City of London Festival - 60°N

Welcome to the 2009 City of London Festival. Our international spotlight this year follows the latitude of 60°N, connecting the Northern Isles of Scotland to the Baltic shores of Russia through music and other artforms. Like London, the northern cities of Kirkwall, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn and St Petersburg are historic maritime trading places and are also vulnerable to rising sea-levels as a consequence of climate change. We explore the nature of these northern places through the work of world-class dance and music performers, classical music composers and other artists. The environment and sustainability are common themes running through the Summer Festival.

Scotland's national bard, Robert Burns, never travelled as far north as the 60th parallel but his musical works certainly have. We mark his 250th anniversary with a series of music events curated by the pianist Iain Burnside, classical song recitals by Daniela Lehner, Andrew Kennedy and Dame Felicity Lott, and the world première of Alasdair Nicolson's The Humble Petition of Bruar Water, a setting of Burns' poetic and successful plea to the Duke of Atholl to conserve a natural beauty-spot by planting trees and bushes.

City of London Festival celebrates the 50th birthday of James MacMillan, born just down the road from Robert Burns' birthplace in Ayrshire, in performances of a wide range of his work, including his choral masterpiece Seven Last Words on the Cross. This is paired with the world première of Nigel Osborne's Seven Words, Seven Icons, Seven Cities and Cathie Boyd's accompanying images, which we commissioned jointly with Scottish Ensemble. MacMillan himself conducts a programme which includes the UK première of his From Ayrshire, a work written for the brilliant young Scottish violinist, Nicola Benedetti, and based on a famous Burns song.

Like Burns before him, Orkney's Sir Peter Maxwell Davies has been a life-long environmental activist, a role he performs in the Festival as both composer and lecturer in our celebrations of his 75th birthday. We offer several London premières and a first performance of his music as well as a unique opportunity to enjoy one of his best-known works in St Paul's Cathedral, An Orkney Wedding with Sunrise, complete with bagpipes.

Orkney's St Magnus the Martyr has kept watch over the northern end of London Bridge since the 12th Century. But it was another Nordic saint, King Olaf of Norway, who came to the aid of King Ethelred the Unready a thousand years ago, saving the City of London from the Danish armies who were garrisoned in Southwark and gathered on London Bridge: Olaf sailed upstream, tied his boats to the wooden bridge supports, ordered his men to row and pulled down the bridge. These events gave rise to the original version of the song London Bridge is falling down and St Olaf is immortalised in parishes, buildings and streets on both sides of the river.

The first stone-built London Bridge was completed 800 years ago and to mark this anniversary, we are inviting 800 saxophonists of all abilities to take part in the Leviathan, created and directed by composer and performer John Harle. This forms part of a three-day programme of music and ideas on the theme of sustainability, including seminars and workshops on leadership and business performance, Sustain!, curated for us by John Harle. He is also the composer of a new work, City Solstice, for the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, organ and saxophone, which receives its première in Southwark Cathedral with Harle as soloist.

The Festival's focus on Norway embraces not only the 1000-year old St Olaf but also some of today's leading musicians: the distinguished cellist Truls Mørk, joined by pianist Håvard Gimse, the legendary saxophonist Jan Garbarek, returning to the Festival with the Hilliard Ensemble in a new Officium programme, and percussionist Terje Isungset whose music, like Norway herself, is "powered by nature".

Major Swedish artists are featured in a special programme to launch Sweden's EU Presidency in July. Christian Lindberg appears in Guildhall as trombonist, composer and conductor of his Nordic Chamber Orchestra, ABBA's Benny Andersson and his Orchestra headlines the Family Day on Hampstead Heath and Barbican Film has curated a special retrospective season of Ingmar Bergman's work. Sweden's Green Mission is reflected throughout the Festival.

Alongside Sibelius, we offer some very recent works by Finnish composers, including Kaija Saariaho and Esa-Pekka Salonen, and the fine young Finnish string quartet Meta4 makes its Festival debut. From Estonia, Arvo Pärt's music can be heard in our greatest venues and two of her leading dancers, Agnes Oaks and Thomas Edur, will be taking their final bows in an English National Ballet programme which also marks the centenaries of Les Ballets Russes and the first production of Les Sylphides (1909). The legendary Borodin Quartet and the wonderful young Russian violinist Alina Ibragimova make welcome returns to the Festival. Once again we can experience the electrifying partnership between St Petersburg's Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra - their performance of Bruckner's majestic 9th Symphony brings the Summer Festival to a close.

The Festival's own sustainability depends on wide ranging partnership and support. An exceptional group of artists have been assembled and they are the sails for this festive vessel. Strong winds are needed to fill them: the City of London Corporation, the private sector, the BBC, international partners (especially the Nordic embassies in London) and individual donors all must be thanked for their enlightened involvement in keeping the Festival afloat and under way during these economic doldrums. We believe that the City's Festival is now needed more than ever - but only our large and loyal audience, our raison d'être, can prove this to be true. We hope you enjoy navigating our 2009 programme and look forward to welcoming you on board repeatedly this summer.

Ian Ritchie

More: http://www.colf.org/i