ORA Singers opens applications for its 7th Young Composers' programme for students at non fee-paying schools across the UK

The 2025 Young Composers' Workshop with ORA Singers

The vocal ensemble, ORA Singers, has opened applications for its seventh national Young Composers' programme. This offers secondary students free composition coaching with professional composers, and the chance to have their music performed and recorded in concert by ORA Singers. It is open to students in years 7-13 at non fee-paying schools across the UK, welcoming 50 students each year onto the programme. The scheme has now mentored over 250 students across the UK from a whole variety of backgrounds.

Young Composers: 

• Receive the flagship package of one-to-one coaching with professional composers, who guide them through the process of writing a new piece
• Attend a Workshop with ORA Singers and a professional composer, where they have their ideas and sketches sung by our professional musicians who offer tailored feedback
• Write a new piece which ORA Singers perform and record in concert
• Receive a video recording of their new piece + feedback from a panel of industry experts.

Apprentices: 

• Receive first-class mentoring through a course of online Zoom workshops with composer, Rory Wainwright Johnston
• Receive coaching on composition skills, history, harmony, texture, writing for voices, and more
• Receive regular feedback on tasks and compositions
• Opportunities to meet with professional composers and undergraduates to learn about the music industry, and gain tips on applying to University/Conservatoire. 

Full details from ORA Singers' website. 

The Benedetti Foundation on this week's BBC Radio 4 appeal

The Radio 4 Appeal is a weekly 3-minute programme highlighting the work of a charity and appealing for donations to support its activities. 

This week the focus is on the Benedetti Foundation, with a short feature with violinist Nicola Benedetti broadcast on Sunday 18 January 2026 and repeated on Thursday. 

You can also catch the feature on BBC Sounds, and you can also catch a celebratory video on the Foundation's Instagram page.

You can give to the appeal on the BBC Radio 4 appeal page. 

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Así que pasen cinco años: Edward Lambert's Federico Garcia Lorca-based opera, In Five Years' Time debuts at The Space Theatre

Federico García Lorca finished his play Así que pasen cinco años in 1931, five years to the day before he was executed. If was never produced during Lorca's lifetime and he said it would be impossible to stage. Now composer Edward Lambert has risen to the challenge and is presenting the work, as In Five Years’ Time, a drama in song about the Poet searching for an identity in the 'forest of life' with a cast of 8 singers playing some 14 roles.

Lambert and his company, The Music Troupe are presenting In Five Years' Time at The Space Theatre, London E14 3RS from 24 to 28 February 2026. The production is directed by Walter Hall with music director Alistair Burton and cast Rosalind Dobson, Lucy Gibbs, Mae Heydorn, Fiona Hymns, Jean-Max Lattemann, Chris Murphy, James Schouten, and Thomas Stevenson.

Edward Lambert (b. 1951) has written 21 small-scale operas for professional performance and since 2013 has successfully mounted 15 of them with The Music Troupe. The group's first project was Six Characters in Search of a Stage and this work received a new production in Moscow, December 2025. In 2023 The Last Siren was commissioned by the University of West London as a dementia-friendly opera and the following year the group made its first appearance at The Space, London, with The Duchess of Padua, an adaptation of the play by Oscar Wilde. 

Full details from The Space Theatre's website. 

Celebrating 150 years of British women composers in song: SWAP'ra's Rebecca Clarke Song Competition

This afternoon (19 January 2026) SWAP'ra's wonderfully enterprising Rebecca Clarke Song Competition reaches its semi-final rounds as 17 duos compete for a place in the final, which takes place at the Royal Overseas League on Saturday 24 January 2026.

The competition, celebrating 150 years of British women composers in song, is open to professional singer and pianist duos who are based full-time in the UK or the Republic of Ireland with no age-limit. Regarding the lack of age limit, SWAP'ra has pointed out that '50% of our applicants are over 30—and so are two-thirds of our semi-finalists. Most competitions set an age limit of 30, just as singers hit their artistic stride. We wanted to do something different: shine a light on the composers, not limit the artists who can champion their work.'

For the semi-finals, competitors will perform at least two songs by Rebecca Clarke and at least one song by a living British female composer. For the finale, they will perform three songs by Clarke alongside one by a living British female composer.

