America's 250th, 50 years since Britten's death, Miles Davis's centenary, anniversaries for Weber's Oberon & Varèse's Amériques: BBC Proms 2026

Suddenly it's that time of year and the BBC Proms programme has been launched again. This year there are 72 concerts at the Royal Albert Hall from 17 July to 12 September 2026, with further events across the UK - Bristol, Gateshead, Mold, Middlesbrough, Sunderland. 

Visitors include the Los Angeles Philharmonic (at the Proms for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century), the Berlin Philarmonic, Spanish National Orchestra, the Mahler Academy Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, and The Met Orchestra making its first visit. There are nearly 20 premieres (world or UK). The festival is marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence with music by Barber, Copland, Feldman, Gershwin, Jessie Montgomery and Steve Reich, and the 50th anniversary of Britten's death with the Cello Symphony, Simply Symphony, Violin Concerto, Les Illuminations and more. There is also a focus on Richard Strauss centred around Glyndebourne's visit with its new production of Ariadne auf Naxos, along with four major tone poems, the final scene of Salome (with Elza van den Heever) and the Four Last Songs with Natalya Romaniw.

It is a year for pianists. Yunchan Lim plays Ravel at the First Night, Yuja Wang plays Barber's fiendish Piano Concerto (the first version of which was declared unplayable by Horowitz!) at the Last Night. In between Alexandra Dariescu makes her Proms debut in Nadia Boulanger, as do siblings Lucas and Arthur Jussen in Poulenc. Martha Argerich plays Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 and Kirill Gerstein plays Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini.

send back the echo: exploring marginalised voices through the stories and music of deaf composers

Julian Azkoul and United Strings of Europe make their Southbank debut on 9 May at the Purcell Room with send back the echo, a concert exploring marginalised voices through the stories and music of deaf composers together with Deaf BSL actor Vilma Jackson. The event explores hearing loss and the nature of listening through the lived stories and music of Deaf composers Ludwig van Beethoven and Dame Evelyn Glennie, alongside works by contemporary composers Jasmin Rodgman, Jessie Montgomery and Gareth Farr. 

Vilma Jackson is a Deaf performance artist, actor, filmmaker, and advocate of Mozambican origin based in the United Kingdom  

British-Malaysian Jasmin Rodgman’s send back the echo is the focal point of the evening. Blending musical performance, dramaturgy and modulated sounds of nature, the work draws on Ludwig van Beethoven’s confessions to shed light on issues around disability and social alienation, movingly communicated in BSL by Vilma Jackson. 

Rodgman's piece was originally conceived for the ensemble’s 2020 film of the same name which premiered on BBC Arts and was selected for the London Short Film Festival amongst others. Beethoven’s personal letters and memoirs reveal a human story of intense passion, fear and joy as he reconciled solitude and deafness with a deep love of nature and music, however send back the echo is not an homage to the legend of Beethoven but rather a journey inspired by a deaf musician, which drives the overarching theme of this concert.

Julian Azkoul explains: "We are continually seeking ways to re-imagine string playing and the concert experience. Our interdisciplinary projects challenge us to stretch our thinking and to find new ways to engage and enthral. Every performance we give is a chance to tell a story, an opportunity to re-examine the familiar and discover something new. We invite you on a moving journey rooted in meaningful lived experiences, engaging with voices and perspectives too often overlooked."

The entire concert and spoken introductions will be signed in British Sign Language through the work of interpreters Kathryn Green and Hannah Marsden. There will be a pre-concert workshop at 6:30 PM open to ticket holders led by Deaf musician Ruth Montgomery of the charity Audiovisability introducing the evening’s programme and performers.

Further details from the Southbank Centre's website. 

The War Requiem, Gerontius, a complete Sleeping Beauty, Tippett's fourth: the London Philharmonic Orchestra's 2026/27 season at Southbank Centre

Edward Gardner (Photo: Jason Bell)

The London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) has announced its 2026/27 season at the Southbank Centre. Under the title In Search of Purpose, the season explores the human spirit’s resilience and the quest for meaning. The season also includes a celebration of the London Philharmonic Choir’s 80th anniversary year with some major choral masterpieces.

The season opens with Edward Gardner conducting Britten's War Requiem with soloists Natalya Romaniw, Allan Clayton and Benjamin Appl, and Gardner brings the season to a close with Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius with soloists American mezzo-soprano Natalie Lewis, American tenor Michael Spyres and Norwegian baritone Yngve Søberg bringing a somewhat different perspective to the work. 

Other major choral works include Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem with Gardner conducting and soloists Louise Alder and Gerald Finley in a programme that also includes the premiere of Judith Weir's Respire, Inspire; and a relative rarity in Schumann's Das Paradies und die Peri with Samantha Clarke, Christiane Karg, Beth Taylor, Robert Murray, Lunga Eric Hallam and Thomas Oliemans.

Major symphonic utterances include Tippett’s Fourth Symphony, Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony and Zemlinsky’s The Mermaid. There is a cycle of Beethoven's piano concertos along with Symphony No. 5.

New music includes the premiere of Mark Simpson's Piano Concerto with soloist Víkingur Ólafsson, conducted by Gardner, Karina Canellakis conducting a Dai Fujikura new work, Anja Bihlmaier conducting Jacob Mühlrad's Kavanah, for clarinet and orchestra with Martin Fröst. Tianyi Lu conducts the European premiere of Kevin Puts' The Brightness of Light with soprano Renee Fleming.

