Relishing the challenge: during rehearsals for their forthcoming production of The Marriage of Figaro I chat to Orlando Jopling about Wild Arts' ambitious touring plans

Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro in rehearsal - Ellie Neate, Danielle de Niese, Jack Sandison - Wild Arts (Photo: Anastasia Tikhonova)

Wild Arts is a small but dynamic company that presents music and opera, touring from its base in Essex, under artistic director and founder Orlando Jopling. This year the company presenting a new production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro with Danielle de Niese making her directorial debut and Orlando Jopling conducting. The cast features Jack Sandison as Figaro, Ellie Neate as Susanna, Timothy Nelson as Count Almaviva, Elinor Rolfe Johnson as Countess Almaviva and Abbie Ward as Cherubino. The work will be sung in a new translation by Danielle de Niese and Orlando Jopling, and accompanied by a ten-piece instrumental ensemble.

I recently went to join the company at rehearsals in South London where Danielle de Niese was working on the end of Act Two with Timothy Nelson, Elinor Rolfe Johnson and Ellie Neate, and afterwards I was able to find out more from Orlando Jopling.

In rehearsal, it was fascinating quite how much stress Danielle de Niese placed on the words. Not only focusing on meaning and sense, but stress too and trying different readings, and it was illuminating to hear how different inflections affect the results. It was also clear that the translation itself was malleable with Danielle de Niese and Orlando Jopling working on alternative readings to achieve the right effect. For much of the scene (the moment from the Count's entry) the attention was on the recitative and focusing on it as dialogue, but when the trio started Danielle de Niese was also paying great attention to the staging logistics, the farce elements.

Afterwards, when I chatted to Orlando he commented that the singers were loving the rehearsal process and really believed in the work. Danielle de Niese has evidently come up with some interesting solutions to the challenges of staging various scenes, and Orlando describes the overall intention as being like good TV drama where details make so much difference. They are rehearsing the recitatives by speaking them so that the music comes in the natural rhythm of speech and pacing. Orlando's aim is that people will forget that the cast is singing and that this will draw the audience into the story. They have also been doing a lot of work on the music of the recitatives themselves, thinking about the placement of the chords, what they mean and whether the chord precipitates the next line or references what has just happened. Orlando adds that Mozart and Da Ponte are so amazingly brilliant that the music gives the right shape to the drama with so much satisfying detail.

Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro in rehearsal - Wild Arts (Photo: Anastasia Tikhonova)

As regards the musical side of things, Orlando is the least of controlling of conductors. He feels that if the drama is right then the music will be right. He wants the impulse for the music to come from the singers' minds rather than insisting that they watch him all the time. He thinks that too often in performance control by the conductor is put ahead of the natural organic drama, responding to what the singers are feeling and thinking.

What fun, what larks: musical quality & deft comic action in Opera Holland Park's 1960s package deal holiday Cosi fan tutte

Mozart: Cosi fan tutte - Osian Wyn Bowen, Madeline Boreham, Paul Grant - Opera Holland Park (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Mozart: Cosi fan tutte: Madeline Boreham, Shakira Tsindos, Osian Wyn Bowen, Paul Grant, Elizabeth Karani, Paul Carey Jones, director: Cecilia Stinton, City of London Sinfonia, conductor: Charlotte Corderoy; Opera Holland Park
Reviewed 28 May 2026

Musical quality triumphs in Cecilia Stinton's over-active Italian package holiday-themed production with a young cast led by conductor Charlotte Corderoy really showing their Mozartian chops

When Mozart's Cosi fan tutte last appeared at Opera Holland Park (OHP) in 2018 [see my review] the young artists playing the lovers were Eleanor Dennis, Kitty Whately, Nick Pritchard and Nicholas Lester, all now well on their way to being distinguished names, and one wonders what a production featuring them would be like now. The sisters being somewhat more mature, perhaps having a holiday fling!

That 2018 production was also firmly and attractively set in the 18th century. For their new production at this year's Opera Holland Park, director Cecilia Stinton [who directed Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor here last year, see my revew] and designer Neil Irish have decided to take the opera's ideas of two women holidaying near Naples and give it a more contemporary gloss so that the sisters are on a distinctly modern package deal holiday. 

We caught the opening night of the production (28 May 2026) when Charlotte Corderoy conducted the City of London Sinfonia with Madeline Boreham and Shakira Tsindos as Fiordiligi and Dorabella [the two were in the 2023 Young Artist performance of Humperdinck's Hansel & Gretel, also conducted by Corderoy, see my review]. Ferrando was Osian Wyn Bowen and Guglielmo was Paul Grant [who sang Figaro in Rossini's The Barber of Seville in 2024, also directed by Stinton, see my review]. Elizabeth Karani was Despina and Paul Carey Jones was Don Alfonso, both OHP regulars.

Mozaart: Cosi fan tutte - Elizabeth Karani - Opera Holland Park 2026 (Photo: Craig Fuller)

During the overture we watched passengers arriving for holidays against a backdrop of a huge Naples travel poster. The mood was deliberately upbeat and at the end of the overture Fiordiligi and Dorabella were left, unmet, at the airport. The setup seemed to be that Ferrando and Guglielmo were American servicemen stationed in Naples, and both Don Alfonso and Despina worked in the hotel where the sisters were staying. Act One unfolded against a series of imaginative (and very funny) scenes as the sisters did the usual tourist activities. The men's disguises were as ancient Romans and dressing up became a theme as, when the sisters finally took the plunge they dressed up too, as did Despina and Don Alfonso.

Throughout, Neil Irish's designs made the most of very little, creating a series of imaginative and effective settings yet allowing scenes to flow. A single ticket booth did multiple duty - airport arrivals, hotel reception, ticket desk at Pompeii - thus ensuring we knew where we were! The introduction of quasi-erotic Roman frescoes during Act Two only ensured that the opera's underlying theme was emphasised.

Late Romantic: Richard Strauss & Erich Korngold violin sonatas at Conway Hall with my pre-concert talk.

