On 23 August 2026, Leo McFall and the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra will give us a taste of Great Britain’s rich musical tradition, in which radical departures, identity, and subtle humour all feature. The orchestra’s British chief conductor Leo McFall opens with Ethel Smyth’s rousing overture to The Wreckers, a musical manifesto of female self-assertion. Elizabeth Maconchy’s Nocturne for orchestra is a poetic soundscape of light and shadow, while Benjamin Britten’s song cycle Les Illuminations after Rimbaud allows the young soprano Emma Kajander to dazzle in shimmering colours and marked speech rhythms. The concert concludes with Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations, a classic of British orchestral art that combines subtle humour and emotional depth in a set of ingenious musical portraits.
Ethel Smyth The Wreckers. Ouvertüre
Benjamin Britten Les Illuminations
Elizabeth Maconchy Nocturne
Edward Elgar Enigma-Variationen
Dirigent Leo McFall
Sopran Emma Kajander
Tickets and further information about the 4th orchestra concert of the Bregenz Festival on 23 August 2026 can be found here.
Photos from the fourth orchestra concert will be available from 24 August 2026.