There are prizes for singers and for pianists, along with a prize for the performance of a song by living composer.

And if you think Clarke did not write enough songs to warrant a competition then think again. Kitty Whately, Nicholas Phan and Anna Tilbrook's terrific The Complete Songs of Rebecca Clarke on Signum Classics includes nearly 60 songs from her first completed song in 1903 to her 1976-1977 revisions to an earlier song. Do explore. 

Full details from the SWAP'ra website. 

 

Our East Anglian-based correspondent, Tony Cooper, reports on the Norwich Philharmonic Society returning to their roots at St Andrew’s Hall, Norwich, after a two-year absence.

Manuscript score, signed by the composer and the performers of the premiere

One of England’s greatest choral works, Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, has excitingly been put centre stage in Alan Bennett’s brand-new film The Choral but a ‘live’ performance coming up in Norwich in March, staged by the Norwich Philharmonic Society, promises to be just as exciting. 

Sir Edward Elgar’s mighty, inspiring and fulfilling choral work, The Dream of Gerontius, a setting of Cardinal John Henry Newman’s 1865 poem exploring Catholic beliefs about the afterlife and so forth, traces the soul of Gerontius, a devout being, as he experiences death guided by his Guardian Angel, facing demons and encountering God before settling in Purgatory. The work has forged, perhaps, a new audience through Alan Bennett’s 2025 film aptly entitled The Choral.  

A staple of choral societies up and down the country, especially the Norwich Philharmonic Chorus, but for the Huddersfield Choral Society, Gerontius - which Elgar considered his finest piece - has become more than a masterpiece, it has become a living act of remembrance.  

Founded in 1836, the Huddersfield Choral Society remains one of Britain’s best-loved and most historic choirs. Its connection with Elgar runs deep as it first performed Gerontius in 1905 with a further performance in 1907 and again, of course, under Elgar in 1917 while making the first complete recording of the work in 1945. 

Le Piano Symphonique, Lucerne: from Martha Argerich & friends to Jean Rondeau in self-indulgent form

Beethoven: Cello Sonata - Mischa Maisky, Martha Argerich - KKL Luzern (Photo: Luzerner Sinfonieorchester/Philipp Schmidli)

Beethoven: Cello Sonata in G minor, Op.5 No.2, Violin Sonata in major Op.47 'Kreuzer', Debussy: En blanc et noire, Prelude a l'apres-midid d'un faune; Mischa Maisky, Janine Jansen, Martha Argerich, Stephen Kovacevich; Le Piano Symphonique at KKL Luzern
Sisyphus; Jean Rondeau, Ocubo; Le Piano Symphonique at KKL Luzern
Reviewed 16 January 2026

Any appearance from Martha Argerich is a joy, and here at the festival where she is associated artist, she chose a programme notable both for its variety and for her collaboration with various friends. By way of contrast, the evening ended with Jean Rondeau bringing the harpsichord into the 21st century

The evening concert on Friday 16 January 2026 at Le Piano Symphonique at KKL Luzern placed the emphasis firmly on pianist Martha Argerich. She was joined by friends, cellist Mischa Maisky and violinist Janine Jansen for a pair of Beethoven's instrumental sonatas, and then pianist Stephen Kovacevich joined her for a pair of Debussy works for two pianos. In a surprising and enterprising leap, the final section of the evening was devoted to harpsichordist Jean Rondeau giving a very contemporary spin on the instrument with his improvisation Sisyphus.

Jean Rondeau - KKL Luzern (Photo: Luzerner Sinfonieorchester/Philipp Schmidli)

The more subversive amongst us might have noted that it was an evening of 'big hair', not just Martha Argerich's famous mane (though she indulged in little mane tossing), but Mischa Maisky seemed to be channelling an ageing member of Queen, whilst Jean Rondeau brought more recent bad-boy images to mind, notably Kurt Cobain.

