Samling Institute for Young Artists: Celebrating 30 years of transforming the landscape for classical singers growing up in North East England

Samling Institute for Young Artists is celebrating its 30th birthday, that is 30 years of supporting early-career singers and pianists and through its innovative Samling Academy that has transformed the landscape for classical singers growing up in North East England. 

In celebration, on Friday 6 November there is a gala at Wigmore Hall when with alumni from Samling’s programmes and special guest Adrian Lester.

The concert illustrates the power of music to change lives, how composers and poets have harnessed the power of music to tell its own story. Music performed includes Franz Schubert’s Shepherd on the Rock, (with guest clarinettist Eliott Berdugo), Antonín Dvořák’s Gypsy Songs, Robert Schumann's Andersen Lieder and ends with one of the greatest love songs to art, Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music in a special arrangement for eight solo voices.

Acting and a close attention to text are at the centre of Samling Institute’s teaching ethos and every programme includes a stage actor on the leadership team. Earlier this year, actor Adrian Lester, star of the RSC’s recent Cyrano de Bergerac, joined the Samling Artist Programme as a coach. Threading together the programme at Wigmore Hall, he will read poems by writers including Andrew Marvell, Walter de la Mare, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy.

The performers will include British soprano Nardus Williams, Portuguese mezzo-soprano Cláudia Ribas, Scottish tenor Euan McDonald, Swiss baritone Felix Gygli, American pianist Jonathan Ware, British pianist Alfred Fardell, and four recent members of Samling Academy, soprano Tia Radix-Callixte, mezzo- soprano Lauren Bagge, tenor Benedict Munden and baritone Fabian Tindale Geere.

Full details from the Samling website.

Here be monsters! Prologue Opera bring Jonathan Dove's community opera The Monster in the Maze to Hastings

Jonathan Dove's 2015 community opera, The Monster in The Maze was written for Simon Rattle, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Following those 2015 UK performances the work had to wait until 2024 to be performed again, when Music in the Round presented it in Sheffield [see my review]. For that performance, tenor Anthony Flaum played Theseus and now Prologue Opera, which Flaum founded in 2017, is bringing the production, directed by Rosie Kat, to Hastings.

Anthony Flaum, CEO & Founder, Prologue Opera. commented: "Jonathan Dove gave Hastings its first community opera on the pier in 1990. Nearly four decades on, the town isn't just the venue, it's the story. Every wave, every backstory, every voice in this production comes from Hastings itself. This is what happens when a community gets to tell its own myth."

The Monster in the Maze will be presented at the White Rock Theatre, Hastings with three public performances during half-term on 18 and 19 February 2027. For the production, Prologue Opera will be partnered by the White Rock Theatre, Hasting Philharmonic, The Bright Foundation, Dear Future Films and Sussex music hub Create Music. 

The performances will combine professional soloists, conductor and creative team with White Rock Youth Theatre, children’s chorus from local schools, an adult community chorus, Hastings Philharmonic players and a Learning Orchestra of local young players and place-based elements to root the project in Hastings.

The Monster in the Maze: images from the project launch in Hastings

The performers will include Sir John Tomlinson as King Minos alongside mezzo-soprano Louise Winter, tenor Anthony Flaum (as Theseus) and Tim Nelson (as Daedalus). There will be puppetry from The Bright Foundation and Long Nose Puppetry.

Sir John Tomlinson added, "I have never before performed in a Jonathan Dove opera, but admired them greatly from the audience, so I look forward to being King Minos in 'Monster in the Maze'. The Monster I know well from the inside, having sung the title role in Birtwistle's 'Minotaur' at Covent Garden some years ago. Like all Myths, it's as relevant now in our own time as much as ever it was, and it's such a powerful, deeply emotional tale."

As well as working with local schools, there will be workshops with children to co-create a piece based around the myth and the themes in the show. 

Full details from the Prologue Opera website, tickets from the White Rock Theatre.

Forget Shakespeare: with Jacques Imbrailo & Haegee Lee as Hamlet & Ophélie, Chelsea Opera Group make a strong case for Ambroise Thomas's opera under Jonathon Cole-Swinard's sympathetic direction

Ambroise Thomas: Hamlet - Malachy Frame, Ruari Bowen, Jacques Imbrailo, Jonathan Cole-Swinard, Jay Broadhurst, Grace Durham, Richard Wiegold, Thomas D Hopkinson, Chelsea Opera Group [Photo: Julian Guidera]

Ambroise Thomas: Hamlet; Jacques Imbrailo, Haegee Lee, Richard Wiegold, Grace Durham, Jay Broadhurst, Chelsea Opera Group, Jonathan Cole-Swinard; Cadogan Hall
Reviewed 1 November 2026

Thomas's Hamlet might not be quite top-drawer grand opera, but with superb solo contributions and some sophisticate orchestral playing this performance played to the work's strengths

Ambroise Thomas is the nearly man of French 19th-century opera. Born seven years before Gounod and thirty years before Massenet, he was effectively the advance-guard of the composers who developed French opera following on from Meyerbeer. As director of the Conservatoire he was responsible for both modernising the organisation and imposing a conservative curriculum, including attempting to prevent composers such as César Franck and Gabriel Fauré from influencing the students. Thomas wrote a significant number of operas, many of them opera comique and his best known is Mignon (based loosely on Goethe) which began as an opera comique in 1866 though he went on to add sung recitatives and the work was almost as popular as Gounod's Faust.

