Celebrating with a flourish: York Early Music Festival celebrates its 50th edition with a new fanfare from composer Sam Meredith

This July, York Early Music Festival celebrates its 50th edition, running from 3 to 11 July 2026 under the title Beyond Borders, and featuring some of the UK’s most extraordinary medieval churches, historic buildings and the world-famous Minster.

To mark this special occasion has commissioned the majestic York Fanfare, Flourish at 50 to be played during the opening weekend. The fanfare has been created by composer Sam Meredith and will be played by the all female German ensemble [hanse] Pfeyffery. Wakefield born Meredith was finalist in the 2023 NCEM Young Composers Award, Meredith was selected from a strong line up of applicants, all alumni from the Young Composers Award, to be this year’s Commission Composer for the York Early Music Festival.  

The York Fanfare will open this year’s festival on Friday 3 July outside The Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall at the University of York at 6.20pm before the opening concert by I Fagiolini, and also outside York Minster before the concert by The Sixteen on Saturday 4 July at 6.45pm, 7.00pm, and 7.15pm. 

The festival opens with Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers presented by I Fagiolini with the English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble and closes with Solomon’s Knot in Bruhns’s St Mark Passion. Also appearing are: The Sixteen; B’Rock Orchestra & Vocal Consort; Imago Mundi; Paul Agnew, Helen Charlston with Sergio Bucheli and Steven Devine. The festival also marks John Dowland's 400th anniversary with Dowland Day, a whole day devoted to his works including concerts by lutenist Thomas Dunford; the Rose Consort of Viols; and Flanders based Imago Mundi, directed by Sofie Vanden Eynde. 

This year features two young European ensembles Anacronía from Spain, and the Franco/American medievalists Contre le temps, along with the York International Young Artists Competition with finalists I Mastricelli; Il Parrasio; La Mandorle; Lagrime; Nari Baroque Ensemble; Ossian’s Dream; Quarterino; The Lyons Mouth; and Tra Noi.

Full details from the festival website. 

Zelenka, a focus on India, new & old seasons: 2026 Viljandi Early Music Festival, Estonia's oldest festival in one of the countries most attractive historic towns

Viljandi is an historic town in southern Estonia, founded in 1283, situated on the north-western shore of Lake Viljandi and surrounded by forest. The town is notable for its ruined castle and collection of historic town buildings, along with green spaces, cultural attractions and culinary delights. We had a pleasant few days there in 2024 on our way to Tartu for a performance of my music.

Amongst the town's cultural attractions is the Viljandi Early Music Festival, the oldest festival in Estonia.  The 41st edition of the festival runs from 15 to 17 July 2026, this year under the joint directorship of Andres Mustonen (who founded the Estonian early music group Hortus Musicus in 1972) and Heili Vaus-Tamm (whom I first met in 2016 when she was part of the team presenting the Brigitta Festival in the ruins of the Pirita Convent in Tallinn, see my review)

The festival opens with Andres Mustonen conducting the Hortus Musicus Baroque Orchestra and Moran Singers Ensemble in Zelenka's Missa Votiva (Thanksgiving Mass). Zelenka wrote this festive mass for Dresden in 1739 where Zelenka had worked at the Saxon court since 1719. 

A new festival tradition is a focus on a particular country, this year India with an evening of Indian ragas and artists from India including Mukesh Sharma (sarod) and Moumala Nayak (Kathak dance) being joined from Estonia are tabla player Arno Kalbus and festival director Andres Mustonen.

Andres Mustonen directs Hortus Musicus Baroque Orchestra a programme focusing on the seasons pairing Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, in a version for cello and orchestra by Marcel Johannes Kits (who plays the solo), with The Seasons, a 12-part cycle by the Ukrainian composer, Leonid Desyatnikov. In 2006 a ballet based on Desyatnikov's The Seasons was premiered in New York by the New York City Ballet. There is a visual element to the concert too as audiovisual artist Iiris-Minda Paemurru will be creating a projection design inspired by the paintings of the artist Navitrolla.

Alongside these concerts are a lively programme of workshops including Indian raga and Kathak dance, craft events, a tour of Viljandi with live music, stage and theatrical workshops as well as archery and shooting!

Full details from the festival website. 

 

Vocal fireworks & extreme emotions: Franco Fagioli & the Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal de Versailles in music written for the castrato Velluti

Franco Fagioli with the Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal de Versailles & Stefan Plewniak in Divonne-les-Bains in April 2026 (Photo: Jean-Christophe Cassagnes.)

The Last Castrato: Arias for Velluti - Rossini, Nicolini, Bonfichi, Rode, Zingarelli, Mercadante; Franco Fagioli, Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal de Versailles, Stefan Plewniak; St Martin in the Fields
Reviewed 13 June 2026

Making its UK debut, the Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal de Versailles is joined by countertenor Franco Fagioli for an evening of early 19th century Italian vocal fireworks exploring repertoire originally written for the castrato Velluti

The castrato Giovanni Battista Velluti (1780-1861) is known for what he was rather than what he sang. Velluti is renowned as the last great operatic castrato, for whom Rossini and Meyerbeer wrote roles. Velluti came at a time when opera itself was changing: many of the composers whose work he sang wrote in a style which still looked back, Rossini and his operatic revolutions would ensure that opera changed and indeed left castrati behind. The title of The Last Castrato realistically goes to Alessandro Moreschi and those castrati who survived in the Papal choir and were recorded in early years of the 20th century. But in terms of operatic castrati, Velluti is definitely the last.

Under the title The Last Castrato: arias for Velluti, countertenor Franco Fagioli has been exploring this repertoire for a while with the Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal de Versailles and conductor Stefan Plewniak. They issued a disc on the Château de Versailles Spectacles label early last year and have been touring the programme. On Saturday 13 June 2026, Franco Fagioli, the Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal de Versailles and Stefan Plewniak presented The Last Castrato: arias for Velluti at St Martin-in-the Fields. Fagioli sang arias from Giuseppe Nicolini's Traiano in Dacia and Carlo Magno, Paolo Bonfichi's Attila, Rossini's Aureliano in Palmira and Mercadante's Andronico, and there was orchestral music by Rossini, Pierre Rode and Niccolo Antonio Zingarelli.

