Friday 12 – Sunday 14 October 2007
As well as being a superb accompanist, Roger Vignoles, Artistic Director of Leeds Lieder 2007, is also an accomplished painter. His theme for the Festival, Hearing Pictures, was inspired by the wealth of visual imagery used by musicians when talking about music. A cosmopolitan line-up of artists including singers Mark Padmore, Elizabeth Watts, Håken Ekenäs, Julia Riley, Nicholas Watts, Julia Sporsén, Ronan Collett, Measha Brueggergosman and Florian Boesch (replacing an indisposed Robert Holl at very short notice and giving a revelatory performance of Winterreise), plus pianists Nicholas Rimmer and Sergey Rybin, joined Roger Vignoles in revealing how we hear music with our mind’s eye as much as with our ear.
Audiences were also treated to a workshop and performance of classical Chinese song and an In Conversation with one of the greatest artists of her generation, Dame Janet Baker.