New music, rare Mahler, the Big Sing, Eric Coates & young musicians: Cheltenham Music Festival 2026

South Cotswold Big Sing Group

Artistic director Jack Bazalgette has announced the full programme for the 81st Cheltenham Music Festival which runs from 3 to 11 July 2026. Bazalgette, promises "a chance to bring all kinds of people together and take the temperature of classical music today, get really excited for its future, and expand our horizons ever further."

The festival opens with Nicholas Collon conducting Aurora Orchestra in Jessie Montgomery's Strum, Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 with soloist Benjamin Grosvenor and Mozart's Symphony No. 41 'Jupiter' played from memory.  David Crown will be conducting Cheltenham Bach Choir and the Musical and Amicable Society Orchestra in Verdi's Requiem with a terrific line-up of soloists - Ella Taylor, Rebecca Afonwy-Jones, Tom Elwin and Julian Close. Then the festival will be closed by John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London in a programme of English music from Vaughan Williams to Richard Rodney Bennett, with a focus on the music Eric Coates.

Another large-scale concert in more ways than one takes place at Tewkesbury Abbey when Adrian Partington conducts the British Sinfonietta and South Cotswold Big Sing Group in Bruckner's Te Deum and Mahler's Das Klagende Lied. Mahler wrote Das Klagende Lied between 1878 and 1880, then continued tinkering with it until the work was finally premiered in 1901. During that time, Mahler radically restructured the performing forces and reduced the work to two movements from three. Adrian Partington has opted to perform Mahler's 1893 revision which is still in three parts but reduces the performing forces somewhat (the number of harps in the first part being reduced from six to two, and the vocal soloists from eleven to four!). This is thought to be the first time that this version has been performed in the UK.

Soloists include pianists Mariam Bastsashvili (in Schubert and Liszt), Angela Hewitt (in Bach, Schumann and Ravel) and Pavel Kolesnikov (in an extended recital exploring Chopin’s complete Nocturnes). Siblings Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason have a duo concert, performing Fanny Mendelssohn, Nadia Boulanger, Robert Schumann and a transcription of Rebecca Clarke's Viola Sonata. Soprano Sophie Bevan and pianist Christopher Glynn join Harriet Walter for Shakespeare's Sisters featuring music inspired by Shakespeare alongside readings.

Senegalese multi-instrumentalist Dudù Kouate will be joining Irish folk musician, Shunya, and Jess Gillam Trio will deliver an energetic repertoire inspired by classical, jazz and folk.

The Festival's second Friday will feature a showcase concert for the members of this year's Composer Academy led by composer Laura Bowler, with the Carice Singers and George Parris. 

New commissions feature across the programme: Irish-Italian violinist Violetta Suvini and Friends will perform three world premieres – from Jasmine Morris, Ben Nobuto and Imogen Davey. Vision String Quartet will perform their own commissioned piece for the first time, alongside works by Mozart and Grieg, all from memory.

In exciting collaboration, Fantasia Orchestra will perform with Jasdeep Singh Degun several of the sitar player’s own compositions, including a brand new co-commission, In Search of Redemption. They will also perform, among other pieces, Terry Riley’s revolutionary In C.

The collaboration with BBC New Generation Artists returns this year with recitals from Astatine Trio, Hana Chang (violin) and Oleg Shebeta-Dragan (clarinet). Also returning will be the Festival's Concert for Schools and SEND-focused Relaxed Concert for Schools and Relaxed Concert for Families. And the winner of the Gloucestershire Musician of the Year, 18-year-old Herbie Asquith-Dixon (violin) will perform Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 with Gloucestershire Symphony Orchestra, conductor Glyn Oxley.

Cheltenham Bach Choir at Cheltenham Town Hall (Photo: Still Moving Media for Cheltenham Festivals)

For the Festival's opening weekend there are free pop-up concerts around town featuring a wide variety of artists from two brass bands, a saxophone quartet, and Tewkesbury Pub Singers to Iranian voice and guitar, Ukrainian bandura and voice, and Community "come and sing".

Full details from the festival website.

From Sappho to Strozzi to Errollyn Wallen: Nardus Williams, Elizabeth Kenny & Mary Beard's Women and Power at Wigmore Hall

Riana Duncan cartoon from Punch (1988) - From Flickr

Women and power: Maddalena Casulana, Isabella de’ Medici, Barbara Strozzi, Francesca Caccini, Settimia Caccini, Rosa Giacinta Badalla, Claudia Sessa, Errollyn Wallen; Nardus Williams, Elizabeth Kenny, Mary Beard; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 8 March 2026

Mary Beard brings out the political undertones and classical references in music by 16th and 17th century Italian women composers in pleasingly direct and intimate performances from Nardus Williams and Elizabeth Kenny leading to the premiere of a terrific piece by Errollyn Wallen.

International Women's Day at Wigmore Hall began with Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective in Fanny Mendelssohn's Piano Trio, plus music by Madeleine Dring, Amy Beach and Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, then in the afternoon violist Rosalind Ventris presented a programme of unaccompanied viola music from 20th and 21st centuries by Lilian Fuchs, Imogen Holst, Elizabeth Maconchy, Thea Musgrave, Sally Beamish, and Amanda Feery.

In the evening, Nardus Williams (soprano), Elizabeth Kenny (lute/theorbo) and Mary Beard (speaker) presented Women and Power, an evening that mixed 16th and 17th century Italian music by women composers with Beard's illuminating discourse and ended with the premiere of Errollyn Wallen's setting of Carol Ann Duffy, Eurydice.

There were seven historic composers featured, Maddalena Casulana (c.1544-1566/83), Isabella de’ Medici (1542-1576), Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677), Francesca Caccini (1587-1641), Settimia Caccini (c.1591-1660), Rosa Giacinta Badalla (c.1660-c.1710), and Claudia Sessa (c.1570-c.1613/9).

A rich feast of poetry, symbolism & mime: The Music Troupe in Edward Lambert's Lorca-inspired In Five Years’ Time

Edward Lambert: In Five Years’ Time - James Schouten, Chris Murphy - The Music Troupe (Photo: Claire Shovelton)

Edward Lambert: In Five Years’ Time; James Schouten, Rosalind Dobson, Mae Heydorn, Lucy Gibbs, Fiona Hymns, Jean-Max Lattemann, Chris Murphy, Thomas Stevenson, The Music Troupe, director: Walter Hall, music director: Alistair Burton; The Croft Hall, Hungerford
Reviewed by Chris de Souza, 1 March 2026

Turning the intimate space of the Croft Hall, Hungerford into a world of magic, The Music Troupe performs Edward Lambert's In Five Years’ Time, a rich feast of poetry, symbolism and mime, where Lamberts music adds and draws out something extra from Federico García Lorca’s words

If you were looking for interesting music theatre, would you look in Hungerford? Perhaps you should, because from time to time Edward Lambert turns up with his company The Music Troupe at the Croft Hall, and turns the intimate space into a world of magic. Never more so than on March 1st when they presented their latest production In Five years Time. It’s based on a surrealist play by Federico García Lorca, whose complex dream-scape, once believed unstageable, Lambert has made into a beautiful precis of moonlit characters who inhabit a past, present and future at any moment.