The librettists for Mignon were Michel Carré and Jules Barbier, who also wrote the libretto for Gounod's Faust. And in 1859 they turned to Shakespeare's Hamlet to create an libretto for Thomas for a five-act grand opera. Their source was Alexandre Dumas's French version of the play from 1847, which was truer to Shakespeare than earlier French versions but still introduced 'improvements' so by modern standards, it was a rather free adaptation of the original. No Fortinbras and no opening scene on the ramparts; a love scene for Hamlet and Ophelia added to the first act; Claudius does not send Hamlet to England, so Rosencrantz and Guildenstern do not die; the rather striking ending has the ghost of Hamlet's father reappear and condemn Gertrude, Claudius, and Laertes as they are dying.

The opera was premiered at the Paris Opera in 1868. Hamlet was sung by the baritone Jean-Baptiste Faure because no suitable tenor could be found (though the tenor version was eventually premiered in 2025). The opera was staged, in Italian, in London in 1869 and went on to be staged in Leipzig, Budapest, Brussels, Prague, New York City, Saint Petersburg, Berlin, and Vienna within five years of the Paris premiere. A shorter version of the Finale with Hamlet's death is associated with the London performances but there is no record that this version was performed in Thomas's lifetime. The role of Ophélie was a great favourite of Nelly Melba and reputedly when she sang the role, the opera ended with her mad scene!

In 1980, the fledgling Buxton Festival presented a production of Thomas' Hamlet (with Thomas Allen in the title role). Since then, sightings of the opera in the UK have been relatively rare. Covent Garden presented it in 2003, for the first time since 1910 (!) and Opera North gave it in 1995, but it remains a rarity, dependent on the right baritone and soprano. Buxton returned to the opera in 2025 in a production directed by Jack Furness [see my review].

It was thus heartening to find Chelsea Opera Group (COG) presenting the work at Cadogan Hall on Sunday 1 November 2026 (the same weekend as Gothic Opera unearthed another French rarity, Halévy's La Dame de Pique, see our review]. COG's conductor was Jonathon Cole-Swinard (Head of Music and Chorus Director at Garsington Opera). Jacques Imbrailo was Hamlet [following on from his Pelléas in Aldeburgh earlier this year, see our review, and anticipating his Oreste in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride at ENO] with Haegee Lee as Ophélie [last seen as Lakmé with COG in 2024, see my review]. Jay Broadhurst was Laërte [last seen with COG in Verdi's Macbeth last year when he sang Malcolm and jumped in as Macduff]. Richard Wiegold and Grace Durham were Claudius and Gertrude, with Ruari Bowen as Marcellus/Grave Digger, Malachy Frame as Horatio/Grave Digger, and Thomas D Hopkinson as the Ghost.

A gothic feast for the eyes with some very fine singing: Gothic Opera in the UK premiere of Halévy's La Dame de Pique

Halévy: La Dame de Pique - Gothic Opera at Battersea Arts Centre [Photo: Craig Fuller]

Fromental Halévy: La Dame de Pique; Grace O’Malley, James Hutchings, Sam Utley, Charlie Epps, Alice Usher, director: Jonny Danciger, conductor: Hannah von Wiehler, arranger: Leon Haxby; Gothic Opera at Battersea Arts Centre
Reviewed by Saskia Bibb, 29 October 2026

For this year’s Halloween production from Gothic Opera, we are in the last days of the Ancien régime to witness the havoc wreaked by a pact with the devil — a legend of a magic ring and the three secret cards that guarantee success at the gambling tables. 

Musically it is a triumph. Halévy’s opera lives up to its billing as an inexplicably neglected gem and the cast is a treasure trove of vocal talent. It is visually compelling: atmospheric sets, glorious costumes and clean, effective blocking. The drama falls down a little, with some clunky acting and the rather on-the-nose adapted dialogue.

We are first introduced to foreman of the miners, Andre Roskaw, played by Charlie Epps, and Lisanka, the governor’s daughter whom he aspires to marry if he can get enough money together, played by Alice Usher. Usher’s commanding, dramatic voice is put centre stage as she explains the Polowska family legend. In her interactions with other characters she is less convincing though, in particular her dialogue is rather stilted. Epps’s light, youthful baritone has a gentle and honest timbre that is a real gift to his characterisation of André, giving him an earthy, authentic quality. To start with his portrayal is naturalistic (his dialogue is impressively so given the rather crude material) but as the darkness within triumphs, Epps can see that only a healthy dose of melodrama will do. If you can’t pull out all the stops when driven mad by an ancient curse in a Halloween opera, then when can you?

Halévy: La Dame de Pique - Grace O'Malley, Charlie Epps - Gothic Opera at Battersea Arts Centre [Photo: Craig Fuller]

Music crying out to be heard: the first instalment of Arcangelo's English Baroque Journey at Wigmore Hall focused on sacred music for the Chapel Royal

Chapel Royal at St James's Palace

The Music More Full Than It Was: Christopher Gibbons, Matthew Locke, Pelham Humfrey, John  Blow, Purcell, Handel, Maurice Greene; Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 30 October 2026

Exploring sacred music from the Restoration through to early Handel with a focus on the Chapel Royal, Arcangelo give us vibrant performances of lesser-known gems, music crying out to be heard

Histories of English music have a tendency to jump from Purcell to Handel as if they were the only major figures at the time. In fact, Purcell's friend and teacher, Blow, had as great a reputation as the younger composer during his lifetime and there were plenty of other composers whose music deserves to be part of the story. 

