Read on to discover the best classical music festivals taking place in the UK in summer 2025...
What would the warm summer months be without a glorious array of music-making? Thankfully we don’t have to find out – all over the world in 2025, festivals large and small have pulled out the stops to present a wealth of creative, collaborative, provocative and polished programming, in everything from Renaissance riches to contemporary classics-in-the-making.
And we're beginning our rundown of this year' festivals with the best UK classical music festivals for 2025. Reach for your diary, and prepare to be tempted!
The UK's best classical music festivals in 2025
Best UK classical music festivals: May 2025
Multitudes Festival
Southbank Centre, London,
23 April – 3 May
southbankcentre.co.uk
‘Reimagining the concert experience’ is what London’s newest festival is all about, and that reimagining pairs the Southbank Centre’s resident ensembles with artists working across all genres. Aurora Orchestra teams up with theatre company Frantic Assembly for the world premiere of Richard Ayres’s Dr Frompou’s Anatomical Study of an Orchestra; London Sinfonietta marks Terry Riley’s 90th birthday with a danced performance of In C; the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra dives into Grime and Hip-Hop; and Mahler’s ‘Symphony of 1000’ sets the Southbank ablaze.
Tectonics
Glasgow, 3, 4 May
tectonicsfestival.com
‘Why Tectonics?’ asks conductor Ilan Volkov, curator of a festival that has been dispensing challenge and enlightenment to Glasgow for over a decade now. His answer? ‘It’s a word that conjures up earthquake, renewal and change.’ The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra supplies the bedrock for an edition that features the world premieres of works by Sylvia Lim and Eleanor Cully Boehringer plus UK premieres galore.
Brighton Festival
Brighton, 3-26 May
brightonfestival.org
There’s no getting away from the sea at Brighton – and why would anyone want to? Certainly not the festival’s guest director, sitarist-composer Anoushka Shankar, who has relished the ‘cross-pollinating’ possibilities of a vibrant multi-arts programme, threading a South Asian perspective across seven world premieres, 15 commissions and, along the seafront, a Percussion Procession combining specially composed music, temple processions and UK carnivals. Shankar herself revisits Passages, her father Ravi Shankar’s collaboration with Philip Glass; Les Arts Florissants salute director William Christie at 80; and in a concert that features John Luther Adams’s Vespers of the Blessed Earth, violinist Francesca Dego gives the UK premiere of Rachel Portman’s Tipping Points.
Norfolk and Norwich Festival
Norwich, 9-25 May
nnfestival.org.uk
When it comes to festivals, Norwich knows a thing or two, boasting over 250 years’ experience. It says hello to its latest incarnation with an al fresco Welcome Weekend filled with pop-ups but, thanks to its choral origins, classical music has long been at its heart. Guitarist Sean Shibe is in residence, and three recitals span lute music to Harrison Birtwistle plus a new work by Sasha Scott. Resident, too, is mezzo Lotte Betts-Dean, who explores electronics in Voice Electric/Endless Joy, and in Octagon chapel sings Messiaen’s Harawi. In the cathedral, Britten Sinfonia marks the 90th birthday of Arvo Pärt.
Chiltern Arts Festival
Various venues, Chilterns, 9-20 May
chilternarts.com
Handel’s Water Music wouldn’t go amiss at the start of this year’s festival, which takes to the Thames with violinist Lizzie Ball and accordionist Miloš Milivojević for a musically globe-trotting river cruise. On dry land, poetry walks accompany two recitals orbiting Bach’s Suites for solo cello paired with new music; in Princes Risborough, Ravel’s American odyssey is unpicked; the Londinium Consort revisits the Renaissance in Berkhamsted; and Vaughan Williams, Golijov and juggling invade High Wycombe.
The best UK classical music festivals in 2025...