Richard Strauss & his father, Franz
Photographed in 1901

On Sunday 31 May 2026, Italian-American violinist Francesca Dego and pianist Alessandro Taverna, who came to international prominence at the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2009, make their debut at Conway Hall in a concert that features the violin sonatas of Korngold and Richard Strauss, alongside Schoenberg's Phantasy, Op. 47.

Both sonatas are relatively early works, and both Korngold and Strauss were child prodigies, much influenced by dominant fathers. Both composers would eventually escape their father's influence with Richard Strauss taking on board the music of Wagner and Liszt, whilst Korngold escaped into the Golden Age of Viennese operetta.

I will be exploring this and much more in my pre-concert talk, Late Romantic which takes place at 5.30pm in advance of the concert at 6.30pm.

Further details from Conway Hall's website. 

Dowland 400 celebrations in Norwich

Performers at the Dowland 400 festival in Norwich

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the death of John Dowland. Numerous concerts, festivals and special projects are being held throughout the country to commemorate his legacy with Norwich at the forefront of the celebrations.  

The famous English Renaissance composer, lutenist and singer, John Dowland, is being honoured and remembered in Norwich on the 400th anniversary of his death with a four-day festival in July featuring concerts, masterclasses, talks and workshops curated by two renowned Dowland experts - lutenist Daniel Murphy and lute-maker David Van Edwards. Therefore, Dowland’s melancholic and beautiful music - either for solo lute, singer or ensemble - will be laid bare in all its ravishing beauty at Norwich’s historic Octagon Chapel in Colegate with the festival running from Thursday 23 July to Sunday 26 July.

Not only does Dowland 400 salute John Dowland - considered one of the defining and most famous musicians of the Elizabethan era - it also brings to life the lasting impact this pioneering musician had on music of the Renaissance period (circa 1400-1600) defined by a transition from single-line chanting to complex intertwining melodies. Driven by a cultural rebirth, this era saw the rise of music printing, secular courtly songs and expanded instrument families particularly the lute and harpsichord.

James Sillett: The Octagon Chapel, Norwich (Norfolk Museums Collections)

Fantasy & Fairytales, a return of the Opera Festival & The Rain Show: a busy year for Tête à Tête

Launched in 2007, Tête à Tête will be 30 next year! But this year the company shows no sign of slacking. From 3 to 6 July the latest chapter in their longstanding partnership with the Royal College of Music features five new short operas. Fantasy & Fairytales features new work created for young audiences; each opera opens out a different fantastical world, drawing on folklore and storytelling to explore human experience. The creative team includes director Bill Bankes-Jones (artistic director of Tête à Tête), conductor Michael Rosewell and designer Sarah Jane Booth.

Fantasy & Fairytales includes Daniel Musashi’s Ogga Loggas, in which ancient forests and age-old curses teach us the importance of looking after our world, and Lasha Kharkhelauri’s Ramona, a Georgian tale of love and upheaval set inside a puppet theatre as well as Asher Joyce’s Three Lives, Deniz Dortok’s The Boy Who Went to Find Fear and Ruvin Meda’s The Nightingale and the Rose.

Further details from the RCM website. 

And from 8 to 20 September, the company's flagship Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival returns to the Cockpit Theatre, Marylebone for new operas that include a quadruple bill of young composers. There are operas on the last eight days of Mary Queen of Scots, Frankenstein, and a Cornish-language setting of Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott. There is an international collaboration spanning Finland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Germany, opera from a Ukrainian composer, a Hong Kong artist, an opera exploring relationships between people and their languages, incorporating Cantonese 

Further details from the Tête à Tête website.

And just to show that the company spreads its wings wider than London, last month (20 to 25 April) they presented The Rain Show in Tyneside and Cornwall.  The Rain Show was a collaboration between British and Kenyan artists bringing workshops and performance into schools across North Tyneside and Cornwall. Delivered in partnership with Across Arts (led by producer Helene Mathiesen), and Baraka Opera Kenya, the project introduced young people to opera through cross-cultural exchange and culminated in a public performance on 25 April. The creative team featured librettist Nami Shah and composer Shaka Lwaki.

Further details from the Tête à Tête website. 

Donnerstags-Abschied: 2026 East Neuk Festival plans tribute to the late John Wallace with a work he wanted to bring to the festival but never achieved

John Wallace in rehearsals for ThunderPlump (East Neuk Festival Big Project 2022) with a young performer from StAMP (Photo: Neil Hanna)

The trumpeter John Wallace, who died in January this year, was born in Fife and his father played in the Tullis Russell Mills Band for 65 years with Wallace quickly joining the junior band. Wallace remained proud of his Fife roots and a vital participant in musical life in the Kingdom of Fife. He instigated multiple community orientated projects including StAMP, the University of St Andrews’ outreach programme.

StAMP has been a regular collaborator of the East Neuk Festival for many years, whilst Wallace took a leading role on three of the Festivals ‘Big Projects’ which brought together professional and community musicians as part of the main festival programme. These included the award-winning De Profundis which Wallace wrote with McEwan-Brown in 2017, to celebrate the lives of Fife’s miners and bring together massed brass bands, alongside Wallace’s own ensemble The Wallace Collection.

One project that Wallace discussed more than once (but never achieved) with Festival Artistic Director Svend McEwan-Brown was a performance of Stockhausen's five-trumpet Donnerstags-Abschied written for the end of Stockhausen's opera Donnerstag aus Licht. 

This year's East Neuk Festival, which runs from 1 to 5 July 2026 will feature two performances of Stockhausen's  Donnerstags-Abschied with Marco Blaauw leading an ensemble formed of John Wallace's friends and colleagues. Weather permitting it will be performed outdoors at sunset on Saturday 4 July, and indoors preceding the closing concert on Sunday 5 July.

