The Barbican's got in there early as the announcements season gets under way, setting out an enticing programme for its 2012-13 season. The announcement focuses around the arrival of a couple more Associate Ensembles: the Acadamy of Ancient Music and the Britten Sinfonia (including Angela Hewitt leading Beethoven concertos from the keyboard). There'll also be a residency from Gustavo Dudamel and his Los Angeles Philharmonic -- where the Wunder-not-quite-such-a-kind-any-more will have another job to counter the backlash of doubters. (I missed his Simon Bolivar Orchestra Mahler 'Resurrection' at the Proms this Summer, but that certainly came in for a certain amount of opprobrium). With the LA Phil, there will be new works by John Adams and Unsuk Chin.
The LSO programme boasts concert performances of The Turn of the Screw with Colin Davis, John Eliot Gardiner conducting Oedipus Rex and 'an authoritative guide' to music by Brahms and Szymanowski by Valery Gergiev -- not someone, it should be noted, usually regarded as an authority in Brahms, at least, but we'll have to see...
The Barbican's always good for providing opera in concert, and I'll particularly be looking forward to the BBC Symphony Orchestra's performances of two Ravel operas. The ever-stylish Jacques Imbrailo will lead the cast in L'Heure Espagnol -- I wonder, incidentally, whether Richard Jones's production will return to the Royal Opera, now that its coupling, Gianni Schicchi has been reunited with its Trittico partners -- and L'Enfant et les Sortilèges, in a 'specially-devised concert version using live film created by Jean-Baptiste Barrière' (am I the only one to be filled with a slight sense of dread by such phrases?). The Britten Sinfonia will play for Oliver Knussen's Where the Wild Things Are and Higglety Pigglety Pop!, while The English Concert will accompany a starry Radamisto. There'll be Lully from Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyrique, and more Handel from the AAM and Hogwood. And there'll also be a fair bit of excitement, no doubt, around a mini-residency from Juan Diego Florez -- including a concert that also features Joyce di Donato: those bel canto sparks will fly.
Oh, and there's obviously a whole lot more: details and dates can be found here. The Southbank Centre announces its new season on Monday, too, so I'll try and say a few words on that.
