Coronavirus: updated list of tours and festivals cancelled or postponed due to COVID-19

Coronavirus: updated list of tours and festivals cancelled or postponed due to COVID-19

An up-to-date round-up of the classical music festivals, tours, concerts and competitions affected by the coronavirus outbreak

Published: March 16, 2020 at 10:09 am

To find out which concerts and operas are being broadcast via livestream, click here.

Festivals

Piatigorsky International Cello Festival, LA: 13-22 March

Although the cello festival has been cancelled, four Los Angeles Philharmonic concerts that were scheduled to take place during the festival will continue as planned. They are as followed:

20 March: Haydn Cello Concerto No. 1 (Laura van der Heijden) 21 March: Schumann Cello Concerto (Kian Soltani) 22 March: Julia Adolphe’s Chrysalis (world premiere) (Ralph Kirschbaum) 22 March: Colburn Celebrity Concert (Jean-Guihen Queyras, Camille Thomas, Narek Hakhnazaryan)

Hong Kong Arts Festival: 13-February-14 March

The Hong Kong Arts Festival is planning to reschedule as many of its performances as possible for a later date. The festival crosses many disciplines, incorporating orchestral and chamber music, dance, opera and theatre.

Salzburg Easter Festival: 4-13 April

This year’s instalment of Salzburg’s annual festival has been cancelled. The festival is set to continue next year, with performances from András Schiff and Hilary Hahn – the latter of whom was due to receive the Herbert von Karajan Prize.

Oslo International Church Music Festival: 13-23 March

Due to the restrictions placed on the city of Oslo, this year's festival will no longer be taking place.

Festival d'Opéra de Québec

The Canadian festival has now been postponed.

The Felicja Blumental International Music Festival

Tel Aviv's music festival, which was due to take place in March 2020, has been cancelled.

Opera Holland Park

Holland Park's 2020 season, scheduled to take place between June and August, has been postponed. The team are currently looking into opportunities to present operas at a future date in alternative locations.

Verbier Festival

The Swiss festival was set to take place from 17 July to 2 August has now been cancelled.

Tours

London Philharmonic Orchestra: Tour to Luxembourg, Germany and Austria: 13-19 March

The LPO has cancelled its seven-date European tour with conductor Robin Ticciati, which included performances with violinists Anne-Sophie Mutter, Khatia Buniatishvili, Renaud Capuçon; pianists Jan Lisiecki and Seong-Jin Cho; and cellist Pablo Ferrández.

Yuja Wang: 13 March-30 July

Pianist Yuja Wang has cancelled her extensive European recital tour, which included a concert at the Barbican on 31 March.

Concerts

Flanders Symphony Orchestra has cancelled all concerts in March 2020. The Belgian orchestra’s series, ‘A New World’, will be postponed until later notice.

RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra has cancelled all concerts from Friday 3 to Sunday 29 March. This included concerts with violinist Maxim Vengerov and conductor Joshua Weilerstein.

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra has cancelled all concerts for the rest of March. The announcement was made before the orchestra’s concert on 11 March, following the announcement that events with more than 100 people were no longer allowed. The concert went ahead in an empty concert hall, broadcast live on Facebook.

San Francisco Symphony Orchestra has cancelled concerts from Thursday 12 to Sunday 22 March. This included concerts with cellist Gautier Capuçon, flautist James Galway and pianist Hélène Grimaud. The orchestra has also now announced the cancellation of its final tour with Michael Tilson Thomas to Europe, which was set to take place from 21 March to 7 April across ten European cities.

Oslo Philharmonic has cancelled all concerts until 3 April, following the announcement from the Norweigian Institute of Public Health recommending the cancellation of all events with more than 500 participants.

Boston Symphony Orchestra has cancelled all performances at Symphony Hall in Boston and Tanglewood from Friday 13 March to Saturday 28 March. This has now been extended to Saturday 2 May, which includes cancellations of two dates at Carnegie Hall in New York.

Greek National Opera has suspended all performances at the Stavros Niarchos Hall until further notice, following the Ministry of Health's measures against activities with over 1000 spectators.

Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra has cancelled its upcoming collaboration with the Bergen National Opera, performing Mozart's La clemenza di Tito, and Beethoven's Christ on the Mount of Olives.

The Leeds International Piano Competition had scheduled a day of public events to celebrate the 100th birthday of Fanny Waterman, the competition's founder. It was going to include a public concert with previous Leeds Gold Medallists and a dinner, but these events have had to be cancelled as a result of the virus.

Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw is closed until 6 April, at which point it will announce whether the venue will reopen or not. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra's former chief conductor Mariss Jansons was going to be celebrated in a concert at the end of March, following his death at the end of 2019, but unfortunately this concert will no longer be taking place.

Venues

Tonhalle, Zürich

All concerts at the Swiss concert hall have been cancelled until 5 April.

Wigmore Hall, London

Wigmore Hall will be closed from Tuesday 17 March until at least Tuesday 14 April. All concerts and events during this time have been cancelled. Future concerts can still be booked online.

St George's, Bristol

The Bristol venue announced immediate closure until at least Monday 20 April. It is trying, where possible, to reschedule concerts and artist appearances.

Kings Place, London

The Kings Cross venue will be closed and its programme suspended until further notice. The Kings Place team are exploring potential digital offerings for its audiences.

Southbank Centre, London

The Southbank Centre is now closed with immediate effect. It has not been stated when it will reopen. This will affect all concerts and events at the Royal Festival Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Purcell Room.

St John's Smith Square, London

The Westminster has been closed with immediate effect until at least Wednesday 15 April The Holy Week Festival, in conjunction with Tenebrae, will now no longer take place in April.

Royal Albert Hall, London

The Royal Albert Hall will be closed to the public until at least 30 April, at which point the team will follow government advice on how to proceed.

Opera North and Leeds Playhouse

All events have been cancelled until the end of April. The upcoming production of A Little Night Music has been postponed until further notice.

Competitions

Fryderyk Chopin International Piano Competition

The preliminary round of the 18th Chopin Competition has been postponed from April to September.

Maria Canals International Music Competition

The Barcelona-based competition has been postponed until 20-31 July.

La Maestra International Competition for Women Conductors

The inaugural La Maestra competition was due to take place at the Philharmonie de Paris in March. This has now been postponed from Tuesday 15 to Friday 18 September 2020 at the Philharmonie de Paris. The first round and semi-final will take place in the Studio, the Final will be held in the Grande Salle Pierre Boulez.

London & Southern Counties Regional Brass Band Championships

The major brass band event, which hosts 80 competing ensembles, has been cancelled. The regional secretary has not yet announced how the grading tables and advancement of bands to the National Finals will take place. The contest is always held on the third weekend of March, so next year's event will take place as normal on 20-21 March 2021.

European Brass Band Championships

The championships, scheduled in April/May in Palanga, Lithuania, have been cancelled. It has not yet been announced whether the events will be postponed to a later date. In the meantime, they will continue to prepare the 2021 event in Malmö in Sweden.

Annette Celine International Singing Competition

The inaugural Tel Aviv competition has been postponed, possibly until autumn.

Online

Budapest Festival Orchestra

In response to the worldwide restrictions on public concerts, the Budapest Festival Orchestra will now host chamber music concerts, which will be available to view online for free. The 'Quarantine Soirees' are all listed here.

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

As the Philharmonie Berlin is closed until 19 April, the Berlin Philharmonic's concerts will be available via its Digital Concert Hall, which is available free of charge for 30 days. Log in here, using the code BERLINPHIL.

If you know of any other cancellations from the classical music world, which are not included in the list above, please contact freya.parr@immediate.co.uk.

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