Another proud son of Fife is celebrated in Looking for Oswald, exploring the life and music of James Oswald, the 18th century composer who was born in Crail. The event mixes words from Tom Davison (who has written a book about Oswald) with music from Karen Marshalsay, harps, Kathryn Nicholl, fiddle, Chris Miles, voice.

The festival opens with an intriguing concert when Scotland’s finest jazz pianist Fergus McCreadie will play Brahms' Four Ballades, Op. 10 before taking these as inspiration for his own improvisations plus duos and trios with Su-a Lee (cello) and Donald Grant (violin).

There are three quartets at the festival, Opus13, Cuarteto Quiroga, Calidore Quartet and the three will share out Beethoven's Razumovsky Quartets and spread performances across the Saturday. Alongside thise, Cuarteto Quiroga is joined by Christian Zacharias for Schubert's Trout Quintet, Opus 13 quartet play Images from the Floating World, a piece by Swedish composer Britta Byström inspired by Njál’s Saga, and Calidore Quartet perform Arietta, a work by Mark-Anthony Turnage inspired by Beethoven's late piano sonatas.

Other music includes Llŷr Williams performing Schumann’s Kreisleriana, the Tallis Scholars in all three Byrd masses, and the festival ends with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Maxim Emelyanchev in Mozart, Haydn and Stravinsky including ‘No word from Tom’ (from The Rake’s Progress) with soprano Anna Dennis.

Other visitors to the festival include Kolektif Istanbul, a traditional Turkish wedding band, oud player Rihab Azar who is joined by Scottish fiddle player Donald Grant, Scottish/Egyptian music from the Ayoub sisters, and English Concert Winds in Mozart serenades.

Full details from the festival's website.

A mix of melodrama & sentiment, yet unashamedly enjoyable: Opera Holland Park open the season in terrific form with Puccini's La fanciulla del West

Puccini: La fanciulla de West - José de Eça, Robert Hayward - Opera Holland Park, 2026 (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Puccini: La fanciulla del West; Amanda Echalaz, José de Eça, Robert Hayward, Zwakele Tshabalala, Alaric Green, Aidan Edwards, Blaise Malaba, director: Martin Lloyd Duncan, City of London Sinfonia, conductor: Matthew Kofi Waldren; Opera Holland Park
Reviewed 26 May 2026

With two leads who soar and vivid sense of ensemble, Opera Holland Park launches its 30th season with a production that should win plenty of hearts and minds for Puccini's surprisingly sophisticated Wild West opera

Puccini's 1910 opera La fanciulla del West premiered at the Met in New York to great acclaim but failed to make a regular place for itself in the opera house. When the Met mounted a new production in 1961 it was the first time the company had performed the work in 30 years. Covent Garden's 1977 production, originally intended for the 1976 American Centennial celebrations, featured Carol Neblett and Placido Domingo and the production's subsequent filming made its very influential. This production was a regular at Covent Garden until 2008. Since then both Opera North and English National Opera have produced the work (both in 2014). Opera North revived their production in 2021, but the work has never returned to the London Coliseum alas. 

Opera Holland Park had productions in 2004 and 2014, with Grange Park Opera producing it in 2008 and 2016 [see my review]. When I attended Opera Holland Park's 2014 performance I commented on how many people had not seen the opera before, and the situation has hardly changed.

It remains a challenging work to produce because the basic premise is so specific, yet somewhat resistant to naturalism. When Richard Jones directed it for English National Opera in 2014 [see my review] he talked about not tinkering with the opera's complex mechanism. It is not a piece that responds well to creative dissonance, so the 1950s Las Vegas casino setting for Stephen Barlow's production at Opera Holland Park 2014 was less successful [see my review].

Puccini: La fanciulla de West - Amanda Echalaz, José de Eça - Opera Holland Park, 2026 (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Yet the opera has oddities which mitigate against complete naturalism. The work opens with the men rushing into the Polka saloon, the language is Italian, yet there are odd awkward English phrases and the card game that the men are playing is Faro! It requires you to surrender to this world. For all their rough exterior, these characters have a strong vein of sentimentality and early on in Act One, Jake Wallace's aria keys into this as well as providing the source material and connective tissue for a lot of the opera.

Watching Opera Holland Park's new production where director Martin Lloyd-Evans and designer Anna Reid have chosen to set the work in 1849 as intended, I was struck by how much Puccini and his librettists, Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini, prefigure that combination of the projection of robust manhood with melodrama and sentimentality that characterises many of the mid-20th Westerns from Hollywood. And the ending with Minnie and Dick walking off into the distance is pure Hollywood too. Except, of course, Puccini and his librettists took this from Belasco's original play where the stage pictures conjured much. [Incidentally there is a 1938 film based on Belasco's play with songs by Sigmund Romberg!]

Opera Holland Park opened its 2026 season with Puccini's La fanciulla del West on Tuesday 26 May 2026 directed by Martin Lloyd-Evans and conducted by Matthew Kofi Waldren with City of London Sinfonia in the pit. Designs were by Anna Reid, lighting by Jamie Platt, choreography by Roisin Whelan. Amanda Echalaz was Minnie, Robert Hayward was Jack Rance, José de Eça was Dick Johnson, Zwakele Tshabalala was Nick, Alaric Green was Ashby, Aidan Edwards was Sonora. Freddie Tong and Kezia Bienek were Billy Jackrabbit and Wowkle, Blaise Malaba was Jake Wallace, Ronald Nairne was Jose Castro.

Puccini: La fanciulla de West - Opera Holland Park, 2026 (Photo: Craig Fuller)

The seven other named miners were played by members of the Opera Holland Park Chorus - Jamie Formoy, Joe Ashmore, Michael Temporal Darell, Dominick Felix, Hugh Beckwith, Matthew Duncan, Samuel Snowden - whilst another chorus member, Robert Jenkins play the Pony Express rider.

Thomas Adès as Principal Guest Conductor, Sir James MacMillan as Featured Composer: The Hallé Orchestra & Kahchun Wong's 2026/27 season

The Hallé Orchestra's 2026/27 season has a striking focus on contemporary music as well as celebrating both Kahchun Wong's third season as Principal Conductor & Artistic Advisor and Conductor Emeritus Sir Mark Elder's 80th birthday.