Other contemporary music includes a semi-staging, directed by Dan Ayling, of George Benjamin's Lessons in Love and Violence, conducted by Gardner with soloists Nathaniel Sullivan, Gyula Orendt, Georgia Jarman, Toby Spence and James Way, and later in the season Gardner also conducts Benjamin's Concerto for Orchestra. Unsuk Chin's subito con forza is conducted by Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider.

Conductor Emeritus Vladimir Jurowski returns for two concerts. Wagner’s Prelude to Parsifal, Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7, and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with Mitsuko Uchida. Then a complete concert performance of Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty. The LPO is also welcoming Paavo Järvi in his new role as Chief Conductor & Artistic Advisor Designate with Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, plus music by Veljo Tormis and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 (‘Emperor’), performed by Benjamin Grosvenor.

New cohorts are welcomed to the LPO's talent development programmes with 16 early-career musicians in the Future Firsts programme, two Fellow Conductors, five Young Composers, and a fresh intake of LPO Junior Artists, the LPO's trailblazing mentorship programme for talented teenage musicians from under-represented backgrounds, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. AN the LPO's social impact programmes reach 30,000 people annually through diverse education and community initiatives. Key projects this season include the FUNharmonics family concert series, the Crisis Creates programme for adults experiencing homelessness, and the award-winning OrchLab programme, as well as many other projects with schools and communities in London and beyond. The LPO is now working with 15 partners across East and West Sussex to champion inclusion, nurture local talent, and support wellbeing through music. This season marks a significant geographic expansion of the Orchestra’s South Coast activity, extending its award-winning community work into Bognor Regis, Dover and Folkestone.

Full details from the LPO's website.

In his music for Daudet's L'Arlésienne, Bizet demonstrated his dramatic talent, yet the original is almost unknown: the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is set to change that

Alphonse Daudet (1840–1897) and Georges Bizet (1838–1875)

Bizet's L'Arlésienne suites are well-known with some movements representing some of the composer's most played music. Yet the original score for Alphonse Daudet's play, from which the suites are drawn, remains virtually unknown. 

In his biography of the composer Winton Dean argues that the original L'Arlésienne was one of the first examples of Bizet's short creative maturity. Dean has high praise for the dramatic qualities of the score, arguing that it is best appreciated in the theatre rather than the concert hall. Now we are getting a chance to do so as part of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's 2026/27 season at the Southbank Centre, when Daudet's play will be presented in a new translation by Jeremy Sams.

Alphonse Daudet's L'Arlésienne was based on the author's short story of the same name inspired by a real life event. [The play would also be the source for Francesco Cilea's 1897 opera L'arlesiana, which was performed by Opera Holland Park in 2019, see my review]. Daudet's play was planned for the Théâtre du Vaudeville in 1872 where the director was Léon Carvalho, who was previous at the Théâtre Lyrique where he commissioned The Pearl Fishers (1863) and The Fair Maid of Perth (1867). 

Winton Dean argues that Daudet's play was far better than any libretto that Bizet had set so far and the composer responded. Bizet's original incidental music consists of 27 numbers for chorus and small orchestra, ranging from mélodrames only a few bars long to entr'actes. Restricted to a small orchestra for reasons of economy, Bizet reacted creatively. The resulting integrated drama was perhaps not quite what Carvalho had in mind. When considering the play he said "The piece is a little too sombre for my theatre, but I think the music will be a powerful attraction, and it will soften somewhat the cruelty of the play."

The production was rushed, and the play was not a success. Bizet was persuaded to create a suite for full orchestra and the success of this led to a second suite, four years after Bizet's death. Then in 1885 L'Arlésienne returned to the theatre, this time the Théâtre de l'Odéon where the music mixed the original version with the suite. Though coolly received initially, it eventually ran for over 400 performances. But like Carmen success came too late for Bizet.

Sir Mark Elder conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Daudet's L'Arlésienne translated by Jeremy Sams with Bizet's original score to open the OAE's 2026/27 Southbank Centre season. Called Music Speaks, the season also features Václav Luks conducting Bach's complete Christmas Oratorio, Vladimir Jurowski conducting Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, John Butt conducting Bach's St John Passion, Handel sung by Mark Padmore and Carolyn Sampson, along with much more. 

Full details from the OAE website. 

 

B:Classical - B:Music's 2026/27 classical season in Birmingham mixes local and home-grown talent with international visitors

Martha Argerich (Photo: Adriano Heitman)

B:Music is the charity responsible for Birmingham Symphony Hall, home of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO), and Town Hall, the city's most iconic historic building, each year welcoming more than 500,000 visitors to enjoy our programme of over 700 concerts featuring local, regional and international music. Alongside a wide-ranging programme of concerts, B:Music presents a classical season that complements the home-grown CBSO with international ensembles.

B:Music's 2026/27 classical season opens with a bang as Martha Argerich is the soloist in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Lahav Shani, in a programme that includes music by Louise Farrenc and Brahms.

The NDR Radiophilharmonic Hannover, in their first visit to Birmingham since 2017, perform Beethoven and Brahms under conductor Stanislav Kochanovsky. British conductor Duncan Ward [who I chatted to in 2023, see my interview] brings the Flanders Symphony Orchestra in a programme that includes French violinist Alexandra Soumm in RVW's The Lark Ascending and Mozart's Violin Concerto no. 5 Turkish. There are more British visitors in the form of the Philharmonia Orchestra under conductor Marin Alsop performing Bernstein's Serenade with violinist Esther Yoo and Mahler's Sixth Symphony. Aziz Shokhakimov conducts the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra in Prokofiev, Saint-Saëns, and Rachmaninov, with violinist Maria Ioudenitch as soloist.