Chipping Campden Festival
Chipping Campden, 12-24 May
campdenmayfestivals.co.uk
The festival’s prefatory litfest is striking out with a staging of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, but there will be no hanging around as music beckons, and some 20 concerts take up residence in the town’s acoustically blessed Church of St James. The Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective bags a mini weekend residency including tenor Allan Clayton singing Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge; Tenebrae splices Bach and James MacMillan; Richard Goode traverses Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas; and, in one of three appearances, the Festival Academy Orchestra gives the first performance of Roderick Williams’s new Flute Concerto.
Stamford International Music Festival
Stamford Arts Centre, 15-17 May
simfestival.com
There’s more than ravishing architecture to savour in Georgian Stamford. For nearly a decade, violinist Freya Goldmark has curated a festival that, from Eastern Europe to French post-impressionism, has earned the word ‘International’. Spain clicks a castanet this year, and not without some ingenuity: Carmen tries four violins and double bass for size; Scarlatti scintillates; and in St Martin’s Church, Haydn’s Seven Last Words (originally commissioned for Cadiz) invite late-evening contemplation.
Bath Festival
Bath, 16-25 May
bathfestivals.org.uk
Bath just wouldn’t be Bath without the omnivorous city-wide showcase that is ‘Party in the City’. But as sleeves are rolled up, the Marian Consort explores recusant William Byrd beneath the glorious fan vaulting of the Abbey – where Stile Antico later sends 500th-birthday greetings to Palestrina. With its Jane Austen and William Wilberforce associations, St Swithin’s Church becomes the festival’s unofficial home, with the complete Bach Cello Suites played by Guy Johnston, the Fibonacci and Marmen string quartets and the baroquerie of Ensemble Molière. And in a three-part residency, guitarist Sean Shibe proposes ribaldry in a pizzeria, and Steve Reich in triplicate.
Glyndebourne
Lewes, Sussex, 16 May – 24 August
glyndebourne.com
For long the holy grail among seasoned afficionados of English country house opera, Glyndebourne unveils a grail of its own this season. From Meistersinger to Tristan und Isolde Wagner is no stranger to Glyndebourne, but, conducted by Robin Ticciati, Parsifal is staged here for the first time. The production enlists Dutch director Jetske Mijnssen and features Daniel Johansson in the title role. Wedding bells, meanwhile, summon the other new production, as an eventful ‘day in the life’ of the Almaviva household unites director Mariame Clémant and conductor Riccardo Minasi in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro – the opera that inaugurated the festival 91 years ago.
Revivals include Damiano Michieletto’s searing staging of Janáček’s Kát’a Kabanová, Handel’s Saul – deploying the period instruments of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Jonathan Cohen – and, bringing down the final curtain, Verdi’s larger-than-life operatic swansong, Falstaff. Not quite the final curtain, however, as Autumn promises ‘Bohemian’ Puccini, ‘Midsummer’ Britten and the premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s new opera The Railway Children. Just the ticket!
Sheffield Chamber Music Festival
Various venues, Sheffield, 16-24 May
musicintheround.co.uk
Last year, Music in the Round celebrated 40 years of purveying top-drawer chamber music to Sheffield and beyond. 2025’s chamberfest recognises the 20th birthday of its lynchpin: the versatile, shape-shifting Ensemble 360. The performers forge new alliances with percussionist Evelyn Glennie and sitarist Jasdeep Singh Degun; the premiere of a new work by Aileen Sweeney is bookended by Huw Watkins and Schubert on opening night; Kaija Saariaho, Pierre Boulez and Nono are leavened with Scottish folk music; and at 5am, JS Bach greets the dawn chorus.
Perth Arts Festival
Perth, 22-31 May
perthfestival.co.uk
It’s not quite murder in the cathedral, but rather suicide as Puccini’s Suor Angelica sips poison in the hallowed surroundings of St Ninian’s. Opera Bohemia does the honours for Perth’s operatic excursion ’25; and at ancient St John’s Kirk Suzi Digby directs ORA Singers in a programme pairing settings of the Miserere by Allegri and James MacMillan, as well as a new work by Electra Perivolaris. The Philippine Philharmonic, meanwhile, wraps classical evergreens around a new commission from Jeffrey Ching.
The best UK classical music festivals in 2025...