Composer and conductor Thomas Adès has had a relationship with the Orchestra for some thirty years. From 1993-1999, he was the orchestra’s Composer-in-Association then in 1996, his piece These Premises Are Alarmed was commissioned and premiered by the Hallé for the opening of The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester’s concert hall and home of the orchestra. In July 2025 the Hallé’s own label released an acclaimed recording of Adès conducting his Aquifer and Dawn, alongside works by Oliver Leith and William Marsey. Building on this he has been announced as Principal Guest Conductor. He will three concerts, which he has curated including his own works including Asyla, ...but all shall be well, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (with Kirill Gerstein) alongside premieres by Gabriella Smith and Francisco Coll and music by Stravinsky, Elgar, Berg, Chabrier and Gerald Barry.

Sir James MacMillan becomes the Hallé’s Featured Composer with the world premiere of his Symphony No.6 opening the Orchestra's season conducted by Kahchun Wong alongside Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 with Sir Stephen Hough. Other MacMillan works include ;Timotheus, Bacchus & Cecilia, his Christmas Oratorio will be conducted by Sir Mark Elder, and his Seven Last Words from the Cross with the BBC Singers will feature at a new Easter Festival alongside Bach’s St John Passion with the Hallé Choir conducted by Laurence Cummings. Larghetto for Orchestra is performed by the Hallé Youth Orchestra playing Side-by-side with the Orchestra.

Featured Artist violinist Leila Josefowicz will perform Thomas Adès’ Violin Concerto ‘Concentric Paths' and Ligeti’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. Jonny Greenwood, another Featured Artist, presents his immersive work, 606 Years of Reverb at Manchester Cathedral and a film screening of There Will Be Blood with the Hallé Orchestra in which he will perform the Ondes Martenot.

Other new music in the season includes works by Ravel orchestrated by Composer Emeritus Colin Matthews, Steve Reich orchestrated by Anna Clyne, John Casken, Priaulx Rainier and Joan Tower. 

One novelty will be a rare performance of Offenbach's operetta Barkouf conducted by Paul Daniel and being presented in association with Opera Rara who are recording the work.

The winner of the 2026 Siemens Hallé International Conductors Competition, Aku Sorensen, begins his role as the Hallé’s Assistant Conductor and Music Director of the Hallé Youth Orchestra. The 2026 winner of the Terence Judd-Hallé Award, Lukas Sternath, performs Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.3 with the Hallé and as part of the chamber series at Hallé St Peter’s. 

Full details from the Orchestra's website.

A shared encounter between contemporary music & art: Alex Mills's debut album Look How Brightly has a physical manifestation as an exhibition

Susan Rocklin: Realm - featured in Look How Brightly at Apsara Studio

Composer Alex Mills's Look How Brightly is his debut album on Delphian, presenting a body of work shaped over a decade, bringing together ten of his most personal and uncompromising pieces performed by CHROMA and contralto Jess Dandy. But it isn't just an album.

From 4 to 20 June, Alex Mills has co-curated a linking exhibition Look How Brightly. Described as 'shared encounter between contemporary music and art' the exhibition is co-curated by Jenn Ellis and is being presented by Aspara Studio in London.

Look How Brightly reimagines the album launch as a site of encounter, contemplation, and intimate exchange between contemporary music and art. The exhibition brings together work by 22 international artists that unpack the emotional and conceptual world of Mills’ album. 

Central to Mills’s body of work is a preoccupation with unison and fragmentation: musical lines that move together, unravel, fall apart, transform, and reintegrate. Drawing on influences as diverse as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, trauma studies, psychological theories, and grieving rituals, Mills likens these musical processes to the cyclical and bittersweet nature of human experience — how we continually break down, transform, and regather ourselves as we negotiate the many different parts of who we are.  

In the exhibition, artworks form a “visual orchestra”, each artist contributing a distinct expression to a larger emotional whole. Throughout the space, a balance of paintings and sculpture explore themes ranging from embodiment, grief, and transformation to time, memory and the natural world, tracing the fragile balance between fragmentation and reintegration, control and surrender, presence and disappearance. These works are held together by the music from Mills’s album as it permeates the space — itself fragmented, reimagined, and further “worked through” in a special presentation created uniquely for the exhibition and heard with vivid clarity on equipment supplied by legendary hi-fi specialists, Audio Gold. 

The exhibition is being held within Pink Floyd’s former Britannia Row recording studios and production warehouse in Islington.

Look How Brightly streaming details, on Delphian, exhibition at Apsara Studio. 

  

A couple of memorable concerts in this year’s Norfolk & Norwich Festival were delivered by the Britten Sinfonia and Norwich Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus.

Britten: Les Illuminations - Elizabeth Watts & Britten Sinfonia at Kings Place, London (Photo: Shoël Stadlen)

Britten: Young Apollo, Bowles: Six Piano Preludes, Copland: Clarinet Concerto, Britten: Les Illuminations, Copland: Appalachian Spring; Oleg Shebeta-Dragan (clarinet), Elizabeth Watts (soprano); Britten Sinfonia, led from the violin by Zoë Beyers; St Andrew’s Hall, Norwich.
Walton: Henry V: A Shakespeare’s Scenario, Belshazzar’s Feast; Norwich Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, cond: Matthew Andrews, Ashley Grote; Roderick Williams (baritone), Alex Jennings (voice); St Andrew’s Hall, Norwich
Kaija Saariaho: Terra Memoria, Vaughan Williams, Barber, Webern, Mahler; Kleio String Quartet, Berniya Hamie, Andrew Hamilton; Octagon Chapel
Reviewed by Tony Cooper (11, 12, 20 & 23 May 2026)

At this year's Norfolk & Norwich Festival, the Britten Sinfonia concert focused on Britten in America while the Norwich Philharmonic saluted William Walton in all his glory, whilst the young Kleio String Quartet made a big impression in their concerts

Feeling disillusioned with Europe, Benjamin Britten spent a formative and productive period in North America from 1939 to 1942 with Peter Pears where he composed such major works as the song-cycle Les Illuminations, his first opera Paul Bunyan and Sinfonia da Requiem.