Le Piano Symphonique, Lucerne: pianist Alexandre Kantorow in a marathon from Prokofiev to Alkan & Medtner with an Anders Hillborg premiere

Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3 - Alexandre Kantorow, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester - KKL Luzern (Photo: Luzerner Sinfonieorchester/Philipp Schmidli)

Bach: Partita No. 2 in C minor, Haydn: Andante mit variationen in F minor; Alkan: Symphonie pour piano seul, Op. 39; Schaghajegh Nosrati; Le Piano Symphonique at Hotel Schweizerhof, Luzern
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Dvorak: Symphony No. 8 in G major, Alkan: Preludes Nos. 3, 13, 18, Anders Hillborg: Kalamazoo Flow; Medtner: Piano Sonata in F minor, Op. 5; Alexandre Kantorow, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Robin Ticciati; Le Piano Symphonique at KKL Luzern
Reviewed 15 January 2026

Thursday evening's concert at Le Piano Symphonique at KKL Luzern (15 January 2026) was something of a marathon for French pianist Alexandre Kantorow. He opened the evening with the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester and conductor Robin Ticciati (standing in for an ailing Christoph Eschenbach) in Prokofiev's mammoth Piano Concerto No. 3. Ticciati and the orchestra followed with Dvorak's Symphony No. 8 (replacing the planned Brahms' Piano Quartet No. 1 in Schoenberg's orchestration). Then Kantorow returned with a solo recital moving from Alkan to an Anders Hillborg premiere to Medtner. Finally finishing with a Chopin encore at 10:20pm, some three and a quarter hours after launching into the Prokofiev. Le Piano Symphonique concerts are certainly not for the faint-hearted.

Dvorak: Symphony NO. 8 - Robin Ticciati, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester - KKL Luzern (Photo: Luzerner Sinfonieorchester/Philipp Schmidli)

At the helm of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3, Robin Ticciati gave no sense of being a last-minute stand-in. His relation with Alexandre Kantorow was flexible and lively, the two men bringing feeling of vibrant youth to the concerto. This is young man's music, Prokofiev completed the work age just 30 having begun it some five years earlier, and he was the soloist in the premiere in Chicago. Ticciati's concern for detail in the orchestra by no means overwhelmed hi rapport with Kantorow. This was a performance that wore the technical demand lightly, Kantorow's performance being notable for the detail as a much as volume.

Le piano symphonique, Lucerne: Im Klaviergeiste Mozarts with Alexandra Dovgan & Robin Ticciati

Le Piano Symphonique - Robin Ticciati & Luzerner Sinfonieorchester (Photo: Luzerner Sinfonieorchester / Philip Schmidli)

Mozart: Overture to La Clemenza di Tito, Piano Concerto No. 20, Bach: Toccata in E minor, Chopin: Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor; Alexandra Dovgan, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Robin Ticciati; Le Piano Symphonique at KKL Luzern
Reviewed 14 January 2026

A change of soloist brings a refocusing of the programme, and allows 18-year-old Russian virtuoso Alexandra Dovgan to move from poised Mozart to dazzling textures in Chopin 

The third evening of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra's festival, Le Piano Symphonique at KKL Lucerne was intended to begin with Mozart conducted by Robin Ticciati including the D minor piano concerto, then move on to solo piano works by Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev. Whatever programming logic there was to the evening was disturbed, however, by the illness of pianist Beatrice Rana. In the event, the concerto soloist Alexandra Dovgan took over the whole programme, bringing the evening to a close with Bach and Chopin.

We began with Mozart, the overture to La Clemenza di Tito with Robin Ticciati bringing out the incisive drama of the piece, the opening full of expectancy. There was plenty of fine detail alongside the drama. Whilst the solo wind passages were lovely indeed, the larger ensembles were somewhat too string dominated for my taste, however the orchestra and conductor brought thing to a conclusion with vivid brilliance.

Le Piano Symphonique - Alexandra Dovgan (Photo: Luzerner Sinfonieorchester / Philip Schmidli)

The young Russian pianist Alexandra Dovgan is only 18, yet her approach to Mozart proved to be surprisingly mature and poised. As might be expected, Ticciati and the orchestra brought a serious sense of drama and intensity to the brooding orchestral introduction. By contrast, Dovgan's first entry was characterised by simplicity and clarity, and throughout the concerto she avoided big Romantic gestures. For all the orchestral sturm und drang, particularly in the development section, she projected cool poise and elegance. This sense of elegance continued with the slow movement. At first Dovgan's approach was very classical, but as the movement developed we had some serious fun too. There was a vivid directness to the finale, the vivacity of Dovgan's playing matched by the orchestra. On stage, Dovgan cut a poised and somewhat reticent figure, this image rather belied by her ability to pedal in killer heels.