English Music Festival
Dorchester-on-Thames, 23-26 May
englishmusicfestival.org.uk
Although it has presented editions in several English counties and even Johannesburg, Dorchester Abbey is the nerve centre of the English Music Festival’s May instalment – which opens with Bliss guaranteed! Accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra under Martin Yate, Raphael Wallfisch is the soloist in Sir Arthur’s Cello Concerto; and world premieres plus first public performances include works by Herbert Howells, Rawsthorne and Symphony No. 2 by Vaughan Williams pupil Stanley Bate.
Swaledale Festival
North Yorkshire, 24 May – 7 June
swalefest.org
The name might imply something singular, but in fact Swaledale Festival intrudes into Wensleydale and Arkengarthdale to secure a triumvirate that ensures a sublime backdrop to a multi-arts line-up with classical music at its heart. Maurice Ravel is roundly celebrated by The Royal Northern Sinfonia, Carducci Quartet and pianist Pascal Rogé, among others; soprano Ruby Hughes and Fretwork plunge into the Baroque; and Trouvere Medieval Minstrels push back to the 12th century and, in Spennymoor’s St Michael’s Church, explore the Ludus Danielis.
Longborough Festival Opera
Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, 26 May – 2 August
lfo.org.uk
Mélisande isn’t the only one letting her hair down this summer. Conductor Anthony Negus follows last year’s three complete Ring cycles with Debussy’s Maeterlinck-inspired masterpiece Pelléas et Mélisande – a crepuscular foil to Rossini’s scintillating Barber of Seville which entices director Louise Bakker and conductor Elaine Kelly to leafy Longborough. Also Longborough-bound are the inimitable period-instrument co-op Barokksolistene, who underpin a new production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. But Wagner isn’t entirely exiled. By way of a season opener, Polly Graham directs the UK premiere of Avner Dorman’s 2017 tale of legacy and familial infighting, Wahnfried: the birth of the Wagner cult.
Opera Holland Park
London, 27 May – 2 August
operahollandpark.com
Nestling in the bustling heart of London W8, Opera Holland Park has carved out a reputation for championing the byways of Italian verismo. This summer, though, Verdi’s La traviata and a new production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor showcase more familiar fare. That familiarity is tempered by intriguing interlopers. The English premiere of a topical satire by Emma Jenkins and Toby Hession is coupled with Gilbert & Sullivan’s Trial by Jury; and, two years after its OHP world premiere, Jonathan Dove’s Itch is scratched once more. To launch the season, Peter Selwyn conducts a new production by Julia Burbach of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman.
Garsington Opera
Wormsley Estate, Buckinghamshire, 28 May – 22 July
garsingtonopera.org
Fresh from a lauded BBC Proms debut last year, Garsington swaps the Royal Albert Hall for the more intimate surroundings of its airy pavilion home in bucolic Buckinghamshire. The amorous genie is let out of the bottle with Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore and, one way or another, love is in the air throughout the season – be it the all-conquering heroic variety of Beethoven’s Fidelio or the tangled intrigues driving Handel’s Rodelinda. They’re both accompanied by the period forces of The English Concert, the latter conducted by Peter Whelan. The romantic leader of the pack, however, falls to Tchaikovsky’s turbulent take on Pushkin’s The Queen of Spades, which is conducted by Garsington’s artistic director Douglas Boyd.
Best UK classical music festivals: June 2025
The Grange Festival
Alresford, Hampshire,
4 June – 6 July
thegrangefestival.co.uk
Garsington might boast Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades, but for two nights in the company of the BBC Concert Orchestra, Queen and Freddie Mercury are celebrated at The Grange – one of four concert diversions from an operatic programme that promises Verdi’s La traviata (conducted by Richard Farnes), and Johann Strauss II’s evergreen Die Fledermaus. Hip-hop and Hampshire converge for the other operatic offering: director-choreographer Bintou Dembélé and the dancers of La Structure Rualité team up with Cappella Mediterranea and Namur Chamber Choir for a bold re-imagining of Rameau’s already-exotic Les Indes Galantes.