A portal into how we reflect the world around us now: violinist Violetta Suvini on bringing three world premieres to Cheltenham Music Festival

Violetta Suvini (Photo: Marleen Annema)

On 10 July 2026 at Pittville Pump Room in Cheltenham, violinist Violetta Suvini is joined by friends, Hana Mizuta-Spencer (violin), Dominic Stokes (viola) and Nina Kiva (cello) for Violetta Suvini and Friends as part of the Cheltenham Music Festival. The concert features the premieres of works commissioned from Jasmine Morris, Ben Nobuto and Imogen Davey, along with a performance of Britten's String Quartet No. 2. New York-based Jasmine Morris won BBC Young Composer in 2020 and has since written for the Viktoria Mullova Ensemble and Solem Quartet. Ben Nobuto made waves when his Hallelujah Sim, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, and BBC Singers, opened the 2024 BBC Proms [see my review of National Youth Choir's Young Composers 4 disc on NMC which features Nobuto's Sol and The nearness of things]. Imogen Davey’s compositions have been premiered as far afield as Seoul, Berlin, Barcelona, Helsinki and Melbourne, often using electronic, acoustic and visual elements in her work.

The Cheltenham project is the brainchild of Violetta, a violinist whose practice covers a remarkably wide range. Violetta met viola player Dominic Stokes whilst they were both at the Guildhall School, and they worked together including playing in Serenity 2.0, Ben Nobuto's work for string quartet, percussion and electronics that won a Royal Philharmonic Society award in 2023, as well as playing Jasmine Morris's SO-ŌN for string quartet, field recordings and found sounds at the Venice Biennale in 2025. Violetta had commissioned a work from Imogen Davey, Naegleria Fowleri for violin and electronics which premiered in 2023 [The name refers to a pathogenic microorganism, commonly referred to as the ‘brain-eating amoeba’, that can cause fatal brain infection!]

There is only a sparse repertoire for violin and viola, so the idea developed to commission new works. These would be able to include electronics because, as Violetta comments, this both reflects the time we are in and speaks to the younger generation. The three commissions in the concert provide a rich showcase for the combination of violin and viola, showing what it can do. When I spoke to Violetta she had recently spoken to all three composers and been reassured that their pieces were on track.

Focus on the flugelhorn: Imogen Whitehead's residency at Ryedale Festival champions an instrument that often sits in the shadows with new concerto by Gabriel Jackson

Imogen Whitehead with flugelhorn

The flugelhorn has its origins in a German type of hunting horn. In early 18th century Germany, a ducal hunt leader known as a Flügelmeister used a Flügelhorn to direct his wing of the hunting party. This developed into a valved bugle in the earlier part of the 19th century. It is similar to the trumpet and cornet, but its wider conical bore means the sound is darker and more mellow. It employs the same fingering system, so its similarity in size means it can be played by trumpet and cornet players, with some adjustment to breath and embouchure. 

 It is a standard member of the brass band and is occasionally found in classical music: there are flugelhorn parts in Stravinsky's Threni, Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 9 and Tippett's Symphony No. 3.

This year's Ryedale Festival is providing a chance to get up close and personal with the flugelhorn.  The Festival, which runs from 10 to 26 July, is presenting some 60 events in 40 venues across North and East Yorkshire. The Festival programme is anchored around five artistic residencies - The Gesualdo Six, John Wilson and Sinfonia of London, Van Baerle Piano Trio, cellist Laura van der Heijden and brass player Imogen Whitehead.

Imogen Whitehead's residency will be focusing on the flugelhorn and her appearances include recitals with organist Rachel Mahon at Ampleforth and with harpist Olivia Jageurs at St Michael’s Church Coxwold, and an appearance with Kirkbymoorside Town Brass Band (where flugelhorns will be in abundance alongside Whitehead's solo appearance) as well as a masterclass with young brass players from across the region.

But the heart of the residency will be the world premiere of a new Flugelhorn Concerto by Gabriel Jackson, co‑commissioned for Imogen Whitehead by the Ryedale Festival and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Charlotte Corderoy conducts Whitehead and the RLPO in the concerto's premiere at St Peter's Church, Norton alongside Weber's Symphony No. 2 and Beethoven's Symphony No. 4.

Imogen Whitehead is championing an instrument that often sits in the shadows and is at the heart of creating new music and a stronger future for it.  She is also taking an instrument most rooted in brass‑band culture and bringing it to the classical mainstream. This is not the first time she has championed the instrument in new music, back in 2023 she commissioned a new solo flugelhorn piece from composer Charlotte Harding. 

She is part of a growing cohort of women pushing into what has long been a very male‑dominated corner of the profession, and interestingly trumpeter Matilda Lloyd will be joining the Gesualdo Six at the Festival for a joint concert.

Full details of the Ryedale Festival from their website. 

Eight Days: Louis Mander & Louisa Petaï's new opera focuses on Mary, Queen of Scots' final days using her own words

Mary, Queen of Scots remains a character who continues to fascinate and inspire composers. Composers as diverse as Schumann and Richard Wagner set her poetry. Donizetti's opera though historically inaccurate continues to hold the operatic stage, and more recent composers inspired by her have included Thea Musgrave. Brett Dean's new opera, Of One Blood which examines the rivalry between Mary and her cousin Elizabeth, debuted at the Bavarian State opera last month and will be travelling to Santa Fe Opera, State Opera South Australia, and Garsington.

In September, composer Louis Mander will be debuting his own work inspired by the tragic queen, Eight Days. Written for soprano and chamber ensemble, the opera will be performed by Louisa Petaï who has also written the libretto based on Mary's letters. 

