Nicola Lisle talks to founder of Oxford Lieder Festival, pianist Sholto Kynoch

Poets, both familiar and unfamiliar, come under the spotlight in this year’s Oxford Lieder Festival, now in its 14th year.

Singing Words: Poets and their Songs will celebrate the richness and variety of the poems that inspired so many composers to set these words to music.

It is the perfect sequel to last year’s phenomenal Schubert Project, which saw the Oxford Lieder Festival scoop a Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award in the ‘Chamber Music and Song’ category.

As I meet up with festival founder Sholto Kynoch, I find him still bubbling with excitement over Oxford Lieder’s new status as an award-winning festival.

“We were very pleased and had great fun picking up the award,” he says. “It was nice to look back on last year as well and remember how amazing it all was.

“It also comes with a weight of expectation. We now have to live up to that and build on it. So although it was a great achievement, it’s also an inspiration to do more.”

It also means the Schubert Project was a hard act to follow when it came to planning this year’s event.

“I thought long and hard about how to do it, and I think we’ve done the right thing,” Sholto says.

“We’ve taken the approach of looking at words and music – what separates song from other musical forms, why we’re so impressed with it and what it means to have poetry as well as music.

“I think it is suitably different from last year, so it doesn’t feel like a smaller version of what we did. It’s going be another very exciting year.”

Once again Sholto has gathered a galaxy of stars for the occasion, including local favourites Roderick Williams and James Gilchrist, renowned mezzo Sarah Connolly and, making his Oxford Lieder Festival debut, acclaimed bass Matthew Rose.

Highlights of the festival include day-long programmes, such as the French-themed day on the first Tuesday, which focuses on the work of French poet Paul Verlaine and features music by Fauré and Debussy.

This is followed on the Thursday by what Sholto calls “a day that morphs from Italy to Russia”. Taking place mainly at the Ashmolean Museum, it features music and readings that tie in with the museum’s Michaelangelo collection, before moving on to settings of poems by Pushkin and Tolstoy.

For the first time there will be free ‘pop-up’ concerts throughout the festival, and Sholto hopes these will entice people along to some of the main events.

“Some are only 15 minutes, some are 40 minutes, and people can just drop by,” he says. “They can see if they like it, hopefully fall in love with it and come back for more.”

Also new this year are £10 tickets for under 30s, which again Sholto hopes will encourage people to give the festival a try.

It is incredible, I suggest to Sholto, how far the festival has come since its inception in 2002.

He agrees: “Even compared to five years ago, it’s quite different. We’re now looking ahead to 2017 and 2018 projects and a London residence in 2017, and talking about taking highlights of the festival abroad.

“We are also planning a Schumann Project for next year, which is already under way, and I think that will be another epic year.”

Where and when
Oxford Lieder Festival
Singing Words: Poets and Their Songs, October 16-31
Various locations
Tickets and full details: oxfordlieder.co.uk