This is something music can do better than any other art form, and something which Lambert thrives on. Lorca’s poetic symbolism of water and shadow and moonlight comes to life through the easy flow of his melodies, and the wide open harmonies they create in combination.

Edward Lambert: In Five Years’ Time - The Music Troupe (Photo: Claire Shovelton)

The story of an artist trying to find his inspiration until he is finally killed became horridly and uncannily prophetic of Lorca’s own life. He was murdered during the Spanish Civil War five years to the day after he signed and dated his playscript.

Not only has German-born singer, Ute Lemper, found affection on the world’s stage as a cabaret-style performer, she’s also taken on starring roles in West End and Broadway musicals.

Ute Lempe (Photo: Steffen Thalemann)

Ute Lemper: Berlin Cabaret; Ute Lempe, conductor: Robert Ziegler; Cambridge Music Festival at Cambridge Corn Exchange

Reviewed by Tony Cooper, 5 March 2026

As part of the Cambridge Music Festival, Ute Lemper wowed a full house at the Cambridge Corn Exchange in a lovely and inviting programme of Berlin cabaret songs from the era of the Weimar Republic. 

As a teenager, Ute Lemper (who, incidentally, trained at the Dance Academy in Cologne and the Max Reinhardt Seminary Drama School in Vienna) fronted the punk-rock group, Panama Drive Band, at the age of 16. As her career blossomed, she established herself as a leading interpreter of Weimar Republic cabaret songs with Kurt Weill at the forefront of her expansive repertoire. 

An ambitious and adventurous performer, Lemper (born in Munster, Germany but now resides in New York City) enjoys a prolific career in musical theatre, too. For instance, she played Sally Bowles in the original Paris production by Jerome Savary of Cabaret for which she won the 1987 Molière Award for Best Newcomer as well as taking on the role of Velma Kelly in the revival of Chicago on Broadway and in the West End which duly won her the 1998 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical.  

She also appeared in the original Viennese production of Cats (playing the roles of Grizabella and Bombalurina) and the title role in Peter Pan as well as recreating the Marlene Dietrich role of Lola in The Blue Angel directed by Peter Zadek.  

Furthermore, she dubbed the singing voices of Ariel in Disney’s The Little Mermaid and Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame for German-speaking audiences while the Marseille-born dancer, choreographer and opera director, Maurice Bejart, created a ballet for her, La Mort Subite, premièred at the Palais des Congrès, Paris, in 1991. 

Therefore, it comes as no surprise to learn that Lemper was named Billboard’s ‘Crossover Artist of the Year’ in 1993 being such a prolific and diverse singer. Her extensive discography includes excellent interpretations of Kurt Weill’s compositions from the late 1980s in addition to German cabaret songs sung by Marlene Dietrich and, indeed, those by Parisian singer, Edith Piaf, which were politically motivated and sung in underground locations in 1930s Berlin.  

Currently, she dedicates most of her concert tours to the theatrical show Rendezvous with Marlene, telling Marlene Dietrich’s true story in words and music. A hugely popular show, performances pop up the world over. In fact, Lemper’s latest album, appropriately named Rendezvous with Marlene, features 20 of the most beloved songs that she sang but, of course, reinvented by Lemper. 

But for her show at the Cambridge Corn Exchange (forming part of the Cambridge Music Festival) Lemper treated an admiring and eager audience to her 1930s Berlin cabaret show working alongside an eight-piece band directed by Robert Ziegler comprising Karen Street  (saxophones, clarinet, accordion), Andy Tweed (saxophones, clarinet), Noel Langley (trumpet), Joel Knee (trombone), Mitch Dalton (guitar), Andy Massey (piano), Steve Pearce (bass) and Ralph Salmins (drums). A brilliant bunch of musicians, you wouldn’t getter better. 

Featuring iconic works including works by Kurt Weill, Mischa Spoliansky, Friedrich Holländer and George Gershwin, the show depicted songs from the era of the fragile and shaky Weimar Republic (active from 1918 to 1933) plagued by extreme political violence and a crippling economic crises with its systemic flaws, proportional representation and the like causing weak coalitions thus allowing radical right-wing parties, particularly the Nazis, to exploit public despair and dismantle the republic from within. 

Fun & fresh: flute/voice & guitar duo, Emily Andrews & Francisco Correa talk improvisation & collaboration on their new disc of Stephen Goss's music

Emily Andrews & Francisco Correa during the recording of From Honey to Ashes

Later this month, the Deux Elles label is issuing a two-disc set of music by composer Stephen Goss for flute and guitar performed by the husband and wife duo, guitarist Francisco Correa and flautist / mezzo-soprano Emily Andrews. In late 2024 I chatted to Stephen Goss about the triple album out, Landscape and Memory (also on Deux Elles) issued in celebration of Stephen's 60th birthday [see my interview] and it turns out that both Emily Andrews and Francisco Correa were performing on that album. Francisco has also collaborated with Stephen several times, including performing Stephen's guitar concerto in Colombia and Francisco's first disc on Deux Elles, Winterbourne, featured Stephen's Winterbourne Preludes.

The new disc, From Honey to Ashes, features Stephen's music for flute and guitar, including From Honey to Ashes from 2007, La Catedral Sumergida written in 2024 for the duo and Stephen's Welsh Folksongs in arrangements that date from across Stephen's career from 1988 to 2025; a total of nearly 90 minutes music in all. Both Emily and Francisco enjoyed collaborating with Stephen on the disc, finding he gave them great flexibility to perform. Yet the recording process felt like a collaboration: they were a trio, only with one member (Stephen) not actually performing. Both Emily and Francisco commented that it was a fun way to work and there is a sense that all three voices are heard on the disc, that of Stephen, Emily and Francisco.