Louis Mander is no stranger to opera having written his first one in 2006. His recent output has included a comic operetta, The Dowager's Oyster (2015/16) and The Waves (2024) based on Virginia Woolf's novel. 

Eight Days debuts at Tête à Tête on 9 September 2026 before travelling to St Mary’s Church, Fotheringhay, the very location where Mary would have spent her last night before her execution at Fotheringhay Castle. The castle was almost totally demolished in the 1630s and little remains. Fotheringhay Church was begun as a collegiate foundation by King Edward III in 1430 though only the nave, aisles and octagonal tower remain of the original building.

On 1st February 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots, after twenty years of captivity, still remains imprisoned in Fotheringhay castle.  Unbeknownst to her, Queen Elizabeth I - her own cousin - has signed her death warrant.  She has only eight days left to live. The opera's libretto draws upon contemporary historical accounts and uses Mary's own words above all as Mary braces herself for death, yet still a queen, deliberately sows the seeds for her own enduring legacy as martyr and icon. 

Further information from Louis Mander's website,  

Familiar yet unfamiliar: with Summa, Cello Octet Amsterdam present Arvo Pärt's music in performances that are simply mesmeric

Summa - Arvo Pärt: Solfeggio, Silouan’s Song, Da Pacem Domine, Psalom, Missa Brevis, Summa, O-Antiphonen, Pari Intervallo; Cello Octet Amsterdam; 7K Records
Reviewed 26 May 2026

Arvo Pärt's music reinvented in his own versions for eight cellos superbly rendered by Cello Octet Amsterdam

The Cello Octet Amsterdam began life in 1989 when there were only two pieces for eight cellos. By 2009 they are eight cellists based in Amsterdam looking to create new music for the ensemble. They have now been performing with the same eight cellists for five years, responsible for more than 90 world premieres. Composers they have worked with include Philip Glass, Sofia Gubaidulina, Theo Loevendie, Nyokabi Kariũki, Sarah Davachi, Michael Gordon, and Kate Moore. After the premiere of his first piece for the Octet, Arvo Pärt said: “The Octet is worth its weight in gold. I discovered this ensemble 10 years too late.”

To celebrate Arvo Pärt's 90th birthday the Octet (Rares Mihailescu, Claire Bleumer, Geneviève Verhage, Esther Torrenga, René van Munster, Sanne van der Horst, Sanne Bijker, Alistair Sung) have released Summa, a disc of Pärt's music on 7K records. The album is the first-ever recording of selected works by Pärt reimagined for eight cellos, specially rearranged by the composer himself over the course of 10 years in close collaboration with the Octet. 

Finding his way home through a single voice: cellist Sebastian Plano on his new album, Solo, his most personal work to date

Sebastian Plano

Grammy-nominated Argentine cellist and composer Sebastian Plano announces the release of his deeply personal new album, Solo, arriving on 26 June.

For more than two decades, Sebastian Plano has built a distinctive musical language that bridges classical tradition, contemporary composition and cinematic atmosphere. Across acclaimed recordings, the Argentine-born, Grammy-nominated cellist and composer has become known for richly layered sound worlds that blend acoustic instruments with electronics, creating music that feels both intimate and expansive. With his forthcoming album Solo, released on 26 June, Plano strips everything back.

His most personal work to date, Solo is the first album of his career composed and recorded entirely for unaccompanied cello. The result is a collection of pieces that reflects a lifetime of movement, memory and transformation, distilled into a single instrumental voice.

Music has always been part of Plano's story. Born in Rosario, Argentina, into a family of musicians - both parents performed in the city's symphony orchestra, while his grandfather was a tango composer and bandoneon player - he began studying the cello at the age of seven and composing by twelve. Alongside his classical training, he developed a fascination with electronic music after discovering artists such as Vangelis, a curiosity that would later become central to his artistic identity. At seventeen, Plano left Argentina alone to pursue studies abroad, earning full scholarships to the United World College of the Adriatic, the Boston Conservatory and the San Francisco Conservatory. The experience of crossing continents, adapting to new cultures and constantly redefining notions of home would leave a lasting imprint on both his life and his music.

Those journeys form the emotional foundation of Solo. Rather than telling a straightforward autobiographical story, the album unfolds as a continuous musical arc, tracing themes of identity, belonging and change through a single uninterrupted cello voice. The pieces flow seamlessly into one another, creating what feels less like a sequence of compositions and more like a personal meditation on movement itself. That vulnerability lies at the heart of Solo. By embracing the limitations and possibilities of a single instrument, Plano has created a work of remarkable focus and honesty - one that explores not only where he has been, but what it means to continually evolve.

Ahead of the album's release on 26 June, we spoke with Sebastian Plano about improvisation, memory, Bach, belonging and the artistic freedom that emerged from stripping everything back to one instrument.

Verdi & the 50th anniversary of the birth of punk: La traviata from St Paul's Opera fuses Victorian morality with punk rebellion

St Paul's Opera in Clapham is back with their summer opera next month. Having delighted us last year with Doniz L'elisir d'amore [see my review], the company will be performing Verdi's La traviata from 2 to 4 July 2026 at St Paul's Church, Clapham.

The director is Edwina Strobl, who is Australian/Austrian, and who was the Young Artist Director at Opera Holland Park last year when she was working on Jonathan Dove's Itch and where she was Assistant Director on this year's opening production, Puccini's La fanciulla del West. 

For La traviata, we are promised a fresh interpretation of the work through a visually striking and theatrically dynamic staging fusing Victorian morality and with punk rebellion. The production highlights the radical nature of Verdi’s celebrated work and takes inspiration from the 50th anniversary of the birth of punk, inviting audiences to look anew at a well-loved opera. (The perspicacious amongst you will recognise the poster to be a riff on an iconic Sex Pistols image).