Ben Palmer brings his Covent Garden Sinfonia to celebrate the centenary of Fritz Lang's iconic Metropolis with a screening of the film with a live performance of the newly restored orchestral version of Gottfried Huppertz’s original symphonic score. Still on a film theme, the Taiwan Philharmonic is conducted by Jun Märkl in a programme that combines John Williams' music for Star Wars with music from Holst's The Planets and Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra.

British conductor Alpesh Chauhan is music director of Birmingham Opera Company and principal guest conductor with Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, and he brings the latter in a programme of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Brahms's Violin Concerto with soloist Hyeyoon Park. There is more local talent when Jeffrey Skidmore conducts Birmingham-based ensemble Ex Cathedra Choir, Baroque Orchestra & Academy of Vocal Music in Bach's St Matthew Passion.

The season concludes with a pair of blockbusters. Opera North, conductor Anthony Hermus, brings their concert staging of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde with John Matthew Myers and Wendy Bryn Harmer, then there is a visit from The Hallé, conductor Kahchun Wong in Walton's Belshazzar's Feast.

Birmingham Town Hall

A series of six Sunday morning recitals the Jennifer Blackwell Performance Space is launched by soprano Camila Mandillo in Monteverdi, Mozart, Poulenc, Ligeti and Bushra El-Turk. Mandillo has been selected as a Rising Star by ECHO (the European Concert Hall Organisation). The other Sunday morning recitals, all ECHO Rising Stars feature cellist Petar Pejčić, the Javus Quartet, the Amelio Trio, soprano Elionor Martínez and violinist Ava Bahari.

Thomas Trotter celebrates the 900th recital of his tenure as Birmingham City Organist as part of his programme of lunchtime concerts at Symphony Hall and Town Hall, giving you a chance to compare and contrast the 2001 Klais organ in Symphony Hall with the historic William Hill organ in Town Hall which dates back to the 1830s with a rebuilding in the 1890s and a more recent 1983 reconstruction by Mander to return it to its 1890 state. As part of the more recent work, bells were added to the organ. The original specification when the organ was built by William Hill included a set of bells, but no record remains as to what form these bells took. A set of handbells were obtained from the Whitechapel Bell Foundry and these were set in a frame with hammers activated by electric solenoids with dampers for the larger bells, which have been well received.

Full details from the B:Classical 2026/27 webpages.

Winners of the National Centre for Early Music Young Composers Award 2026

NCEM Young Composers Award - Edward Tait, joint winner of the 19 to 25 years category(Photo: Charlie Kirkpatrick)

Winners of the National Centre for Early Music Young Composers Award 2026, presented partnership with BBC Radio 3, were announced at the National Centre for Early Music (NCEM) in York last week. BBC Radio 3 invited aspiring young composers to compose a new song setting for soprano, cornett and keyboard, to be performed by The Gonzaga Band (Jamie Savan cornett; Faye Newton soprano; Steven Devine keyboard).

The composers took inspiration from the music of Claudio Monteverdi and his contemporaries, evoked in The Gonzaga Band’s recently released recital programme Love’s Labyrinth. The song setting explored the theme of love through the relationship between the voice and instruments, setting a poem by Lady Mary Wroth (1587-1651), published in 1621 as part of the sonnet cycle A Crown of Sonnets Dedicated to Love – one of the earliest by a female poet.

In this strange labyrinth how shall I turn?
Ways are on all sides, while the way I miss:
If to the right hand, there, in love I burn;
Let me go forward, therein danger is.
If to the left, suspicion hinders bliss;
Let me turn back, shame cries I ought return,
Nor faint, though crosses with my fortune kiss;
Stand still is harder, although sure to mourn.
Thus let me take the right, or left hand way,
Go forward, or stand still, or back retire:
I must these doubts endure without allay
Or help, but travail find for my best hire.
Yet that which most my troubled sense doth move,
Is to leave all, and take the thread of Love. 

NCEM Young Composers Award - Kat Farn, joint winner of the 19 to 25 years category(Photo: Charlie Kirkpatrick)

The eight young finalists took part in a day of workshops at the National Centre for Early Music’s home St Margaret’s Church, a popular year-round music venue. The sessions were led by composer Professor Christopher Fox, composer and Honorary Professor of Music at the University of York, and The Gonzaga Band, who performed the pieces in a public performance at the venue.

This year there were two winners in the 19 to 25 years category:

Kat Farn with LABYRINTH and Edward Tait with My troubled sense doth move.

The winner in the 18 years and under category was Laura Kesiak with In this strange labyrinth how shall I turn.

The winning compositions will be premiered by The Gonzaga Band in a lunchtime concert at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire on Tuesday 27 October 2026, which will be recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3's Early Music Show and BBC Sounds.

NCEM Young Composers Award - Laura Kesiak, winner of the 18 years and under category (Photo: Charlie Kirkpatrick)

The final was live-streamed an is available on the NCEM website, and on YouTube.

First recording of an early 19th century Portuguese radical chamber version of Mozart's Requiem

When faced with an established masterpiece that requires performing forces outside their capabilities many ensembles can only look on enviously. Mozart's Requiem does not make outrageous demands, but its requirements are still a cut above the average church service. A new recording from a Portuguese record label brings to light one creative solution.