At Wigmore Hall on Friday 30 October 2026, Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo presented The Music More Full Than It Was, the first event in the ensemble's multi-concert English Baroque Journey. For this first instalment we concentrated on sacred music with the programme that included music by Christopher Gibbons (1615-1676), Matthew Locke (c.1621-1677), Pelham Humfrey (1647-1674), John Blow (1649-1708), Henry Purcell (1659-1695), George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) , and Maurice Greene (1696-1755), taking us from the revival of the Chapel Royal after the Restoration through to Handel writing in the early years of his residency in England.

There were eight singers - Hilary Cronin, Daisy Livesy, James Hall, Jeremy Budd, Hugo Brady, Matthew Long, Malachy Frame, Will Gaunt - and an instrumental ensemble of six strings, oboe (in Handel's Chandos Anthem), organ, theorbo and harpsichord (play by Jonathan Cohen). The singers fluidly moved between solo and ensemble and only in Handel's Chandos Anthem, O praise the Lord with one consent were there distinct arias. Similarly, the instrumental forces used moved between just continuo to full ensemble with a varied line up (oboe only in Handel, but no viola in some).

From Whitehall to the World: Dr Gregory Boardman on the impact of the English Chamber Orchestra’s education and community programmes

English Chamber Orchestra Royal Gala Fundraiser 2026

The labels music education or community music often come with baggage that often suggests a lesser quality of musical outcomes. In reaching out beyond the concert space, the English Chamber Orchestra’s (ECO) Close Encounters initiative nurtures excellence no matter where they are or what the level of activity. In doing so, the ECO delivers something vitally important; connecting our musical future with music making right now.  

It’s not enough just to count all the happy faces, happy faces don’t guarantee long term sustainability. In delivering their projects and innovating how they engage people of all ages, the English Chamber Orchestra are working towards the longer-term impact and the wider benefits of this essential work. 

Nurturing a new generation of skilled musicians and composers for the creative economy is a natural product of flourishing grassroots activity. The ECO's newly announced New Horizons programme will ensure that the orchestra delivers a commitment to those aspiring to the highest level of performance and professional development. However, for the team at the English Chamber Orchestra, the true joy lies in supporting a musical world for all. Whether the orchestra is on tour or in the classroom, the benchmark of success takes many forms. 

English Chamber Orchestra: Lights, Camera, Score

The impact of the English Chamber Orchestra’s education and community programmes extends far beyond the performances themselves.

Parabola and Circula: Marc Blitzstein's forgotten Bauhaus opera to receive its premiere recording on Capriccio as part of new series by the Bauhaus-Archiv.

Marc Blitzstein is one of those 20th century figures whose name is perhaps better known than his work. The name of his 1937 pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock still resonates, though his opera Regina, an adaptation of Lillian Hellman's play The Little Foxes, has not made it much past a first revelatory recording (from John Mauceri and Scottish Opera in 1992). His best known work is perhaps that undertaken on the music of another composer, Kurt Weill, as Blitzstein's translations and adaptations of The Threepenny Opera and Mahagonny played an important role in the widening appreciation of Weill's music in the period after the composer's death.

Blitzstein studied composition at the Curtis Institute of Music, then went to Europe to continue his studies. He failed to get on with Arnold Schoenberg in Berlin, but did study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Between 1929 and 1933 he travelled extensively in Europe, including a German tour with Aaron Copland. His music of this period includes his Piano Sonata (1927) and Piano Concerto (1931), works described as 'Boulanger-influenced products of American modernism' and which he referred to as "wild, dissonant and percussive."

Now, another side to this European Blitzstein has been revealed, his opera Parabola and Circula from 1929. In November 2026, Capriccio will release the world premiere recording of Marc Blitzstein’s Parabola and Circula, the work having been premiered in a concert performance at the Berlin Philharmonie on 21 September 2025, as part of Musikfest Berlin when the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra performed it under the baton of Karl-Heinz Steffens.

Marc Blitzstein in 1937
[Photo: Federal Theatre Project - Library of Congress]

The work was originally intended to receive its premiere in 1930 in collaboration with the Bauhaus in Dessau. However, the planned production never materialised, and the opera largely fell into obscurity. 1930 was the year that Hannes Meyer was fired as director of the Bauhaus, to be replaced by Mies van der Rohe who refocused the school's work to concentrate on teaching.

Since 2023, the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung has been exploring the largely overlooked musical history of the school through its Bauhaus Music project. The inaugural festival commemorated the legendary Bauhaus Week of 1923, presenting works by composers including Igor Stravinsky, Paul Hindemith, Kurt Weill and Stefan Wolpe. In 2024, the festival took place under the highly topical theme of Freedom. A particular highlight of the research project followed in 2025 with the world premiere of Marc Blitzstein’s Parabola and Circula at Musikfest Berlin. The 2026 edition, taking place in Berlin on 13 and 14 November, explores the interplay of music, colour, movement and perception under the motto I Feel Air from Another Planet.

Parabola and Circula is set in an abstract world of geometric shapes and tells a tragic love story between a parabola and a circle. The couple live in seemingly perfect harmony with their adopted children, Rectangle and Point. However, their friends begin to question this unconditional love, arguing that it restricts the lovers’ freedom and independence. Parabola’s growing doubts ultimately lead to catastrophe, culminating in Circula’s death. In this opera of approximately one hour, Blitzstein combines geometric abstraction with the powerful human emotions at the heart of musical theatre.

Marc Blitztein's Parabola and Circula is released on the Capriccio label on 6 November 2026. Karl-Heinz Steffens conducts the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra with Aleksander Nohr, and Mari Eriksmoen. The release also marks the launch of a new CD series by the Bauhaus-Archiv. Full details from Capriccio. 