Vivanco’s ‘lost’ Requiem: Conductor David Allinson on unearthing new treasures from the Spanish Golden Age

David Allinson and The Renaissance Singers at Holy Sepulchre London,

The Renaissance Singers is a chamber choir with a difference. One of London’s leading non-professional vocal groups, for over 80 years it has specialised in original programmes of early vocal music that include overlooked masterpieces and many first modern performances.

Their new CD, made possible by their supporters on Crowdfunder, is of a Requiem by Sebastián de Vivanco that has not been recorded before.

The choir’s Musical Director David Allinson tells us more.

Whose Requiem is it anyway?

Imagine this. You’ve taken your seat in the concert hall for a performance of a Requiem: Verdi perhaps, Brahms, or maybe Fauré. But the conductor turns to the audience with an announcement. Apparently, this piece exists in different versions, and it’s unclear which of them the composer wanted us to hear. The musicians will therefore perform parts of the work twice. 

If this scenario seems unlikely to you, it shows that you tend to think of most composers’ works as being fixed, made stable by a set of published musical symbols. We assume the music represents the composer's final thoughts at whatever point the clock was stopped – and usually within the composer’s lifetime.

In Renaissance music this isn’t always the case. The printing press did revolutionize the dissemination of vocal music throughout the period, and we are fortunate to have printed collections by many great composers. But much of what was sung in cathedrals then was transmitted in manuscript copies. It was the use and re-use of the music, not its written structures, that mattered: music would be adapted, rewritten or discarded in different locations to suit the particular circumstances of the institution and the choir. And sadly these manuscripts were easily damaged, lost or deliberately discarded.

For musicians today the result can be a blur, a musicological puzzle. How might we fit together the ‘work’ from the sources available? Should we even try to second-guess the composer’s intentions, or should we embrace the instability of multiple, open-ended solutions?

This explains how my choir, The Renaissance Singers, came to perform and record some movements of a Requiem twice.

Rediscovering a Requiem by a great composer

Connection beyond boundaries: a symphonic work inspired by Esoteric Buddhism, Symphony Kūkai to be performed by London Philharmonic Orchestra at Royal Festival Hall

Statue of 8th-century Japanese Master Kūkai

The 8th-century Japanese Master Kūkai journeyed across the sea to Tang-China to study Esoteric Buddhism under the revered monk, Master Huiguo. Returning to Japan in the year 806, he brought the essence of the Tang dynasty back to Japan, shaping the cultural foundation of the country - a lot of the social systems we associate with present day Japan initiated during this time and are a consequence of Kūkai.

A new work, the only large-scale symphonic work inspired by Esoteric Buddhism, intends to convey this in music. Composer Zou Ye's Symphony Kūkai is being presented at the Royal Festival Hall on 30 January 2026 in collaboration with Beijing Tianguzhiyin Culture Media Ltd. The conductor is Takuo Yuasa and the orchestra is being joined by the London Philharmonic Choir and Central Conservatory of Music Choir of China.

Master Kūkai

The work began as a film, commissioned by the Chinese entrepreneur Mr Yongde Yue. This was a documentary about Master Kūkai that had music by Zou Ye. Zou Ye (born 1957) is a Chinese modern classical and film music composer. He was from the first generation of musical composition graduates from the Wuhan Conservatory of Music (then named the Hubei Academy of Fine Arts), when such education resumed with the end of the Cultural Revolution.

Ye's music for the film was well received and when difficulties arose in getting a licence for the film in China, in order to not lose the music it was decided to create a separate work which became Symphony Kūkai. After performances of the work in Japan, the overwhelming feedback of the audience suggested that it was not just an ancient story. The message of the symphony was universal, and the creators were encouraged to think of taking the work to the rest of the world.