Grange Park Opera
West Horsley Place, Surrey,
5 June – 13 July
grangeparkopera.co.uk
The world premiere of Nishat Khan’s ‘sitar opera’ Taj Mahal lends a touch of eastern promise to Grange Park’s handsome theatre-in-the-woods. And, directed by David Pountney, there’s a rare chance to encounter Tchaikovsky’s full-blooded Mazeppa on stage. But Italy bags the lion’s share of a Surrey summer as a revival of Pountney’s production of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra is headed up by Simon Keenlyside; and Hye-Youn Lee takes the title role in Puccini’s damning indictment of imperialism, Madam Butterfly.
New Music Biennial
Bradford, 6-8 June
bradford2025.co.uk
Bradford is the 2025 UK City of Culture and, stealing a march on London, hosts the New Music Biennial before a repeat at the Southbank Centre in July. An enduring legacy of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad, it showcases new works bestriding genres ranging from sound installation and electronica to R&B and Jazz – and ensembles including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Maxwell Quartet, Carice Singers and Sinfonia Cymru. Among the composers are Ellie Wilson, Mark David Boden and Daniel Kidane.
Northern Aldborough Festival
Aldborough, N Yorks, 12-21 June
aldboroughfestival.co.uk
That Aldborough features a singing competition in its three-decades-old festival should come as no surprise: the artistic director is countertenor Robert Ogden and vocal music is never far from the festival’s thoughts. This summer, Wild Arts Opera presents Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love; Armonico Consort performs Rachmaninov’s Vespers; the Thanda Gumede Trio flexes its fusion expertise; and in St Andrew’s Church, mezzo Sarah Connolly and pianist Imogen Cooper perform songs by Schumann, Mozart and Duparc.
The best UK classical music festivals in 2025...
Aldeburgh Festival
Snape Maltings and around, 13-29 June
brittenpearsarts.org
The festival founded by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears isn’t just about Aldeburgh. Indeed, enlisting majestic churches such as Orford and Blythburgh, its hub has long been at Snape Maltings. New for 2025 is the ‘Big Day Out’ on the final Saturday, a ‘festival extra’ of pop-ups, music and food for those with any energy left after the main programme’s 23 world and UK premieres, plus residencies for composers Helen Grime and Daniel Kidane, tenor Allan Clayton and violinist Leila Josefowicz. For early birds, a 4.20am Summer Solstice rendez-vous at Maggi Hambling’s sculpture on the beach promises musical and culinary treats.
Lewes Chamber Music Festival
Lewes, 13-15 June
leweschambermusicfestival.com
For opera lovers, Lewes is, perhaps, a staging post en route to Glyndebourne; but every June for the past dozen years, it has boasted a chamber music festival directed by violinist Beatrice Philips. Under the headline ‘Notes from a Small Island’, the 2025 edition celebrates British composers and their continental influences. Thomas Adès’s quintets – one for piano, the other for clarinet – both feature alongside music by Britten, Fauré and Walton; and countertenor Iestyn Davies sings bespoke chamber arrangements of songs by Gerald Finzi.
Penarth Chamber Music Festival
Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, 19-22 June
penarthchambermusicfestival.org.uk
Last year’s 10th anniversary duly celebrated; Penarth embarks on a second decade with the wind in its sails – rather appropriately for a festival eyeballing the scenic Bristol Channel from its art deco end-of-the-pier pavilion. Curated by violinist David Adams and cellist Alice Neary, quintet Brahms, sextet Dohnányi, and octet Enescu are woven through centenary Boulez, Messiaen’s apocalyptic Quartet for the End of Time and, featuring soprano Rebecca Evans, Mahler’s Fourth Symphony – reworked for chamber ensemble by Erwin Stein.
