Oxford Worldwide Music Competition 2024 – 11 to 26 October – Seen and Heard Worldwide

Oxford Worldwide Music Competition
Cities of Music: Folks, Locations, Music
11 to 26 October 2024

In its twenty third yr, Oxford Worldwide Music Competition declares its most formidable programme thus far. Throughout 70 occasions, audiences can hear world-leading artists, uncover brilliant new expertise, and discover among the cities that impressed and influenced composers through a collection of insightful ‘Music Connections’ occasions. Music ranges from the Baroque to the current day, and the track recitals are complemented by chamber and choral music performances.

A few of the best-known singers showing embody Roderick Williams (opening the ComPetition on 11 October), Carolyn Sampson, Dame Sarah Connolly, Christoph Prégardien, Christian Gerhaher, Elizabeth Watts, Stéphane Degout, James Gilchrist, Lucy Crowe, Helen Charlston and Nicky Spence. They’re joined by pianists Natalie Burch, Gerold Huber, Joseph Middleton, Julius Drake, Anna Tilbrook and lots of others, together with Oxford Music’s Inventive Director Sholto Kynoch. Singers showing for the primary time embody Holger Falk, Erika Baikoff, Will Liverman and Heidi Stober.

The central weekend of the Competition is dedicated to the songs of Franz Schubert. Graham Johnson continues his seminal survey of the composer’s closing years, 200 years on. Katy Hamilton explores Schubert’s Vienna. Recitals are given by Christian Immler, Sophie Karthäuser and Johannes Held, in addition to performances of Die schöne Müllerin with Hiroshi Amako and Winterreise with Christopher Maltman.

Away from the classical track canon, artists embody RPS Award-winning sitar participant Jasdeep Singh Degun with tabla participant Sanju Sahai, and the return of soprano Marie-Laure Garnier and pianist Célia Oneto Bensaid with a programme that features spirituals, cabaret songs and jazz-inflected works.

Chamber music performances are given by the Doric, Castalian and Chaos String Quartets, Ensemble 360 and Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective. The choirs of Worcester School (Companion School 2024) and Merton School additionally carry out. 25 years of BBC Radio 3’s pioneering New Technology Artists scheme is widely known on the ComPetition with 4 live shows that includes former and present New Technology Artists, introduced by Ian Skelly and recorded for future broadcast.

The world premiere of a brand new work by Can Bilir, Silent Music of Josefine, will probably be given by Mimi Doulton and Dylan Perez, framed by an occasion exploring Kafka’s Prague. Impressed by Kafka’s quick tales, it was commissioned by Oxford Music in collaboration with the Bodleian Libraries as a part of the Oxford-wide Kafka celebrations, Kafka’s Transformative Communities. The Competition additionally consists of Kurtag’s Kafka Fragments carried out by Claire Sales space and Tamsin Waley-Cohen and a tour of the exhibition Kafka: Making of an Icon.

Indian-American composer Reena Esmail’s settings of Sanskrit verses from the Bhagavad Gita, additionally commissioned for the 2024 ComPetition, draw out the essence of Vedantic thought. Jess Dandy and Keval Shah be a part of forces to premiere this distinctive reimagining of India’s most celebrated and iNFLuential scripture.

In addition to Kafka, the Competition marks the anniversaries of Fauré, Byron, Schoenberg and Yvonne Loriod. Masterclasses will probably be led by Anne Le Bozec, and examine occasions will probably be given by Richard Wigmore, Natasha Loges, Philip Ross Bullock and others.

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