Biggest, most ambitious Oxford Lieder Schubert Project ever

"Bringing Schubert's Vienna to Oxford". This year's Oxford Lieder Festival will be the most ambitious Schubert undertaking  ever attempted in Britain.  "An intense survey of Schubert songs like this has never been done in the UK before, " says Sholto Kynoch, of the Oxford Lieder Festival, "the idea is to bring people to Oxford, to immerse them in the world of Schubert and Vienna, the world that Schubert inhabited"

Every song Schubert wrote will be performed, including part songs, sacred music and chamber music, quite an achievement. But that's not all - Oxford Lieder has organized an impressive array of other special activities to attract serious Lieder devotees and those new to the genre. The Bodleian Library will show several Schubert manuscripts; the Ashmolean Museum will host live music events and a specially devised audio guide; there will be four performances of  a new play by Iain Burnside; Schubert’s sacred music will resound around college chapels; the Botanic Gardens will collaborate on a study event looking at Schubert’s relationship with nature; a pop-up theatre will recreate a famous Schubert gathering; and local restaurants will feature Viennese food and wine. Masterclasses, talks and workshops abound, and the Festival will stretch to all corners of the city from Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre and Europe’s oldest concert hall – the Holywell Music Room – to the contemporary settings of the O’Reilly Theatre, the Phoenix Cinema and the recently restored Ashmolean Museum.
Graham Johnson, the doyen of Schubert studies, will be conducting four full-day discussions of aspects of Schuberts life and music, illustrated by performances, in the Jacqueline du Pré Theatre, in an idyllic setting by the river - "Am Wasser zu singen", bring a picnic.

Stellar performers :(John Mark Ainsley, Joshua Ellicott, James Gilchrist, Daniel Norman, Neal Davies, William Dazeley, Stephan Loges, Christopher Maltman) joined by mezzo soprano Sarah Connolly for songs, partsongs and the exquisite serenade, Zögernd leise (10 Oct).  In more than 60 concerts, singers include Sir Thomas Allen (25 Oct), Ian Bostridge (16 Oct), Christiane Karg (21 Oct), Susan Gritton (26 Oct), Dietrich Henschel (17 Oct), Robert Holl (28 Oct), Wolfgang Holzmair (30 Oct), Sophie Karthäuser (11 Oct), AngelikaKirchschlager (29 Oct), Jonathan Lemalu (1 Nov), Mark Padmore (24 Oct), Christoph Prégardien (19 Oct), Maximilian Schmitt (28 Oct), Sylvia Schwartz (11 Oct), Birgid Steinberger (11 Oct), Kate Royal (13 Oct) and Roderick Williams (15 Oct), alongside emerging stars including Allan Clayton, Anna Lucia Richter, Martin Haessler, Christoph Pohl and many others. They will be joined by the world's leading pianists, including Thomas Adès, Eugene Asti, Imogen Cooper, Julius Drake, Bengt Forsberg, Graham Johnson, Malcolm Martineau, Roger Vignoles & Justus Zeyen. In addition, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Doric String Quartet and the Schubert Ensemble will be performing key chamber works.

This will be the biggest, most impressive  Oxford Lieder Festival ever - absolutely unique, and absolutely unmissable. Watch the video below! For more details visit the Oxford Lieder website.