Londoners fare particularly well in the newsletter this month with two substantial venues starting work with us but if you’re based further afield we are working with venues right across the UK so you are likely to come across more classical events on the site than ever before. As we draw nearer to Christmas with the many Messiah performances our choral concert number is starting to rise.
We are now working with English National Opera so you will find all their events on our site including several premières to suit all tastes from the Baroque with Rameau’s Castor and Pollux, through many old favourites to several contemporary operas such as Caligula, The Death of Klinghoffer and Dr Dee. The ticket prices are very reasonable, starting from just £19 for these modern operas, and are always sung in English with surtitles (just in case we can’t hear the words clearly enough).
bachtrack.com/find-an-opera/what;all-composers/company=7723
You will need to check three venues to find all Southbank’s events: Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Purcell Room. From orchestral concerts with the resident orchestras LPO, Philharmonia and OAE you will also find some top class visiting orchestras in the season such as the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra (previously better known as the Youth Orchestra but they’re growing older now.) The Queen Elizabeth Hall is the second venue and plays host to the International Piano Series and performers such as Aimard, Andsnes, Bavouzet, Wang and many other superb artists.
Royal Festival Hall:
bachtrack.com/find-events/where/venue=11
Queen Elizabeth Hall:
bachtrack.com/find-events/where/venue=12
Purcell Room:
bachtrack.com/find-events/where/venue=13
We've also started working with the biggest concert hall in Brussels, at the Palais des Beaux-Arts (BOZAR for short, or "Paleis Voor Schone Kunsten" if you're a Flemish speaker). It's a fabulous season, with big stars like Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Maria João Pires and Christian Tetzlaff; early music is well represented with René Jacobs and Christophe Rousset's Les Talens Lyriques.
bachtrack.com/find-a-concert/where/venue=81
The main Henri le Boeuf Concert Hall is a great venue: we went to a riveting concert there with Ian Bostridge singing Britten's Les Illuminations: you can see David's review here:
bachtrack.com/review-bostridge-norrington-bozar-brussels
Orchestras Live are now working with us and sponsor 60 concerts in remote areas around the UK from Cockermouth and Beverley to Bury St Edmunds and Dartington. Take a look at upcoming UK concerts and see if there are any in your area.
bachtrack.com/find-a-concert/where/country=1;instrumentgroup=2
Those of you based in New York City will certainly know the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a wonderful museum to visit, but less well known is their first class concert series with performers from the New York Philharmonic to the renowned Pacifica Quartet.
bachtrack.com/find-a-concert/where/venue=1276
We are not forgetting families on Bachtrack and we have lots of kids concerts across the UK:
bachtrack.com/for-kids
If you are at a loose end there are often talks and lectures taking place which might interest you ranging from ballet workshops to lectures on historical figures in music through to masterclasses and talks on the violin, cello, guitar and oboe. If you're an opera lover and get this early, you might go for the seminar about the late great Carlo Bergonzi on Friday 29th October.
bachtrack.com/talk-or-lecture-list
Finally new music is challenging to many of us so it is especially heartening to get in a review of a Steve Reich concert which lucidly explains his music. Do take a look:
bachtrack.com/review-lso-chamber-ensemble-celebrate-music-of-steve-reich
Our reviewing tentacles are now extending into Europe with reviewers in Berlin and Munich and Amsterdam while our North American coverage continues to grow with more NYC reviewers as well as Texas and Montreal. We are however always looking for music students and graduates or others with a combination of knowledge and a passion for live classical music who can write in an accessible fashion so everyone can appreciate what the concert they attended was like and what was so interesting about it. So if you think you fit the bill please email me with your CV. When we are confident that a reviewer writes well, we can get free tickets to the vast majority of events.
As ever, happy concert-going!
David and Alison Karlin