Stour Music
Boughton Aluph, Kent, 20-29 June
stourmusic.org.uk
Deadly Nightshade is growing in the ‘garden of England’ as French medieval ensemble Apotropaïk makes its festival debut wreathed in musical Bella Donna. Stour debutantes, too, are German Renaissance wind ensemble Hanse Pfeyfferey, who team up with I Fagiolini to ‘Party like it’s 1523’. Boughton Aluph’s pilgrim church also reverberates to 17th-century supersized surround sound and is on the side of the Angels in the company of Solomon’s Knot. Plus, under artistic director Robert Hollingworth, the festival takes its leave with more Bach(s), Mendelssohn and SS Wesley.
The best UK classical music festivals in 2025...
Thaxted Festival
Thaxted 20 June – 13 July
thaxtedfestival.co.uk
Gustav Holst would surely have approved of the Morris dancing that greets the conclusion of a recital by the Doric String Quartet! The pioneer of a Thaxted festival in 1916, he was deeply rooted in folk traditions. Thaxted ’25 has a song in its heart, as Nicky Spence explores the father-son dynamic, while fellow tenor Neil Balfour is on a love quest that culminates in Schumann’s Frauen-Liebe und Leben. And thwarted love is in the air for Wild Arts’ new production of Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin. Jaeden Izik-Dzurko, winner of last year’s Leeds Piano Competition, plays Bach, Chopin and Rachmaninov.
St Magnus Festival
Orkney, 20-27 June
stmagnusfestival.com
Day and night inhabit a liminal space in an Orcadian June, a space that lends a particular ambience to a festival forever indebted to its founding fathers, composer Peter Maxwell Davies and poet George Mackay Brown. Vocal ensemble Echo is in residence and weaves together Britten, James MacMillan and Judith Weir. A wind quintet-accompanied Dvořák’s Mass in D colonises St Magnus Cathedral; and among Orkney’s other enticements are the Resol String Quartet, a focus on the accordion and Katherine Wren’s ensemble Nordic Viola.
Proms at St Jude’s
Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, 21-29 June
promsatstjudes.org.uk
Petroc Trelawny is no stranger to presenting the BBC Proms, but this year he first forsakes South Kensington for Hampstead Garden Suburb to introduce his new book on Cornwall as part of NW11’s Proms-cum-Litfest. The musical cohort includes the Fibonacci Quartet, percussionist Evelyn Glennie, The Swingles and a last-night Italian Carnevale. But overlaps are not excluded! Abetted by actors Anton Lesser and Charlie Hamblett, The Orchestra of the Swan evokes the world of Laurie Lee.
East Neuk Festival
Fife, 25-29 June
eastneukfestival.com
East Neuk’s programming has always been a connoisseur’s delight, and this year’s 20th edition invites the seaside villages of the Fife coast to a particularly classy celebration. The Beethoven late quartets are shared between the Belcea, Castalian, Elias and Pavel Haas quartets – who combine for a new piece by Sally Beamish. Schubert song cycles enlist tenor Mark Padmore and baritone James Newby, while guitarist Sean Shibe is in Anstruther for his third recital, where Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint awaits.
Budleigh Music Festival
Budleigh Salterton, Devon, 27 June - 5 July
budleighmusicfestival.co.uk
There’s more to a West Country seaside summer than a paddle and cream tea. Budleigh’s music festival clocks up two decades this year and takes the celebratory plunge with a gusto that finds pianist Stephen Hough combining Schoenberg and Stockhausen with a suite from Mary Poppins! Zum Roten Igel reimagines Schubert’s String Quintet in C for an ensemble including accordion and cimbalom; Duo Rhossili proves its takes two to tango; and, under Jason Thornton, Bath Philharmonia salutes 4th of July America in the company of Copland and Gershwin.
Best UK classical music festivals: July 2025
Manchester International Festival
Manchester, 3-20 July
factoryinternational.org
Biennial Manchester launched back in 2007 and signalled ambitions to present only the new and challenging with its inaugural collaboration between Damon Albarn and Chen Shi-Zheng. Among this year’s crop of cutting-edgers are the Royal Ballet, Shilpa Gupta and Eric Cantona, while at the Royal Northern College of Music, ‘A Possibility’ – Germaine Kruip’s part-sculptural installation, part-soundscape – draws on new music for percussion from Emily Howard and Hahn Rowe.
