Brighton Festival’s 2026 classical programme celebrates 400 years of musical excellence

For its landmark 60th edition, Brighton Festival presents an expansive classical music programme, spanning four centuries of music from Bach and Monteverdi to Shostakovich and composer, producer and performer Anna Meredith. The programme ranges from large-scale orchestral works to intimate recitals, performed by acclaimed artists and ensembles from around the world.

Opening the Festival’s classical programme across the first weekend, leading string quartets Chiaroscuro Quartet and Consone Quartet unite for a one-off performance at Glyndebourne Opera House on Sunday 3 May. They will each perform masterpieces by Haydn and Mozart individually, before joining forces for Mendelssohn’s Octet. On Bank Holiday Monday (4 May), a bold staging of Bach’s St John Passion is performed in Brighton Dome’s Concert Hall by Britten Sinfonia with Brighton Festival Chorus and Youth Choir and young international soloists from William Christie’s Les Arts Florissants and Le Jardin des Voix. This Brighton Festival Exclusive of the Passion is made more immediate by being sung in English and in parts from memory, with the choirs moving through the auditorium to dissolve the boundaries between audience and performers.

In another Brighton Festival Exclusive, Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra accompanies a screening of William Kentridge’s animated film Oh ​T​o Believe in Another World with a rendition of Shostakovich’s powerful Symphony No. 10 in Brighton Dome Concert Hall on 17 May. Using collage, puppets and masked actors, Kentridge’s film, which he will introduce himself live from the stage, depicts the decades from the 1917 Russian revolution to 1953, the year of Stalin’s death, inspired by Shostakovich’s symphony.  

London Symphony Orchestra returns to Brighton Festival on 8 May under Chief Conductor Sir Antonio Pappano. The Orchestra presents works from Beethoven’s ​Piano ​Concerto No.​ ​3 and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.​ ​6, joined by leading pianist Denis Kozhukhin. On 20 May, internationally acclaimed countertenor Iestyn Davies and award-winning harpist Oliver Wass present a captivating programme traversing 400 years of music and song. Performing in the Regency splendour of Brighton’s Royal Pavilion Music Room, Davies and Wass encompass Monteverdi to Anna Meredith by way of Handel and Schubert. Award-winning chamber choir Tenebrae return on 23 May with A Celestial Gift, a programme of five centuries of sacred choral music in Latin, English and Russian, including Allegri’s Miserere, Holst’s Nunc dimittis and Rachmaninoff’s Cherubic Hymn.

BAFTA-winning actor Miranda Richardson reads from Dame Harriet Walter’s new book She Speaks! at Shakespeare’s Sisters (10 May, Brighton Dome Concert Hall). The book gives voice to Shakespeare’s most recognisable female characters in original verse. Also featuring performances by soprano Sophie Bevan and pianist Christopher Glynn, this event interweaves music and words to explore how Shakespeare’s women have inspired the arts across centuries.

Brighton and East Sussex Youth Orchestra (11 May, Brighton Dome Concert Hall) are joined by International Piano Competition winner Curtis Phill Hsu for their annual Brighton Festival performance. The Orchestra will perform Rachmaninoff’s second Piano Concerto, famously featured in the film Brief Encounter, among other orchestral works from the Romantic period to the present day.

Throughout the Festival, a series of Lunchtime concerts take place in Brighton Dome’s Studio Theatre and Concert Hall (5–20 May). The series features performances from new and emerging international and UK artists, including Delphine Trio, Sherri Lun and the Jerwood Glyndebourne Young Singers, with tickets at £10.