Thankfully, Britten’s time in America proved personally and professionally worthwhile paving the way for such grand and exciting works as his Suffolk-based opera, Peter Grimes. And when Britten made the dangerous sea journey back to England in the spring of 1942, he was officially registered as a ‘conscientious objector’.

One of the first works he wrote on arriving in America was Young Apollo based on the final lines of John Keats’ poem Hyperion showing the image of Apollo as a ‘new, dazzling Sun-god, quivering with radiant vitality’. A delightful ten-minute piece and one of the few works Britten wrote for piano and orchestra, the commission came from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Receiving its first performance in August 1939 on CBC Radio with Britten as the solo pianist, the work’s characterized by a scintillating opening fanfare followed by a host of rapid and cascading glissando passages cutting through the sweeping, heroic textures of the strings comfortably played with flourish, flair and everything else by the renowned pianist, Huw Watkins, who often collaborates with the Britten Sinfonia.

Ashley Grote rehearsing the Norwich Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra in Walton's Belshazzar's Feast at St Andrew's Hall, Norwich for Norfolk & Norwich Festival

I felt it appropriate, too, that Copland shared the stage with Britten in this remarkable and well-curated programme as both men enjoyed a close personal and professional relationship. Copland acted as a mentor and friend to Britten assisting him in navigating the American musical scene while introducing him to influential people.

From the Caribbean to Brazil with a bit of New Orleans on the way... Brixton Chamber Orchestra's Streetband Parade 2026

Brixton Chamber Orchestra took to the streets yesterday (Sunday 24 May 2026) for their Streetband Parade. The band consisted of brass (including, of course, a Sousaphone) and woodwind, along with electric guitar and drums. We all met on Rush Common at the foot of Brixton Hill then made our way by a circuitous route uphill to Holmewood Gardens where there was an impromptu picnic and concert.

Preparing to set off from Rush Common

The music was described as "From the Caribbean to Brazil with a bit of New Orleans on the way...". And of course, being Brixton there was rap too (a young man had the unenviable task of pedalling a cargo bike uphill bearing amp, power source and such). 

And a steel band. They formed a separate 'parade' and spelled the streetband, with the two playing together at the end.

Holmewood Gardens

The weather was kind, the music fun. People watched from their houses, joined the parade and had a great time. 

The whole thing was free, but Brixton Chamber Orchestra can only function with our support, so please be generous. And you can keep an eye on what's coming next via the website.

Leeds is alive with the Sound of Music

Opera North is at it again, serenading unsuspecting Leeds shoppers with music from their shows. Last year it was Anna Dennis singing the Queen of the Night in Trinity Leeds shopping centre, and this year it is Katie Bird as Maria in The Sound of Music having her Julie Andrews moment not on a hill but on the balcony of the Queens Hotel. The clip above fades out before the end, so it looks as if you'll have to go along to Leeds Grand Theatre for the complete thing.

The performance also marked a special week too, celebrating the 65th anniversary of The Sound of Music first arriving on London's West End. On 18 May 1961, the musical premiered at the Palace Theatre and subsequently ran for 2,385 performances. 

The original Broadway production had featured Mary Martin, but in the West End, Maria was played by British actress Jean Bayless (who would later feature in Crossroads on TV) with Constance Shacklock as the Mother Abbess. Shacklock had shared the title role in Britten's Gloriana with Joan Cross in 1953, and in 1949 when Joan Hammond travelled to Russia, singing Tatiana in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Shacklock played Olga.

Opera North presents Rogers & Hammerstein's The Sound of Music at Leeds Grand Theatre from 9 July to 1 August 2026. Oliver Rundell conducts, Nikolai Foster directs with a cast including Katie Bird, Edward Bennett and Katherine Broderick.

Full details from Opera North's website. 

Capella Edina: how Luis Schmidt, a young conductor from Munich, came to found Edinburgh's first professional philharmonic orchestra in almost ninety years

Luis Schmidt & Capella Edina (Photo: Euan Robertson)

Luis Schmidt, a conductor from Munich who has just turned 22, founded Capella Edina in Edinburgh in 2024, the city's first professional philharmonic orchestra in almost ninety years. For its second season in 2026, Capella Edina is presenting four concerts at venues from the Caird Hall in Dundee to the Usher Hall in Edinburgh. The second concert of their season, Spring is at the Usher Hall on 3 June when Luis Schmidt conducts Capella Edina in music by Vaughan Williams, Britten and Copland.

The orchestra and its location came about through a series of circumstances. Luis moved to Newcastle to study for his degree and was introduced to Edinburgh by a friend who was working there. On his first visit to the city, Luis fell in love with it. He also took on board his friend's comment that Edinburgh did not have its own professional orchestra. Also whilst studying in Newcastle Luis met the conductor Robert Ames through the Royal Northern Sinfonia. Amongst Ames's advice to a young conductor was the suggestion that he form his own orchestra, that way you learn who to do things. And Luis would also get the same advice from his teacher in Germany, Bruno Weil.

Luis felt that if he was going to found an orchestra he was going to do it properly and Edinburgh seemed the obvious choice. Not only did it not have a resident professional orchestra but Luis enjoyed the city a lot. There were discussions with the Musicians Union about pay and conditions, something that Luis thought important if the orchestra was to contribute to the local area. Also these conversations helped with the process of finding players.

The orchestra now has a core of players who do most of the concerts. And Luis enjoys the fact that he is meeing different people yet has something in common with them. All the players, he feels, take pleasure in sharing their joy with the audience. The orchestra is reliant on philanthropy and ticket sales for its income, with private support plus support from trusts and foundations. They do not receive anything from the council. Currently the orchestra is run by a small team, there are just three of them (with two of those part-time).