JAM on the Marsh Festival
Romney Marsh, Kent, 3-13 July
jamconcert.org
The haunting landscape of Romney Marsh and its medieval churches have been home to JAM’s summer festival for over a decade, and this year Paul Mealor receives 50th-birthday greetings across three concerts spotlighting his music. Premieres of works by Steve Richer and Marisse Cato rub shoulders with the BBC Singers, London Tango Quintet, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the voracious Kosmos Ensemble.
Deal, Festival
Deal, Kent, 3-13 July
dealmusicandarts.com
A reliable set of sea legs wouldn’t go amiss as Deal looks to its littoral and beyond for 2025’s marine theme. In Dover’s newly restored Maison Dieu, artistic director Luke Styles’s Coastlines – An Oratorio of Gulls salutes the herring gull; soprano Lucy Crowe and the Fantasia Orchestra perform an evening of music inspired by birdsong; and Anna Braithwaite’s sound installation ‘Pilgrimage’ charts a walk on the coast path from Deal to Dover, including field recordings and improvised vocal music.
York Early Music Festival
York, 4-11 July
ncem.co.uk
Beverley’s early music Mayfest done and dusted, it’s York’s turn, with ‘Heaven and Hell’ on its sobering agenda. Four hundred years after his death, Orlando Gibbons is remembered by both Fretwork and the Rose Consort of Viols, and there are vivacious villancicosfrom Spanish ensemble Cantoria, plus a celebration of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – published exactly three centuries ago. Medieval specialists Sollazzo join Landini, Tapissier and others in siding with the angels, while Ensemble Bastion braves 17th-century heaven and hell.
The best UK classical music festivals in 2025...
Cheltenham Festival
Cheltenham, 4-12 July
cheltenhamfestivals.com
Eighty years ago, a young Benjamin Britten premiered the Four Sea Interludes from his latest work, the opera Peter Grimes: the first Cheltenham Festival was under way. Eight decades on, performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Interludes return as part of a celebration that remembers festivals past and looks to the future with commissions from Deborah Pritchard and Anna Semple. Berlioz’s ear-filling Te Deum is dispatched to nearby Gloucester Cathedral; the Vision Quartet plays Ravel and Dvořák from memory; and the Gesualdo Six are on the trail of Orlando Gibbons.
Ryedale Festival
North Yorkshire, 11-27 July
ryedalefestival.com
With some 60 concerts spread over more than 30 venues – stately, ecclesiastical and otherwise – little wonder Ryedale Festival has a phalanx of artists-in-residence almost as capacious as Yorkshire itself. Among them are soprano Claire Booth, Quatuor Mosaïques and Voces8. Overlooked Tippett is revived, early music transports Arcangelo to Selby Abbey, while in Ripon Cathedral the Orchestra of Opera North unveils a new arrangement of the Viola Sonata by Arthur Bliss.
Lichfield Festival
Lichfield, 8-20 July
lichfeldfestival.org
It’s not just the cathedral’s triple spires that are inspiring! Lichfield is a city that, from spring litfest to autumn chamber music, sets great store by its festivals. They bookend summer’s flagship jamboree, which isn’t afraid to tread on sibling toes. The BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Ryan Bancroft heads up this year’s offering that indulges a ‘Baroque meet Bridgerton’ sketch of 18th-century soprano Kitty Clive, pulls on its pilgrim boots for Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles and revels in Ravel.
Buxton Festival
Buxton, 10-27 July
buxtonfestival.co.uk
Over its near-half-century existence, Buxton has not been afraid to take the operatic path less travelled. This year, it has commissioned a quadruple bill of 20-minute opera shorts from composers including Thanda Gumede and Jasper Dommett. They sit astride a series launched by Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet, followed by Charpentier’s Orphée as well as Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti, Francis Poulenc’s La voix humaine and Mozart’s The Impresario. Among concert highlights, anniversary felicitations are bestowed on Palestrina 500 (The Tallis Scholars), Ravel 150 (Sacconi Quartet) and Oscar Peterson 100 (pianist Dean Stockdale).
