With an (almost*) full-length programme, welcoming live audiences, and once more making music beneath the glorious chandeliers of the Georgian Assembly Rooms in its home city of Bath… 

This November’s 8-day, 15 concert, festival will also be live-streamed for those unable to attend and also for the new audiences around the world who discovered the joys of Bath Mozartfest during lockdown, when we presented reduced programmes online courtesy of our friends at Wiltshire Music Centre.

As always, the music of W A Mozart is at the heart of Bath Mozartfest and La Nuova Musica,conducted by David Bates, will present a compelling all-Mozart programme following the composer’s own musical symphonic development, featuring soloists Rachel Podger and Alec Frank-Gemmill.  And Rachel will play again, this time with Christopher Glynn at the fortepiano, presenting an intriguing series of completions of Mozart’s unfinished works.

Bath Mozartfest is defined by its fine chamber music and outstanding exponents appearing this year include Barcelona-based Cuarteto Casals, the Belcea Quartet, Nash Ensemble and the Leonore Piano Trio.  

Keyboards feature prominently, with a visit from the 23 year old, Kazakh-born, winner of this year’s Leeds Piano Competition, Alim Beisembayev, and the two outstanding pianists, Paul Lewis and Steven Osborne, playing as a duo an enchanting programme which explores music associated with childhood, including Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite and Fauré’s ‘Dolly Suite’.

Soprano Lucy Crowe and pianist Anna Tilbrook will present a fascinating ‘Female Portraits’ concert ranging widely from works by Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann to Cole Porter’s Miss Otis and Hoagy Carmichael’s Georgia. 

The popular weekday lunchtime concerts will include clarinetist Michael Collins with flautist Adam Walker and pianist Michael McHale, the Sacconi Quartet and a second, different, group of Nash Ensemble members.  And the Friday afternoon concert given by members of BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists scheme will be a showcase for youthful talent.

Stile Antico’s beguiling unaccompanied choral music programme entitled ‘A Garden of Delights’ promises to transport with ‘songs of earthly and heavenly love’ and, after a week of musical treats, the English Chamber Orchestra will bring the ‘fest’ to a close with Schubert’s 5^th Symphony, a work in which its composer’s own infatuation with Mozart’s music is clear.

Artistic director Amelia Freedman presents another embarras de richesses, and she and the Bath Mozartfest team look forward to welcoming you in person in November.

Full Bath Mozartfest 2021 programme and tickets available at www.bathmozartfest.org.uk.