The performance at the Royal Festival Hall is a step up from the smaller scale performances of the work hitherto and will be aimed at a wider audience rather than simply the Chinese community. The performance on 30 January was designed to take place before Chinese New Year 2026 (17 February) and requires a significant amount of cooperation as the London Philharmonic Choir will be singing the work in Mandarin, which is a challenge for English-speaking singers.

Opera comes to Clapham Grand: The Merry Opera Company in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte

Built as The New Grand Theatre of Varieties in 1900 by a consortium of music-hall artistes, the Grand in Clapham has been through various vicissitudes including periods as a cinema and bingo hall, going dark for over ten years when it failed to become a pub, returning as a live music venue and club, now it is billed as a modern palace of variety.  

What it does not seem to have had is any performances of opera, until now!

As part of its 2026 tour, The Merry Opera Company will be presenting Mozart's Cosi fan tutte at The Clapham Grand on 18 February 2026. The tour opens at Blackheath Halls on 29 January and tours venues in the South East until 4 July.

Sung in Amanda Holden's English translation, the production is directed by John Ramster, with Elle Oldfield, Tilly Green, James Beddoe and Marcus Dawson as the lovers, Fleur de Bray as Despina and Matthew Quirk as Don Alfonso. The production is accompanied at the piano by music director Chad Vindin.

Further details from the Merry Opera website.

As we wish everyone a Happy New Year, it is a time to look back at 2025 and celebrate

Musgrave: Mary, Queen of Scots - Heidi Stober & cast in the Act One party scene - English National Opera, 2025 (Photo: Ellie Kurttz)

As we welcome in 2026, we take the opportunity to look back at the year gone by. 2025 saw us doing 500 articles on Planet Hugill from Tony Cooper celebrating New Year in Berlin to Robert J Carreras's final Letter from Florida of 2025 listening to Mahler's Symphony No. 4. In between there were over 60 opera reviews and over 60 concert reviews, with over 30 interviews from composer Steve Daverson on a new work for orchestra and electronics to pianist Julian Chan on recording Leopold Godowsky's Java Suite.

Despite financial vicissitudes, ENO has continued to deliver some strong and imaginative programming. One of our highlights of 2025 was their revival of Thea Musgrave's Mary, Queen of Scots, and the recent stripped-back production of Britten's Albert Herring showed that less could indeed be more. However, seasons are tending to be compressed, and we did not manage Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking due to diary conflicts, alas. But their recent revival of Handel's Partenope showed that classics were on form too.

At Covent Garden, things have been more variable. The revival of Claus Guth's somewhat disappointing production of Janáček's Jenůfa showed what a benefit it could be having Jakub Hrůša in the pit. Katie Mitchell's new production of Janáček's The Makropulos Case benefitted from a strong cast and fine musical performances, but I found the production, Mitchell's operatic swansong, to be fascinating yet distracting and too-complex. 

I am afraid that Oliver Mears' new production of Handel's Semele failed to convince, especially with a disappointing account of the title role from Pretty Yende, and Waterperry Opera's production of Semele showed us how it should be done. Jetske Mijnssen's new production of Handel's Ariodante was just too interventionist for my taste and ultimately the opera failed to move despite fine musical performances. However, Joe Hill-Gibbins' new production of Handel's Giustino in the Linbury showed how problem Handel operas can have emotional depth. It was a delight that Verdi's Les vêpres siciliennes was brought back with a strong cast and fine conductor, we do not see anything like enough French Grand Opera in the UK.

English Touring Opera had a good year, finding form again with a stylish account of Bellini's The Capulets and the Montagues set in the 1950s. Autumn saw them bringing an engaging rom-com energy to Donizetti's comedy to Donizetti's The Elixir of Love, along with a powerful account of Britten's The Rape of Lucretia of which any company could be proud of.

Opera North was also in fine form, and in a remarkably busy year for them we did manage to catch their imaginative reinvention of Handel's Susanna, performed with Phoenix Dance Theatre as a remarkable dance drama, along with a revival of Phyllida Lloyd's 1993 production of Puccini's La Boheme enlivened by a fine young cast. And we were pleased to be able to catch Melly Still's remarkable production of Britten's Peter Grimes at WNO though budget cuts are making the company's touring schedules look worryingly sparse.

