With a rich history dating back to its founding, our festival has grown to become a cornerstone of the region’s classical music scene, attracting the finest international talent in the world of art song and growing audiences both in person and on-line.

Praised in The Guardian for its ‘world-class’ programming and lauded in The Times for bringing ‘musical riches to Yorkshire through star performers, engaging new commissions, and bold educational projects… a Northern powerhouse of song,’ Leeds Song is at the forefront of artistic excellence. Each year, we offer a dynamic programme of concert season events with our partners at Opera North, Leeds University, Leeds International Concert Series and Leeds Conservatoire. Our boundary-breaking Festival reaches huge numbers via livestreams, as well as in person, and we take recitals into the heart of the city, juxtaposing work in beautiful concert halls with recitals in unusual spaces not normally associated with classical music. Our award-winning and constantly expanding education programme in schools begins a pipeline that introduces young people to the joys of singing, and leads on to a Young Artist programme that draws singers and pianists from across the world to Leeds to take place in specially curated series of masterclasses. A rich vein of community work, poetry and song writing workshops, pre-concert talks and study events sit at the heart of our Festivals. We champion the great music that forged the art form, and commission widely to showcase the breadth and beauty of the song repertoire. Major voices of our time have written substantial works for Leeds Song, including Helen Grime, Errollyn Wallen, Daniel Kidane, Mark Simpson, Tansy Davies, Cheryl Frances Hoad, Judith Bingham and Sally Beamish.

The charity was founded by Jane Anthony in partnership with colleagues from Opera North and Leeds Conservatoire and under her direction a biennial Festival was mounted with guest artistic directors: Graham Johnson, Roger Vignoles, Julius Drake, Malcolm Martineau, Iain Burnside and Roderick Williams.

In 2014 the pianist Joseph Middleton became Director, and the Festival became an annual event of international standing, a concert series was introduced and all the educational offerings were completely redesigned. The great Dutch soprano Elly Ameling is the President of Leeds Song.