Continuing where Handel left off: Opera Settecento's completion of Handel's Titus L'Empereur at London Handel Festival was a terrific showcase for some of the composer's lesser-known arias

Handel/Renioult/Duarte: Titus l'Empereur; Steffen Jespersen, Rachel Redmond, Chiara Hendrick, Hugo Hymas, Lucija Vaarsic, Edward Grint, Francis Gush, Opera Settecento, Leo Duarte; London Handel Festival at St George's Church, Hanover Square
Reviewed 5 March 2026

Handel's tantalising unfinished, unrealised operatic fragment used as the starting point for a Racine-inspired opera showcasing some of Handel's lesser-known arias in engaging and involving performances 

During the 1731/32 season, Handel began a new opera, titled on the manuscript Titus l'Empereur. Only the overture, three scenes including two arias were completed. Handel seems to have abandoned the work and the material was reused in his next opera Ezio (which was delivered late). 

Having given us a whole sequence of Handel's pasticcios, Leo Duarte and Opera Settecento turned to Titus l'empereur for their latest project at the London Handel Festival. On Thursday 5 March 2026 at St George's Church, Hanover Square, they performed a 'new' Handel pasticcio, Titus l'empereur with new recitatives by Pierre-Antoine Renioult and arias from Handel's operas (mainly pre-1732) chosen by Leo Duarte. Countertenor Steffen Jespersen was Titus (emperor of Rome), soprano Rachel Redmond (queen of Palestine, betrothed to Titus) was Berenice, mezzo-soprano Ciara Hendrick was Antioco (king of Comagène and in love with Berenice), tenor Hugo Hymas was Paolino (a confidant of Titus), Lucija Varsic who won the audience prize at last year's Handel Singing Competition was Dalinda (a confidante of Berenice), baritone Edward Grint was Oldauro (a Roman tribune), and countertenor Francis Gush was Arsete (a confidant of Antioco).

Handel's libretto for the putative Titus l'Empereur has not survived, but it seems to have been intended as an adaptation of Racine's 1670 play Bérénice. Given Handel's use of French in the title (despite the opera being in Italian), commentators suggest that Racine's play was being adapted directly and that the halting of work was caused by the librettist not being up to the task. Bérénice is in fact a relatively strange work to be considered for adaptation for an Italian opera. The entire play is taken up with the complexities of Titus and Berenice's relationship when he becomes emperor but discovers the Roman people do not want a foreign queen, add in his friend Antioco's unspoken love for Berenice and you have a complex triangle. But that is it. There is no subplot. It is worth bearing in mind that when Handel set the Alceste story in his opera Admeto the librettist introduced an entire subplot that is not in Euripides and not in Gluck's Alceste.

Opera Settecento's solution was to enlist the help of Professor Patrick Boyde in creating a libretto out of Racine's play, which was then translated into Italian by Matteo Dalle Fratte and the recitative set by Pierre-Antoine Renioult in Handelian style. Leo Duarte chose the arias, focusing on the lesser known music from Handel's operas pre-1732 including some that had never been performed. The result did exactly what pasticcios were often intended to do, to showcase music. We had arias from Amadigi, Floridante, Giulio Cesare, Lucio Silla, Ottone, Rinaldo, Scipione, Tamerlano and of course the original ones from Titus l'Empereur which found their way, in altered form, into Ezio. For the more nerdy amongst us, it was a shame that the programme was not able to give us more context for this music. So that, for instance, at a climactic point in Act Two Berenice sings 'Piangero la sore mia' from Giulio Cesare, but it definitely was not the well-known version of the aria. [see Leo Duarte's comment on my Facebook post for a wonderfully full explanation of the origins of the arias].

With one exception, arias were sung with their original texts which is something that may not have happened in Handel's day but which is more understandable in our present musicologically conscious age. 

Whether Racine's Bérénice was the idea vehicle is a point in question. Handel may have indeed been right. The final opera as performed in St George's Hanover Square might have been called 'Titus the ditherer'. Or, given that the plot happens almost simultaneously with that of Mozart's opera, The Dithering of Titus!

Applications open for The Cumnock Tryst's 2nd International Summer School for Composers with Sir James MacMillan & Brett Dean

Dumfries House where The Cumnock Tryst's 2nd International Summer School for Composers takes place

The Cumnock Tryst's 2nd International Summer School for Composers will run from 22 to 28 August 2026 at Dumfries House. The course will be led by The Cumnock Tryst’s Founder and Artistic Director, Sir James MacMillan, and acclaimed Australian composer and violist, Brett Dean, and for the first time The Cumnock Tryst is partnering with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO), who will provide an octet of musicians to work alongside the composers throughout the week.  

The inaugural course in 2024 attracted composers from across the UK, Europe, North America and China. The 2026 course will offer eight selected composers an exceptional opportunity to develop their craft throughout the week under the guidance of MacMillan and Dean as well as giving participants the invaluable experience of hearing their works shaped and rehearsed by professional orchestral musicians in real time. 

Sir James MacMillan commented: "The Cumnock Tryst is committed to encouraging the composers of today at all levels, from the very young in our East Ayrshire home to advanced international students at the beginning of their careers. The course also signals The Cumnock Tryst’s intentions to amplify our international standing and impact in the world of contemporary music."

Te course will culminate on Friday 28 August in a public performance of the new works at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall’s New Auditorium at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, presenting the eight compositions created during the course, performed by the RSNO ensemble.

The course is open to composers aged 18 and older. There is no maximum age limit, reflecting The Cumnock Tryst’s commitment to making the course as inclusive and accessible as possible. Applications should be submitted via the Cumnock Tryst website 

‘Somewhere further North’: has an authentic voice from England’s ‘living centre of music’ survived in Andrew Downes?

Andrew Downes (1950-2023)

During 2026 Prima Facie is releasing three albums celebrating the choral works of the late Andrew Downes conducted by David Trippett. 

The first disc is released this month (March 2026) and features the premiere recording of Andrew Downes’ A St Luke Passion alongside his sacred choral music performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra and Philharmonia Voices conducted by David Trippett. In this guest article, David Trippett considers Andrew Downes's legacy.

Recent calls to ‘level up’ appear to have aged badly. The political slogan of the 2019 general election was short lived, but its consequences left the fate of English National Opera in the balance, even as it sought to champion left-behind bastions of culture outside London (via a £4.8B fund allocated to ‘maintaining, regenerating, or creatively repurposing existing cultural … assets’).  For decades, cultural historians have been suspicious of centre/periphery models – noting their hidden assumptions about hierarchy, homogeneity, and national prioritisation. In the event, the levelling-up fund was quietly retired (in 2022), exposed as so much hocus-pocus. Few would question the degree to which London’s musical institutions have drawn the lion’s share of investment in the arts, so the idea that musical activities outside the capital are somehow lesser lingers stubbornly. Exceptions abound (I hear you shout!), yet the very word provincial still carries a telltale hint of condescension.