2025 in Opera Reviews: rare Rameau, rarer Handel, the Barber in Benidorm, Iphigenia in Blackheath, Wagner at Holland Park, Mary Queen of Scots returns, & Maria Stuarda as kinetic music theatre

Handel: Deidamia - Nicolò Balducci - Wexford Festival Opera (Photo: Pádraig Grant)

Opera in 2025 featured a genuine rarity in Thea Musgrave's undeservedly neglecting Mary, Queen of Scots, whilst Mary was also a focus in Salzburg in the guise of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda in a production that was an astonishing piece of kinetic musical theatre.

Further rarities included Handel's last Italian opera, Deidamia, in Wexford and Giustino returning to Covent Garden, whilst Opera North turned the oratorio Susanna into a dance drama. There was rare Rameau too, with Les Indes Galantes receiving its first professional UK staging. Waterperry Opera showed that Handel's Semele could be small-scale but ravishing, whilst at Garsington a more lavish production presented Rodelinda with intelligence and imagination.

Another undeserved rarity is Gluck's Iphigenia in Tauride which was given a compelling performance from community opera in Blackheath. Still tracking rarities, Buxton Festival returned to Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet in a stylishly minimal production from Jack Furness.

Britten's The Rape of Lucretia showed English Touring Opera on strong form, whilst ENO's first ever production of Albert Herring proved to be stripped back yet lost little of the sense of place. There was Peter Grimes in a new production at WNO, with Nicky Spence in a performance of remarkable intensity, and a semi-staged version from BYO with Mark Le Brocq was one of the most memorable performances of the opera that I have come across.

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro - Huw Montague Rendall, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment - Glyndebourne at the BBC Proms (Photo: Chris Christodoulou/ BBC)

Equally memorable, Glyndebourne's semi-staged performance of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the BBC Proms featured a cast mixing youth and experience. A youthful cast provided a witty account of Rossini's Il barbiere di Sivigla in Longborough's stylishly engaging 1970s sitcom take on the opera

2025 in Concert Reviews: women's voices, Barenboim defying age, rare melodrama, Ukraine at war, Big Baroque, and much-delayed Bliss

Bach: Mass in B Minor - Peter Whelan, Irish Baroque Orchestra & Choir, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

The unusual, the rare and the undeservedly neglected often feature strongly in my own personal interests. 2025 featured a wide selection of these in our concert reviews.

Antoine Brumel's 12-part Earthquake Mass featured alongside better known Tallis from Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars. The English Concert performed terrific rarities by Humfrey and Blow alongside better known Purcell at Wigmore Hall. The Mozartists featured a tantalising scene from Benda's melodrama Medea as part of their 1775 Retrospective.

Peter Whelan drew a remarkably communicative and urgent performance from the Irish Baroque Orchestra (IBO) in a large scale account of the Dublin version of Handel's Alexander's Feast at BBC Proms. Whelan and the IBO were in more regular formation on home turf, with a vivid Bach Mass in B Minor in Dublin. And there was more Handel in near perfect circumstances with Paul McCreesh and Gabrieli in Solomon at Inner Temple. And Solomon's Knot completed their year at Wigmore Hall with a daringly compact account of Israel in Egypt.

Konstantin Krimmel included Carl Loewe alongside Schubert as part of Wigmore Hall's Schubert Birthday Concert. Daniel Barenboim conducted his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra at the Salzburg Festival in a relatively main-stream programme, but the conductor's defying of age and illness was compelling.

Igor Levitt's powerful account of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No.2 was closely followed by music from his opera Semyon Kotko alongside Ukrainian composer Boris Lyatoshynsky's dramatic war-inspired symphony

Bliss' powerful war-inspired cantata, The Beatitudes finally returned to the BBC Proms after 60 years.. Britten Sinfonia and Sinfonia Smith Square united for a thrilling account of Olivier Messiaen’s Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum. Malcolm Arnold's Symphony No. 5 featured in Gergely Madaras and BBC NOW celebration of Cheltenham Music Festival's 80th birthday

Benda: Medea - Alexandra Lowe, The Mozartists, Ian Page at Cadogan Hall (Photo: Martin Kendrick)

Gweneth Ann Rand and Simon Lepper made Judith Weir's woman.life.song a powerful part of a typically fearless programme at Wigmore Hall. There were more women's voices with four Irish women composers giving voice to women of the Magdalene Laundries from Lotte Betts-Dean and Deirdre Brenner at Oxford International Song Festival.