The music director is Adrian Salinero, the designer is Pin Chen and the choreographer is Agur Arrien. Violetta is sung by Lizzie Ryder (who we last caught as Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni with Hurn Court Opera, see our review) with Christian Joel as Alfredo and Owain Gwynfryn as Germont.  There is also a cover cast, who will be performing the family matinée on Saturday 4 July - Valerija Iljin, Tom Lidgley, Emil Vincenzi.

Full details from the St Paul's Opera website. 

 

La Clemenza di Tito: despite a lack of staging, Christopher Rousset & Les Talens Lyriques light up the stage in Mozart's great final opera at The Grange Festival

Mozart: La Clemenza di Tito - Aphrodite Patoulidou, Christophe Rousset, Les Talens Lyriques - The Grange Festival (Photo: Connor Apps)

Mozart: La clemenza di Tito: Jeremy Ovenden, Aphrodite Patoulidou, Maite Beaumont, Anna El-Khashem,  Ambroisine Bré, Adrien Fournaison, Les Talens Lyriques, Christophe Rousset; The Grange Festival
Reviewed 9 June 2026

A welcome opportunity to hear Mozart's great last opera in vividly dramatic performances that really reached over the footlights along with the sophisticated sounds of Les Talens Lyriques 

Mozart's great final opera, La clemenza di Tito has never had the regular place in the repertoire that it deserves. Coming after the three great Da Ponte operas and Die Zauberflöte the opera can seem something of a step backwards, towards the type of opera Mozart was writing in his teens. Following the premiere of Idomeneo in 1781, Mozart had a wish (unfulfilled) to rework the opera in a more Gluckian cast and something of this survives in the changes he made for the 1786 performance in Vienna with a tenor Idamante. The fascination with reworking traditional opera seria did not go away and whilst La clemenza di Tito seems a world away from Don Giovanni (both premiered in the same theatre in Prague), the libretto makes definitive moves away from Metastasio.

The opera remained popular after Mozart's death and was the first of his operas to reach London, in 1806, but in all probability it was not performed there again until the St Pancras Festival in 1957! Anthony Besch's 1974 production at Covent Garden played an important role in the rediscovery of the opera and this remained in production until 1989. Richard Jones's 2021 production there [see my review] does not seem set to take classic status. The work has been performed by English National Opera and by English Touring Opera but only Glyndebourne seems to keep the faith (their most recent outing was 2017, see my review). Otherwise, it is a festival work. Performed at the Edinburgh Festival last year, this year there are two different outings. Buxton Festival will be presenting two performances in July, and the Grange Festival has invited Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques to perform the work.

Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques were giving two performances at the Grange Festival (we caught the first on 9 June 2026) in association with Mozartfest Würzburg where they perform the work later this week. Rousset had assembled a very international cast. English tenor Jeremy Ovenden was Tito, Greek soprano Aphrodite Patoulidou was Vitellia, Russian-Lebanese soprano Anna El-Khashem was Servilia, Spanish mezzo-soprano Maite Beaumont was Sesto, French mezzo-soprano Ambroisine Bré was Annio and French bass-baritone Adrien Fournaison was Publio, with the Mozartfest Würzburg Choir.

Mozart: La Clemenza di Tito - Christophe Rousset, Les Talens Lyriques - The Grange Festival (Photo: Connor Apps)

The orchestra was on stage, which was a real treat, with Rousset also providing continuo piano. The backdrop, however, was a simple black curtain and the sound sometimes felt a little recessed, particularly when it came to the woodwind. The soloists were along the front stage, with scores and music stands. Thankfully these were hardly used and there was a drama and freedom to the presentation. Jeremy Ovenden barely used a score whilst Aphrodite Patoulidou's Vitellia prowled around the stage in a dramatically intense manner.

The Trial of Dhegdheer: a Somali folktale is the inspiration for a new community opera bringing together communities of Butetown & Grangetown in Cardiff

Robert Fokkens in the first community rehearsal of The Trial of Dhegdheer

A new community opera The Trial of Dhegdheer, to be performed in Grangetown in Cardiff on Saturday 13 June takes a Somali folktale as its inspiration. The folktale, about a terrifying cannibalistic ogress with one exceptionally long ear, offers a way of presenting a wide range of perspectives, from the complications of recycling bags to carriages of injustice and features communities of Butetown and Grangetown alongside professionals, with community participants as jurors, witnesses and the Judge.

Contemporary opera company Music Theatre Wales (MTW) and Fio theatre company are coming together for the event which will be directed by Fio artistic director Mathilde Lopéz, returning to opera following Out of Her Mouth, her 2023 piece on Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre with Mahogony Opera and her 2022 production of Carmen at Longborough Festival Opera. The artistic team also includes includes  poet, community activist and actor Ali Goolyad, electronic pop and soul producer/singer songwriter Eadyth, musician and producer Ani Glass and South African contemporary music composer Robert Fokkens. Design is by Gerald Tyler and Dotty Squibb with Gerald Tyler also providing construction and technical facilitation.

Gweneth Ann Rand who also performed in MTW and Fio’s The Jollof House Party Opera, will join the community cast in the central role of Dhegdheer along with local baritone Thomas Coltman as the Prosecutor and the performance will culminate in the traditional Somali singing form of Buraanbur led by Ifraax.

Further information from the TicketSource website. 

 

Now in its sixth year, Joshua Ballance's High Barnet Chamber Music Festival continues to offer some of the finest chamber musicians of their generation

Joshua Ballance at High Barnet Chamber Music Festival

High Barnet Chamber Music Festival has returned for its sixth season with a mix of the well-known and the not so well-known. Things kicked off last weekend with Song & Dance a free family concert for flute and harp from Hannah Gillingham & Lise Vandersmissen providing an introduction to chamber music for families.

