The 2026 Aldeburgh Festival has just been announced. Ikon Arts artists performing in the Festival include Tamsin Waley-Cohen, Guy Johnston and the Piatti Quartet
Tamsin Waley-Cohen
20 June, 7.30pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall
Freya Waley-Cohen’s new Violin Concerto receives its world premiere performed by the composer’s sister, Tamsin Waley-Cohen with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and conductor Kevin John Edusei. Freya Waley-Cohen has said about the piece, ‘As a child, every night when I went to bed, Tamsin would be practising her violin in the next-door room, so the sound of her playing violin became the thing I dreamed to. When I write for violin, her sound is what I hear in my head: the way she phrases things, breathes with the music, and how the different registers of the violin come to life in her hands. As I write my first violin concerto, I am thinking of her musicality, and the sound of her violin mixed with my dreams.’.
www.brittenpearsarts.org/events/bbc-national-orchestra-of-wales-ii-tamsin-waley-cohen
Guy Johnston
21st June, 11am, Britten Studio, Snape Maltings
A rich and autumnal work from a master of chamber music: Franz Schubert. Schubert’s Quintet in C has a curiously time-bending quality. It is a late work, composed only two months before the composer’s death in 1828. But at the same time, it is the work of a young man: Schubert was only 31 when he died.Above all, it is an opportunity for intimate exchanges between the players. Lasting around an hour, it requires the most intense concentration and trust between the players.
Irène Duval, violin
Magnus Johnston, violin
Brett Dean, viola
Guy Johnston, cello
Laura van der Heijden, cello
www.brittenpearsarts.org/events/last-impressions-britten-and-schubert
21st June, 7.30pm, Thorington Theatre, Thorington
Guy Johnston performs Bach and Britten at the Thorington Theatre: elegant suites for cello, in a magical setting. Bach’s Cello Suites stand as monuments in the cello repertoire, pieces every professional player feels they should tackle at least once. Britten composed his three Cello Suites for Mstislav Rostropovich, but with Bach very much sitting on his shoulder. Equally inspired by his revered predecessor and the flamboyant talents of Slava, the Suites are structured into Baroque-style movements, filtered through Britten’s distinctive language.
Britten:Cello Suite No.1, Op.72 (25’)
J.S. Bach:Cello Suite No.2 in D minor, BWV 1008 (21’)
Britten:Cello Suite No.3, Op.87 (25’)
J.S. Bach:Cello Suite No.4 in E flat, BWV 1010 (25’)
www.brittenpearsarts.org/events/guy-johnston-cello-suites
27th June, 11am, Snape Maltings Concert Hall
An invigorating programme of Hungarian and German chamber music performed by a superb line-up of musicians. Kurtág has mastered the art of the miniature. His music is often characterised by compression: tiny, potent explosions of sound and texture. This technique is the basis of Signs, Games and Messages, which evolved over a number of years, arranged variously for solos or combinations of string instruments. The solo cello takes the spotlight here. Brahms’s Cello Sonata No.1 is a fascinating blend of the composer’s past, present and future. The outer movements are explicit homages to J.S. Bach, while the middle movement is a delicate tribute to the music of Mozart or Schubert. Yet surrounding these references to the past is Brahms’ own, emerging language: warm, rich, and a touch tempestuous.
Guy will perform in:
György Kurtág: Signs, Games and Messages, for solo cello (6’)
Brahms: Cello Sonata No.1 in E minor, Op.38 (25’)
https://www.brittenpearsarts.org/events/vilde-frang-and-friends
Piatti Quartet
27th June, 3pm, Britten Studio, Snape Maltings
The wonderful Piatti Quartet and eminent pianist Julius Drake join Nicky Spence in this dazzling and beautifully curated celebration of song.
Love in all its forms and with all its foibles is explored across this delightfully eclectic programme. Fauré’s La bonne chanson opens the programme, in a luminous arrangement for voice and string quartet. Its expressions of love range from trembling passion to ecstasy to quiet reverence. We also hear from a wide variety of musical voices on the subject of love and marriage – from Purcell, Schubert and Richard Strauss to Noël Coward, Tom Lehrer and Victoria Wood.