In 1903, Elgar felt the need was the other way around. In a letter to The Musical Times he judged that the real engine of musical growth in England lay outside the capital. ‘Some day’ he mused, ‘the press will awaken to the fact, already known abroad and to some few of us in England, that the living centre of music in Great Britain is not London, but somewhere further North.’

Mosaic Seasons presents Music of Our Time at Bechstein Hall

Mosaic Seasons was founded in 2023 by composer Tatiana Svetlova as a classical music festival based in the South of France and Monaco. The festival envisions envisions a creative dialogue between music, poetry, art, and dance, and its Music of Today series focuses on contemporary music. Svetlova is now expanding the reach of the festival to London and on 14 March 2026 Mosaic Seasons presents Music of Our Time at Bechstein Hall. Pianists Edna Stern, Evelyne Berezovsky, and Louis-Victor Bak will perform music by Silvina Milstein, Geoff King, Tatiana Svetlova, Edna Stern, and George Benjamin.

The programme opens with a pairing of Silvina Milstein’s Piano Phantasy after Mozart K. 475 and Mozart’s Fantasia No. 4 in C minor, K. 475. Milstein’s piece transforms Mozart’s Fantasia into a rhapsodic exploration of tonality. Geoff King's David in Hastings is the third movement of his suite family photos which was written as a companion to Schumann's Carnaval.

Audiences will hear two works by Tatiana Svetlova that blend playfulness with reflective depth. Sonnets No. 4 and 5 on the Theme of Bach’s Chaconne represents her own reflections on Bach's chaconne. Madonna and Child (for Gaudi’s La Pedrera) is a meditative homage to the architect Antoni Gaudi, who wanted to create the sculpture of Madonna and Child on the roof of La Pedrera in Barcelona, but the developer refused this plan. 

Edna Stern will perform three of her own compositions: Prelude without a C/do, Etude “La disparition d’après Perec” without E/mi, and Kidnapped: 7.X.2023. These pieces are inspired by Georges Perec’s novel La Disparition (a novel written without the letter E) and his poems that systematically suppress a letter. They explore this systematic absence through musical language. 

The evening concludes with George Benjamin's Shadowlines, sequence of six canonic preludes written for Pierre-Laurent Aimard.

Full details from Bechstein Hall website. 

The Norfolk & Norwich Festival, which evolved from the old Norfolk & Norwich Triennial, blazes a cultural trail for the East Anglian region

Norwich Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus who perform Walton's Belshazzar's Feast at this year's Festival

By far the largest arts festival in the East of England and the fourth largest in the UK, the 2026 Norfolk & Norwich Festival runs from Friday 8 to Sunday 24 May offering a grand cultural feast to include a performance of Walton’s magnificent Belshazzar’s Feast by the Norwich Philharmonic Society. 

Without a shadow of doubt, the Norfolk & Norwich Festival, one of the oldest music and arts festivals in England established in 1772 to raise funds for the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital, has a glorious and illustrious past of attracting major international soloists and orchestras which, I’m pleased to say, continues to this very day. 

However, the festival has moved on over the years thus becoming a triennial event in 1824 rotating between the cities of Birmingham and Leeds much in the same way as the Three Choirs Festival rotates to this very day between the cathedral cities of Hereford, Worcester and Gloucester. 

And from 1988, the festival has been held on an annual basis and, therefore, each year presents a host of international performers working alongside emerging talent and homegrown East Anglian artists in an expansive and engaging programme featuring not only classical and choral music but also taking in drama, dance and film with the literature and visual arts side of the festival ever growing. 

A charity-funded organisation supported by Arts Council England and Norwich City Council with generous support coming from a multitude of sponsors and donors, the festival also offers a year-round programme of creativity and culture for children, young people and their communities like no other. 

This year’s edition not only takes over the fine city of Norwich for 17 wondrous and action-packed days but spreads out for the first time into Norfolk with events taking place at Wells-next-the-Sea, Lowestoft, King's Lynn, Great Yarmouth, Sheringham, Diss and Swaffham thereby transforming the county into a hive of cultural activity.  

Norwich Cathedral Choir (Photo: Bill Smith / Norwich Cathedral)

Double, Double Toil & Trouble: the recorder quartet Palisander explore 900 years of music inspired by the mystical and magical

Double, Double Toil & Trouble : Palisander 
Reviewed 24 February 2025

An engaging look at music for recorder inspired by the mystical and magical spanning 900 years from Hildegard of Bingen through to the winner of the BBC Radio 3/National Centre for Early Music for the 2021 Young Composers’ Award

Having given us a debut disc broadly inspired by the idea of tarantism, the latest disc from recorder quartet, Palisander (Tabea Debus, Lydia Gosnell, Miriam Monaghan & Caoimhe de Paor), Double, Double Toil & Trouble is equally imaginative. With repertoire spanning some 600 years, the disc is inspired by the mystical and magical. 

There are modern versions of traditional pieces alongside music by Hildegard of Bingen, Diego Ortiz, Cipriano de Rore, Maddelena Casulana, Anthony Holborne Sweelinck, Bach, Tartini, and a suite from Purcell's The Fairy Queen, plus Kepler's Planets by Miriam Monaghan who plays with the group, and the winner of the BBC Radio 3/National Centre for Early Music for the 2021 Young Composers’ Award (18-25 Category), Kagura Suite by Delyth Field.

The Tempest: Vache Baroque collaborates with Out of Chaos theatre company to present a 17th century semi-opera remade

Pergolesi's L'Olimpiade at Vache Baroque in 2024 (Photo: Michael Wheatley) - [see my review] 

The 17th-century English tradition of the dramatick opera (often called semi-opera nowadays) remains a fascinating challenge for modern performers with much fine music attached to long and seemingly unworthy texts. Semi-operas ran in London from roughly 1673 to 1712, in other words from the Restoration to the establishment of regular Italian opera. Though the best known name attached to the genre is Henry Purcell, music could often be provided by a selection of composers. 

For more on semi-opera see my article The Invention of English Opera: the surprising history of opera in 17th century England - from masques to dramatic-opera 

In 1674, there was The Tempest, or The Enchanted Island with a libretto by Thomas Shadwell (who became Poet Laureate in 1689) based on John Dryden and William Davenant's adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest (this was a period when few Shakespeare plays were performed unaltered). The music by was provided by Matthew Locke, Giovanni Battista Draghi and Pelham Humfrey, a fine trio of composers. 

Towards the end of semi-opera in London (the large-scale ones were getting too expensive), The Tempest was revived again. This time in 1712, still with Shadwell's text but with new music that was long attributed to Henry Purcell but may be by John Weldon. In 1701 Weldon took part in, and won, the competition to set Congreve's libretto The Judgement of Paris to music and his music for this was recorded for the first time in 2025 by Julian Perkins and the Academy of Ancient Music [see my review].