Saturday 13 June sees the return of Mad Song, the ensemble founded by the festival's artistic director Joshua Ballance, with Fire & Water. This features Tristan Murail's La Barque mystique and Takemitsu's Rain Tree Sketch II alongside Scriabin's Vers la flamme and music by Anna Clyne, Oliver Knussen, Richard Causton and Ravel.

The following week features a concert by the Elmore Quartet, a young British group who were winners of the 2026 Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition and are currently Hans Keller Chamber Fellows at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Their concert includes quartets by Ravel and Shostakovich alongside Britten's early Three Divertimentos, Rebecca Clarke's Poem and music by contemporary composer Leo Geyer.

The Portrait Players (whom I saw earlier this year performing with Dame Emma Kirkby, see my review) feature music by Barbara Strozzi, Francesca Caccini, and their contemporaries along with music by contemporary composer Clare Elton.

The festival was founded during Covid to provide opportunities for some of the country’s most promising young musicians and it continues to offer some of the finest chamber musicians of their generation.

Full details from the festival website. 

Every nuance tells: Missy Mazzoli's Proving Up receives its UK premiere at Guildhall School

Missy Mazzoli: Proving Up - Sebastian Hill, Aidan O'Donnell  - Guildhall School (Photo: David Monteith-Hodge)

Missy Mazzoli: Proving Up; director: Amy Lane, conductor: James Henshaw; Guildhall School of Music & Drama
Reviewed by Edward Lambert (5 June 2026)

It was necessary to remind oneself that this was not a professional company. Amy Lane's production extracted every ounce of drama from the text and faithfully served the music

While student singers will understandably be keen to learn roles in ‘classical’ operas, there are advantages for them in performing new, unfamiliar works while in training. They can make such roles their own without regard to tradition or well-known interpretations. And the music colleges, with their resources and a huge amount of free labour at their disposal, may well consider it their duty to champion new opera when the larger houses can ill afford to take those risks. London owes a debt of thanks, therefore, to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for bringing Missy Mazzoli’s 2018 opera Proving Up to the Milton Court Theatre recently and there was no doubt that the young cast gave it their all and a lot more besides.

Missy Mazzoli (b. 1980) is a major force to be reckoned with in the USA and her operas flourish in the fertile soil of the American contemporary-opera scene. New operas by her will be premiered later this year at the New York Met (October) and the Edinburgh Festival (August). Her music is a far cry from the ingratiating, easy-listening style of Mark Adamo’s Little Women (seen at Opera Holland Park in 2022, see Robert's review) or even Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking (ENO, 2025). So, what with Angel’s Bone at ENO Manchester/London this year, Einstein on the Beach and Mazzoli’s own Breaking the Waves (ENO, 2027), American opera is fast conquering the UK’s contemporary-opera scene as well. (Meanwhile, the Royal Opera hasn’t yet managed to stage a single John Adams opera - an omission which is barely credible). 

Missy Mazzoli: Proving Up - Laura LeVoir, Miranda Kettlewell, Lowri Probert - Guildhall School (Photo: David Monteith-Hodge)

Unlike Breaking the Waves which is set in Scotland, Proving Up is American to the bone, its action taking place on the prairies of Nebraska following the state’s admission to the Union in 1867. The federal Homestead Act allowed migrants to claim free land if it was settled and cultivated for a period of five years. The process of supplying the required affidavits was known as Proving Up. It goes without saying that the legalities and fees involved excluded participation in the scheme by Native Americans.

St Magnus Festival at 50: a composer-led vision that still lives and breathes in the North

Founded in 1977 by a group including composer Peter Maxwell Davies and poet George Mackay, the St Magnus Festival is week-long arts festival which takes place at midsummer on the islands of Orkney. This year is the 50th festival, running from 19 to 28 June 2026. 

In this article, the festival's current artistic director, composer Alasdair Nicolson introduces his vision for the festival.

Half a century on from its founding, the St Magnus International Festival remains one of the UK’s most distinctive examples of what happens when artistic vision precedes infrastructure. Our 50th anniversary, celebrated this June, is not simply a mark of longevity, but a reminder of the continuing relevance of an idea first argued into existence around kitchen tables in Orkney in 1977.

The festival emerged from a meeting of local and artistic minds: the composer Peter Maxwell Davies, recently arrived on the islands, and the poet George Mackay Brown, and collaboration with the cathedral organist Norman Mitchell alongside a wider community willing to back what was, at the time, an improbable proposition. That a major international festival should take root in such a geographically remote setting required persuasion, persistence and a degree of collective faith. From the outset, it was not built around a venue or institution, but around a belief that new work and serious artistic engagement could, and should, happen here.

Mozart & Da Ponte admirably reinvented for a small stage: Wild Arts intimate & vividly engaging account of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro at Layer Marney Tower

Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro - Timothy Nelson, Ellie Neate, Elinor Rolf Johnson - Wild Arts (Photo: Lucy Toms)

Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro; Elinor Rolfe Johnson, Timothy Nelson, Ellie Neate, Jack Sandison, Abbie Ward, director: Danielle de Niese, conductor: Orlando Jopling, Wild Arts; Layer Marney Tower
Reviewed 7 June 2026

Danielle de Niese makes her directorial debut, encouraging a fine cast to give us a vivid yet magical evening in the theatre they drew us into the story, both gripping and entertaining

When I interviewed Orlando Jopling, artistic director of Wild Arts, in the middle of the company's rehearsals for their new production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro he said that his 'aim is that people will forget that the cast is singing and that this will draw the audience into the story'. [see my interview] Having a well-known singer make her directorial debut at the same time is perhaps not the most obvious way to achieve these ends. Danielle de Niese made her debut at the Met in New York as Barbarina in The Marriage of Figaro at the age of 19 and went on to sing Susanna there. But judging by her new production of the opera for Wild Arts she has successfully adapted to a new way of working.

