Get information about Southbank Centre classical music events and exclusive offers direct to your inbox.
Tell your friends about Southbank Centre classical music events.
Explore a rich variety of vocal styles, from grand opera to the intimacy of chamber music, spanning music from the Renaissance to the present day.
Mary King, Director of Southbank Centre’s Voicelab and star of Channel 4’s Musicality and Operatunity, explores some of her highlights from Southbank Centre’s 2010/11 season, starting with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, one of Southbank Centre’s Resident Orchestras. They perform two rarely heard works as part of their programme full of vocal offerings this year. ‘Mozart’s virtuosic Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera that doesn’t get performed very often; principally because it’s got three pretty near unsingable roles. Konstanze is hard to cast because the arias are very different – one is slow and very lyrical and the other a furiously semi-quavered, brilliant aria with very, very high notes in it.’ In contrast the orchestra’s performance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio features ‘a group of singers who are young, up-and-coming and fresh. I’m looking forward to what I think will be an especially joyous occasion,’ she adds.
Also part of our varied international season of vocal music here at Southbank Centre is a concert performed by tenor Mark Padmore and friends. ‘Their concert is a mixture of Vaughan Williams and Ravel; looking at the way that the atmospheric quality of Ravel’s writing inspired Vaughan Williams. Particularly interesting is to hear On Wenlock Edge, which again, isn’t done so very often; it’s a beautiful piece with wonderful poems by Housman. Very reflective and haunting, it’s something that will suit Mark Padmore’s particularly sensitive gifts.’
Concert performance of Mozart’s light-hearted comic opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail conducted by Bernard Labadie on Wednesday 24 November 2010
Wednesday 24 November
This event has now finished
A performance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio conducted by John Butt on Sunday 12 December 2010
Sunday 12 December
This event has now finished
Associate Artists at Southbank Centre, The Sixteen celebrate Christmas with choral music including works by Praetorius, Byrd and Arvo Pärt on Tuesday 9 December 2010
This event has now finished
Leading tenor Mark Padmore performs a programme of works by Vaughan Williams and Ravel on Wednesday 27 April 2011 as part of the International Chamber Music Season
Baritone Christian Gerhaher performs songs from Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn conducted by Vladimir Jurowski on Saturday 28 May 2011
Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts a semi-staged performance of Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle on Thursday 3 November 2011
Find us Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX
Privacy policy © Southbank Centre 2010. Southbank Centre is a charity registered in England and Wales No.298909.