Now for its Summer 2026 festival, Vache Baroque is joining forces with the theatre company Out of Chaos (artistic director Paul O'Mahoney) to present The Tempest, a semi-opera inspired by Shakespeare's play and featuring music by Henry Purcell, Matthew Locke, Pelham Humfrey, and others including a full Purcell masque, along with pieces by other European composers of the period, shanties, and improvisations. The Vache's landscape setting with its lake and trees makes it an ideal venue for the venture. The Tempest will be directed by Paul O’Mahony (of Out of Chaos), choreographed by Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster and designed by Caitlin Mawhinney. Jonathan Darbourne will direct the Vache Baroque Band with a cast of singers including Stephanie Hershaw, Isabelle Peters, Camilla Seale, Conor Prendiville and Ross Cumming alongside actors from Out of Chaos.

Still on-theme, Water Music will feature a concert of water-themed works (but not Handel's famous one) featuring Sophia Prodanova (violin) and Isabelle Peters (soprano) plus sound recordist Chris Watson with music by Purcell, Handel, Vivaldi and Maria Martines (her cantata La Tempesta from 1778). Jonathan Darbourne directs the Vache Baroque Band and Singers.

Full details from the Vache Baroque website. 

 

Rossini's William Tell, Previn's Streetcar, Golijov's Ayre and more: Boston Lyric Opera celebrates 50 years

Boston Lyric Opera (BLO), New England’s largest and most enduring opera company, is in celebratory mood. Founded in 1976, 2026 is its 50th year and 2026/27 is its 50th season. And recent seasons have seen the company experience significant growth. During its 2024/25 Season, BLO welcomed more than 22,000 audience members — its highest figures in more than a decade. Between 2019 and 2025, audience members aged 18 to 34 years old have tripled in number and audience racial diversity has increased by 70 percent.

This month BLO opens its Opera + Community Studios, a renovated and repurposed space that will serve as a rehearsal centre and administrative headquarters, and operate as a shared creative hub available to regional arts organizations and community groups. The opening is celebrated with a new production of Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde reimagined and staged by BLO Artistic Associate Anne Bogart, and conducted by BLO's music director David Angus, from 20 to 29 March 2026.

The 50th season launches in October 2026 with a new production of Rossini's Guillaume Tell, conducted by David Angus, directed by Vita Tzykun and David Adam Moore​, with George Gagnidze, Konu Kim [a former Jette Parker Young Artist at Covent Garden] and Anya Matanovič. Other operas during the season include André Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire, conducted by Daniela Candillari​ and directed by Patricia Racette, the soprano who is now director of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis [she was Giorgetta in Covent Garden's 2016 revival of Puccini's Il trittico, see my review, and sang the title role in Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at ENO in 2015, see my review]; a semi-staged performance of Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades with the BLO Chorus being joined by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus; and a new production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro featuring Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha as the Countess.

A new community opera by composer Carlos Simon and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer/former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith had been commissioned by BLO and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Telling the stories of Bostonians and featuring dozens of community organisations, the opera will premiere at Symphony Hall, Boston in May 2027.

Other events at  Opera + Community Studios include celebrity gala featuring tenor Michael Fabiano, and a staging of Osvaldo Golijov’s genre-defying work, Ayre, that draws on Jewish, Arab and Christian traditions to illuminate their connections -- and their tensions. Arye stars soprano Ailyn Pérez who made her debut with BLO as Susanna in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro during the 30th anniversary season.

Full details from the company's website. 

Vital, alive & compelling: Handel's Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno from David Bates & La Nuova Musica at Wigmore Hall

Handel: Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno - Jeanine De Bique, Polly Leech, Christopher Lowrey, Nick Pritchard, La Nuova Musica, David Bates - Wigmore Hall (Photo: image capture from Wigmore Hall live stream)

Handel: Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno; Jeanine De Bique, Polly Leech, Christopher Lowrey, Nick Pritchard, La Nuova Musica, David Bates; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 28 February 2026

Vivid musical presence and compelling drama make this concert performance of Handel's first oratorio an engrossing evening, vividly alive and vital playing combining with vocal beauty and sense of drama 

Handel's first oratorio, Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (The Triumph of Time and Disillusion) had a remarkably long life. Premiered in Rome in 1707 during Handel's youthful Italian trip, the work not only provided source material for many of Handel's subsequent works, but resurfaced in London in 1737 (and 1739) in a revised and expanded version, still in Italian, as Il trionfo del Tempo e della Verità and finally was recast in English as The Triumph of Time and Truth in 1757 as a stop-gap because the blind and ageing Handel was no longer capable of writing new work.

It is a remarkably exuberant piece. Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili's highly intelligent libretto might be somewhat conceptual with conversion of Beauty from a yearning for worldly enjoyment personified by Pleasure to an aspiration to more secure rewards revealed by Time and Disillusion, but in execution Pamphili gave Handel sufficient character and drama that the composer was to create a quasi-opera. It is worth bearing in mind that the work was written at a time when there was no opera in Rome. The piece works as a psychological study, as demonstrated by Jacopo Spirei's staging at Buxton in 2024 which successfully recast the oratorio as family drama. But it also contains music which demonstrates Handel at his best. Italy had clearly been liberating for him and his musico-dramatic experiments in his cantatas paid dividends in works like Il trionfo.

David Bates and La Nuova Musica treated us to Handel's original Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno at Wigmore Hall on Saturday 28 February 2026. Soprano Jeanine De Bique was Belezza, mezzo-soprano Polly Leech as Piacere, countertenor Christopher Lowrey as Disinganno and tenor Nick Pritchard was Tempo. David Bates directed the 17 players of La Nuova Musica from the harpsichord.

Tea for Two - Spring Songs: Caroline Taylor & George Ireland mine unrecorded 19th century song from Musica Britannica for their debut album

Caroline Taylor (Photo: Alia Thomas)

It never fails to amaze me how much good music fails to become common knowledge even when available in good modern editions. Solomon's Knot's espousal of the work of 17th century composer George Jeffreys [see my review of their recent concert at Wigmore Hall] despite his English sacred music being available in Musica Britannica volume 105 (published in 2021) is a case in point.

Musica Britannica volume 56, somewhat laconically titled Songs, 1860-1900 and edited by composer Geoffrey Bush was published in 1989. Yet a new recording project is set to mine it for still unrecorded songs.

Soprano Caroline Taylor and pianist George Ireland received a Musica Britannica Recording Award last year for the planned recording, Tea for Two: Spring Songs which will include songs by Sullivan, Alexander Mackenzie, Arthur Goring Thomas, Frederick Cowen, Maude Valérie White, Liza Lehmann and Hamish MacCunn, all culled from Musica Britannica volume 56. The selection includes 12 songs (of 18 in total) that do not seem to have been recorded before.

