Keenlyside, Hough, Fatma Said and Gareth Malone’s Requiem for all-comers head a week that honours the recital tradition while refusing to keep it under glass, writes Group Editor Andrew Palmer.

The song recital has a reputation, not always deserved, for being the most buttoned-up corner of classical music: a singer, a pianist, a programme of German poetry and an audience that knows when not to applaud. Leeds Song Festival has spent several years quietly dismantling that image, and its 2027 edition, running from 10 to 17 April, may be its most persuasive argument yet.

Under the title The Song Within, director Joseph Middleton has built a week around what a song actually carries: memory, identity, poetry, place and feeling. It is a theme generous enough to embrace Hildegard von Bingen and a world premiere in the same breath, and the programme takes full advantage.

Joseph Middleton and Carolyn Sampson

Joseph Middleton Photo: © Richard Cannon

The roll call of visiting artists would grace any European festival. Sir Simon Keenlyside, Fatma Said, Christiane Karg, Carolyn Sampson, Beth Taylor, Christopher Maltman and Christoph Prégardien are all heading north, joined by Kitty Whately, Nicholas Mulroy, Elizabeth Kenny, Jess Dandy and a clutch of rising names. Lieder devotees will note that Maltman, Prégardien and Karg all bring Schubert, which suggests the festival has no intention of abandoning its roots in the traditional recital even as it ventures well beyond them.

Those ventures are where Leeds Song really distinguishes itself. The repertoire stretches from the earliest lute-accompanied songs of Dowland’s era through Maconchy and Messiaen to Egyptian song and newly written work. In partnership with SAA-UK, the sitarist and composer Jasdeep Singh Degun performs with vocalist Spoorthi Rao, before sitting down in conversation with Errollyn Wallen, who then plays her own music in the festival’s HAR Bar later that evening.

Sir Simon Keenlyside Photo:© Light Attitude

Stephen-Hough

The festival’s link with the Leeds International Piano Competition continues with a celebration of the music of Sir Stephen Hough, the competition’s Artistic Director.

Visual art threads through the week. Kitty Whately and pianist Anna Tilbrook team up with illustrator James Mayhew, who draws live as they perform, while Carolyn Sampson’s Star Falling, devised with tenor and visual artist Andrew Staples and Middleton at the piano, takes an immersive multimedia approach and includes a new piece by Roderick Williams.

Kitty Whately Photo: Sara Porter

Spoorthi Rao

Leeds itself becomes a subject too. A Leeds Songbook pairs composers with poets to write new songs inspired by the city, shared through a forum, a showcase and an exhibition in which visual artists respond to the results. A further partnership with the Royal Philharmonic Society brings a new cycle by Aníbal Vidal.

Yet the moment most likely to linger may involve no professional soloists at all. Gareth Malone opens the festival with a Bring and Sing! performance of Mozart’s Requiem, handing the music to the people of Leeds and turning a concert hall audience into a choir.

The next generation is well served. Singers and pianists on the Young Artist Programme receive masterclasses from Keenlyside, Karg, Prégardien, Roger Vignoles, Kate Royal, Mark Padmore and Audrey Hyland, with showcase performances across the week. Professors Natasha Loges and Richard Stokes offer talks to illuminate familiar repertoire, and Beth Taylor’s recital, fully integrated with British Sign Language, opens the art form to audiences too often left outside it.

Middleton is clear that the starry names are only half the story. “We are bringing some of the greatest artists in the world to Yorkshire, but just as important to us are the opportunities for people to make music themselves, the new songs being written here, and the extraordinary collaborations with our partners and friends,” he said.

“We want to honour this extraordinary tradition without putting it behind glass. Above all, we want to keep asking what song can be, who it can belong to and where it can go next.”

On this evidence, the answer to all three is: rather further than anyone expected.

Friends’ priority booking opens on Tuesday 20 October, with general sale from Tuesday 27 October. Full details are at leedssong.com