| OPERA
We’re excited to collaborate with Vache Baroque and Scottish Opera to bring you a spellbinding opera season…
While adapting to an ever-changing cultural landscape and bringing lesser known works to centre stage, our 2026 festival promises two best-loved operas – Giuseppe Verdi’s iconic La traviata and Frank Lehár’s The Merry Widow.
Both productions will feature the Buxton International Festival Orchestra, whose talented ensemble performances captivated audiences last summer.
MUSIC
Making his BIF debut is world-renowned Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani who will be playing in recital at the festival for the first time. We also have the return of The Hallé orchestra (over three decades since their last performance at Buxton), and acclaimed celist Steven Isserlis CBE with pianist Connie Shih.
Our other talented musical acts honouring this year’s festival include:
Sacconi Quartet – Peter Donohoe – Louise Alder with Joseph Middleton – Sitkovetsky Trio – Nicky Spence – Ryan Corbett – Dame Sarah Connolly – Junyan Chen – Roderick Williams – Paddington Trio – Escocia Duo – The Gould Piano Trio – Will Duerden, Daniil Margulis and Svitlana Kosenko – The Vache Baroque Band – Lizzie Ball and James Pearson – Twentieth-Century Din – Brodsky Quartet – Newe Vialles – Ben Tarlton – Música d’Outrora – Alexander Armstrong, Claire Booth and Andrew Matthews-Owen – Ewan Millar and Tomos Boyles – Delphine Trio – Isata Kanneh-Mason – Jack Hancher – Alastair Miles and Marie-Noëlle Kendall.
| BOOKS
In this year’s BIF books programme, notable speakers include Former Deputy Prime Minister Sir Nick Clegg, who will be discussing his new book How to Save the Internet, which gives us a behind-the-scenes insight into his interactions with world leaders and where Big Tech companies seem to go wrong.
We also have Jimmy Wales, best known for co-founding Wikipedia, unpacking his latest book on the foundations of trust. Not to mention former President of the Supreme Court, Lady Hale, who seeks to demystify the court system through her book – in what’s been described as a “citizen’s handbook” – and shed light on why justice matters.
Our line-up of exceptional authors joining the Festival also includes:
Kate Williams – Hannah French – Andrew Graham-Dixon – Nicholas Crane – Arthur Snell – Liam Byrne MP – Luke Barley – Victoria Bateman – Klaus Dodds – James Fox – Robert Verkaik – Alison Weir – Jay Griffiths – Naz Shah MP – Claudia Hammond – Anthony Delaney – Edward Abel Smith – Andrea Wulf – Ruth Larsen – Martin Sixsmith – Sir Chris Bryant – Sir Antony Beevor – Gavin Francis – Julia Boyd – Lachlan Goudie – Emma Chapman – John Crace – Steve Richards – Caroline Moorehead – Iain Dale, Deborah Haynes and The Generals – Peter Apps. |
| JAZZ
BIF 2026 will feature jazz icons paying homage to the greats and delivering their unique melodic takes on modern jazz.
Jazz royalty also lands at Buxton festival this year with Courtney Pine CBE headlining at the Opera House. Acclaimed trumpeter Laura Jurd will be kicking off this year’s Jazz Weekender with her unique folk-rooted tunes and we have a jazz force to be reckoned with – The Easy Rollers – bringing the spirit of 1920s jazz to life at the Pavillion!
Joining them in serenading the peaks is an incredible line-up of unmissable jazz artists, including:
Tony Kofi and Denys Baptiste Quintet – Andrew McCormack Trio – Zoe Gilby with Andy Champion – Johnny Hunter Trio with Nat Birchall – Mario Bakuna Quartet – Josephine Davies with Satori and Alcyona Mick – Noa Levy, Alan Barnes and the Paul Edis Trio – Alina Bzhezhinska – Darius Brubeck Quartet – Secret Path Trio – Olivia Moore and Adam Fairhall – Arun Ghosh Quintet – Gaz Hughes Trio – Fergus McCreadie Trio – Hannah Brine with Bim Williams – Dennis Rollins Velocity Trio with Cameron Pierre – Blind Monk Trio – Pete Roth Trio with Bill Bruford. |
Pre-order your copy of the 2026 Programme Book for £12
If you find the A4 publication difficult to fit into a handbag or too heavy to carry around, you’ll also be able to order a BIF bookbag together with the Programme Book for only £1 extra.
Contributors to the Programme Book this year are:
- John Savournin, director of The Merry Widow, gives us a glimpse into his origination of this production in his article ‘A Modern Merry Widow’
- James Hurley, director of La traviata, provides us insight into his interpretation of this much-loved classic
- George Hall, opera critic, writer and musicologist, describes the world in which Pauline Viardot found the inspiration to write her ‘salon operetta’ Le dernier sorcier
- Christopher Webber, Editor of the Cambridge History of Spanish Opera and Music Theatre, contemplates the question whether people should be judged by how friendly they are to sorceresses, in his piece on Francesca Caccini’s La liberazione di Ruggiero
- Ian Page, conductor and leading authority on Mozart, explores the composer’s brilliance in his article on La clemenza di Tito.
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More information on how to pre-order coming soon
We’ll let you know all the details around how you can pre-order very soon! |
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