John Storgårds launches his inaugural season as musical director of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra with focus on Jean Coulthard

John Storgårds & Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra [Photo: Curtis Perry]

John Storgårds launches a new chapter when he conducts his inaugural concerts as music director with Canada’s National Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra in Ottawa on 4 and 5 November 2026. Storgårds made his debut with the orchestra in 2013 and was principal guest conductor from 2015 to 2026. He succeeds Alexander Shelley, who led the ensemble for 11 seasons [see my 2023 interview with Alexander Shelly]. In the UK, Storgårds is best known as the chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra 

For the inaugural concerts, Storgårds conducts Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 with soloist Élisabeth Pion (Gold Laureate of the 2025 Honens International Piano Competition), Charles Ives's The Unanswered Question, Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 3, and Jean Coulthard's Symphonic image: Vision of the North.

The presence of Coulthard's work reflects the way Storgårds' first season has a strong focus on Canadian voices, highlighting rising stars, celebrated performers, and some of the country's most influential composers. 

A particular focus of the season is the music of Jean Coulthard (1908–2000), one of Canada's most significant composers. Thanks to a scholarship she studied at the Royal College of Music in 1928-1929 where she was a pupil of Kathleen Long, R.O. Morris, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. She went on to study with Béla Bartók, Aaron Copland, and Arnold Schoenberg and worked with Bernard Wagenaar of the Juilliard School, New York. In 1948, she met the British composer Elizabeth Poston (who was visiting Canada) and they began a long friendship and an extensive correspondence over the next 30 years.

Her work appears across three of the NAC Orchestra's orchestral programs and a chamber concert. In January 2027, Storgårds will lead the NAC Orchestra in Coulthard's Symphony No. 1, a work not performed in full since its 1950s premiere. He will also devote his first recording project with the Orchestra to Coulthard's music, bringing renewed attention to her remarkable artistic legacy.

Further information from the Orchestra's website.

Illuminating connections: in Kin, Lotte Betts Dean & Joseph Havlat explore folksongs from across Europe and North America

Kin: Vaughan Williams, Moeran, Grainger, Britten, Doreen Senior, Canteloube, Bartok, Michael Finissy, Josephine Stephenson, Louise Drewett, Joseph Havlat, Isabella Gellis, Ruth Wall; Lotte Betts Dean, Joseph Havlat; DELPHIAN
Reviewed 19 October 2026

Two young Australians and a programme of folksongs culled from across Europe and North America conspire to create a programme by turns thoughtful and moving, as Havlat's sensitive piano complements Betts Dean's expressively plangent tone

Two young Australians, one with Czech and German origins, the other English and German Ashkenazi, both trained at the Royal Academy of Music in London where they met as students. On their new disc, Kin on Delphian, mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts Dean and pianist Joseph Havlat explore their love of folksong with arrangements by Vaughan Williams, Moeran, Grainger, Britten, Doreen Senior, Canteloube, Bartok, Michael Finissy, Josephine Stephenson, Louise Drewett, Joseph Havlat, Isabella Gellis and Ruth Wall

In her booklet note, Lotte Betts Dean comments, "As two non-indigenous white Australians... we are perhaps always in search of a sense of homeland or belonging. We have also both left our ancestors' adopted home of Australia and are still 'expats'."

Celebrating 250 years of diversity: Odaline de la Martinez's London Festival of American Music returns for its 10th edition

Odaline de la Martinez's London Festival of American Music returns for its 10th edition from 9 to 13 November 2026 at The Warehouse. Celebrating 250 years of diversity, the Festival presents works by over 30 composers across five nights of concerts with three world premieres and 20 UK premieres. Over half the composers represented are women.

The Festival opens with Singapore-born conductor Tianhui Ng directing Lontano Ensemble in Latinos in America, a programme of works by Puerto Rican, Mexican American and Cuban American composers, many receiving their UK or world premieres. The next evening, Odaline de la Martinez conducts Lontano in Percussion!! featuring two works by Jewish émigrée Ursula Mamlok alongside three newly commissioned world premieres from Neva Derewetzky, Charles Shadle and Daniel Thomas Davis.

Soprano Roberta Philip joins forces with pianist Valentina Wang for African American art song from the classics of Florence Price, Undine Smith Moore, Margaret Bonds and William Grant Still to George Walker, Moses Hogan, and Hall Johnson — alongside the world of Britney Boykin's Moments in Sonder. Odaline de la Martinez and Lontano return with Solos, Duos and More, featuring Daniel Asia’s Pine’s Last Poems, Arlene Sierra’s A Young Mind in Old Bees, as well as works by Alfred Lerdahl, Barbara Jazwinski, Elena Ruehr, Augusta Reed Thomas, and Aaron Einbond. 

The festival concludes with Suzi Digby conducting VOCE Chamber Choir in choral works b y American composers including Eric Whitacre, Caroline Shaw, Frank Ticheli, Nico Muhly, Reena Esmail, Michael Gordon, Nick Strimple, Jake Runestad, Dolly Parton and Odaline de la Martinez.

Full details from the Lontano website.

Inviting the audience to experience music as something that is not only heard but also seen, embodied and mediated.

Lovemusic

On Sunday 1 November at the French Institute in London the French collective, Lovemusic is presenting an event that asks the question 'how do we listen when sound is inseparable from image, gesture, language and technology?'

Lovemusic specialises in new music, and the event blends together music, theatre, dance, video, light and technology for an experience where you’ll need to open your eyes as much as your ears. From a dialogue between flute and sign language by Helmut Oehring, Kuba Krzewiński’s unique approach to violin and cello, to Tine Surel Lange’s portrait of the contemporary urban landscape and Finbar Hosie’s ASMR and screening experiment. From Mathis Saunier’s performance to Neil Luck’s Production Apocrypha, discover a one of a kind programme supported by the Diaphonique fund for contemporary music.