In the Cathedral of Évora in Portugal the rediscovery of a manuscript of an arrangement of Mozart's Requiem dating from the early 19th century has brought this intriguing version to light. The work is scored for four singers and small instrumental ensemble, with the vocal parts being simply based on the Süssmayr edition. But the instrumental accompaniment is pared down simply to the instruments of the basso continuo (cello, bassoons, double-bass and organ), with the solo cello (rabecão peque-no) assuming a leading role.

Ricardo Bernardes and Americantiga Ensemble decided to investigate this chamber version in 2020, under the constraints imposed by the pandemic, which mirrored. They performed it in Lisbon and at subsequent concerts, leading to the recording on Americantiga label.

As Bernardes explains:

"The greatest challenge in the performance and in the interpretation of this repertoire lies, inevitably, in the constant comparison with the “canonical” orchestral version of Mozart’s Requiem. The extreme reduction of forces - five low instruments and four singers - exposes every musical line with uncompromising clarity, with-out the support of a full orchestral and choral texture. From a technical perspective, this demands a high level of precision, particularly in the highly virtuosic cello part, and in achieving a careful balance between voices and continuo, which here assumes almost orchestral functions. The challenge was to establish a distinct identity for this version, avoiding any perception of it as a merely impoverished adaptation. On the contrary, it was necessary to embrace fully its chamber character, valuing contrapuntal clarity, textual expressiveness and harmonic boldness, and to demonstrate that this historical reading offers a legitimate, alternative and artistically rich perspective on a work that is widely known."

Further details from the onHora website. 

Six new operas about Brummies past and present: Birmingham Opera Company invites you to RE-WIRE your mind

The lives of Brummies, the lives of lost venues - the lives we live online, the lives we lived in the past. 

Birmingham Opera Company's latest project, RE-WIRE brings together six short contemporary operas in one production curated by director Melly Still. 

Running from 28 to 30 April 2026 the performances take place at the newly opened Forum Digbeth nightclub. There, across three cabaret stages the lives of six Brummies, past and present will unfold.

The operas are directed by Harriet Taylor, Finn Lacey and Lucy Bird, with Jonny Danciger as creative director and Harry Lai as project music director. The cast features Robert Forrest, Themba Mvula, Joseph Doody, Lea Shaw, Georgia Mae Bishop, Rosalind Dobson alongside a chorus of over 100 Brummie actors, singers and dancers.

The six operas are Aidan Teplitzky's Mothers, Romarna Campbell's The Quiet Rebellion Continues, Georgia Barnes' From Mumsnet with love, Franki Dodwell's Cause and Effect, Leon Clowes' Absent Fathers and Aaron Nihal King and Sam Norman's Electric.

The event's publicity suggests that you:

Ditch the digital.  Scroll out of the doom...  ...AND INTO THE ROOM   RE-WIRE your mind

Further details from Birmingham Opera Company's website. 

 

 

A delightful jeu d'esprit: a strong cast has great fun with Peter Tranchell's 1950s operetta Twice a Kiss

Peter Tranchell (Courtesy: Independent Society of Musicians)

Peter Tranchell: Tu es Petrus in fuga, Seven Pieces in Alphabetical Order, The Dog That Sat, No more of THEE and ME, Twice a Kiss, Maho Ishizaka: Tickle the Keys; Daniel Gilchrist, Sophie Bevan, Hilary Summers, Jennifer France, Henry Waddington, James Gilchrist, Christopher Purves, Tom Winpenny, Piers Lane, David Doidge, Michael Papadopoulos, Imperial College Chamber Choir, Jonathan Wikeley
Reviewed 18 April 2025

A comic operetta by 20th-century Cambridge composer Peter Tranchell proves to be a delightful jeu d'esprit with a strong cast demonstrating their enjoyment of the music, alongside a selection of pieces giving us an idea of the wide range of Tranchell's musical world

Peter Tranchell was a Cambridge-trained composer and conductor who lectured in music at the university and was Praecentor of Gonville and Caius College until his retirement in 1989. His musical output, often linked to his various musical activities at the university, was many and varied with a chameleon-like assumption of style along with an interest in serialism, his music moving between writing for the Footlights, the chapel choir along with larger-scale works like his opera The Mayor of Casterbridge (1951).  

About this latter, Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote to Tranchell after hearing a performance in Cambridge, 'I was very much interested in your opera.  Of course to my old-fashioned ears there were rather too many “wrong notes” in the music, but that is my misfortune.  It seemed to me, if I may say so, that your music definitely understood the stage and was very effective dramatic music, which is after all what opera should be.' The 'wrong notes' being RVW's references to Tranchell's fondness for twelve-tone writing.

The Peter Tranchell Foundation was created to promote his music and from 2022 (the year of his centenary) has run a composition prize. On Saturday 18 April 2026 at St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge the Foundation presented an evening of Tranchell's music alongside a performance of the winning entry in the 2025 competition, Maho Ishizaka's Tickle the Keys. The centrepiece of the evening was a performance of Tranchell's comic one-act operetta Twice a Kiss with Daniel Gilchrist, Sophie Bevan, Hilary Summers, Jennifer France, Henry Waddington, James Gilchrist, and Christopher Purves, along with Piers Lane (piano), David Doidge (piano) and Tom Winpenny (organ), conducted by Michael Papadopoulos.

The evening began with Tom Winpenny playing the third and final movement of Tranchell's organ sonata Tu es Petrus in Fuga on the organ of St Paul's Church. This work was written for Peter Le Huray in 1958, the letters from whose name are used to create the pitches of the main themes. Though notated in quadruple time, the music plays with irregular rhythms and the result was a surprisingly perky, rhythmically intriguing theme that Tranchell developed into music that mixed opaque harmony with constant, dramatic movement.