Luis comments that it would be nice to get to the stage where the orchestra was self-sufficient and that donations would elevate them. He would like to be able to afford to do semi-staged operas, and to do outreach work. But he feels that there is an advantage to being lean, and he points out that there is a lot of machinery behind many established orchestras. Orchestras are cost intensive and it is a challenge reducing costs without limiting the artists or artistic quality.

One of the focuses of the orchestra from Luis's point of view is the wish to make music more accessible.

Luis Schmidt & Capella Edina at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Each song a story to be told: James Newby & Malcolm Martineau's Shipping Forecast at SongEasel in Elephant & Castle

SongEasel at St Matthew's Church, Elephant & Castle
Jocelyn Freeman

The Shipping Forecast - Elgar: Sea Pictures, Chabrier, Duparc, Medtner, Rachmaninov, Bantock, Ireland, Tippett, Eric Coates, Ives, Kurt Weill, Charles Trenet; James Newby, Malcolm Martineau; SongEasel at St Matthew's Church, Elephant and Castle
Reviewed 21 May 2026

A sea theme gives us a feast of story-telling in music from James Newby and Malcolm Martineau with Elgar's Sea Pictures alongside Loewe ballads and a wide-ranging selection of songs

The Shipping Forecast continues to provide a remarkable source of musical inspiration for recitalists. In 2024, Nigel Foster's London Song Festival celebrated the centenary of the first Shipping Forecast to be broadcast on British radio [see my review], and now baritone James Newby and pianist Malcolm Martineau are celebrating with their own take on the subject.

They brought their Shipping Forecast programme to Jocelyn Freeman's Song Easel on Thursday 21 May at St Matthew's Church, Elephant and Castle. The programme featured three of Carl Loewe's ballads (this year is his 230th birthday) along with songs from Elgar's Sea Pictures, and songs by Chabrier, Duparc, Medtner, Rachmaninov, Bantock, Ireland, Eric Coates, Tippett, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Ives, Kurt Weill and Charles Trenet.

The programme was divided into four parts, each one beginning with one of Elgar's Sea Pictures - Mysteries of the Deep, Invitation to Voyage, Exotic Isles and Desert Island Discs.

Every detail mattered: Basel Chamber Orchestra & Vilde Frang in Bach, Mendelssohn & Grieg at Wigmore Hall

Kammerorchester Basel (Photo: Matthias Mueller)

Mendelssohn: String Symphonies Nos. 4 & 10, Bach; Violin concerto in A minor, Violin concerto in E major, Grieg: Holberg Suite; Basel Chamber Orchestra, Vilde Frang; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 20 May 2026

In a varied programme the Basel players brought real vitality the music, making Mendelssohn's early symphonies invigorating and Grieg's Holberg Suite anything but hackneyed. But the centrepiece was a pair of Bach concertos with Vilde Frang in elegant, expressive and plangent form

The name Basel Chamber Orchestra has resonance, it is associated with the patron and conductor Paul Sacher, who founded the Basler Kammerorchester in 1926 and commissioned works from Stravinsky, Bartók, Martinů, Frank Martin, Hindemith, Henze, Lutosławski, Birtwistle and more. The orchestra disbanded in 1987 and Sacher died in 1999 though The Paul Sacher Foundation continues.

The present Basel Chamber Orchestra (Kammerorchester Basel) began life in 1984 as Serenata Basel founded by graduates of Swiss music academies. Since 1999 it has operated without a chief conductor and also that year the name changed to the present one. And listening to the orchestra today, one can safely forget any Sacher resonances, the orchestra is simply one of the best chamber orchestras around.

On Wednesday 20 May 2026 they paid a visit to Wigmore Hall. Directed from the violin by Baptiste Lopez their programme centred on Bach's two violin concertos (in A minor and E major) with violinist Vilde Frang, alongside Mendelssohn's ;String Symphonies Nos. 4 & 10 and Grieg's Holberg Suite.

At just 17, pianist Jacky Zhang becomes the youngest ever winner of the Sheepdrove Piano Competition at Newbury Spring Festival

Jacky Zhang at BBC Young Musician in 2024

In 2024 at just 16 years old, pianist Jacky Zhang reached the final stages of BBC Young Musician with a performance of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 described by judges as an "incredibly powerful, volcanic interpretation". 

Now 17, Zhang has been named winner of the 2026 Sheepdrove Piano Competition at Newbury Spring Festival, becoming the youngest winner in the competition’s 17-year history.

Zhang was awarded the First Prize of £3,000, donated by the Sheepdrove Trust, following the final of the competition held as part of this year’s Festival programme. As part of the prize, Zhang also gave a recital at Newbury Corn Exchange on Monday 18 May as part of the Festival’s Young Artist Lunchtime Series. 

The Second Prize was awarded to Nicole Wu from Canada, a student at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, while Third Prize went to Mayuko Narutani from Japan, a student at the Royal Academy of Music. Fourth Prize was awarded to Tomos Boyles from Wales, who also received the Audience Prize. 

Established in 2009 by the Sheepdrove Trust, the Sheepdrove Piano Competition is open to pianists aged 26 and under from the UK’s leading conservatoires and forms part of Newbury Spring Festival’s longstanding commitment to supporting emerging artists and young performers. 

Born in the UK in 2008, Zhang studied in the Royal College of Music Junior Department from the age of seven and now studies with renowned pianist Dmitri Alexeev. Alongside his piano work, he is also active as a composer, songwriter and producer, with interests spanning conducting, historical performance and music for screen. 

Newbury Spring Festival continues until 2 May, full details from the festival website. 

Richness & imagination: the all-male ensemble De Profundis continues its exploration of Morales with two masses based on L’homme armé

Cristóbal de Morales: Missa L’homme armé a4, Magnificat secundi toni, Missa L’homme armé a5; De Profundis, Robert Hollingworth; CORO
Reviewed 20 May 2026

The Morales Project moves to CORO and demonstrates the richness to be found in the composer's less-known masses when performing at the original pitch. 

