir. 

Tickets on sale from 15 April. 

For more information visit https://nnfestival.org.uk/

Oxford Lieder Festival

When: 8-23 October 2021

Where: Oxford

Featuring: A focus on nature, with explorations, through song, of how poets and composers have been inspired by nature. Performers include Ian Bostridge, Dame Sarah Connolly, Dietrich Henschel, Thomas Oliemans, Christoph Prégardien, Dorothea Röschmann, Carolyn Sampson, Anna Stéphany, Camilla Tilling, Robin Tritschler and Roderick Williams, amongst others. 

For more information visit https://www.oxfordlieder.co.uk/ 

Oxford Piano Festival

When: 25 July - 1 August

Where: Oxford

Featuring: Concerts and masterclasses given by Elisabeth Leonskaja, Stephen Kovacevich, Stephen Hough, Peter Donohoe, Kathryn Stott, Nikolai Lugansky, and many others. 

For more information visit www.oxfordphil.com

Roman River Festival

When: 16-26 September 2021

Where: Coastal Essex and Suffolk

Featuring: Alexandra Dariescu, the Razumovsky Quartet playing late Beethoven and the young trumpeter Imogen Whitehead.

For more information click here. 

sound festival

When: 12-13 June 2021

Where: Aberdeen

Featuring: Two outdoor events held on the beach and the harbour including Call - a performance featuring the horns of all ships in Aberdeen harbour and anchorage. Plus two concerts in Queen’s Cross Church with Red Note Ensemble and with Richard Watkins as soloist.

For more information click here.

Spitalfields Music

When: 1-11 July 2021

Where: Various locations in London’s East End

Featuring: 15 new premieres, including pieces by Errollyn Wallen, Alicia Jane Turner, Lola De La Mata, Howard Goodall, Charles Amirkhanian and Edmund Finnis; a new filmed production of Rameau’s Pygmalion; and a new musical documentary, Bach Rework’d.

For more information visit www.spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk

Tetbury Music Festival

When: 30 Sept-3 Oct 2021

Where: Tetbury, Gloucestershire

Featuring: Elizabeth Kenny and her Theatre of the Ayre presenting an evening of English and Italian baroque music; the Heath and Eusebius Quartets joining forces for Mendelssohn’s Octet, plus quartets by Schumann and Schulhoff; Carolyn Sampson and Tim Mead performing Handel's finest duets in a special Gala concert, which includes the world premiere of a new work by Michael Berkeley. Festival artistic director Jonathan Cohen directs players from the OAE; Pavel Kolesnikov returns for a recital of works by Schumann, Beethoven and Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

For more information visit: https://www.tetburymusicfestival.org/2021-concerts 

Two Moors Festival

When: 1-10 October 2021

Where: Devon

Programme tbc.

For more information click here. 

West Cork Chamber Music Festival

When: 25 June - 4 July 2021

Where: Co. Cork, Ireland,

Programme tbc.

For more information click here.