Echoes Festival 2025 10th Anniversary Edition!

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It seems difficult to believe that Echoes Festival has been going strong now for 10 years! We've been having so much fun putting it together, the time has just flown by. And for this special 10th birthday edition we have some very special events lined up.

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We are beyond excited to be hosting a rare London appearance on 10th Nov for Spanish guitar legend, Pepe Romero, who will be stopping by the UK as part of his Farewell World Tour. Having now graced the stage for over 70 years, Pepe celebrates a lifetime of music-making whilst paying homage to his Andalusian roots, offering a retrospective, signature programme of colourful Spanish works from across his career. He will also be joined by students from the Royal Academy of Music in the performance of several quartets from the Romero family repertoire. You can also catch him at the Royal Academy of Music the following day where he will give open masterclasses followed by a book launch of his recent memoirs, co-written with Walter Aaron Clark.

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We continue to shine a light on the musical fruits of British-Ibe/rican relations with our 'Anglo-Tango' series as we welcome Lilia Salsano back to the Festival to perform a piano recital of tangos by British composers at St Clement Danes on the 28th Oct. This will be the first live performance of this programme since the original digital performance in 2021 (which is still available to watch on our On-Demand channel!). This event is complimented by a second recital of piano tangos, taken from the International Tango Piano Collection, taking place at the University of Glasgow on the 23rd Oct, performed by the pre-eminent Argentine pianist, Haydée Schvartz.

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As part of our ongoing Música y mujer series, we are delighted to be collaborating for the first time with the illustrious London Song Festival, whose Artistic Director, Nigel Foster, will be presenting songs by Latin American women composers on the 21st Nov at the Hinde Street Methodist Church in London alongside Anglo-Spanish soprano Ana Beard Fernández and Brazilian baritone ​Michel de Souza.

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We also launch a new collaboration with Conway Hall, whose historic concert series stands as the oldest in Europe(!). On the 16th Nov we delve ever further into Afro-Cuban repertoire for guitar and strings as part of our African Diaspora strand of events with a recital by Ahmed Dickinson and the Kyan Quartet.

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As ever, important anniversaries abound, and these are surveyed by our very own Ray Picot in his annual podcast, Journeys Through the Labyrinth. Tune in from the 8th Nov to hear music by Ernst Mahle, Angel Lasala, Carlos Guastavino, Gustavo Pittaluga, Conchita Badia, Floro Ugarte, Josep Cercós, Julián Orbón, Aurelio de la Vega, Carlos Riesco, Gustavo Becerra-Schmidt, Luis Antonio Escobar, Vicente Arregui, Ernesto Drangosch, Artur Napoleão dos Santos, José Ignacio Quintón, Juli Garreta, Julián Carrillo, Ricardo Viñes, Joaquín Valverde Sanjuán, João Domingos Bomtempo, Esteban Salas, Juan del Vado and Carlos Patiño.

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The Festival closes with the presentation of a very special project promoting the re-appraisal of one of Spain's most important cellists and cello composers, Gaspar Cassadó, and the retrieval of his catalogue from hitherto inaccesible archives in Japan. Cellists Katie Tertell and Laura Peribañez Artero will perform a programme inspired by this most special of Spanish composers at the Instituto Cervantes in London on the 27th Nov, interspersed with spoken commentary from Prof. Rosi Song from the University of Durham.

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We hope you will join us to celebrate our 10th birthday with the best music in town!