In many ways, Cristóbal de Morales had a somewhat remarkable career, becoming the most influential Spanish composer before Victoria and probably the most famous composer in Europe between the death of Josquin in 1521 and the rise of Palestrina and Lassus in the 1550s. Yet we know so little about him and what we do know from surviving documents suggests a life that was restless, with its share of frustration and disappointment. He seems to have had a recurrent illness, which led to gaps in his employment, and whilst admired musically was a difficult character. He left some 22 masses (many from a pair of books published in Rome in 1544), along with magnificats and motets.

Mark Dourish founded the all male ensemble De Profundis in 2011 to perform Renaissance polyphony at the original lower pitch. One of the reasons why this is pertinent to Morales was that he came from the Spanish tradition of using high countertenors on the top line and in fact one of the reasons why Morales was able to travel to Italy was that Spanish singers were popular in the Papal choir with the falsettists reinforcing or supplementing the castratos.

De Profundis, conducted by Eamonn Dougan and Robert Hollingworth recorded two discs of Morales for Hyperion and now the Morales Project is on Coro with the aim to record the complete Masses and Magnificats of Morales. The third disc in the project (the first on Coro) sees Robert Hollingworth conducting De Profundis in Morales two masses based on L’homme armé, the four part and the five part. 

Curated By… Ben Nobuto: an intimate programme exploring the music, composers and sonic ideas that have influenced his artistic development.

Ben Nobuto (Photo: Jennifer Hawthorn )

Kings Place’s new Curated By… series places audiences at the centre of a composer’s creative world. For the opening event on 23 May, Curated By… Ben Nobuto the British-Japanese composer presents an intimate programme exploring the music, composers and sonic ideas that have influenced his artistic development.

The event features Festival Voices with violinist Rakhi Singh in 21st-century hockets, Notre Dame polyphony, Renaissance madrigals, and voices with violin & electronics including music by Pérotin, Carlo Gesualdo, Caroline Shaw, Catherine Lamb, Wally Gunn, Tom Coult, Meara O’Reilly and Paul Clark, alongside two works by Ben Nobuto, Sol which was written for the National Youth Choir and featured on their 2023 disc Young Composers 4 [see my review] and Face Anthem.

Describing the programme, Nobuto writes: "I always felt I came to vocal music through a side door, discovering composers and styles by accident and making surprising connections across time periods, like listening to music on shuffle. This is a selection of that playlist."

Full details from the Kings Place website.

From Beethoven & Britten to Caroline Shaw & Gavin Higgins: Royal Liverpool Philharmonic's 2026/27 season will be chief conductor Domingo Hindoyan's sixth

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Domingo Hindoyan (Photo: Gareth Jones)

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic's 2026/27 will be Domingo Hindoyan's sixth as chief conductor and his concerts with the orchestra feature a wide range of repertoire including a complete Beethoven symphony cycle over two weeks.

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is the UK’s oldest continuing professional symphony orchestra. The origins of the Orchestra’s concert series date back to the formation of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society by a group of Liverpool music lovers in 1840.

Hindoyan opens the season with Mahler's Symphony No. 2, with soloists Lucy Crowe and Natalie Lewis. Other highlights of his concerts include the premiere of a work by Dani Howard celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Orchestra’s partnership with Classic FM; Hindemith's Mathis der Mahler Symphony, Roussel’s Symphony No. 3 and Aleppo Songs by Syrian-American composer Kareem Roustom.

Hindoyan's Beethoven cycle features all nine symphonies across five concerts during January 2027, whilst Beethoven's chamber music is spread across the season and Liverpool Philharmonic’s 10:10 present Reinventing Beethoven celebrating composers who have been inspired by him including John Adams, Jay Capperauld, Samantha Fernando, Caroline Shaw, and George Stevenson.

Another anniversary is 50 years since Britten's death and the season includes the Violin Concerto with Simone Lamsma, the Cello Symphony with Guy Johnston, Suite on English Folk Tunes, Sinfonia da Requiem, Four Sea Interludes, A Charm of Lullabies and more.

The Orchestra's composer-in-focus is Caroline Shaw and works include the full orchestra in Observatory and a range of works with Liverpool Philharmonic’s 10:10, the Orchestra's contemporary music ensemble. The Orchestra has premiered and commissioned more than 300 new works over the past twenty years, and its Rushworth Composition Prize, which provides a range of opportunities for early-career composers. The winner of the Rushworth Composition Prize in 2018, Carmel Smickersgill has A Brick Thrown With Love premiered by the Orchestra at the BBC Proms. Gavin Higgins’ new clarinet concerto, written specially for artist in residence Mark Simpson receives its world premiere, marking the conclusion of Simpson’s residency.

Liverpool Philharmonic’s 10:10 showcase for new music from North West-based composers includes a world premiere from the 10th Rushworth Composition Prize winner Andrew Barney, alongside works by Mark Simpson, Grace-Evangeline Mason and Nneka Cummins, and a new work by 11th Rushworth Composition Prize winner Rob Hughes. The youngest ever finalist of the Leeds International Piano Competition, Kai-Min Chang, received the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society Award and gives the world premiere of Errollyn Wallen’s Acid Drop, commissioned especially for him as part of the prize.

Through its Made in Merseyside series, the Orchestra provides a platform for artists at every stage of their careers, from emerging voices to internationally recognised names, while supporting pathways from regional training to national and global stages, including through In Harmony and Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, which together reach over 2,280 young people in the city each week.

This season includes collaborations with Liverpool-born vocalist MT Jones, rising singer- songwriter Lucca Mae, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, and Bill Ryder-Jones, who reunites with the orchestra to mark the 15th anniversary of his debut solo album, plus contributions from North West artists such as Nneka Cummins and Timothy Jackson, and performances featuring Cumbrian mezzo-soprano Jess Dandy.