On Sunday 15 March 2026, Caroline Taylor and George Ireland will begin their journey of recording the album with a concert at St Columba’s Church, Knightsbridge. Further information from the church website. During April, Caroline Taylor will be singing in Verdi's La Traviata with Hurn Court Opera.

The disc is due for release in 2027, so watch this space. 

Cheltenham Music Festival's Composer Academy returns with Laura Bowler, George Parris & The Carice Singers

George Parris & The Carice Singers at Cheltenham Music Festival Composer Academy

Cheltenham Music Festival has announced the 2026 season of its highly regarded programme for early-career composers, Composer Academy, which will be led this year by composer Laura Bowler. The intensive five-day course, which takes place alongside Cheltenham Music Festival in early July, will be led by Bowler as director along with George Parris [see my 2025 interview with him] who returns as music director with his ensemble The Carice Singers. Selected composers will have their work performed by Parris and The Carice Singers in a special showcase concert as part of the Festival.

The course offers early-career composers the chance to feel more immersed in the professional classical music world, says George Parris:

"Our aim is to create the most conducive environment possible for emerging composers. The scheme offers an innovative environment of experimentation for new voices – it’s a laboratory for new music! Our goal is to create productive dialogue and community between composers and industry figures, which leads to better work more widely promoted. Composing doesn’t have to be a lonely game!"

While The Carice Singers will premiere the pieces completed during the week – participants are expected to bring with them a piece 80% completed – composers of all musical styles, and of any age, are encouraged to apply. The minimum age of participants is 18 and there is no upper age limit. Composers from any and all backgrounds are welcome, and no formal education in composition is necessary. In addition to the Cheltenham performance, all works composed for the 2026 Academy will also receive a London premiere at Spitalfields Music Festival in 2027. 

Composer Academy will take place 6-10 July 2026. Applications open at the festival website from March 2.  Cheltenham Music Festival announces its full 2026 programme on March 6. 

Celebrating in style: current and past City Music Foundation Young Artists in showcase at the restored Great Hall of St Bart's

City Music Foundation 2025 Young Artists in the Great Hall at St Bart's

The City Music Foundation (CMF) was founded in 2012 and has developed significantly into an organisation that supports young artists by offering career development, turning talent into a success. For some years CMF has developed a relationship with St Barts giving concerts in the Great Hall. Following the recent restoration of the hall after extensive conservation and restoration work in the last two years under the direction of Will Palin and Barts Heritage, the Hall and the Hogarth Stair are looking absolutely stunning. By way of a celebration both of CMF and the Great Hall, there was a Meet the Artists event in the Great Hall on Wednesday 25 February where there was a chance not only to see the hall but to meet the CMF team and hear performances from some of the current CMF Young Artists, as well as being able to meet members of earlier cohorts including some of the first.

Proceedings were opened by percussionist James Larter (CMF 2021) playing Asventuras by Alexej Gerassimez, an amazing tour de force for untuned percussion. The first set also included pianist Nikita Lukinov (CMF 2024) playing Mikhail Pletnev's sparkling arrangement of the Adagio from Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty Suite, mezzo-soprano Joanna Harries (CMF 2024) and pianist Mihai Ritivoiu (CMF 2016) in If I loved you from Rogers & Hammerstein's Carousel, the wind quintet Ensemble Renard in terrific form in two movements from Bartok's Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm from Mikrokosmos Vol. 6 in arrangements by George Strivens, and soprano Caroline Taylor (CMF 2022) and pianist Sholto Kynoch in Schubert's Im Frühling.

The second set featured violinist Basil Alter (CMF 2025) and pianist Jack Redman (CMF 2024) in a bravura account of Tchaikovsky's Valse-scherzo, Intesa Duo (CMF 2025) consisting of Lucine Musaelian and Nathan Giorgetti (viols and voice) in a haunting Armenian traditional song Kakavik where Musaelian whilst playing the viol, Duo Melos (CMF 2024) consisting of Katie Taunton, flute, and Jack Redman, piano) in a fast and delightfully dazzling short piece by Dilys Elwyn-Edwards and a Welsh traditional song, A I want with Tom to Town arranged by Stephen Goss that proved to be rather perky and surprisingly complete, and finally pianist Sofia Sacco (CMF 2024) played Couperin's Le rossignol en amour and Kabalevsky's brilliant, rather neo-classical Prelude and Fugue in C Major, Op.61 No. 2.

The final set opened with soprano Theano Papdaki (CMF 2024) and percussionist James Larter in EL Vito for the lovely combination of voice and marimba. Then pianist Will Harmer (CMF 2025) played one of his own compositions, a fugue that was complex yet rather engaging; cellist Geirþrúður Anna Guðmundsdóttir (CMF 2024) and pianist Antoine Preat (CMF 2021) gave a vibrant, upfront account of the scherzo from Brahms' Sonatensatz; then baritone George Robarts (CMF 2024) and Will Harmer brought things to a lively, light-hearted yet apt conclusion with Noel Coward's There are bad times just around the corner.

The CMF programme of concerts continues on 11 March when cellist Arian Kashefi and pianist Petr Limonov are performing Rachmaninoff's Cello Sonata and Amy Beach's Three Pieces, Op. 40 in the Great Hall in Barts North Wing. Full details from the CMF website.

From a Parisian salon to South America: Julieth Lozano Rolong charms & engages in her Salon Concert for Opera Rara with Anna Tilbrook at Bechstein Hall

Schubert, Donizetti, Yvette Souviron, Babi de Oliveira, Modesta Bor, Borja Mariño, Lia Cimaglia Espinosa, Jaime León, Zully Murillo, Margarita Lecuona, Maria Grever; Julieth Lozano Rolong, Anna Tilbrook; Opera Rara at Bechstein Hall 
Reviewed 26 February 2026

Colombian soprano Julieth Lozano Rolong mixes songs from Opera Rara's Donizetti Song Project with song more recent South American composers in an engaging recital full of charm the proved a lovely introduction to relatively little known repertoire

Opera Rara's Salon concerts are a chance to hear artists in concert in relative intimacy, often showcasing younger artists and providing a platform for the type of repertoire for which the company is known, not just rare operas but neglected 19th century song.

