Leeds is an art song festival like no other
How on earth do Director Joseph Middleton and his team do it?
“Ee By Gum,
Supp tha brew, and stop tha
Mithering”
It’s not often you’re shouted at by a hotel room wall. My Ibis hotel, in Leeds city centre wasn’t taking any prisoners. The Yorkshire dialect instructions in shouty three-foot script above the Espresso machine weren’t messing about. Even I, a“You'll have had yer tea,” relatively genteel Scot caught the drift.
Time to appease “wall”. I discharged my part. Two capsules of Intenso Ristretto perked me up after my 5:00 am start for the 2 hours 12 minutes LNER “Azuma” Japanese bullet-train-technology super-smooth service from Kings Cross. Amazed to find a British train that worked perfectly, contrary to received opinion.
Then, off on a caffeine high at 09:30 for a packed day of masterclasses, recitals, talks and a late-night young artists’ Lieder Lounge jam session in the Kino bar of the Opera Centre. I was having a grand day out at Leeds Song, the festival, until recently better known as Leeds Lieder.
But nothing like the high on which I returned, close to midnight, having spent an intensive day immersed in one of the wonders of the musical world.
The schedule was certainly intenso. 10:00 am, the Howard Opera Centre, for a Leeds Lieder Young Artists’ masterclass with the renowned Sir Thomas Allen, Durham born baritone who commanded the international opera stage from the 1970s well into the noughties.
Allen’s recital repertoire is no less extensive than his opera – ranging through German lieder, French songs by the likes of Duparc, the English song cycles of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Brahms, Handel, Carl Orff and on to the Great American Song Book.
Every year, twenty young artists, paired as singer and pianist, are selected from a mass of entrants around the world after a diligent audition process and invited to Leeds. They are all in the room for the masterclasses. Eight participated in this one. The remainder look and learn.
Every student session is substantive – 30 minutes in length - which allowed Allen, who roamed the room like a benevolent bear, to dig into the detail.
What was impressive was the easy rapport he established with each pairing. For an interested amateur observer – me – the two hours passed in a flash. It was like harbouring a love for Aston Martins and being sneaked into the factory to see the engines being crafted.
Quick pause for a coffee break at the San Coco coffee house, round the corner, escorted by volunteer Festival supporter, Caitlin, who insisted on showing me the way. Clearly, I needed help!
All Festival staff – mostly volunteer students – were super friendly and engaged. Turned out that Caitlin was a talented viola player who showed off her skills in the evening student jam session.
Then off to what was billed as a “Relaxed Lunchtime Recital” in the Howard Assembly Room with Kitty Whately mezzo soprano accompanied by Natalie Burch, piano. We were told to roam freely, even extend ourselves on mats and cushions in front of the stage, bring drinks, binge on sandwiches.
It was even announced at the beginning that we could use a confined “shouting” space somewhere downstairs if emotional steam pressure got the upper hand. There was a sign language interpreter. Nobody roamed. Whately and Burch delivered such a spell binding programme it kept the room in thrall.
For me, some of the repertoire was unfamiliar. It was certainly eclectic. Madeleine Dring 1923 – 1927; Erich Korngold 1897 – 1957; Claude Debussy 1862 – 1918; Rita Strohl 1865 -1941; Rebecca Clarke 1886 – 1979; and Samuel Barber 1910 -1981.
Whately is beautifully voiced, emotionally charged. The pairing with Burch was natural. They delivered as an ensemble, not a singer and an accompanist who has turned up as a musical accessory.
Confession time. I have become fascinated by Rebecca Clarke a composer and violist who performed on both sides of the Atlantic. Born in Harrow, died in New York. Her ballad The Cloths of Heaven, she also wrote the lyrics, is eye wateringly beautiful. The sheet music was difficult to find.
I mentioned this in passing to Natalie Burch after the show. “Yes, not much published. Would you like mine?”. And she dashed backstage to return with the music for God Made a Tree, Infant Joy and June twilight. Even now I’m wrestling with the blizzard of sharps, flats and outrageously extended chords. Pass me another intenso.
I tell the tale because Natalie’s act of generosity typified the atmosphere of this inclusive festival. No fourth wall between performers and artists.