Principal Guest Conductor Andrew Manze opens the season and Conductor Laureate Vasily Petrenko returns. Guest conductors include Karel Deseure, Adam Hickox, Andris Poga, Kristiina Poska, Dinis Sousa and Joshua Weilerstein, alongside conducting debuts from Alena Hron, Kellen Grey and Bar Avni.

Full details from the Orchestra's website.

Unashamedly romantic with an expressive use of dissonance & sophisticated atmosphere: the music of the remarkably youthful Christopher Churcher on Resonus Classics

Moonrise: music by Christopher Churcher; Somerville College Choir, Oxford, Will Dawes; Resonus Classics
Reviewed 12 May 2026

Music by the 22-year-old Christopher Churcher revealing a sophisticated handling of his choral forces allied to a distinctive romantic impulse that gives the music a particular quality with his Pride Motets at the centre of the recital

Moonrise on Resonus Classics features the music of 22-year-old composer Christopher Churcher recorded by the choir of Somerville College conducted by Will Dawes. The music brings together his earliest composition at age 17 to recent works written for the choir during his undergraduate studies at Oxford with his Pride Motets, commissioned for Somerville College’s LGBTQ+ Pride services at the centre of the disc. He is the recipient of the NCEM Young Composers Award (2023) and the winner of the Bach Choir Carol Competition (2022).

Wonder, setting Emily Dickinson, is one of his earliest pieces on the disc and was originally written for the Sir David Willcocks Carol Competition. Gentle at first, what is most notable is Churcher's expressive use of lush harmonies.

Brass to the fore: this year's Cumnock Tryst is a tribute to the late Scottish trumpeter John Wallace & a celebration of the tradition of brass band music in the Ayrshire coalfields

The cooperation band

Sir James MacMillan's Cumnock Tryst returns with its twelfth festival, running from 1 to 4 October 2026, the festival brings together world-class international artists, leading Scottish ensembles, and young musicians from The Tryst’s growing community of local talent. 

A strong brass thread runs through the weekend, reflecting a tribute to the late Scottish trumpeter John Wallace, a longstanding friend of The Tryst who died earlier this year, and celebrating both Wallace’s legacy and the deep tradition of brass band music in the Ayrshire coalfields. The festival closes with a performance by The Wallace Collection (the brass ensemble Wallace founded forty years ago) joining with the cooperation band at Cumnock Old Church for Giovanni Gabrieli’s Canzoni et Sonate in Wallace’s own arrangement, a project he had been passionate about bringing to Cumnock. 

Other highlights include saxophonist Jess Gilham and euphonium player David Childs joining the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in James MacMillan’s Saxophone Concerto and the Scottish premiere of his Where the Lugar Meets the Glaisnock, a new euphonium work and the composer’s love-letter to the town where he grew up.

The Cumnock Tryst Festival Chorus joins the Wallace Collection for a programme of Vaughan Williams, Rutter, Ēriks Ešenvalds’ and premiere of a new commission by American composer AJ Harbison, with the chorus being joined by young singers from East, North and South Ayrshire. 

Other events include recitals by pianist Ethan Loch (the Scottish pianist who won the BBC Young Musician Keyboard Category in 2022) playing his own music alongside Gluck, Chopin and Liszt's Piano Sonata in B minor, and there are recitals from euphonium player David Childs and from the Jess Gilham Trio. There are Promenade concerts at Dumfries House showcasing young talent, including Kilmarnock pianist Ethan Chan, the South Ayrshire Chamber Singers and a finalist from the 2026 Scottish Young Musician of the Year competition.  Late-night Festival Club performances at the Dumfries Arms Hotel feature the Hannah Rarity Trio, the Seonaid Aitken Quintet, and Cumnock favourites CAMPS (Cumnock Arts Makes People Smile). 

The Unbroken Thread is the annual free sharing of work created by service users at the Riverside Centre and pupils from Hillside School in collaboration with Drake Music Scotland and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.  The Cumnock Hour with writer and broadcaster Stephen Johnson in partnership with the Boswell Book Festival, discussing his new book Music Lessons: Seven Composers and What They Taught Me. 

Speaking about the 2026 festival, James MacMillan said: "This year's festival is, in large part, a tribute to my dear friend John Wallace, who did so much for Scottish music. Through our brass and choral focus, we celebrate the tradition of the Ayrshire coalfields -- the world my grandfather knew as a miner and euphonium player. Honouring this heritage and John's memory by placing young Ayrshire musicians at the heart of the weekend, alongside his own Wallace Collection — who will perform the world premiere of a new commission from American composer AJ Harbison — feels exactly right for our twelfth year."

Full details from the Festival website. 

Meditations on life, death and Taoist wisdom: Phelim McDermott & Philip Glass's Tao of Glass, @sohoplace theatre

Phelim McDermott & Philip Glass: Tao of Glass - @sohoplace theatre

Director Phelim McDermott and composer Philip Glass have collaborated at ENO and the Met on Glass's operas Satygraha [see Tony's review of the 2018 revival at ENO] and Akhnaten, but now they are presenting something on a rather smaller scale. Tao of Glass opens at @sohoplace theatre on 30 July and runs until 12 September, presented by Factory International, Improbable and Nica Burns.

It is a smaller, more personal collaboration featuring ten pieces by Glass presented with McDermott’s expansively philosophical storytelling on the vulnerable, improvisatory processes behind these large-scale operas, with an ensemble of musicians and puppeteers to support these pieces. It’s a hybrid theatrical experience: part-concert and part-memoir, marrying ten meditations on life, death and Taoist wisdom. 

Philip Glass commented: "The show reminds us not to forget the wonder in the world, especially when the world makes us want to armour ourselves."

Tao of Glass was first presented in 2019 at Manchester International Festival. The show depends on silence, closeness and Glass’ delicate music, and so the acoustically sensitive space of @sohoplace will hold the audience more closely than ever before. 

Full details from @sohoplace website.