Full details from the French Institute's website.

It really deserves to be heard & seen: baritone Charlie Epps on Gothic Opera's UK premiere production of Halévy's La Dame de Pique

Charles-Aimable Battaille as André Roskow in
Fromental Halévy's La Dame de Pique at the Opéra Comique in 1850

 Gothic Opera’s production of Fromental Halévy's La Dame de Pique opens this Thursday (29 October 2026) at Battersea Arts Centre, directed by Jonny Danciger, conducted by Hannah von Wiehler. 

Loosely based on the Pushkin story of the same name, Halévy’s La Dame de Pique pre-dates Tchaikovsky’s better-known opera adaptation by forty years and premiered at the Opéra Comique in 1850.

Saskia Bibb hears from baritone Charlie Epps, who plays the role of André Roskaw on 29 and 31 October.

So you've just finished studying at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Tell me how this project has helped with starting out in the profession.

It's really important that these opportunities exist, where there's a fully staged, fully invested-in and believed-in opera. The fact that it hasn’t been performed for so long makes for a perfect opportunity for young artists to revive it and, in many ways, to invent something new. There are some stage directions and some documented evidence of how it would have been performed at the premiere, but there’s a lot of space for creativity as well, which Jonny [the director] has really tapped into.

This is my first professional role - and the audition was my first professional audition - so it’s also great not having to compare myself to anyone else who may have performed the role! You're creating a standard for yourself, with people around you who are in the same boat. It's a really nice way to start and to gain experience.

Tell us about your character. How do you see him?

New work by Jay Capperauld celebrates 20th anniversary of Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s Big Guitar Weekend

Jay Capperauld at the premiere of Galvanic Dances with accordionist Ryan Corbett, National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, Catherine Larsen-Maguire

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s (RCS) Big Guitar Weekend celebrates its 20th anniversary this year as it runs from Thursday 29 October until Sunday 1 November. Since its launch in 2006, it has become one of Scotland’s leading guitar festivals, bringing together international artists, RCS faculty, alumni and new talent.

One of the highlights of this year's Big Guitar Weekend is the premiere of Arachne by Scottish composer Jay Capperauld [see my 2025 interview with Jay]. Arachne will be performed by RCS graduate and BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Samrat Majumder alongside Allan Neave, Head of Guitar and Harp at RCS.

Jay Capperauld graduated with a Masters in Composition with Distinction from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2014. In 2023, he was commissioned by His Majesty King Charles III to compose Schiehallion! for the Honours of Scotland celebrations. His accordion concerto, Galvanic Dances (premiered by Ryan Corbett and the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, conductor Catherine Larsen-Maguire) won the European Composition Award 2025.

Commenting on the premiere of Arachne, Allan Neave said: "It is a fascinating piece with a great narrative. Jay has never written for guitar before, so he has brought some fresh approaches to the instrument. He has written a section that sees the player creating the movements and sounds of a spider spinning thread and scurrying across the fretboard. It’s pretty cool."

Other events in the Big Guitar Weekend include a masterclass and headline concert by guitarist Lorenzo Micheli; Samrat Majumder and Ian Watt, an RCS alumnus, join forces for Lachrimae – The Lute Music of John Dowland and Johann Sebastian Bach, and music by Stephen Goss, Michael Tippett, Giulio Regondi and Emilio Pujol; on Saturday there is a showcase from the Junior Conservatoire of Music; Zoe Barnett closes the festival with a programme heavily inspired by Spanish repertoire.

Full details from the RCS website.

James Baillieu to take over from Tamsin Waley-Cohen as artistic director of the Two Moors Festival

James Baillieu (Photo: David Ruano)

Having first played at there in 2016 and now with a home on Dartmoor, pianist James Baillieu is to take over from Tamsin Waley-Cohen as artistic director of the Two Moors Festival.

The Festival takes place each October in venues across Dartmoor and Exmoor. In October 2027, Tamsin Waley-Cohen will be sharing the role of artistic director with James Baillieu. This will be a handover period with James who will take over as sole artistic director of the Two Moors Festival in 2028. 

Since it was founded in 2001, the Two Moors Festival has evolved into one of the most distinctive classical music festivals in the UK. It usually welcomes over 4,000 people to its rural venues. The Festival also nurtures young artists through its Young Musicians’ Competition and its Residency programme.

Tamsin Waley-Cohen became the festival’s artistic director in 2020 [see my 2024 interview with her]. When she leaves after the festival in 2027, she will have programmed the festival for eight years. In that time, the festival has gone from strength to strength with a wide variety of concerts and events, including new commissions, poetry, family events and talks. 

James Baillieu has played a significant role in recent festivals and created and worked with Tamsin Waley-Cohen in running the Residency programme in 2025 which will take place again in 2026. James Baillieu's appointment presages a very exciting future for the festival.

James Baillieu said, "It is a tremendous privilege to be taking on the artistic direction of the Two Moors Festival. Tamsin has created something remarkable during her tenure, bringing a wonderful family of artists to these beautiful landscapes with imagination, generosity and ambition. 

I first came to the festival in 2016 to give a recital in Ashburton Church. Ten years on, my partner and I have made our home on Dartmoor, and I feel a deep connection to its landscape and communities. I am delighted that Tamsin and I will work alongside one another next year, giving me the opportunity to build thoughtfully on everything she has achieved. I am enormously excited about the festival’s future and about shaping the next chapter of this very special organisation."

Further information from the festival website.

