Composer Daniel Kidane will appear as a Featured Artist at the 76th Aldeburgh Festival in June 2025, presented by Britten Pears Arts. As a Featured Artist, Daniel will be at the very heart of the year’s programme, which includes the world premiere of his new String Quartet.
Daniel’s music, which has been described by The Times as ‘tautly constructed’ and ‘vibrantly imagined’, is widely performed in the UK and beyond. His music features in nine concerts at the 2025 Aldeburgh Festival and includes a wide range of works from solo cello, tenor and piano, and string quartet – to chamber choir, violin and orchestra, and symphony orchestra.
Concerts featuring Daniel Kidane’s works:
Christus factus est: this year’s Festival Service, performed by the Britten Pears Chamber Choir conducted by James Davy (15 June, 10.30am, Aldeburgh Church).
Three Etudes: inspired by a Kandinsky painting, performed by pianist Mishka Rushdie Momen in her solo recital (16 June, 2pm, Britten Studio).
Sirens: Edward Gardner and the Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra perform this impressive setting of texts. It resulted from a collaboration with Zimbabwean writer and poet Zodwa Nyoni, working on a BBC radio play centred on a contemporary reinterpretation of one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. The drama was set in Manchester and the accompanying music focused on the cacophony of sounds that one might hear on a busy university term-time night out (19 June, 7pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
Awake: described by Kidane as ‘a message saying: be awake, focus on the positives, be open-minded. Really listen. I wanted to create a piece that was hopeful.’ It was premiered at the Last Night of the Proms in 2019 by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sakari Oramo who revisit the work at Aldeburgh Festival (21 June, 7.30pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
Songs of Illumination: performed by tenor Nick Pritchard and pianist Ian Tindale alongside music by Britten and Imogen Holst. Kidane says, ‘I admire Britten and Holst’s music a lot and it is an honour to have my work performed at their Festival. Like them, my songs have lush harmonies, and all three of us composers are interested in how the voice works – so it is a good combination’ (27 June, 11am, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh).
String Quartet: a Britten Pears Arts Commission, written for this occasion and the Carducci Quartet (25 June, 3pm, Britten Studio).
The Song Thrush and the Mountain Ash: a lockdown piece with text set by Simon Armitage, performed here by the BBC Singers and Sofi Jeannin (26 June, 7.30pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
Violin concerto Alou: Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra and Kirill Karabits are joined by YCAT artist, Sphinx Prize winner and Classic FM Rising Star Nathan Amaral in an exploration of the momentum and energy between violin and orchestra (27 June, 7pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
Sarabande Parts 1 – 3: included in the solo cello recital of Alisa Weilerstein, making her Aldeburgh Festival debut (27 June, 3.30pm, Britten Studio).