Letter from Florida: Manfred Honeck conducts Mahler’s 4th with New World Symphony in Miami

Mahler: Symphony No. 4 - Manfred Honeck, New World Symphony - New World Center, Miami

Johann Strauss: Overture to Die Fledermaus, Haydn: Symphony No. 93 in D major; Mahler: Symphony No. 4; Lauren Snouffer, New World Symphony, Manfred Honeck; New World Center, Miami, Florida
Reviewed by Robert J Carreras (14 December 2025)

The unexaminable nature of how music touches the human experience. In his last Letter from Florida of 2025, Robert J Carreras experiences Maher's Fourth Symphony

Pythagoras is thought to have been the first to formally study a relationship between math and music. The Greek philosopher of antiquity and “father of math” is now rooted to music as much as to math. In his concept, “the music of the spheres,” Pythagoras theorizes that celestial bodies are in some kind of harmony and synchronicity through and with an otherworldly something. According to Pythagoras, there is a cosmically ordered source that systematizes sounds as humans experience them.  

From this, Pythagoras set forth on creating a rules-based system for understanding music, especially consonance, that became foundational to counterpoint in the Dark Ages and the Renaissance period. In effect, Pythagoras stumbled upon objective and observable patterns that make music pleasing to the ear.

Manfred Honeck is a seeming disciple of Pythagoras, an inheritor of desiring to make math audibly pleasing. Honeck is that rare breed of musical mathematician – in his right hand is a counting baton, in his left, a veritable abacus of artistic expression. 

With New World Symphony (NWS), Honeck delivers on the key parts of Johann Baptiste Strauss II, Franz Joseph Haydn, and Gustav Mahler and seeks to draw bridges across the changeovers of each of the composer’s works played this afternoon. The conductor’s idiosyncrasies betray Viennese partialities; he likes to hang his upbeats, crashing them down onto downbeats; his baton flicks take getting used to, in the manner of, but overall his counting is easy enough to follow. 

Honeck does not mind crouching down to eye-level of the violins as first line of contact, to elicit the start of a shift in orchestral balance. Honeck displays very fine and exacting directions from his abacus – it as active as his counting; this piques interests about Honeck’s hand dominance and dexterity.

Not since the summer years of Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) has NWS combined this level of volume and dynamic diversity. There is also an attempt to integrate the tonal switches gestalt to a composer’s ideas, especially those of Gustav Mahler. Under Honeck’s leadership, these players create bigger sounds that stretch the NWS canvas over an extra large frame in a way reminiscent of MTT. 

Season's Greetings from all at Planet Hugill

Dublin and the River Liffey, taken during Robert's recent trip to Dublin and Wexford.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 

from 

Robert 

and all at Planet Hugill

Carrying the narrative strongly & directly: Solomon's Knot in Handel's Israel in Egypt at Wigmore Hall

Solomon's Knot

Handel: Israel in Egypt; Solomon's Knot; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 22 December 2025

Daringly performing Handel's great choral oratorio with just eight singers, Solomon's Knot bring out the work's narrative quality in a performance the was something of a tour de force

Handelian oratorio was a lot less settled in form than we like to think with the advantage of hindsight. Handel followed Saul, a large-scale dramatic work, with a work that minimised solo contributions and concentrated on the chorus. We now see Israel in Egypt as a Handelian oratorio par excellence, beloved of choirs and choral societies, but Handel's contemporaries were not so sure. The reactions to the premiere of Israel in Egypt in 1739 may well have had as much to do with anti-Handel feeling as the work itself, but certainly Handel's initial conception involving an adaptation of the Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline never survived beyond the first couple of performances. Handel himself tried various solutions, but the version of the work that has come down to us is in two parts (confusingly usually called Parts Two and Three).

