The BBC Proms get going today. You can see my July picks in an earlier blog post. Looking further ahead, August concerts include the London première of Sally Beamish’s Violin Concerto on 1st; Berio’s Sinfonia on 5th; the UK première of Brett Dean’s Electric Preludes on 7th; Harrison Birtwistle’s Sonance Severance and Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra on 10th; Steve Reich’s Desert Music and It’s Gonna Rain on 13th; the world première of Benedict Mason’s Meld on 16th; UK premières of Kareem Roustom’s Ramal and Ayal Adler’s Resonating Sounds on 18th; and Unsuk Chin’s Šu, written for sheng virtuoso Wu Wei on 27th. There are also four concerts containing music by Maxwell Davies, on 9th, 12th, 14th and 30th.
The Salzburg Festival also begins today and runs until 31st August. There are many concerts that feature new music and even a kind of festival within a festival labelled ‘Salzburg Contemporary’. Concerts in this later series include music by Arab composers: the world première of Hossam Mahmoud’s Seelenfäden for Sufi choir, mixed choir and ensemble on 22nd July; and works by Samir Odeh-Tamini, Amr Okba, Zeynep Gedizlioglu, Hossam Mahmoud and Mark Andre on 31st. In August there are works by Mark-André Dalbavie on 1st, 9th and 11th; and Wolfgang Rihm on 4th and 25th.
The Edinburgh Festival runs from 8th to 31st August. There is a good mixture of established classics and newer works on offer. The former category includes performances of Schoenberg’s Five Orchestral Pieces and Scriabin’s Prometheus – The Poem of Fire on 8th; Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time on 11th; and Britten’s War Requiem on 14th. Newer works include Colin Matthews Pluto, his appendix to Holst’s The Planets on 9th; Peter Sculthorpe’s Sonata for Strings No. 3 and the world première of Gareth Farr’s Relict Furies for mezzo soprano and double string orchestra on 26th; and Jonathan Mill’s Sandakan Threnody, an oratorio that honours prisoners of World War II who lost their lives in North Borneo, on 30th.
This year the Presteigne Festival (21st – 26th August) makes a special celebration of Polish music, with works by Andres Panufnik, Penderecki, Lutosławski, Gorecki and Bacewicz. There are also works by composer-in-residence Stephen McNeff, a celebration of John McCabe’s seventy-fifth birthday and the inclusion of music from Welsh composers commemorating the Dylan Thomas centenary. Premières include works by Pawel Łukaszewski, Lynne Plowmann, Hilary Tann and Daniel Kidance. The full programme may be viewed here.
The Tête-à-Tête Opera Festival begins on 24th July. Its 80 events focus entirely on new music, well justifying its claim to be one of the most important crucibles of the art form. The festival programme, because of its disparate and experimental nature, is difficult to characterise. My advice, therefore, is to have a rummage through it for yourself. You’re guaranteed to find a few things of interest.