With regret Dame Sarah Connolly has had to withdraw from the previously announced Closing Gala recital. A new date in the autumn with the same programme will be announced in due course. Leeds Lieder are thrilled that Sir Simon Keenlyside has agreed to step in to close the Leeds Lieder Festival. Tickets previously purchased for Dame Sarah Connolly will be valid for this recital.
Sir Simon Keenlyside, one of the world’s great Lieder interpreters, makes his long-awaited Leeds Lieder debut in possibly the greatest challenge in the genre, Schubert’s enduring song cycle Winterreise. “Wielding a voice of seemingly infinite colour and the talents of a seasoned actor,” wrote the ‘Cleveland Plain Dealer’ recently, “the British singer held Reinberger Chamber Hall in the palm of his hand for 75 whole minutes with the tale of a dejected lover on the brink of self-destruction”.
He is joined by Leeds Lieder Director, Joseph Middleton, recently described by ‘Klassik Heute’ as “one of the best piano accompanists of our time.”
Sir Simon Keenlyside baritone
Joseph Middleton piano
Tickets:
£28
£25 (unwaged/disabled)
FREE (U30/students)
Part of the Evening Recitals Pass. Find out more about our new Festival Passes here.
Franz Schubert
Winterreise
Click here to book online.
Book over telephone via the Leeds Conservatoire box office: 0113 222 3434.
About Sir Simon Keenlyside
Revered British baritone Simon Keenlyside was born in London. He appears at the world’s most celebrated opera houses and has a particularly close association with the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and the Bayerische and Wiener Staatsopers, where his roles include Prospero The Tempest, Posa Don Carlo, Père Germont La Traviata, Papageno The Magic Flute, title-role/Golaud Pelléas et Mélisande, Count Almaviva and the title-roles in Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin, Wozzeck, Billy Budd, Hamlet, Macbeth and Rigoletto.
Recent highlights include Golaud at Licieu Barcelona, Ezio in Atilla at Covent Garden and Macbeth at the Bayerische Staatsoper and Covent Garden. The 22-23 season sees Simon in Rigoletto and Macbeth at Wiener Staatsoper and Peter Grimes with Opéra national de Paris.
A renowned recitalist, Simon appears regularly at such major international recital venues as Wigmore Hall, Palau de les Arts Valencia, La Monnaie, Wiener Konzerthaus, Musikverein Vienna, Opernhaus Zurich and many more. Simon also enjoys extensive concert work and has sung under the baton of the world’s leading conductors, appearing with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the City of Birmingham, London Symphony, Philharmonia and Cleveland Orchestras, and the Czech, Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras.
Simon’s extensive discography includes a disc of Schumann Lieder with Graham Johnson and four recital discs with Malcolm Martineau – Schubert, Strauss, Brahms and an English song disc, Songs of War, which won the Solo Vocal Award at the 2012 Gramophone Awards. He has also recorded Britten’s War Requiem with the London Symphony Orchestra under Noseda, Mendelssohn’s Elijah under McCreesh, Des Knaben Wunderhorn under Rattle, the title role in Macbeth under Gardner, the title role in Don Giovanni under Abbado, Carmina Burana under Thielemann, Marcello La Bohème under Chailly, the title role in Billy Budd under Hickox, Papageno The Magic Flute under Mackerras, Count Almaviva in the Grammy award-winning Le Nozze di Figaro under Jacobs and Prospero in Adès’ The Tempest, which won the Best Opera Recording (Grammy Awards 2013) and Music DVD Recording of the Year (Echo Klassik Awards 2014).
Simon was made a CBE in 2003 and received a knighthood in the June 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours. In 2017, he was awarded the title of Austrian Kammersänger at the Vienna State Opera. He won the 2006 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera and in 2007 he was given the ECHO Klassik award for male Singer of the Year.