In later works such as Belshazzar, Handel would go to great pains to characterise the chorus but in Israel in Egypt we find him using the chorus of Israelites as almost the only character, narrating the story directly to us. It was this aspect of the oratorio that came over most strongly in Solomon's Knot's daring presentation of Handel's Israel in Egypt at Wigmore Hall on Monday 22 December 2025.

Well-upholstered & rather different: On Christmas Night from London Choral Sinfonia & Michael Waldron on Orchid Classics

On Christmas Night:  Percy Fletcher, Jim Clements, Howard Blake, Harold Darke, Alec Rowley, Holst, Adolph Adam, Iain Farrington, Owain Park; London Choral Sinfonia, Michael Waldron, Emma Bell, Malakai Baytoh; Orchid Classics
Reviewed 22 December 2025

If you are looking for a Christmas disc then this provides rather a different look at some classics along with more unusual repertoire, all beautifully performed

For their second Christmas album, Michael Waldron and London Choral Sinfonia explore new and unusual version of the more traditional Christmas tunes. On Christmas Night on Orchid Classics features music by Percy Fletcher, Jim Clements, Howard Blake, Harold Darke, Alec Rowley, Holst, Adolphe Adam and Iain Farrington along with some traditional tunes with soloists Emma Bell (soprano), Malakai Bayoh (treble), Martha McLorinan (mezzo-soprano) and Jimmy Holliday (bass), with four new orchestrations by Owain Park.

All the items are beautifully performed by choir and string orchestra, with the addition of harp, percussion, keyboards and trumpets at various times. The result is a well-upholstered and rather different look at a number of familiar classics along with some lesser-known gems, with Owain Park's orchestrations meaning that Waldron has been able to cast his net quite widely.

Christmas Megamix: Brixton Chamber Orchestra's final gig in its Christmas Estates Tour 2025

Brixton Chamber Orchestra & Matthew O'Keeffe at Stockwell Park Estate Community Trust

Last night (Sunday 21 December 2025), Brixton Chamber Orchestra's Christmas Estates Tour 2025 came to an end at Stockwell Park Estate Community Trust, the last of eleven free gigs to venues that included community halls across the borough as well as the historic Streatham Place Theatre. Under its director Matthew O'Keeffe, the orchestra performed an eclectic 70-minute set to a packed house, which was standing room only.

We began in fairly sedate style with O'Keeffe's arrangement of O Tannenbaum, before the orchestra launched into a very creditable account of Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture, sounding remarkably vivid in the relative confines of the Community Trust's hall.

Then, just to turn up the heat, they moved into the Lover's Rock Megamix, a lively medley created by orchestra member Lewis Daniel that featured Marcia Aitken's I’m Still In Love, Ken Boothe's Everything I Own, Carroll Thompson's I’m So Sorry, and Chronixx's Skankin Sweet. Tunes that definitely had the audience humming along. Something of the Christmas theme continued with music from the film Home Alone, John Williams's song Somewhere in my Memory, which even had the orchestra members singing along at one point.

One of the orchestra's regular members is jazz-bass player and composer Misha Mullov-Abbado, he couldn't make the gig, but the orchestra played his new piece Donna Margerella. Inspired by two local characters, it brought the musical style vividly into the present. And just to show that the orchestra's taste is truly eclectic, the evening also included a delightful short piece by Elgar, The Valentine from music he wrote for dances at his local lunatic asylum.

We had two very contrasting vocalists. First off, a female vocalist gave us slow-jazz-infused version of Adolphe Adam's O Holy Night, plus Massive Attack's Paradise Circus. Then rapper Martian B2A joined them for some of the orchestra's speciality, Grime Orchestrated, in this case his new track Goldeneye. And hearing the music performed like this, with full orchestral backing is quite something. At the end of the set, there was an open mic session when Martian B2A was joined by a group of other rappers who brought the hall alive.

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The final songs all had everyone dancing, literally or metaphorically, with O'Keeffe's arrangements of Celia Cruz's La Vida es un Carnaval and Daryl McKenzie's Merry Christmas Everyone. Mullov-Abbado's arrangement of Jocelyn Brown's Somebody Else's Guy brought the set to a close, though I got the impression that everyone really wanted the party to continue.