Curated Projects
Temple Song 2018
Artistic Director
“Middle Temple Hall, the setting for a first-rate concert series, is one of those London spaces that would make a tourist swoon. With its suits of armour and coats-of-arms it seems the perfect setting for stirring songs of martial derring-do. “
Ivan Hewitt, The Daily Telegraph 2015
Over the last few years, since the inauguration of Temple Song in 2006, I have performed in the glorious Middle Temple Hall with an array of the best singers in the world, most of them discovering the hall for the first time.
Olaf Bär, Thomas Allen, Felicity Lott, Christoph Pregardien, Ian Bostridge, Simon Keenlyside, Sergei Leiferkus, Gerald Finley, Willard White, Robert Holl, Danielle De Niese, Ann Sofie Von Otter – they all say it is one of the very best acoustics for song they know, a wonderful place to sing.
Julius Drake
Artistic Director Temple Song
Julius Drake comments: “Middle Temple Hall is such a glorious and special setting for a concert. Every artist who has joined me there, many among the most celebrated singers in the world today, have commented on its unique atmosphere, which inspires us to give our very best. I know that the wonderful group of singers joining me this coming year are going to feel the same.”
The superb soprano Sophie Bevan makes her Middle Temple Hall debut on 22 January 2018 with a programme entitled ‘The Schumanns at home’. Clara and Robert Schumann’s musical circle was particularly wide and included some of the most celebrated composers, writers and performers living and working in Europe. Sophie Bevan and Julius Drake have drawn their programme from a collection of the most illustrious of their friends and visitors, including Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, Fredrik Chopin, Heinrich Heine, Hans Christian Anderson, Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms.
On 21 March 2018, celebrated German tenor, Christoph Prégardien returns to Middle Temple Hall with the young star soprano Julia Kleiter. This is something of a family affair – Kleiter is actually Prégardien’s niece – and their programme of songs and duets combines Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn setting poems by their favourite poets, Goethe and Heine.
On 24 July 2018 the great Austrian mezzo, Angelika Kirchschlager joins Julius Drake in the spiritual setting of Temple Church for a performance of Schubert’s cycle, Winterreise. Kirchschlager is celebrated as one of her generation’s foremost interpreters of the operas of Strauss and Mozart but equally acclaimed as a recitalist. Franz Schubert is core to her repertoire yet she is performing his great cycle, Winterreise for the first time in 2018. It promises to be a memorable concert.
For the final concert in the 2018 series Julius Drake is joined by one of the great baritones of our day, the Canadian Gerald Finley. Hugely admired for his interpretations of Don Giovanni, Hans Sachs, Guillaume Tell, Falstaff and Oppenheimer in Doctor Atomic, Finley is also a consummate recitalist. His song recordings with Julius Drake for Hyperion have won Gramophone Awards on three separate occasions and concerts include regular recital tours of North America and Europe. For his return to Middle Temple Hall Gerald Finley has titled his programme ‘Swansongs’. The final songs of Brahms, his glorious Vier Ernste Gesänge are performed alongside Schubert’s posthumous cycle, Schwanengesang.
Machynlleth Festival, Wales
Artistic Director
“…This festival must rank as one of Wales’ great cultural assets” – Wales Arts Review
Julius Drake has been Artistic Director of the Machynlleth Festival since 2009, aiming both to celebrate the very best in Welsh traditional
To view the 2018 programme, please click here.