Its 13 volume Il Salotto on disc provided a delightful overview of 19th century salon life, and now the company is combining this effort with scholarship as Roger Parker and Ian Schofield have been creating a new edition of Donizetti's songs, all 200 of them (!), for Opera Rara's Donizetti Song Project. There are recordings, volumes 5 (in Italian) and 6 (in French) were issued last September and the project will culminate this summer when, following the release of Volume 8 with Nicola Alaimo and Carlo Rizzi on Friday 5 June, Opera Rara presents its final ‘Donizetti & Friends’ recital with the two artists at Wigmore Hall on Tuesday 16 June. And in February, the OPER! Awards honoured the Donizetti Song Project with the Best Complete Edition Award (replacing the usual Best Complete Opera award).

There was a chance to hear a pair of songs from the Donizetti Song Project in context at Opera Rara's Salon concert on Thursday 26 February 2026. This was at the new Bechstein Hall in Wigmore Street, the first of a planned series of collaborations between the hall and Opera Rara. Colombian soprano Julieth Lozano Rolong was accompanied by pianist Anna Tilbrook in an eclectic programme that mixed Donizetti and Schubert with songs by South American composers including four UK premieres.

Julieth Lozano Rolong made her debut with Opera Rara in the recording and performance of Puccini's final (1921) version of La rondine late last year and earlier this year she sang in the premiere of Dai Fujikura and Harry Ross's The Great Wave at Scottish Opera. In summer 2025 she sang in Campra's Le Carnaval de Venise with Vache Baroque and wrote an article for Planet Hugill about combining opera with circus skills [see Julieth Lozano Rolong's article]

At Bechstein Hall we heard songs by Yvette Souviron (1914-2010), Babi de Oliveira (1908-1993), Modesta Bor (1926-1998), Borja Mariño (born 1982), Lia Cimaglia Espinosa (1906-1998), Jaime León (1921-2015), Zully Murillo (born 1944), Margarita Lecuona (1910-1981) and Maria Grever (1885-1951), alongside Schubert's Heimliches Lieben and Gretchen am Spinnrade, and Donizetti's Les Billets doux and La Mere et l'enfant. All exploring themes of love, exploring the different angles of human expression through the lens of feminine voices.

A 365 year old ghost story into a surreal fantasy epic where drums, voice and orchestra collide: Sean Noonan's The Drummer of Tedworth

Sean Noonan by Linda Pedroso

Sean Noonan describes himself as a speaking drummer; he is a composer, and rhythmic storyteller whose music defies categorization. Drawing on the traditions of wandering minstrels and African griots, he weaves imaginative narratives through a distinctive polyrhythmic language that blends voice and percussion into his "fifth limb".

His piece, The Drummer of Tedworth, is a wild, immersive journey blending rock opera and punk-
jazz energy, blurring concert, theatre, and ritual, and the recording of it with the London Symphony Orchestra was released on Friday 20 February.

The work's premiere takes place on Monday 30 March 2026 at Milton Court in London when Sean Noonan will be joined St Paul's Sinfonia and Darren Bloom. The music is described as a fusion of jazz, contemporary classical, and global folklore in an immersive zany performance.

A concerto for anyone who’s ever doubted existence… and laughed anyway. 

Academically accomplished, Noonan holds a Doctorate from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, a Master’s in Composition from the Aaron Copland School of Music, and a Bachelor’s in Music Education from Berklee College of Music. His doctoral thesis, Rhythmic Storytelling with Drum and Voice (Guildhall School of Music & Drama), explores the intersection of narrative and percussion and is available via City, University of London’s open access archive. Early formative experiences included backing Hollywood legend Marni Nixon.

The recording of The Drummer of Tedworth is available from Sean Noonan's website,  tickets for the concert are available from the Guildhall School's website.

John Foulds, Edgar Bainton & Alan Rawsthorne premieres at this year's English Music Festival

The English Music Festival takes place at a new venue this year. From 22 to 25 May 2026, Dartington Hall in Devon will host the festival which was founded by Em Marshall-Luck. The festival will be featuring three premieres, works by John Foulds, Edgar Bainton and Alan Rawsthorne.

John Foulds' Caprice Pompadour and Alan Rawsthorne's Theme and Variations in A minor, both for violin and piano, will be featured in the recital by Rupert Marshall-Luck (violin) and Peter Cartwright (piano) which also includes music by Howells, Delius and Bliss along with the first professional performance of Four Deceptive Pieces by David Lewiston Sharpe.

John Foulds' Caprice Pompadour which receives its world premiere, was published in 1916 and is the revision of Foulds’ first publicly performed piece, Rhapsodie nach Heine of 1897. In his unfinished novel Florentine Nights, Heinrich Heine included a passage evoking a phantasmagorical violin recital by Paganini, which Foulds’ rendered into music once again through this sensational work.  Alan Rawsthorne's Theme and Variations in A minor is receiving its UK premiere. The movement comes from the second of Rawsthorne's two unpublished sonatas (dating from 1933/34), the second movement of which was released as in independent work in 1937.

The festival's third premiere is Edgar Bainton's To the Name above Every Name, a setting of the 17th century metaphysical poet Richard Crashaw, and the last of Bainton's choral works. Bainton completed the vocal score but left it unorchestrated. The work is being performed by the University of Exeter Chapel Choir, conductor Howard Ionascu in a programme that features music by Vaughan Williams, Britten, Elgar, Holst, Dyson, Howells and Robin Milford.

The festival opens with a concert featuring John Andrews conducting the London Mozart Players. Peter Cigleris will be the soloist in Finzi's Clarinet Concerto and Lucilla Rose Mariotti Banwell is the soloist in Thomas Linley's Violin Concerto. The concert also includes music by Thomas Pitfield, Delius, Howells and Alan Rawsthorne.

Elsewhere in the festival: 

• Ben Goldscheider and Simon Callaghan perform English music for horn and piano including sonatas by Bax, Vaughan Williams (reconstructed by Martin Yates), William Alwyn and York Bowen, along with Huw Watkins' Lament which was written for Goldscheider
• Violinist Madeleine Mitchell's London Chamber Ensemble perform string quartets by Alwyn, Howells, Delius and Charles Wood
• Guitarist Fabio Fernandes presents English music for guitar including music by Purcell, Duarte, Ernest Shand, John Gardner, Thomas Pitfield, Josiah Andrew Hudleston, and Bridge
• Tenor James Gilchrist and pianist Nathan Williamson perform songs by Carwithen, Holst, William Busch, Warlock, Crosse, Jeremy Thurlow and Thomas Pitfield
• Mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts Dean, baritone Kieran Rayner and pianist Nigel Foster explore the work of Ralph and Ursula Vaughan Williams including settings of her poems by Roderick Williams, Jonathan Dove, Roger Steptoe and Alan Hoddinott, two of Ralph's setting of her poems along with a selection of his other well-known songs
• Eleanor Grant (soprano and double bass) and Gus McQuade (guitar) present a selection of 20th and 21st century music under the title Seasons change yet we remain.
• Pianist Hiroaki Takenouchi is playing music by John Ireland, Alan Rawsthorne, Cecil Armstrong Gibbs, Carwithen and a transcription of Elgar's Organ Sonata 

The festival ends with a piano trio made up of Rupert Marshall-Luck, Raphael Wallfisch and Hiroaki Takenouchi in Ireland, Alan Rawsthorne, Cecil Armstrong Gibbs and E.J. Moeran.

