Summer Music is launching 4x4 a quartet composition project. Dartington International Summer School explores the cutting edge of the new as well as an eclectic range of world music from African and Gospel Choir through Balinese Gamelan to Brazilian Samba. Salisbury will host residencies featuring two new circus productions. North Wales International Music Festival has commissioned work from the young Welsh composer Ceiri Torjussen. Spitalfields Festival has commissioned Tansy Davies and the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester features two new choral works from Patrick Gowers and John Sanders.
Early music is, as ever, a strong feature of many festivals.
Cambridge presents Concordia in the story of Elizabeth and Essex with music by Byrd, Dowland and their contemporaries with letters and poems of the period and Leicester's Early Music Festival includes Feasts and Frolics, a family concert by Courtlye Musick. Exeter stages a reconstruction of the Coronation of George II with Handel's ceremonial music and Little Missenden explores the richness of 17th century Italian, particularly Venetian, music. A highlight of The Northern Aldborough Festival will be a performance of works by Vivaldi and Monteverdi including the dramatic Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda . Stour Music also focuses on the music of Monteverdi and includes performances of his Vespers and the Mass of Thanksgiving for Santa Maria della Salute whilst York takes the early music of northern Italy as its festival theme and will include a Venetian Ball and Carnival for children. Newbury will present a Finzi Symposium at the composer's home, hosted by his son Christopher Finzi.