Danielle de Niese's production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro debuted this week at the barn at Layer Marney Tower (we caught the final performance there on Sunday 7 June 2026). Orlando Jopling conducted an instrumental ensemble of ten, with Timothy Nelson and Elinor Rolfe Johnson as Count and Countess Almaviva, Jack Sandison and Ellie Neate as Figaro and Susanna, and Abbie Ward as Cherubino. Designs were by Laura Jane Stanfield. The work was sung in a new translation by Danielle de Niese and Orlando Jopling.

The production is compact: it has to be, Wild Arts tour to 20 wildly different venues. Frankly, the entire opera barn at Layer Marney would probably fit on the Met stage, but this has the advantage of immediacy. The audience is very close and farces always benefit from a sense of physical impossibility. De Niese's staging was vividly immediate and highly active, responding to the farce elements of the story with action that was highly physical and nearly constant.

Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro - Timothy Nelson, Jack Sandison, Abbie Ward - Wild Arts (Photo: Lucy Toms)

The setting was 18th century, with frock coats and panniered dresses and an element of formality in relations. We never lost sight of the fact that Figaro and Susanna are servants, not matter how privileged they are. Yet there was a vein of modernity in the reactions which made the production immediate, these were real people before us. De Niese's solutions to the challenges of the staging were imaginative and not always naturalistic; this is a farce after all. Yet she never lost sight of the characters on stage, these were real people with real emotions. When needed, things came to a halt, focusing on a single character.

Extraordinary in her time: Joseph Phibbs & Dominic Sandbrook's new opera, Mrs T, aims to explore Mrs Thatcher as a personality, see how she reacted to political events

Joseph Phibbs & Dominic Sandbrook: Mrs T - Lucy Schaufer as Mrs T in rehearsal
(Photo: Claire Shovelton)

Whether you love her or hate her, Mrs Thatcher remains an iconic figure but not a character who would immediately make you think of opera. However, ever since John Adams and Alice Goodman's 1978 opera Nixon in China (based on Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China), contemporary politics has proved surprising source-material for new operas. Now composer Joseph Phibbs and historian Dominic Sandbrook have teamed up to place Mrs Thatcher at the centre of a new opera. On 12 June 2026 at Kings Place, Mrs T: The Iron Lady Sings will showcase scenes from their new opera, Mrs T directed by Lucy Bradley, conducted by Lee Reynolds with Lucy Schaufer as Mrs T.

This will be Joseph Phibbs' second opera, his first was Juliana based on an updating of Strindberg's Miss Julie and first performed at the Cheltenham Festival [see my interview with Joseph]. Dominic Sandbrook is an historian best known as the co-host of The Rest Is History podcast. Their new opera is set against the backdrop of the turbulent 1980s, and it explores key events during Mrs Thatcher’s time in office: the Falklands War, the Cold War, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and the rise of patriotic nationalism that would eventually foster deep scepticism toward Europe, sowing the seeds of Brexit. 

These growing fractures – both political and personal – provide the dramatic impetus to transform a political symbol into a complex woman whose downfall carries the scale, emotional depth, and wit of a Shakespearean play.

Getting the keys to the toyshop: I chat to Ryan Wigglesworth about being Featured Artist at the 2026 Aldeburgh Festival featuring him as conductor, composer, & chamber musician

Ryan Wigglesworth (Photo: BBC/Gordon Burniston)

At this year's Aldeburgh Festival, which runs from 12 to 18 June 2026, the festival's Featured Artist will be Ryan Wigglesworth and over the 17 days of the festival there will be a chance to experience the various aspects of Ryan's career from concerts with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBC SSO), of which he is chief conductor, and the Knussen Chamber Orchestra, to a semi-staged production of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande and chamber music with friends and colleagues, all this alongside performances of Ryan's music and the premiere of his Viola Concerto written for violist Laurence Power.

Ryan comments that being Featured Artist means that to some extent he gets the keys to the toyshop and can help shape the festival. His performances are dotted throughout the festival but with hot spots at the beginning and end. The selections of performances bring the various parts of his life together, with orchestral performances, playing chamber music with colleagues which is a rare occurrence, and add in the premiere of his Viola Concerto.

Aldeburgh as a place is somewhere he has been involved with for a long time: it means so much to him, and he has always felt at home there. Oliver Knussen lived there and Ryan spent so much time with him there that the connection goes deep. Ryan adds that it is difficult to pinpoint what it is about Aldebugh, but it is a special place to work and the Aldeburgh Festival returns something of the founding ethos with friends making music together on stage. Britten and Pears created the festival because they wanted to do what they do but at home, and the festival has kept something of that ethos. This is why Ryan is drawn back to the place.

Ryan Wigglesworth conducting the Knussen Chamber Orchestra at the 2025 Aldeburgh Festival (Photo: Britten Pears Arts)

Ryan's own works are usually tied to the performers for whom they were written. His Piano Concerto (2019), which he and the BBCSSO perform at Aldeburgh this year with Steven Osborne, was written for Marc-Andre Hamelin but pianist Steven Osborne has performed it a few times. What is important to Ryan are relationships that go beyond just the odd concert together, with performers such as Osborne and violist Laurence Power for whom Ryan has written his Viola Concerto. Ryan takes pleasure in getting to know them as musicians, and this is when the ideas come, when he has a player's particular sound in his head. He comments that Power has a unique sound and that he is built to get a sound out of the viola. For Ryan, Power has such a personal approach to everything he that it is a special gift to hear his own music played by Power. Also at the festival, Ryan and soprano Sophie Bevan are performing Ryan's song cycle Till Dawning (from 2018, setting poetry by George Herbert). The cycle was written for Sophie Bevan and as she is Ryan's wife he describes this as the deepest collaboration of all.

