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City of L
ondon F
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CITY OF LONDON FESTIVAL 23 JUNE TO 26 JULY 2013 Founded in 1962, the City of London Festival – or COLF as it’s fondly known – exists to entertain and inspire people who live, work and visit the City with special events and world-class artists in beautiful surroundings. For three weeks every summer, COLF brings the unique buildings and outdoor spaces of the Square Mile to life with a buzzing programme of music, visual arts, film, walks and talks, proving that the City isn’t just a place of business. The LSO, as Resident Orchestra at the Barbican, has been a fixture of COLF for many years. The relationship has resulted in countless memorable concerts, many in the magnificent setting of St Paul’s Cathedral. Last June, the Orchestra performed Berlioz’s Requiem under the baton of the late Sir Colin Davis: the concert received outstanding reviews, with The Guardian writing: ‘If your sense of awe lacks an existential dimension, Berlioz’s great Requiem will restore it … The London Symphony Orchestra played with the kind of brilliant concentration only loyalty and love can command’. One of the themes for the 2013 City of London Festival is ‘Conflict and resolution’; the 400-year relationship between the City of London and Derry~Londonderry will also be marked. The LSO takes up both themes: on 3 July at the Guildhall Great Hall, LSO musicians and various groups of young musicians connected with LSO Discovery projects will perform a world premiere by Mark-Anthony Turnage, At Sixes & Sevens, to mark the City of London/Derry~Londonderry link. On 8 July, the LSO Chamber Orchestra appears at St Paul’s alongside Tenebrae, one of Britain’s leading chamber choirs, to perform an intriguing programme centred on war and peace, reaching from the Renaissance strains of Josquin to the 20th-century sounds of Britten and Barber.