Full details from the festival website. 

Catching lightning: Solomon's Knot explore George Jeffreys & the birth of the English Baroque at Wigmore Hall

Solomon's Knot at Kirby Hall in 2023

George Jeffreys & the Birth of the English Baroque; Solomon's Knot, James Garnon, Helen Schlesinger, writer & director: Federay Holmes; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 24 February 2025

A dramatised presentation that brought to life the almost forgotten English composer George Jeffreys and his turbulent times, illuminating his impassioned, Italianate music

George Jeffreys, the most important English Baroque composer between Byrd and Purcell, still remains a name that many have not heard of. But thankfully, he seems to be having something of a moment. In 2024, Solomon's Knot released an album of Jeffreys's music on Prospero Classical [see my review] and I chatted to organist William Whitehead about his enthusiasm for Jeffreys's music [see my interview].

Now Solomon's Knot has developed a live programme based on Jeffreys's music, collaborating with director and writer Federay Holmes (an associate artist of Shakespeare's Globe) and actors James Garnon and Helen Schlesinger. George Jeffreys & the Birth of the English Baroque was performed at Wigmore Hall on 24 February 2026. The evening wove together works Jeffreys' and other composeers with a dramatic presentation of Jeffreys's life with Garnon as the composer and Schlesinger playing his wife and Lady Hatton, the wife of his patron. The singers were Zoe Brookshaw, Clare Lloyd-Griffiths, Kate Symonds-Joy, James Robinson, David de Winter and Jonathan Sells. James Robinson was replacing tenor Thomas Herford who was unwell, though some of Herford's solos were sung by David de Winter.

In her programme note, Federay Holmes points out that if Jeffreys's scores and part books had been lost or destroyed then we would have known him only as the unremarkable Steward of the Hatton family working away at Kirby Hall. Jeffreys's surviving letters to Lord Hatton, Lady Hatton and their son cover the 1630s to the 1680s, yet none mentions music. We know a lot about Jeffreys, relating to his work as steward, and we know the music he was writing and copying. But we have no texts to link the two.

A significant commitment to bringing orchestral music to audiences across North Yorkshire: John Wilson, Sinfonia of London & Ryedale Festival in three-year partnership

John Wilson & Sinfonia of London

The Ryedale Festival has announced a new three-year partnership with Sinfonia of London and the conductor John Wilson, marking a significant commitment to bringing orchestral music of the highest quality to audiences across North Yorkshire and the wider region.

The partnership will begin in summer 2026 with a major orchestral concert presented as part of the Ryedale Festival at York Barbican on 12 July 2026. Entitled An English Summer, the programme features Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending, William Walton’s Spitfire Prelude and Fugue, as well as a glorious parade of British light music classics by composers including Richard Rodney Bennett, Eric Coates and Haydn Wood. 

Launched by John Wilson in 2018, Sinfonia of London revived the legendary studio orchestra of the same name, founded in 1955. It made its live debut in 2021 at the BBC Proms and has appeared there on an annual basis since. The orchestra has quickly built a celebrated range of over 30 recordings on the Chandos label, covering a wide range of music with the orchestra’s most recent releases being Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady and Walton’s Cello Concerto and Symphony No.1.

This year's Ryedale Festival runs from 10 to 25 July and the full programme will be announced on 27 March 2026. The festival was founded in 1981 and its artistic director is pianist Christopher Glynn. It has twice been a finalist at the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards where it was praised for ‘an extraordinary breadth of programming’ and the way it ‘always wraps its arms around the local community’.

Full details from the Ryedale Festival website. 

What began as a record of performances has become essential infrastructure for artistic planning: Operabase turns 30

This year Operabase celebrates its 30th anniversary, marking three decades of shaping how the global performing arts community works, collaborates, and connects.  Founded in 1996 by Mike Gibb, Operabase was created to document opera performances on a single platform, and over the past three decades it has expanded beyond that original scope, developing into an essential professional resource.

The platform maintains the world’s most extensive structured record of performing arts performances, covers more than 1.1 million performances, features over 400,000 artist profiles and includes more than 64,000 organisations, ranging from opera houses and concert halls to orchestras, choirs and academic institutions. 

Operabase is now managed by Arts Consolidated ApS, a technology company based in Copenhagen, Denmark. The CEO of Operabase is Ulrike Köstinger and we chatted to her when she took over the role in 2023 [see my interview]. About the current milestone, she commented: 

"Reaching 30 years is an extraordinary moment for Operabase. What began as a record of performances has become essential infrastructure for artistic planning, casting and international collaboration. I’m deeply grateful to the artists and organisations who share their data, and to the professionals who rely on Operabase every day. As the sector evolves, our focus is clear: to keep listening, adapting and building the best tools that truly support artistic work worldwide."

Operabase offers a free, publicly accessible database and a premium subscription designed for professionals. While audiences can explore upcoming performances, premium subscribers benefit from advanced tools for career planning, casting and artistic planning decision-making. 

Further information from the Operabase website. 

Bringing music & art into a space which belongs to everyone: Olivia Warburton's The Big House Arts Festival at Lincoln Cathedral

Lincoln Cathedral

The Big House Arts Festival is a three day multi-arts festival showcasing chamber music and art in Lincoln Cathedral from 10 to 12 April 2026. The festival's founder is soprano Olivia Warburton, who grew up as a chorister in Lincoln. Her Mum used to refer to the Cathedral ‘The Big House’— it was her way of making something grand and historic feel familiar and part of everyday life. That affectionate nickname stayed with her, and it captures exactly what the festival aims to be about: bringing music and art into a space which belongs to everyone.

To open the festival, Olivia Warburton is joined by actor Eliza Butterworth, guitarist Samrat Majumder and pianist Johan Barnoin, for The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls, an evening of song, poetry and solo music inspired by Shakespeare’s vision of the seven ages of human life. Other concerts include jazz vocalist and clarinetist, Giulia Marro performing songs from her debut album, A Portrait of Giulia, with duo partner, Tom Ward; and the Solem Quartet bring things to a close with quartets by Dvorak, Debussy and Chausson.

There will also be a masterclass from Richard Stokes, Professor of Song at the Royal Academy of Music, working with five young singers.

Full details from the festival website.