THE long-running Lake District Summer Music programme will return for a 33rd year with 40 events taking place from next month.

The fortnight-long festival takes place at 11 venues across the South Lakes between Saturday July 29 and Friday August 11.

With its heart in chamber music, the programme covers orchestral, choral, solo recitals, opera on film, masterclasses, early music, world music, popular favourites and new works, jazz and much more.

In 2017, LDSM welcomes artists and audiences new and old in its cornucopia of concerts, with artists returning as firm favourites alongside plenty of new faces.

Some of the highlights this year include: a spotlight on Schubert, including baritone Benjamin Appl singing Winterreise; rarely-heard early quartets; and the Octet with artists-in-residence the Berkeley Ensemble.

A golden thread of Haydn runs through the fortnight, with string quartets, piano trios and solo piano.

The new Festival Début strand features a cellist from Finland, a piano trio from New Zealand, an Australian violinist and a Romanian pianist, as well as young musicians from across the UK.

The centenary of the Russian Revolution is marked by music by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and Stravinsky, and a very different centenary is celebrated in a tribute to the "First Lady of Song", Ella Fitzgerald.


LDSM's ongoing First World War commemorations highlight music by Debussy, Ravel, Elgar, Bridge, Bartók, Rebecca Clarke and rarities by Delius, Gurney, Röntgen, McEwen, Ibert and Enescu. The subtle art of one composer transcribing the work of another is yet another feature, including Tchaikovsky/Arensky, Strauss/Hasenöhrl, Gershwin/Wild, Glinka/Balakirev and Bizet/Buxton Orr.

Artists-in-residence returning to LDSM include the Chilingirian Quartet, cellist Robert Cohen, pianist Carole Presland and the Gould Piano Trio, which brings a new work by Mark Simpson.

The music of father and son Sir Lennox Berkeley and Michael Berkeley is a feature in two concerts.

At Kendal Town Hall, there will be an innovative family event mixing puppetry and music by the Palisander Recorder Quartet, and in the month that marks the 70th anniversary of India’s independence from the UK, there is a recital for sitar, tabla and tanpura.

The major opening event, returning to Coronation Hall, in Ulverston, is Bach's B minor Mass performed from memory by Solomon's Knot, and, marking the 450th anniversary of Monteverdi's birth, madrigals performed by local singers the Herdwyk Consort.

Lake District Summer Music takes place in venues across Ambleside, Bowness, Hawkshead, Kendal, Kirkby Lonsdale, Ulverston and Windermere.

A full programme can be viewed at www.ldsm.org.uk and a free festival diary can be requested by phoning 01539 742620.

Public bookings for all concerts and events begins on Wednesday June 14.