The piece that made me fall in love with song: mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston on Schumann's Dichterliebe & recording the songs that make her want to get up in the morning

Helen Charlston (Photo: Julien Gazeau)

On 8 May, mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston has a new solo disc out on BIS. It is something of a contrast with her two previous recital discs one of which focused on Purcell and the other on lute song. This time the focus is more Romantic: A Poet's Love, with pianist Sholto Kynoch, features Schumann's Dichterliebe alongside the premiere recording of Héloïse Werner’s Knights Dream. 

It has been a busy and varied period for Helen. We caught her last October singing the title role in Handel's Solomon with John Butt and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment [see my review]. And when we chatted recently, she had had a busy few weeks devoted to Bach's passions (with Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Dresdner Philharmonie) and cantatas (with the Academy of Ancient Music). But in between she created the role of Marianne for Michel van der Aa’s new opera Theory of Flames with Dutch National Opera as part of the annual Opera Forward Festival.

Though in some ways we associate her voice with earlier repertoire, Helen sings a lot of song recitals and the German Romantic repertoire is important to her. She describes Dichterliebe as 'the piece that made me fall in love with song' and the new disc was her first opportunity to record it. She was asked to perform Dichterliebe at the 2023 Oxford Song Festival, so she and Sholto Kynoch built a programme around it, and she adds that she feels lucky to have found that musical relationship with Sholto. This has led to a three-disc project focusing on Schumann's song cycles, and she enjoys the fact that she is starting Schumann with such a big piece from the canon.

A vividly theatrical mix of Eastern folk traditions & 17th century Italian music: MOURN from Alkanna Graeca & Figure

MOURN: music by Monteverdi, Strozzi, Cesti, Gesualdo plus folk music from Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean; Figure, Frederick Waxman, Alkanna Graeca 
Reviewed 16 April 2026

Pairing Eastern European folk traditions, many polyphonic, with 16th and 17th century Italian music all exploring loss and lament might seem unlikely but the performances from both singers and instrumentalists were vivid and theatrical, gripping us from start to finish 

Somebody could write (or probably has written) a thesis on the way the lament and music of mourning from 16th and 17th century classical music was indebted to folk traditions, looking at the way these traditions of mourning continued in the folk traditions of the Balkans. But instead of that, Frederick Waxman's period ensemble Figure, who are never ones to shy away from risk-taking, joined forces with the vocal trio Alkanna Graeca (Alexandra Achillea, Irini Arabatzi, Dunja Botic), whose repertoire blends raw folk traditions from the Balkans, to create MOURN, a music-theatrical exploration of the experience of loss. We caught the first of two performances of MOURN at Stone Nest on 16 April 2026.

The three singers, Alexandra Achillea, Irini Arabatzi, Dunja Botic, mix classical, jazz, improvisation and folk. They demonstrated their chops in the challenging folk music of the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean by starting the evening dressed in black, standing in half darkness on the balcony at Stone Nest singing Mirgangula, a piece of polyphonic folk tradition from Georgia. The result was a thrillingly raw sound that captured the visceral nature of this type of folk music. Frederick Waxman and Figure followed this with the Passacaille from Lully's Armide, a juxtaposition that should not have worked but did, the Georgian folk piece having a greater complexity than we might have imagined and the Lully gaining in directness. It helped that Figure was configured as a small but mighty ensemble of Naomi Burrell and James Toll, violins, Sergio BUcheli, lute, Jan Zahourek, double bass, and Waxman on chamber organ. 

Orpheus returns, raag, rhythm & a new sitar concerto: Jasdeep Singh Degun to be artist in residence at Barbican Centre for 2026/27

Jasdeep Singh Degun (Photo: Govert Driessen)

Leeds-born sitar player and composer Jasdeep Singh Degun continues to push the envelope. His recent concert with Tom Featherstonhaugh and Fantasia Orchestra [see my review] served as a digest of the story so far with excerpts from Degun's first album and first sitar concerto, yet his most recent album Jogkauns (on Real World Records) is structured as a traditional Indian classical concert, presenting the entirety of the music within a single raag. 

Now, London audiences will get the chance to explore Degun's work further as it has been announced that he is an artist in residence at the Barbican Centre for the 2026/27 season with three major events planned, building on Degun's achievement becoming the first British Asian musician to receive the Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist Award, marking a significant moment in his career and the wider cultural landscape. 

The residency culminates in the London premiere of critically acclaimed reimagining of Claudio Monteverdi’s Orpheus. Already announced as part of Opera North's 2026/27 season this is a revival the original 2022 production which combined Monteverdi's score with new material bringing together artists from Indian and Western classical traditions in a large-scale cross-cultural work. Degun is returning to the work as co-musical director alongside harpsichordist Ashok Gupta, with tenor James Way as Orpheus. Opera North is touring the production with performances at Leeds Playhouse, and in Bradford, Liverpool, Leicester and London's Barbican.

Monteverdi/Jasdeep Singh Degun: Orpheus - Shahbaz Hussain on tabla, RN Prakash on ghatam, Mark Wagstaff on percussion, Sergio Bucheli on theorbo, Jasdeep Singh Degun on sitar and Andrew Long on violin - Opera North, 2022 (Photo: Tristram Kenton)

Before then there are two other occasions to hear Degun at the Barbican. In October 2026, Degun joins tabla maestro Sukhvinder Singh ‘Pinky’, as part of the Darbar Festival which celebrates the distinct strands of the Indian classical tradition over five days. For their event, Degun and Singh will be guiding audiences through the infinite riches of raag and rhythm.