National Youth Orchestra: 43% of musicians in 2027 come from its free access programme NYO Inspire, demand for which is increasing

National Youth Orchestra (Photo: Tom Morley)

The National Youth Orchestra will be presenting its 2027 season with an Orchestra of 160 musicians who hail from every corner of the UK from Banchory to Bicester and Sleaford to Sevenoaks. Half the musicians are new to the Orchestra this year, with the other half re-auditioning and securing their seat for another year. 

43% of the 2027 musicians are coming through its free access programme, NYO Inspire. This is designed for teenage musicians from state schools and those who face systemic challenges accessing musical opportunities. NYO Inspire 2027 has seen record-breaking numbers apply, with 1,000 teenagers set to take part, nearly a 10% increase on last year.

Half the musicians in the Orchestra attend state school or are home educated. 34% are from minority ethnic backgrounds, while 53% of leadership positions are held by teenagers who are state-educated. These stats demonstrate the long-term impact that NYO Inspire is having on ensuring that orchestral music-making is available to as many teenagers across the UK as possible.

Every musician in the Orchestra of 2027 will introduce pupils to orchestral music through a workshop at their local primary school as part of NYO Local, reaching an estimated 24,000 children. Across national tours and secondary school concerts [see YouTube], they will perform for an estimated 10,000 teenagers. They will lead the way as musical role models for musicians on the NYO Inspire programme, through side-by-side rehearsals with local musicians in the cities they visit, and in youth centres through NYO’s partnership with Onside YouthZone.

Beginning this week (from 25 October to 1 November) is NYO Unite, where every musician in the NYO community will join together for a day of music-making at locations across the UK. The Orchestra of 2027 will then embark on the Voyage tour, which takes place from 5 to 8 January 2027 in Manchester, Warwick and London, plus a Schools Concert and side-by-side rehearsals with local musicians at all venues. The programme for Voyage features music by Hans Zimmer, Julia Wolfe and Tchaikovsky.

As always, Free for Teens tickets are available, to ensure that any teenager can experience the power of orchestral music for free.

Full details from the National Youth Orchestra's website.

The Tale Continues: Azerbaijan celebrates the return of the Baku International Arts Festival

Historic Baku Opera Theatre

The second Baku International Arts Festival (BIAF) will take place in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 28 October to 8 November 2026 with more than 20 events spanning dance, drama, music, and film, bringing together performers from Azerbaijan, the UK, Israel, Canada, Monaco, Russia, the USA, France, and other nations. This year's programme places special emphasis on collaboration between internationally renowned artists and Azerbaijani performers and institutions.

Baku is the largest city on the Caspian Sea and in the Caucasus region, and is the lowest lying national capital in the world. It sits on the Absheron peninsula, at the narrowest point of the corridor between the Caspian and the Caucasus range — the pinch through which caravans, armies, ideas and, latterly, pipelines have had to pass. The walled Old City, Icherisheher, still contains the caravanserais where merchants stabled their animals; the Shirvanshahs' Palace and the Maiden Tower stand within a few minutes' walk of one another, and of the Zoroastrian fire that gave the country its name. The roads out of these gates ran to Multan and Bukhara, to Tabriz, Baghdad and Damascus, to Istanbul and on to Venice — and medieval Baku was a centre of Sufi learning on that network, a station of the Khalwati order whose scholar Seyid Yahya Bakuvi lies buried inside the palace grounds, a few steps from the shahs' own.

Baku-Icherisheher (the Old City)

The oil boom of the 1870s turned a fortress town into one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the Russian Empire — by 1900 Baku was producing roughly half the world's oil, and its wealth built mansions in every European style along the seafront. The opera house came out of the same money and a better story: the Mailov brothers, caviar magnates with fisheries on the Kura, put it up in under a year after a visiting soprano — the name attached to the story is always Antonina Nezhdanova — remarked that she could hardly return to a city with no proper opera house. It opened in February 1911 with Boris Godunov.

BIAF opens on 28 October at the Philharmonic Hall with a concert marking the 120th anniversary of Dmitri Shostakovich, whose life and legacy remain closely tied to Azerbaijan and directly shaped its national school of composition. His Concerto No. 1 for Piano, Trumpet and Orchestra, premiered on this same stage by the composer in 1934, will be performed by Russian-Lithuanian pianist Lukas Geniušas and Norwegian trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth, with the Baku State Chamber Orchestra and the BIAF Festival Orchestra under Baku-born violinist and conductor Dmitry Sitkovetsky.

South African artist William Kentridge’s multimedia work Oh To Believe in Another World brings a live visual interpretation to Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, a work whose musical themes encode the composer’s secret declaration of affection for his Baku student, pianist and composer Elmira Nazirova. Sitkovetsky conducts the Festival Orchestra, and the programme continues with Fikret Amirov and Nazirova’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra on Arabian Themes, performed by Farhad Badalbeyli, Rector of the Baku Music Academy and a personal acquaintance of both composers.

The Heydar Aliyev Center hosts violinist David Garrett, the Juilliard-trained “Paganini of pop,” presenting his Baku premiere of Millennium Symphony, a symphonic reimagining of the past 25 years’ biggest hits. The festival closes on 8 November at the Philharmonic with two-time Grammy winner Maxim Vengerov, one of the world’s most sought-after violinists.

The theatre programme includes Lev Dodin’s acclaimed staging of Chekhov’s The Seagull from the Maly Drama Theatre; Dmitry Krymov’s Bloody Mary, a free, image-driven response to Schiller's Mary Stuart; and the Rezo Gabriadze Marionette Theatre’s Alfred and Violetta, a reworking of La Dame aux Camélias relocated to 1990s Tbilisi, completed by director Leo Gabriadze after his father’s death in 2021.

