The Song Within: Leeds Song Festival returns in April 2027 with a programme expanding the boundaries of the song recital

Audience at Leeds Song Festival 2025 [Photo: Tom Arber]

Leeds Song Festival returns in April 2027 with a week of song from 10 to 17 April under the theme The Song Within, exploring what lies inside a song: memory, identity, poetry, place, connection and emotion, while bringing together artists, audiences and communities in unexpected way. The programmes range from early lute songs through the great Lied tradition to more unusual repertoire including Hildegard of Bingen, Egyptian song, Elizabeth Maconchy, Messiaen and beyond.

In partnership with South Asian Arts UK, sitarist and composer Jasdeep Singh Degun appears alongside vocalist Spoorthi Rao, while Degun and Errollyn Wallen meet for a conversation before Wallen performs her own music later that evening in the HAR Bar at Howard Assembly Room. 

The Festival continues its relationship with the Leeds International Piano Competition, celebrating the music of its Artistic Director, Sir Stephen Hough. Support by the Royal Philharmonic Society is bringing forth new repertoire including a song cycle by London-based Chilean composer Anibal Vidal.

Some events are more than a song recital. Mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately, pianist Anna Tilbrook and illustrator James Mayhew combine song and live visual creativity, while soprano Carolyn Sampson’s Star Falling, created with tenor and visual artist Andrew Staples and pianist Joseph Middleton, explores an immersive multimedia approach to performance and includes a world premiere by Roderick Williams.

Local poets and composers continue to be brought together in the Festival’s A Leeds Songbook project, and this year visual artists respond to the new material by producing work that reflects the themes explored. There will be a Bring and Sing! mass performance of Mozart’s Requiem, encouraging audience members to become performers.

The Festival’s Young Artists Programme will feature masterclasses led by  Sir Simon Keenlyside, Roger Vignoles, Kate Royal, Christiane Karg, Mark Padmore, Audrey Hyland and Christoph Prégardien,

Full details from the Leeds Song website.