Then in January 2027 comes the premiere of Degun's new Sitar Concerto commissioned by the Barbican and premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conductor Kirill Karabits alongside works by John Adams (The Chairman Dances) and Sergei Prokofiev (Symphony No. 7).

Jasdeep Singh Degun commented, "I’ve always seen my work as a part of the wider musical landscape in the UK, moving naturally between different contexts and tradition. This residency allows me to share this in a meaningful way, and marks a significant milestone for me personally. I’m very much looking forward to presenting my music and connecting with new audiences." 

75 glorious years: arising out of work to celebrate the Guildhall of St George, the King's Lynn Festival is in celebratory mood

The Guildhall of St George in King's Lynn (Image: Matthew Usher)

Founded in 1951, the King's Lynn Festival has a long and distinguished history. It arose because Alexander Penrose and Lord and Lady Fermoy wanted to save the Guildhall of St George – now believed to be the oldest working theatre in the UK that once hosted Shakespeare – which was nearly lost after the Second World War. Penrose’s vision of using it as an arts centre captured the imagination of Lord and Lady Fermoy. Together, they formed a trust, raised restoration funds, and transformed the Guildhall into a cultural hub.  

Now, the festival is celebrating its 75th anniversary with two weeks of events from 12 to 25 July 2026 encompassing a diverse programme of music, talks, exhibitions and events. There is a memorial recital for Ruth, Lady Fermoy being given by pianist Boris Gilburg, as well as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Beethoven's Eroica Symphony which closed that first festival. There are visits from BBC New Generation Artists, and Coffee Concerts showcasing a range of young artists. Other distinguished visitors include two of the Kanneh-Mason Siblings, the Academy of Ancient Music, guitarist Craig Ogden, and baritone Roderick Williams is giving two concerts

This year, things open with a concert by Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band encompassing Elgar, Eric Coates and Berlioz. In a more challenging vein, Contemporary Consort invites listeners to explore the music of Mark-Anthony Turnage with a concert putting his chamber music next to that of Stravinsky, Copland and Bernstein, then the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective bring music clarinet quintets by Coleridge-Taylor and Brahms.

The Guildhall Singers, conductor Andres Hernandez Salazar premiere a new piece by Norfolk--based composer James McConnel in a programme that moves from Purcell and Lassus to Mantyjarvi, Whitacre and Shearing.

Siblings Sheku and Issata Kanneh-Mason bring their distinctive musicality to music by Mendelssohn, Nadia Boulanger, Schumann and Rebecca Clarke (a transcription of her Viola Sonata).  Anne Heemsker, Kate Bennett Wadsworth and David Wright (flute, cello and harpsichord) explore the chamber music of the two great contemporaries Bach and Telemann. The Novo Quartet, BBC New Generation Artists, pair quartets by Haydn and Mendelssohn. 

At St Nicholas' Chapel, organist Francesca Massey will be presenting an eclectic recital of organ music from Bach to Frances Pott.  Still in St Nicholas Chapel, the viol duo Jacqui Roberson-Wade and Peter Wendland will be exploring music from pre-Revolutionary France. Bojan Cicic directs the Academy of Ancient Music in a programme of Italian concertos, mixing Vivaldi with Mossi, Locatelli, Velentini and Corelli with music for one, two and four solo violins. 

The King's Lynn Festival Chorus are joined by violinist Charlie Lovell-Jones, baritone Roderick Williams, pianist Ella O'Neill and conductor Ben Horden for RVW's The Lark Ascending, and Five Mystical Songs, plus Elgar's Scenes from the Bavarian Highlands. Roderick Williams returns with pianist Iain Burnside for a recital that puts cherished English song by Vaughan Williams, Gurney and Howells, alongside Rhian Samuels and Vaughan Williams arrangements of songs from the Appalachian Mountains.

Guitarist Craig Ogden will be taking listeners on a journey from Fantasy to flamenco, and Dowland's Foundry mark the composer's 400th anniversary. 

There are five coffee concerts, with the Novo Quartet returning for Mozart and Nielson; Joel Munday, violin and Julian Trevelyan, piano in sonatas by Mozart and Brahms, plus Ravel's Tzigane; Rose McLachlan, piano plays Schubert and Chopin; Sirius Chau, flute and Gwenellian Llyr, harp in Spohr, Debussy and more; and the Paddington Trio in Haydn and Beethoven's Archduke Trio.

On a lighter note, Magpie Lane present an evening of traditional English song and dance, whilst the Bowjangles quartet takes things in a more cabaret direction, and the Pasadena Roof Orchestra encourages us to take a step back to a more glamorous era.

The Ruth, Lady Fermoy Memorial Concert features pianist Boris Giltburg in a virtuoso programme encompassing the Bach/Busoni Chaconne, Liszt's Sonata in B minor, preludes by Rachmaninoff and Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit. The Festival concludes with Adam Hickox conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Mendelssohn's The Hebrides Overture, Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto (with BBC New Generation Artist, Hana Chang) and Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, a work which concluded the first festival in 1951.

Full details from the Festival website. 

Beautifully wrought & intensely serious: Kitty Whately & Julius Drake explore the songs of Madeleine Dring

Through the Centuries: Songs by Madeleine Dring; Kitty Whately, Julius Drake; Chandos
Reviewed 15 April 2026

If you thought Madeleine Dring's songs were confined to camp nightclubs then think again. Here Kitty Whately and Julius Drake mine the composer's intensely serious side, revealing a woefully neglected and wilfully misunderstood composer.

