Sala: Leeds Conservatoire: The Venue

Songs of the Sea, the opening concert of the Leeds Lieder Festival, leaves the audience in a happy and buoyant mood.

Paul Lewis gave a noteworthy piano recital in Leeds, presenting the three last Beethoven piano sonatas. 

Joseph Middleton and Carolyn Sampson were perfectly matched in Fleurs, the final concert of Leeds Lieder's Day of Song at The Venue in Leeds.

Young poets and composers meet to create new songs on Leeds Lieder's Day of Song at Leeds College of Music. 

“Made in Yorkshire” was a misleading title for this afternoon concert because the connections with the county were tenuous: tenor Joshua Ellicott made a point of reminding us before he started that he was born on the other side of the Pennines, and the only apparent link for soprano Bibi Heal, clarinettist Colin Honour and the man at the piano Anthony Kraus (a popular and respected chorusmaster an

The first part of the Celebrity Recital which brought the Leeds Lieder Festival to a close was entitled “Schubert Looking North”, which included a section on German versions of British poets.

It was hard to choose from the fascinating menu for The Composer’s Echo (the title for this Leeds Lieder Festival), which is described as “a feast of song from the great Western European tradition which fuses poetry and music” by the festival’s director, Jane Anthony.

Few modern string quartets can boast a line-up that has been as stable as that of the Endellion’s. In a remarkable 27 years of playing together its four members have explored and recorded a sizeable proportion of the quartet repertoire, as well as exploring new territory in works such as Thomas Adès’ dazzling Arcadiana.