Sarah Connolly/Roderick Williams: The Lady of the Lake + Selected Songs by Schubert

Kings Place will be a celebration of all things Schubert Oct 2, with performances by Sarah Connolly and Roderick Williams

The Oxford Lieder Festival has been attracting some of the biggest names in art song to the city of the dreaming spires for 13 years. The Schubert Project is its biggest venture to date, featuring every song Schubert ever wrote in a three-week festival which also includes art, theatre, food and drink from early nineteenth-century Vienna. A three-day residency at Kings Place brings a taste of the Festival to London, featuring two shining lights of the singing world, two of its shooting stars and the Oxford-based vocal group Ensemble 45.

From exuberant joy to heart-breaking despair, this concert will take you on an emotional journey, leaving you in awe at the composer’s uncanny ability to depict the human condition. His music encapsulates the sense of the text, creating the impression that his songs are a form of heightened speech. The focus of the evening will be Schubert’s settings of Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake poems (which include his exquisite Ave Maria). The programme also features pieces for four-hand piano and larger-scale works, all displaying the hallmark of Schubert’s intricate craftsmanship.

The luxurious, chocolatey tones of mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly and the nuanced performances of baritone Roderick Williams have established them as two of today’s leading performers, in demand across the globe. The concert also showcases the soprano Elisabeth Meister (highly regarded in the worlds of opera and song) as well as soprano Alison Rose and pianist Matthew Fletcher, the winners of the prestigious Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform in 2012. This is sure to be an unforgettable celebration of history’s most accomplished song composer: book now.