Despite training at the Royal College of Music in the years before the Second World War alongside women such as Elizabeth Lutyens, Elizabeth Maconchy, Grace Williams, and Ruth Gipps, Madeleine Dring's reputation is much more that of an accidental composer: her songs simply happenings around her career in the theatre. And her reputation not helped that perhaps her best known song is her setting of Betjeman's Song of the Nightclub Proprietress where the rather camp, musical hall atmosphere is to the fore.

On this new disc on Chandos from mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately and pianist Julius Drake, Through the centuries: songs of Madeleine Dring, they take an entirely serious and focused view of Dring the songwriter. We are treated to 20 songs from across Dring's career, though many are in fact of uncertain date. Apart from the last song, an arrangement of Cole Porter's In the still of the night, Dring the music theatre composer is entirely absent. Her 'day job' was as an actress and entertainer, writing some two dozen scores for the BBC and music for West End shows and reviews. As Lewis Foreman's excellent booklet note points out, because she often wrote songs at short notice, she did not deal with them systematically. As a result, we have to take each song on its merits rather than assigning early, middle or late.

An evening of connection, reflection, & celebration: Renell Shaw's The Windrush Suite at Kings Place

As part of Kings Place's Memory Unwrapped season composer, songwriter and producer Renell Shaw has a year-long artist residency. Shaw’s work bridges theatre, contemporary composition and artist led music, and his credits include music for The Crucible and Othello for Shakespeare’s Globe, Is God Is for the Royal Court Theatre, , as well as winning an Ivor Novello Award for Jazz Composition for Small Ensemble.

He is currently developing a new opera with Music Theatre Wales based on Yasuke, a samurai of African origin who served Oda Nobunaga between in the 16th century. Set to premiere in 2027, the work extends his practice further into long form music drama.  

On 25 June, Shaw will be presenting two works at Kings Place as part of Memory Unwrapped. The Windrush Suite and Echo in the Bones both feature on Shaw's albums, and this event will be the first ever performance with a full live ensemble.

The Windrush Suite pays homage to Shaw’s grandparents' journey from the Caribbean to Britain telling their stories of love, pain, struggle, and triumph through a fusion of jazz, spoken word and Caribbean traditions. Echo in the Bones explores what it means to be Black British through the eyes of the Windrush generation’s children - weaving music, history, and storytelling into a moving portrait of resistance, legacy, and belonging.

The concert features and ensemble of 12 musicians led by Shaw, mixing classical, jazz and contemporary including cellist Ayanna Witter-Johnson, multi-instrumentalist Orphy Robinson and legendary saxophonist Jean Toussaint.

As a central pillar of his 2026 residency at Kings Place, Renell Shaw leads a mentoring programme, The Artist’s Room. This is a bespoke masterclass series designed to bridge the gap between creative intuition and professional longevity. By mentoring two distinct cohorts, Young Artists (16–18) and an Open Room (19+), Shaw fosters a collaborative environment where aspiring musicians and creators can refine their musicality while gaining essential industry insights directly from a master storyteller.

The concluding part of Shaw's planned trilogy is planned for 9 October when a new commission, Remember Us Tomorrow is premiered during Black History Month. Shaw's most personal work to date, it asks what it means to be of Afro-Caribbean heritage after three generations in Britain, raising a fourth generation in a world that is both hyper-connected and deeply divided. What stories must we protect? And how do we ensure we are remembered as tomorrow takes shape.

Full details from Kings Place's website.

Music at the Heart of the community: Sinfonia Cymru take us from Latin America and France to concerts in local venues across Wales

One of Sinfonia Cymru's Cymuned Sessions

Sinfonia Cymru is a collective of dynamic professional musicians all aged under 30 committed to taking music across the length and breadth of Wales. Whilst the do perform regularly at some of Wales’ most popular arts venues, including Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (Cardiff), The Riverfront (Newport) and Theatr Clwyd (Mold). They also want to perform in smaller communities and these events include the annual free ‘Cymuned’ tour, which visits museums, pubs, miners’ institutes and village halls across Wales.  

Later this month, the ensemble is joined by Colombian soprano Julieth Lozano Rolong [whom we heard earlier this year in one of Opera Rara's Salon Concerts, see my review] for Latin American Song, a journey through Latin America from the lush lyricism of María Grever to the rhythmic brilliance of Esther Forero, with each song written by a female composer, with events in Rhosygilwen, Mold and Cardiff. (24 April - 2 May) Then there are two opportunities to hear Tour de France, the ensemble's celebration of French music with piece by Lili Boulanger, Jean Françaix and Saint-Saëns in Newport and Barry. (6 & 7 May).

On a somewhat different scale, Sinfonia Cymru's Cymuned Sessions will be taking music to the heart of the community. [cymuned is Welsh for community]. They will be bringing live music to local areas, presenting free hour-long concerts. These family-friendly concerts take place in all sorts of venues across Wales: village halls, care homes, fruit and veg shops, cafés, rugby clubs and more. 

First off is a trio of flute, harp and cello travelling to Chepstow, Maesteg, Risca, Cemmaes and Neuadd Llan Ffestiniog Hall from 6 to 17 May, then later in May and June there will be two further ensembles touring to venues including Solva, Narbeth, Tre’ddol, Wrexham Pontyberem and Pentredŵr. All events are free but it is wise to book.