Beautifully well-matched casting & superb singing brings alive the latest revival of David McVicar's production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at Covent Garden

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro - Andrey Zhilikhovsky, Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, Louise Alder, Alex Esposito - Royal Opera House (Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic)

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro; Alex Esposito, Louise Alder, Andrey Zilikhovsky, Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, Svetlina Stoyanova, director: David McVicar/Lea Hausman, conductor: Bertrand de Billy; Royal Opera House
Reviewed 4 June 2026

Still in robust health, David McVicar's classic production benefits here from a fine quality cast, all beautifully well-matched, so we were enthralled dramatically and musically

David McVicar's production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, which is rapidly acquiring classic status, has returned to Covent Garden with a lively new cast. Revived by Leah Hausman (the original movement director), we caught the performance on 4 June 2026 conducted by Bertrand de Billy. Louise Alder was Susanna [last seen as the Countess at Glyndebourne last year, see my review] and Alex Esposito was Figaro with Andrey Zilikhovsky and Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha as Count and Countess Almaviva, and Svetlina Stoyanova as Cherubino [last seen as Sesto in Handel's Giulio Cesare at Glyndebourne, see my review]

This was the third or fourth time I have seen the production, and it remains as engaging as ever. McVicar's fondness for placing the action in the context of a busy household with actors as the household staff providing a lot of incidental comedy that manages to never quite pull focus. That said, I did wonder whether things had become a little broader or perhaps this was just familiarity. With any performance of this production, there is the risk that the sets or the antics of the household will take precedence in the memory over the performances. There is little chance for intimacy here.

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro - Svetlina Stoyanova - Royal Opera House (Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic)

From the beginning, Bertrand de Billy took a practiced view of the speeds, keeping things flowing but never allowing the music to feel too rushed. Nor did he luxuriate even though he had the wherewithal to do so in both terms of the voices and the orchestra. Recitative-wise, I always enjoy this opera on a smaller scale so that the cast can really move the dialogue along but the Royal Opera House is hardly the space for that.

Mining the contemporary: two American opera releases by Ricky Ian Gordon & Tobias Picker take inspiration from the AIDS crisis & an historical figure of trans identity

Tobias Picker: Lili Elbe - Lucia Lucas - Theater St. Gallen 2023

Ever since John Adams and Alice Goodman focused on Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China, contemporary opera (and contemporary American opera in particular) has mined recent events and politics for themes. Two recordings scheduled for release during July and August highlight this. In July, Bright Shiny Things releases the premiere recording of Tobias Picker's Lili Elbe, first grand opera created for and about a historical figure of trans identity, and then in August Blue Griffin Records issue Ricky Ian Gordon's The Tibetan Book of the Dead: An Opera, a work from 1995 intimately bound up in the AIDS crisis.

Tobias Picker's Lili Elbe centres on the life of Danish painter Lili Elbe, one of the first known recipients of multiple experimental gender confirmation surgeries, which tragically ended her life. The work was premiered at the Theater St. Gallen in Switzerland in 2023 [see my article] and recorded live at the dress rehearsal. This recording is being issued in August to coincide with the American premiere of the work at the Santa Fe Opera Festival, where Picker's first opera Emmeline premiered 30 years ago.

The work has a libretto by Aryeh Lev Stollman, Picker's partner of over 45 years, novelist, and neuroradiologist at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City. Much of the material derives from historical sources. Picker who is drawn to writing operas about strong female protagonists, described Lili’s longing to fully inhabit womanhood as profoundly operatic -- a psychological and emotional conflict he sees as no less intense than that of typical operatic tragic heroines.

The title role was written for transgender baritone Lucia Lucas who sings on the recording and at Santa Fe and as does soprano Sylvia D’Eramo in the role of Gerda Wegener. The recording features Modestas Pitrėnas conducting the Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen.

Tobias Picker's Lili Elbe is released on Bright Shiny Things on 31 July 2026, and opens at Santa Fe Opera on 1 August.

Ricky Ian Gordon: The Tibetan Book of the Dead: An Opera
Eric Owens, Jonita Lattimore, Frank Hernandez - 1996 (Photo: Jim Caldwell)

Blue Griffin Records' recording of Ricky Ian Gordon's 1995 opera, The Tibetan Book of the Dead: An Opera is based on restored archival recordings made at The American Music Theater Festival in June 1996. The opera was co-commissioned by Houston Grand Opera and The American Music Theatre Festival and is inspired by ancient Tibetan Buddhist teachings, depicting epic journey of a dying soul through a series of spiritual and emotional planes along the road of rebirth.

The background to the opera is the AIDS crisis and the libretto dramatises, in seventeen scenes, the death of an individual, the journey through the "bardo," (in between) and the rebirth. The work's origins are intertwined with Ricky Ian Gordon's relationship at the time, with Jeffrey Grossi, who was already living with HIV when they first met. It was Grossi who encouraged the composer to learn Buddhist teachings and immerse himself in Sogyal Rinpoche's 1992 book The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. [Sogyal Rinpoche was a Tibetan Buddhist teacher who would eventually become a not uncontroversial figure - see the BBC article on his death in 2019] 

The opera came together relatively quickly. David Gockley, who had asked Gordon for a commission for Houston Grand Opera, suggested the book as a source for an opera and a libretto was created within two days. Despite his illness and largely being confined to bed, Jeffrey Grossi was able to see one of the Philadelphia performances of the opera, where archival tapes were made. 

It was these tapes that became the basis for the new release. Whilst working on his memoir Seeing Through: A Chronicle of Sex, Drugs, and Opera, Gordon wondered whether the archive tapes could be made viable. The final product is the result of painstaking work on the originals. The recording features artists from The Houston Grand Opera studio: baritone Frank Hernandez, bass Eric Owens, sopranos Nicole Heaston and Jonita Lattimore, mezzo-sopranos Beth Clayton and Jill Grove, tenors John McVeigh and Gabriel Gonzalez, and Orchestra 2001 conducted by Charles Prince.

Ricky Ian Gordon's The Tibetan Book of the Dead: An Opera is released on Blue Griffin Records on 14 August 2026.

