1 Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
Oliver Knussen conducts BCMG’s latest British-music showcase, which includes his own works alongside a selection by Harrison Birtwistle. The centrepiece is the world premiere of Colin Matthews’s A Land of Rain, comprising settings of Baudelaire in English translations.
CBSO Centre, Birmingham, 10 June
2 A Beethoven Feast
An end-of-season spectacular from the Royal Northern Sinfonia, which recreates the 1808 Vienna concert that included the first performances of four great Beethoven works: the fifth and sixth symphonies, fourth piano concerto and the Choral Fantasy.
The Sage Gateshead, 10 June
3 Hamlet
Brett Dean’s new opera, commissioned by Glyndebourne and based upon Shakespeare’s most celebrated play, gets its first performance. Tenor Allan Clayton takes the title role, with Sarah Connolly as Gertrude, Barbara Hannigan as Ophelia and John Tomlinson as the ghost. Vladimir Jurowski conducts Neil Armfield’s production.
Glyndebourne Opera House, nr Lewes, 11 June to 6 July
4 Arditti Quartet
Guitarist Eliot Fisk joins the group for the UK premiere of Hilda Paredes’s Son Dementes Cuerdas. Fisk also plays Luciano Berio’s Sequenza XI, while the Arditti give British debuts to Hugues Dufourt’s Le Supplice de Marsyas d’après Titien and Horizont auf hoher by Younghi Pagh-Paan.
Wigmore Hall, W1, 14 June
5 Pelléas et Mélisande
The Philharmonia finds itself in the pit for Garsington Opera’s staging of Debussy’s symbolist masterpiece. Jonathan McGovern and Andrea Carroll play the lovers in Michael Boyd’s production.
Wormsley Estate, nr High Wycombe, 16 June to 7 July