Bampton Classical Opera
Bampton, Oxfordshire,
18 July – 6 September
bamptonopera.org
When it comes to Antonio Salieri, Bampton has form. With four of his operas already under its belt, how could the company resist another in this year marking the 200th anniversary of the Italian composer’s death? Sung in a new English translation, La locandiera (The Landlady), is a Goldoni-derived comedy of manners that drew a critical thumbs-up at its 1773 Vienna premiere. Starring soprano Siân Dicker, Jeremy Gray’s new production salutes Salieri in three counties, with a London performance to be announced.
The best UK classical music festivals in 2025...
BBC Proms
London, 18 July –13 September
bbc.co.uk/proms
After last year’s record-breaking edition, the BBC Proms has a spring in its step – and all to play for! Anniversaries were honoured, world premieres delivered, and UK venues added to its South Kensington heartland. Details for 2025 are currently under wraps and will be announced on 24 April. Check the website for information.
Music at Paxton
Berwick-on-Tweed, 18-27 July
musicatpaxton.co.uk
‘Princess Edmond de Polignac Requests the Pleasure of Your Company’. She may not be in the familiar surroundings of her Paris salon, but the Princess certainly wouldn’t feel out of place in Palladian Paxton’s imposing Picture Gallery. Facilitating her ‘request’ is the Chloé Piano Trio – and tantalising gossip is assured. The Consone Quartet ends its three-year residency with concerts including the Scottish premiere of Oliver Leith’s Chaconne; and, as well as pianists Yevgeny Sudbin and Pavel Kolesnikov, Paxton ’25 promises Traditional Tunes for Tiny People, and even a dash of Bollywood-meets Bhangra.
Fishguard Festival of Music
Pembrokeshire, 18-31 July
fishguardmusicfestival.com
Seaside Fishguard styles itself the gateway to the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, and against the backdrop of a ravishing seascape and the Preseli Hills it has enjoyed an invigorating music festival for over half a century. Orchestral concerts in the cathedral at St David’s – the first by the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera under Tomáš Hanus – bookend this year’s instalment. Meanwhile, in Teifi Valley Rhosygilwen ahead of their trio recital, the Kosmos Ensemble joins the WNO Chamber Orchestra for Errollyn Wallen’s Triple Concerto for violin, viola, and accordion.
The best UK classical music festivals in 2025...
Dorset Opera Festival
Bryanston, Dorset, 22-26 July
dorsetopera.com
Having notched up its half century last year, the summer school-cum-opera festival is celebrating its 20th season at Bryanston with an Italian clean sweep. Headlining is Verdi’s Rigoletto, and a special double bill pairs Puccini’s Suor Angelica with Mascagni’s slice of troubled village life, Cavalleria rusticana.
Corbridge Chamber Music Festival
Corbridge, Northumberland, 24-27 July
corbridgefestival.co.uk
It’s 1,350 years since St Wilfrid established a church in Roman Corbridge, and the festival that calls St Andrew’s ‘home’ is treading in the saint’s footsteps – literally! After morning Schubert and Widman in Hexham’s glorious Abbey, a walk along the Tyne back to Corbridge is capped by the world premiere of a new piece by Piers Hellawell. There’s new Diana Burrell too in an eclectic line-up that acknowledges early Strauss, anniversary Ravel, and café-style late-evening Baroque.
The best UK classical music festivals in 2025...
Three Choirs Festival
Hereford, 26 July – 2 August
3choirs.org
There have been rotating choral meetings of minds at the Cathedrals of Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester for over three centuries, and the 2025 assembly falls to Hereford, where the 150th anniversary of the birth of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor spurs a revival of his oratorio Atonement (premiered at Hereford in 1903). Herbert Howells’s Hymnus Paradisi also features, 75 years since its first performance, in a line-up buttressed by the resident Philharmonia Orchestra and including a new work by Michael Finnissy.
