Following the success of its 2020-21 online performances, which featured Sir Mark Elder, Edward Gardner, Philippe Herreweghe, Lorenza Borrani and John Wilson, among others, the Academy announces today that six concerts and masterclasses will be livestreamed for free from its Marylebone Road home and Wigmore Hall.
The concerts form part of the Academy’s Bicentenary celebrations. All events will be available to watch on both YouTube and Facebook and available for 30 days after the event.
The series begins with a special concert from Academy Song Circle celebrating Schubert’s songs of 1822, the year the Academy was founded, live from Wigmore Hall (30 Jan, 3pm). As part of the Academy’s Chamber Music Festival, Levon Chilingirian and students perform Schubert’s Trout Quintet and a new work by Joan Tower as part of the ongoing 200 PIECES series (8 Feb, 1pm).
We are delighted to welcome soprano Joyce DiDonato to the Academy to give a masterclass to opera students which will be live from our award-winning Susie Sainsbury Theatre (15 Feb, 6pm)
Two orchestral concerts feature this spring, including John Wilson, the Academy’s Henry Wood Chair of Conducting, leading an all-Elgar programme of Sospiri, In the South and Symphony No 1 (18 Feb, 7.30pm) and Dinis Sousa conducting the Chamber Orchestra in Schubert Symphony No 8 and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto (4 Mar, 1pm)
Ending the spring livestream season is the opening night of an opera triple bill, including the world premiere of Freya Waley-Cohen’s WITCH, commissioned for the Academy’s Bicentenary. The new work sits alongside a new arrangement of Monteverdi’s Lamento d’Arianna and the Prologue from Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos. The opera is conducted by the Academy’s Richard Rodney Bennett Professor of Music, Ryan Wigglesworth, and directed by Polly Graham.
The Academy’s online performances in 2019/20 – while the building was mostly closed due to COVID-19 – reached over 230,000 people, and with its CASE Award-winning #RAMplaysON social media campaign it reached over five million worldwide, showcasing the extraordinary music-making from students, staff, alumni and the wider Academy community. Throughout 2022 the Academy will continue to livestream a number of its events for free, for those who cannot get to live events in person.
Tickets are available for all events are available here.
Livestreams can be watched via the direct links below:
Sunday 30 January, 3pm: Academy Song Circle perform Schubert songs from 1822 at Wigmore Hall (available on Wigmore Hall’s YouTube page and the Academy’s Facebook page)
Tuesday 8 February, 1pm: Schubert’s Trout Quintet with Levon Chilingirian
Tuesday 15 February, 6pm: Opera masterclass with Joyce DiDonato
Friday 18 February, 7.30pm: John Wilson conducts Elgar with the Academy Symphony Orchestra
Friday 4 March, 1pm: Dinis Sousa conducts Schubert and Mendelssohn with the Academy Chamber Orchestra
Wednesday 23 March, 7pm: Royal Academy Opera’s Triple Bill featuring World Premiere of Freya Waley Cohen’s WITCH conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth
UPDATE: Please note Dinis Sousa will now be conducting Schubert and Mendelssohn with the Academy Chamber Orchestra, in place of Trevor Pinnock