The dance programme includes Thikra: Night of Remembering at the National Drama Theatre, choreographed by Akram Khan, and New Earth and Bolero from choreographer Shahar Binyamini and as part of the festival’s mentorship strand, Binyamini is also training and integrating dancers from the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre and the Baku Choreography Academy into the production.

English National Ballet makes its Baku debut with Masters in Motion: Forsythe/Pite, pairing Crystal Pite’s Body and Soul (Part 1) with William Forsythe’s Playlist (EP).

The full BIAF 2026 programme and tickets are available at festival web site 

Chameleon who changes colour very quietly & without attention: pianist/composer Belle Chen on her personal journey through her music

Belle Chen [Photo: Harry Cornish]

London-based Taiwanese-Australian pianist and composer Belle Chen had commercial and critical success with her 2024 album Ravel In The Forest and in August released the single Rise on the Platoon label. Following a sold-out European/UK tour earlier this year, during October and November she is touring China and Australia. Last month, I was lucky enough to be able to catch her in London to chat about her album, her inspirations and her plans.

This year, she has found touring rather intense because she is travelling with a 14-month-old toddler! But audiences have been warm and kind, and she has had some interesting conversations after the show. She tries to talk to audience members after the show finding such interactions rather motivating. When I ask what the audiences get at her shows her response is immediate, 'You get me'. She performs her original compositions on piano and on synth, and these expose everything about her. 

This year she has been performing music from her album Ravel In The Forest, which she presented at a live show at Kings Place last year. Her concerts include the whole album, the complete concept. 

Whilst the music on the album does evoke the forest, it is also a personal journey inward. Belle comments that everyone has a different journey. And this album was very much about her finding herself as an artist. She grew up in Australia, in SE Queensland, in a forest. Here not much happened yet there was a lot of uncertainty and the sound of the forest brought out the sense of the dark. She wrote the album in London and has since been touring the show based on it.

Here comes the 1980s: powerful solo contributions rescue Opera North's misguided updating of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin

Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin,Act Two, scene one - John Brancy as Eugene Onegin, Caspar Singh as Lensky & chorus - Opera North [Photo: James Glossop]

Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin; John Brancy, Verity Wingate, Caspar Singh, Jingwen Cai, director: Patrick Nolan, conductor: Garry Walker; Opera North at Leeds Grand Theatre
Reviewed 24 October 2026

Some very fine individual performances particularly from the three principals make for a satisfying evening despite the production's misguided decision to relocate the action to Russia in the 1980s and 1990s

Directors have a fondness for relocating Eastern European operas into a more recent time period covered by Soviet and Communist rule. In 2014, I caught Opera North's production of Smetana's The Bartered Bride [see my review] relocating it (successfully) to 1972, but I still have strong memories of a production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin which relocated the first two acts to just before the Revolution, with the third act coming after the Revolution and Act Three's dance sequence replaced by a political rally.

For the new production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at Opera North, director Patrick Nolan (artistic director of Opera Queensland) decided to set the piece in the Russia of the 1980s and 1990s during the era when Communism gave way to the Russia of the oligarchs, with a view to giving 'a contemporary energy' to the piece. Patrick Nolan's production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin (a co-production with Irish National Opera and Opera Queensland) opened at Leeds Grand Theatre (seen 24 October 2026), with Garry Walker conducting. Set designs were by Leslie Travers with costumes by Elizabeth Gadsby, lighting by Malcolm Rippeth, choreography by Maxine Braham and fight directed by Enric Orturio. Verity Wingate was Tatyana, John Brancy was Onegin, Jingwen Cai was Olga, Hannah Mason was Madame Larina, Claire Pascoe was Filipyevna, Caspar Singh was Lensky.

Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin Act One, scene three - John Brancy as Onegin, Verity Wingate as Tatyana - Opera North [Photo: James Glossop]

The production stretched the libretto's time period so that Act One took place in the run up to the Moscow Olympics in 1980, Act Two after Gorbachov's reforms in 1985 and Act Three in 1991. Act One began with the community rehearsing a routine for the Olympics with the peasant dances replaced by a static routine with coloured boards. The setting was a run down hall, and this formed the setting for all three acts so that the more intimate scenes were played out here in relative lack of privacy. As the acts progressed, costumes got increasingly more elaborate and much fun had clearly been had with this. The opera was sung in Russian but the surtitles were adjusted so that there was no disturbance to the new dramaturgy.

Do try & catch it! Femi Elufowoju jr's intelligent yet imaginatively accessible production of Verdi's Rigoletto returns to Opera North

Verdi: Rigoletto - Themba Mvula, Ross McInroy, Thomas Elwin & ensemble - Opera North, 2026 [Photo: Richard H Smith]

Verdi: Rigoletto; Leonardo Sánchez, Blake Denson, Raven McMillon, dir: Femi Elufowoju jr, cond: Patrick Lange; Opera North at Leeds Grand Theatre
Reviewed 23 October 2026

Femi Elufowoju jr's compelling vision of Rigoletto returns as vivid as ever with a strong trio of principals with a balance of fine musicality and drama

One of the keys to a satisfying production of Verdi's Rigoletto is that director and designer find a setting for the piece that makes Monterone's curse resonate in the right way. Verdi's early working title for the opera was La maledizione, and this curse is the key to the work in many ways. This is something that Jonathan Miller understood with his iconic production for English National Opera set in New York's Little Italy. Femi Elufowoju jr's 2022 production for Opera North was another such [see my review]. With Rigoletto, Gilda, Monterone, Marullo and Countess Ceprano played by people of colour, the curse resonates in a way that Elufowoju, a British-Nigerian, was familiar with from the society in which he was born.