Best UK classical music festivals: August 2025
Lake District Summer Music
Cumbria, 1-10 August
ldsm.org.uk
The 40th-anniversary LDSM is cutting Beethoven down to size. All five piano concertos are performed by Paul Lewis across the festival, but the first four are in chamber versions courtesy of the Vertavo String Quartet. The ‘Emperor’, however, refuses new clothes and, obliged by the Northern Chamber Orchestra, is paired with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Vocal ensemble Kantos interrogates the elements; the Vertavos are joined by the Barbican and Novo quartets; while on opening night, saxophonist Jess Gillam and her ensemble blow up a storm.
Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh, 1-24 August
eif.co.uk
The title of James Graham’s new play which opens Edinburgh ’25 could surely serve as the festival’s motto. In the event, ‘Make it Happen’ yields to artistic director Nicola Benedetti’s overarching theme ‘The Truth We Seek’. Truth-seekers include orchestras from Beijing, Warsaw and Budapest, together with an LSO residency and a radical Australian reimagining of Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice. The Festival Chorus turns 60 and shoulders the seven-hour marathon of Tavener’s The Veil of the Temple, Vaughan Williams’s Sea Symphony and Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. In the Queen’s Hall, chamber music proliferates, framed by the King’s Singers with percussionist Colin Currie, and, with their minds set on JS Bach, the Apollon Ensemble perform alongside violinist Leonidas Kavakos.
The best UK classical music festivals in 2025...
IF Opera
Church Farm, Wingfield, 7-17 August
ifopera.com
IF is on the move, and this year pitches its saddlespan auditorium in the shadow of the Westbury White Horse. Rigoletto is leavened with Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld; and, as well as the time-honoured Picnic Prom, a Baroque twosome brings together Monteverdi’s Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, and Carissimi’s 1649 oratorio Historia Jonae.
Waterperry Opera
Waterperry House, Oxon, 8-18 August
waterperryoperafestival.co.uk
Winnie-the-Pooh’s songbook enlivens the Waterperry amphitheatre; in the ballroom, a musical exploration of Anne Frank’s diary confides; and Mozart’s Gran Partita serenades al fresco. They’re wrapped around Mozart’s Don Giovanni, plus, conducted by the Festival’s music director Bertie Baigent, Semele, Handel’s hybrid nod to the Roman poet Ovid.
The best UK classical music festivals in 2025...
Clandeboye Festival
Bangor, County Down, 16-23 August
camerata-ireland.com
Anchored by its young musicians’ Academy, Camerata Ireland and pianist Barry Douglas, the festival is a County Down fixture that next year notches up a quarter century of music-making on the aristocratic Clandeboye Estate. This year’s working title is ‘Aspect of the Mediterranean’, and a focus on France and Spain ranges across 13 concerts, masterclasses and the Young Musicians’ Showcase.
Presteigne Festival
Presteigne, 21-25 August
presteignefestival.com
Prefaced by a recently inaugurated ‘May Springboard Weekend’, Presteigne commemorates the 50th anniversary of the death of Shostakovich. But it has never been a festival to dwell in the past. Thirteen commissions look to Helen Grime, Huw Watkins and composer-in-residence Eleanor Alberga, among others. And music by a further dozen-or-so living composers – including Thomas Adès, Judith Weir and Steve Reich – weaves around the likes of Bach, Britten and Mahler. With opera and orchestral music in the mix, Presteigne punches consistently above its weight.
Lammermuir Festival
East Lothian, 4-15 September
lammermuirfestival.co.uk
What is it about Scotland and festivals? The perfect marriage of repertoire and artists best equipped to bring something special to the interpretative table seems almost infallibly instinctive. East Lothian’s Lammermuir certainly pulls off the feat with disarming ease. Monteverdi directed by Rinaldo Alessandrini, Ravel and Brahms at the heart of chamber music from the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, the Dudok, Carducci and Maxwell string quartets, and artist-in-residence cellist Laura van der Heijden enliven autumn in Sir Walter Scott country along with the numerically bigger guns of Scottish Opera and the Philharmonia Orchestra.