FESTIVAL: LONDON FESTIVAL OF BAROQUE MUSIC

May 12 - 20, 2017

The London Festival of Baroque Music – one of the leading European festivals of its kind – was founded in 2015 to preserve the legacy and profile of the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music, which had run for 30 years. Now in its third year, it continues to invite leading performers in the Baroque field to London, where they can be heard alongside the best of the UK’s home-grown talent. Artists to have performed there in recent years include Bach Collegium Japan, Iestyn Davies, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Dunedin Consort, Mahan Esfahani, Concerto Soave, the Monterverdi String Band and the European Union Baroque Orchestra. 

LFBM takes place in May at the converted Baroque church of St John’s Smith Square, as well as at Westminster Abbey and other selected venues in the Westminster area. It reaches a wide audience both in the hall and through regular broadcasts on BBC Radio 3.

LFBM always programmes to specially chosen and carefully curated themes. Recent examples include ‘Women in Baroque Music (2015) and ‘The Word’ (2016), exploring the relationship between music and language. Alongside the main programme the Festival also features a young artist programme ‘Future Baroque’ a late-night alternative slot ‘Late o’Clock Baroque’, a choral workshop for amateurs ‘Sing Baroque’, and a series of talks and guided walks.

The 2017 Festival will run from 12-20 May and take as its theme ‘Baroque at the Edge’, reflecting the fact that this year’s two main composer anniversaries – Monteverdi and Telemann – are for composers from the chronological extremities of the Baroque period and that both of them mixed Baroque style with that of the adjacent eras, respectively the Renaissance and Classical. Artists appearing include the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, Vox Luminis, Les Passions de l’Ame, the Early Opera Company, Florilegium, I Fagiolini, the Choir of Westminster Abbey, the Academy of Ancient Music, Lucy Crowe, Tim Mead, and Elin Manahan Thomas, while repertoire includes Monteverdi’s Vespers and Orfeo, Telemann’s cantata Ino, Pergolesi’s Stabat mater, Bach’s B minor Mass and Handel’s Jephtha.

https://bachtrack.com/es_ES/festival/london-festival-of-baroque-music