Upcoming concerts and festivals
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Glastonbury Festival, June 27-29, Worthy Farm, Pilton
Having gone hip-hop with Jay-Z in 2008, Glastonbury now tackles heavy metal. In one of the boldest, or foolhardiest, bookings in the festival’s history, Metallica are headlining on Saturday, the first metal act ever to do so. How will “Leper Messiah” and “Creeping Death” go down in the feel-good setting of Worthy Farm? Will revellers head off into the night gaily humming “The Four Horsemen”? A more traditional set of headliners flank the thrash veterans, with Arcade Fire appearing on Friday and Kasabian closing the weekend on Sunday. LHT
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Parquet Courts. June 21, SWG3, Glasgow, then touring
Brooklyn’s Parquet Courts are touring their new album Sunbathing Animal, a set of intensely New Yorky songs that zip by at a charged punk clip, pausing occasionally to enter an abrasive kind of drone-rock reverie, vocals throughout as sardonic as the guitars. LHT
swg3.tv, 0141 357 7246
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Tony Joe White, June 24, Fibbers, York
Veteran Louisianan swamp-rocker Tony Joe White is touring his album Hoodoo, the latest fruits of a career stretching back to his 1969 hit “Polk Salad Annie”. Not much has changed since then: White’s voice remains a deep southern burr and the music inhabits a timeless country-blues groove. LHT
fibbers.co.uk, 01904 651 250
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Ariadne auf Naxos, June 25-July 13, Royal Opera House, London and Symphony Hall, Birmingham
When Covent Garden reopened in September 2002 after extensive renovation, Christof Loy’s staging of Richard Strauss’s hybrid opera gave a suitably modern edge to the new regime of music director Antonio Pappano. The production, as I said at the time, was “a continuous web of tenderness, wit, cantabile lines and long-breathed intensity”. Still under Pappano’s baton, it returns with a cast headed by Karita Mattila’s Ariadne. On July 6 Pappano takes cast and orchestra to Birmingham for a concert performance. AC
roh.org.uk, 020 7304 4000, thsh.co.uk 0121 345 0600
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Coote and Blackshaw, June 22, Wigmore Hall, London
This could be London’s recital of the year – a programme for which it is definitely worth queueing for last-minute returns. Two musicians renowned separately for their artistic integrity and musical depth come together to present a sequence of Schumann songs exploring the many aspects of love, with Dichterliebe and Frauenliebe und-leben at its heart. AC
wigmore-hall.org.uk , 020 7935 2141
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East Neuk, June 27-July 6, various venues, East Fife
This 10-day chamber-music bash, illuminating some of Scotland’s prettiest Presbyterian churches, combines a pithy sense of locale with international standards: East Neuk has a very special charm. The 10th anniversary line-up includes a Benny Goodman tribute by clarinet prodigy Julian Bliss, a recital by Swedish soprano Malin Christensson, a Schubertiad performance on July 5 featuring the Belcea Quartet and a Scottish Chamber Orchestra concert directed by pianist Christian Zacharias. AC
eastneukfestival.com 0131 669 1750
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Glasgow Jazz Festival, June 25-29, various venues
With Glasgow soon to host the Commonwealth Games, this year’s jazz festival is billed as a Commonwealth Games Special Edition. Courtney Pine and Jazz Jamaica celebrate Jamaican musical influences, and a line-up that includes Jimmy Cliff indicates a broad appeal. Free jazz pioneer Evan Parker and MOBO winners Sons of Kemet head up a strong jazz cast, the hi-octane Dennis Rollins Velocity Trio launch a new album and Ian Shaw and Guy Barker celebrate music of the movies. MH
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Shooglenifty, June 22, Salisbury Arts Centre
A one-off gig in the deep south for the Scottish dance band, who beef up traditional ceilidh music with modern instrumentation and mild electronica. The tunes are danceable but also musically inventive and intricate. DH
01722 321744
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