Pianist

Originally planned as a closing recital for the 2026 Festival, we are delighted to welcome Leeds Song Patron and the UK’s foremost mezzo-soprano, Dame Sarah Connolly alongside Leeds Song Director Joseph Middleton to give a very special recital, dedicated to Kathleen Evans BEM, current Chair and former Festival Administrator. Kathleen retires from her position as Chair this summer, and in recognition of all the time, dedication and passion she has given to the organisation over many years, this programme is made up of her favourite songs and poems: music that celebrates, inspires, consoles and uplifts.

Leeds Song: Dame Sarah Connolly and Joseph Middleton - "Kathleen's Songbook"

Leeds Conservatoire

Three masterpieces – two centuries – one narrative. There is Schumann's song cycle "Frauenliebe und -leben ," in which the feelings of the nameless protagonist revolve around the needs of a man. There is Duke Bluebeard's Castle , in which two mysterious strangers are magically attracted to each other. And there is the bourgeois, liberal marriage construct of Oscar Wilde's Florentine Tragedy . These raise the question: Do people desire the same throughout all ages?

Women's Love and Death

Hamburg State Opera

Soprano Louise Alder returns to Garsington Opera for a recital with renowned pianist Joseph Middleton. Joseph is widely regarded as one of the most exceptional pianists of his generation and is renowned for his song accompaniment and he collaborates with many of the world’s foremost singers, being described by the New York Times as “the perfect accompanist”. Louise was last on the Garsington stage as Pamina Die Zauberflöte in 2018 and has since gone on to delight audiences worldwide, most recently as Countess Almaviva Le nozze di Figaro at Glyndebourne this summer. Louise sings at the last night of the BBC Proms this summer and makes her Metropolitan Opera debut in November.

Louise Alder & Joseph Middleton

Wormsley

Oper Frankfurt was the ideal springboard for Alder’s great international career. While a member of the Ensemble (2014-2019) this British soprano sang roles including Gilda (Rigoletto), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Atalanta (Xerxes) and Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare in Egitto). She looks back on those years, during which she felt like a member of a family, with gratitude. Now she performs all over the world at places including the Vienna State Opera, Covent Garden, the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and Glyndebourne. She’s back in Frankfurt this season with the Swiss tenor Mauro Peter, who’s just as passionate about Lieder singing as she. He won the 2012 International Robert Schumann competition in Zwickau and gave a triumphant debut recital at the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg. He appears regularly in concert and at opera houses all over the world

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Louise Alder (Soprano) Mauro Peter (Tenor) & Joseph Middleton (Piano)

Oper Frankfurt

Most recently awarded The King’s Medal for Music, Dame Sarah Connolly is recognized across the globe as one of the most influential singers of our time. She is joined by renowned pianist Joseph Middleton for a not-to-be-missed performance of Mahler's Rückert-Lieder, as well as songs by Barber, Berg, Schönberg, and more. 

TSM presents Connolly & Middleton

The Royal Conservatory of Music

This important recital, which launches Richard Stokes’s new book, A Carl Loewe Song Companion, presents some of the composer’s greatest ballads, his wonderfully tender Frauenliebe, a group of his finest Goethe-Lieder, and several of his unaccountably neglected lyrical gems.

Richard Stokes author; Juliane Banse soprano; Lizzie Bett Estrada soprano; Aksel Rykkvin baritone; Günther Groissböck bass; Joseph Middleton piano

Wigmore Hall

Young Schubert was swept away by Johann Michael Vogl’s performance as Orestes in Gluck’s Iphigenia in Tauris at Vienna’s Hofoper in 1813. They met for the first time four years later, beginning a creative friendship that inspired Schubert to write some of his greatest songs, Erlkönig and Ganymed among them. James Newby recalls the composer’s debt to Vogl with a programme that reveals the profound depth and enduring legacy of their collaboration.

James Newby baritone; Joseph Middleton piano

Memory’s power to free the imagination stands behind countless works of art, with recollections of the four seasons occupying a special status among the most potent of creative catalysts. Louise Alder, acclaimed by The Times as ‘a terrific talent, combining a big lustrous voice with flawless intonation and a keen intelligence’, and Joseph Middleton take a voyage around the cosmos of songs inspired by ever-changing seasonal landscapes, moods and states of mind.

Louise Alder soprano; Joseph Middleton piano

Dame Sarah Connolly’s duo partnership with Joseph Middleton, forged over many years, rises from the telepathic understanding that passes between them whenever they make music. The celebrated mezzo-soprano’s ‘rapport with top Lieder pianist Joseph Middleton’, notes BBC Music Magazine, ‘allows for some very special interchanges’. Their recital includes treasures from Brahms’s Op. 57 collection and the hauntingly beautiful Late Romanticism of Webern’s Early Songs.

Dame Sarah Connolly mezzo-soprano; Joseph Middleton piano

As reverence for nature grew under the influence of Enlightenment philosophy, so too did poetic expressions of wonder in life on Earth. Joseph Middleton is joined by Grammy Award-winning Fleur Barron and the captivating Swiss tenor Mauro Peter in a programme filled with heart-melting reflections on humankind’s relationship with the natural world and spiced with surprises, a Britten boogie-woogie and George Crumb’s haunting Processional for solo piano among them.

Pianist

Joseph Middleton

Events

Upcoming events

Oct 10, 2026

Richard Stokes author; Juliane Banse soprano; Lizzie Bett Estrada soprano; Aksel Rykkvin baritone; Günther Groissböck bass; Joseph Middleton piano · Wigmore Hall

Oct 13, 2026

James Newby baritone; Joseph Middleton piano · Wigmore Hall

Oct 20, 2026

Louise Alder soprano; Joseph Middleton piano · Wigmore Hall

Oct 27, 2026

Dame Sarah Connolly mezzo-soprano; Joseph Middleton piano · Wigmore Hall

Oct 31, 2026

Fleur Barron mezzo-soprano; Mauro Peter tenor; Joseph Middleton piano · Wigmore Hall

Past events

Jun 19, 2026

Leeds Song: Dame Sarah Connolly and Joseph Middleton - "Kathleen's Songbook" · Leeds Conservatoire

Apr 12 - May 22, 2026

Women's Love and Death · Staatsoper Hamburg

Future and recently performed repertoire

Piano in Four Last Songs by Strauss

Garsington Opera

Piano in Seven Early Songs by Berg

Garsington Opera

Piano in Piano Concerto No. 3 by Bach

Wigmore Hall

About

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