And what not to like about the following three-hour Masterclass delivered by one of my opera heroines? Dame Felicity Lott, no less. A patron of Leeds Song. She, like Allen, was a listener, not laying down the law, but entering into a fascinating dialogue with the artists. Peer to peer. I got the impression that the feisty 77-year-old soprano still sees herself on the learning curve of life.
I was having a chat afterwards with one of the young artists who caught my ear, tenor Euan McDonald, who turned out to hail from Gourock. A Kenneth McKellar in the making. Dame Felicity shimmied up and joined the conversation.
That afforded a chance to say “thank you” for a lifetime of pleasure her voice has given me. Her CD of Strauss’ Four Last Songs has survived many a dodgy car player. What a privilege.
Straight on to a pre-performance talk by Dr George Kennaway, a cellist and musicologist, and, hardly drawing a breath, to the final recital of the festival, delivered by Scottish mezzo Beth Taylor accompanied by Julius Drake.
Taylor may be only 31, but if Drake, one of the most accomplished accompanists on the planet, has teamed up with her that signals great things on the horizon.
A quick internet scour finds them performing together along with baritone Jusung Gabriel Park in May at the Royal Concertgebouw Mahler Festival in Amsterdam. I checked the flights. Fine. Let’s go! Then the tickets. Sold out. Damn!
Taylor’s voice is an instrument of wonder. It shares that raw, natural emotion in the lower register that made Kathleen Ferrier such a legend, not least in Leeds.
Art song tells a story. That’s the joy of it. Taylor – in every one of her songs employed eye contact to draw the whole audience into her tale. No more so than in the second half. The Sea Pictures song cycle by Edward Elgar.
My find floated back to teenage years when I discovered Janet Baker’s version on the back of an LP which I had really bought for Jacqueline Dupré’s 1965 recording of his cello concerto. What a double whammy bonus. And it cost 33/6d. That’s shillings, for pre-decimal child readers.
Then, it was off to the Kino Bar where the students performed impromptu numbers at an upright piano. Julius Drake chipped in. It was a night to make friends. And I did.
I attended Leeds Song for only one day. What had I missed in the eight-day week? A masterclass with Dutch soprano Elly Ameling, President of Leeds Song and a globally acclaimed doyenne of lieder; another, with Gareth Malone, choirmaster and broadcaster; a recital by Louise Alder, soprano, who seems to be everywhere on the international opera stage.
I saw her deliver a stunning Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at Vienna Staatsoper only ten days ago. Pity about the Barrie Kosky production. I’ve never seen the Don set in a Martian landscape. But that’s another story for another week.
In the interests of brevity, I’m picking only some of the best chocolates from the Leeds selection box. The point is that this week-long, extraordinary festival commands the support of world class talent across generations of artists. It is a superb achievement.
Especially when you run the numbers. A week-long festival must, I assumed, command a towering budget. I checked the latest accounts for 2023, filed with the Charities Commission. Total income £234,778. Expenditure £234,693, a profit of £85. A famous car buff turned farmer would call that “Diddlysquat”.
To gain some context, a single production at the Metropolitan Opera New York costs £1.5m
How on earth do Director Joseph Middleton and his team do it? The answer is artistic integrity, sustaining a global reputation for selecting young artists who will be the future of art song and the loyalty of that host of topflight professionals who make the pilgrimage to Leeds each year to muck in.
The balance sheet may record net total assets at a vanishingly small £71,747. But accountancy rules can’t put a value on the goodwill of everyone, artists, administrators, volunteers, and unremunerated trustees who deliver the goods. Priceless!
As I rose at 5:00 am sharp next morning to walk to Leeds station, the 6:00 am Azuma to Kings Cross and a limitless supply of bacon rolls. I was to be one of only two Coach K passengers. I opened a cupboard door and the wall engaged me again; “Ave a gander!”.
I had - and shall again next year. A longer gander at the wonders Leeds Song has on display. The festival’s strapline is “Filling the City with Song”. Filling the world with song, more like. Leeds is an art song festival like no other.
Read more from Gerald Malone on The Rest is Opera