It is thus heartening that Femi Elufowoju jr has returned to Opera North to revive the production at Leeds Grand Theatre (seen 23 October 2026). Patrick Lange conducted with Leonardo Sánchez as the Duke, Blake Denson as Rigoletto and Raven McMillon as Gilda (all three new to the production). Designs were by Rae Smith, lighting by Howard Hudson.

Verdi: Rigoletto - Blake Denson - Opera North, 2026 [Photo: Richard H Smith]

Rae Smith's setting, with its inspirations taken from artists such as Kehinde Wiley and Yinka Shonibare, remains as visually striking and satisfying as ever. Though, seeing the production for the second time rather highlighted the unsatisfactory elements in the visually striking setting for Act Three, raising question as to why the Duke would be lurking at some sort of haven for down-and-outs. But there is a beautifully thought-through sense to Elufowoju's production with such details at Sparafucile (Callum Thorpe) and Maddalena (Alonya Abramova) appearing at the Act One party. For once, in a production of this opera, your eye (and brain) does not get diverted by details that do not gel.

Sheku Kanneh Mason joins young cellists for mass performance at The Glasshouse

Sheku Kanneh Mason and young cellists from The Glasshouse [Photo: TyneSight Media]

After a tour with the Royal Northern Sinfonia and conductor Dinis Sousa playing Saint-Saëns' Cello Concerto No. 1 in Middlesborough, Gateshead and Kendal, cellist Sheku Kanneh Mason joined young cellists for a massed cello performance on The Glasshouse's concourse.

For the rehearsal and free informal performance, young cellists from The Glasshouse's Young Sinfonia and Centre for Advanced Training (CAT) programmes were joined by tutors, players from Royal Northern Sinfonia and alumni of The Glasshouse’s education programmes, forming a massed cello ensemble of 24 cellos alongside Sheku Kanneh Mason.

The day was part of The Glasshouse's Make Music Young People programme. After a rehearsal in Northern Rock Foundation Hall, the cellists performed on the concourse at lunchtime to a public audience as part of The Glasshouse's Lunchtime Concerts. These a series of free mini performances that take place throughout the year on Sundays which provide an opportunity to hear the music the young musicians from CAT have been working on, from classical pieces to folk tunes and brand-new compositions.

The Centre for Advanced Training (CAT) is part of The Glasshouses weekend school, which has non-auditioned, inclusive ensembles, bands and choirs for young people of all ages, and applications are open all year round.

On Sunday, the cellists performed a programme that included a movement of Villa-Lobos's Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1 and music by Gershwin and Joplin.

Saint-Saëns' Cello Concerto No. 1 - Sheku Kanneh Mason, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Dinis Sousa - The Glasshouse, Gateshead [Photo: TyneSight Media]

Sheku Kanneh-Mason said: “After my concerts in Middlesbrough, Kendal and then here at The Glasshouse this week, it was a really special conclusion to hear the young cellists play in the rehearsal and then to join them out on the Concourse, on Sunday morning.  The next generation of musicians matters so much and I loved seeing all the enthusiasm and hearing the talent."

Only love can bear the burden of truth: Ben Parry & Garth Bardsley on their new opera that premieres at Snape this Saturday

Ben Parry and Garth Bardsley's My Father Cannot Speak in rehearsals with Roderick Williams at Snape [Photo: Angus Cooke / Britten Pears Arts]

On 24 October, composer Ben Parry and writer Garth Bardsley's new opera, My Father Cannot Speak will be premiered at the Britten Studio, Snape Maltings with baritone Roderick Williams and an instrumental ensemble conducted by Ben Parry in a production directed by Garth Bardsley. The evening will also include Parry and Bardsley's song cycle, Songs For Girls Of A Certain Age performed by Sarah Connolly and Malcolm Martineau.

Whilst Ben Parry and Garth Bardsley have a long history of collaborating, My Father Cannot Speak is their largest work to date. A 70-minute one-act opera, My Father Cannot Speak features a single sung role, taken by Roderick Williams. I chatted to Ben and Garth during rehearsals at the Britten Studio and they were confident that they had created something listenable and watchable, that fits small venues and festivals.

The piece is a voyage into the relationship between a man and his father, as the man realises how little he knows about his father. With the birth of the man's son, he wants to find out more but his father is reticent and does not want to engage. Then the father has a stroke and cannot speak. By the end, the son puts words into his father's mouth as to why he cannot speak. At the beginning of the opera the man has an aria which is only completed at the end of the opera, as the man realises that we cannot know who we are if we don't know where were come from using an analogy of a closed museum.

The work is about the parent/child relationships, and the man undergoes a rite of passage as a middle aged man. His journey during the opera means that we see him maturing, he learns to grow up. He comes to regret that he cannot know his father, and comes to understand that only love can bear the burden of truth.

Ben Parry and Garth Bardsley's My Father Cannot Speak in rehearsals with Roderick Williams at Snape [Photo: Angus Cooke / Britten Pears Arts]

Having collaborated on Songs For Girls Of A Certain Age, Ben and Garth were looking to write a new song-cycle. Garth had started writing poems intended for songs for a male voice. One of them, My Father Cannot Speak resonated with both men. Garth's father was adopted and thanks to a fire all information about his past has been lost, so Garth feels a gap, that something is missing. Ben's father had a stroke and was only able to say 'yes' or 'no', any other response had to be written down.

So in many ways, the new opera is inspired by real events in the two men's lives.