A 4,000-year-old lullaby inspires Freya Waley Cohen's new piece for sister Tamsin as part of Lullabies programme with Cordelia Williams

Lullaby (noun) - A song sung to children to soothe them to rest. Also, any song which soothes to rest. (Oxford English Dictionary online)

Inevitably the idea of a lullaby is immediately associated with children but it can extend to any song related to rest and night. At the Southbank Centre's Purcell Room on Saturday 6 June, violinist Tamsin Waley Cohen and pianist Cordelia Williams are exploring lullabies including pieces associated with the atmospheres of night, slumber and dreams.

Central to the concert is a new work by Freya Waley Cohen (Tamsin's sister), Sweet as plum wine written for the performers. The piece is based on a 4,000-year- old lullaby text found etched on a Babylonian stone tablet in Akkadian cuneiform:

Little one, who dwelt in darkness
Now you’ve come and seen the sun.
Why the crying? Why the worries?
What has made your peace undone?
You have roused the household spirits
You have scared the guardian gods
‘Who has roused me? Who has scared me?’
‘Little baby woke you up!’
May you settle into slumber
Sweet as plum wine, deep as love

Freya Waley Cohen explains what came next:

"I memorised this text and started to sing it to my daughter at night. A sort of lullaby improvisation that quickly settled into a set melody. This melody is what you hear in this piece, and the piece is both a setting of my personal version of this lullaby, and a response to the ancient text itself."

The remainder of the programme moves from Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel to the famous Brahms lullaby, to Fritz Kreisler's arrangement of Dvorak's Songs my mother taught me, to music by Schubert and John Cage!

Back in 2024, I chatted to both Tamsin Waley Cohen about her work at the Two Moors Festival [see my interview] and to Freya Waley Cohen about her Spell book [see my interview]

Before the concert there is a talk Night Music: The Creative Power of Parenting, when Tamsin Waley-Cohen, Cordelia Williams and Octavia Bright discuss how parenting has affected their creative practices.  

Full details from the Southbank Centre website. 

In his passion for the music of Richard Wagner, Tony Cooper finds himself back in Germany attending Stefan Herheim’s widely acclaimed Ring cycle at Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Wagner: Das Rheingold - Deutsche Oper Berlin (Photo: Bernd Uhlig)

Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen; director: Stefan Herheim, conductor: Sir Donald Runnicles; Deutsche Oper Berlin
Reviewed by Tony Cooper (4 June 2026)

Auf wiedersehen! Following this Ring cycle, Sir Donald Runnicles bows out as General Music Director of Deutsche Oper Berlin, a position he has grandly held since 2009. 

From my hotel on Bayreutherstraße just off Wittenbergplatz, Berlin’s most fashionable department store KaDeWe stares me straight in the face while a quick three-stop tube journey from Wittenbergplatz drops me right at the doorstep of Deutsche Oper situated at the junction of Bismarckstraße and Richard-Wagner-Straße located in the western part of the city in Charlottenburg. 

Sir Donald Runnicles

A city I favour and enjoy so much, I’m in Berlin attending Stefan Herheim’s Ring cycle at Deutsche Oper, a large, comfortable 1850-seat theatre boldly designed in the Modernist style and simply ideal for large-scale productions. And none come much larger than those penned by Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss and. Giacomo Meyerbeer. 

In fact, I fondly recall enjoying Meyerbeer’s two great masterpieces Les Huguenots and Le prophète at Deutsche Oper Berlin in 2016. Both operas were written at the peak of his career in 1836 and 1849 respectively and the finale of Le prophète - culminating in fire, destruction and death - closely mirrors the catastrophic ending of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. 

Obviously, my mind is furiously on fast rewind, therefore I also fondly recall the final performance of Götz Friedrich’s monumental (and well-loved) ‘Cold War’ Ring that ‘lived’ on Bismarckstraße for an astonishing amount of time: 33 years, in fact, from 1984 to 2017. A disciple of Götz Friedrich, multiple-award-winning Norwegian director, Stefan Herheim, studied under him at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg from 1994 to 1999.  

Götz Friedrich crafted his ‘trade’ working as an assistant to the well-respected Austrian-born theatre/opera director, Walter Felsenstein, the iconic boss of East Berlin's Komische Oper in the early post-war years. His philosophy was that opera went beyond singing to encompass music-theatre: the intersections between music, sound and theatrical performance therefore Friedrich’s productions focused on pure dramatic and musical values which were thoroughly researched and, indeed, finely balanced. 

Such philosophy as found in Friedrich’s productions defines in my humble opinion Stefan Herheim’s direction. He has certainly crafted a brilliant Ring from the ashes of Valhalla to keep the Wagner flame truly alight at Deutsche Oper. He pulls no punches either and pays full attention to detail often incorporating ideological and historical references in his work. For instance, his celebrated 2009 production of Parsifal at Bayreuth, which I greatly enjoyed, used Parsifal and the search for the Holy Grail as a metaphor for the development of Germany as a Christian nation.  

Flow Interrupted: prepared piano performance by Teodor Doré in a space conceived by Zaha Hadid

Teodor Doré: Flow Interrupted

It's not often that I write about the London Festival of Architecture, but on 5 June 2026 Renaissance-21 is presenting Flow Interrupted, a prepared piano performance by Teodor Doré at Roca Gallery, London.

Set within Roca Gallery — a striking space conceived by Zaha Hadid — and presented in collaboration with Cluster, this immersive performance explores water, pollution, and belonging through a disrupted, evolving soundscape. The performance reflects on our fragile relationship with water through the altered voice of a prepared piano. Objects placed within the instrument - fragments evoking debris and pollution - transform its natural resonance into a disrupted, unfamiliar soundscape.

The result blends prepared piano, immersive sound art, and environmental installation,  

Teodor Doré is a London-based composer and pianist, a graduate of the Liceu Conservatory in Barcelona and founder of Renaissance-21.

Further details from the Roca Gallery website.