Full details from the Sinfonia Cymru website. 

 

 

Signs, Games & Messages: Lewes Chamber Music Festival 2026 celebrates Kurtág

From 11 to 14 June 2026, cellist and artistic director Beatrice Philips leads an ensemble of 15 chamber musicians and soloists for the 2026 Lewes Chamber Music Festival with a wonderfully diverse programme, celebrating Kurtag’s 100th anniversary via the festival’s theme: Exploring musical legacy, along with locally sourced refreshments and great cake!

The music of Kurtág threads its way through the festival with various incarnations of Signs Games & Messages, plus 12 Microludes for String Quartet, Hommage a R. Schumann, Jaketok and his transcriptions of Bach cantatas for piano four-hands (written for Kurtág to play with his wife.).

And this music has provided other threads that run through the programme. Alongside Kurtág's Bach, there are extracts from Bach's Goldberg Variations in its original version and in transcription for string trio. Whilst Kurtág's Hommage a R Schumann is written for the same instrumental combination as Schumann's Fairtytale for piano, clarinet and viola. And further Schumann includes his Adagio & Allegro for horn and piano, Six pieces in canonic form, and Piano Quartet. Plus there is a suite for piano, violin and clarinet by Darius Milhaud, with whom Kurtág had lessons in Paris.

Other homages include Ligeti's Horn Trio 'Hommage a Brahms', alongside Brahms' Sonata for viola and piano in E flat, and Sextet No.2 in G major. Other works include Ravel's Piano Trio, and music by Sally Beamish, Dora Pejacevic, Martinu, Bartok and Webern. The Saturday evening concert includes Janacek's String Quartet No. 2 'Intimate Letters' and tenor Laurence Kilsby joins the festival for Britten's Les Illuminations.

The gala concert on Saturday evening not only features a double length event with music by Kurtág, Schumann, Janacek and Britten, but refreshments which are the result of community efforts along with locally sourced wine. And the coffee for Sunday morning's coffee concert is locally are the result of community efforts and locally sourced wine, whilst the cakes served are locally-made and have gained a reputation for being outstanding.

Full details from the festival website. 

 

A new festival in Glasgow and Edinburgh recalls a forgotten 19th century Scottish musical pioneer, Helen Hopekirk

Helen Hopekirk - National Galleries of Scotland collection (Photo: National Galleries of Scotland)

A new festival is hoping to bring back the name of Helen Hopekirk. Born in Peebles in 1856, she was one of the most accomplished pianists and composers of her generation, and her accomplishments including playing her Piano Concerto (now lost) with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1900.

A new festival, the Helen Hopekirk Festival will mark her 170th anniversary with events in Glasgow and Edinburgh from 18 to 24 May 2026. 

A young trio of Royal Conservatoire of Scotland graduates, Bubblyjock Collective will be presenting a concert featuring Hopekirk alongside other neglected names including Isobel Dunlop, Marie Dare and Claire Liddel. Dr Hannah Roberts will give a lecture-recital exploring the folk roots of Hopekirk's music, performing her work and unpacking the Scottish songs and Celtic traditions that shaped it, followed by a masterclass for young musicians.

Gary Steigerwalt and Dana Müller are the world's foremost Hopekirk scholars and performers and Steigerwalt’s recording Helen Hopekirk: Piano Music was the first album ever devoted to her music. They will be flying in from Arizona for a piano duo concert devoted to Hopekirk's music.

There is also a competition for young pianists and organists placing Scottish repertoire at the heart of young musicians' training. Free and open to the public, the closes with a winners' gala concert.

Helen Hopekirk studied with Scottish composer Alexander Mackenzie and with Carl Reinecke in Leipzig. She planned to continue her studies with Franz Liszt, but after his death studied instead with Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna. She lived in Vienna until 1892 and then she and her husband moved to Paris. Her first large scale work, the Concertstück in D Minor for piano and orchestra, was written in Paris in 1893–94, and she performed it with the Scottish Orchestra under Georg Henschel in Edinburgh and Dundee in November 1894. She accepted an invitation to teach at the New England Conservatory, later leaving it to teach privately and to perform. She and her husband became American citizens in 1918, and her career was then focused on the USA. 

Full details from the festival website. 

From London to Jerusalem: America period instrument ensemble Apollo's Fire return to London for a second residency at St Martin in the Fields

Apollo's Fire

Apollo's Fire, the American period instrument ensemble led by its founder Jeanette Sorrell, is coming to the UK for a short tour featuring the company's second residency at the Church of St Martin in the Fields. They are at St Martin in the Fields on Friday 24 and Saturday 25 April and complete the mini-residency with a concert at Snape Maltings.

On Friday lunchtime there is Pubs and Palaces of 1610, a chamber recital exploring music from the crossroads of baroque and folk traditions, featuring duo and trio performances by five artists from the ensemble. Then the early evening concert sees Apollo's Fire joined by musicians from the English Baroque Soloists for Fencing Match – Duelling Double Concertos, with double concertos by Vivaldi, Telemann and Bach, plus dances by Rameau. Then late evening there is Baklava Bash: A Middle Eastern Celebration in the crypt, an evocation of a Middle-Eastern café with music from Israeli recorder virtuoso Daphna Mor and Palestinian-American oud master Ronnie Malley and friends.

Saturday sees the ensemble's residency conclude with O Jerusalem! Crossroads of Three Faiths, a musical tour through Jerusalem and its ancient Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Armenian quarters, as surprising cross-influences emerge, as a Sephardic ballad leads to a classical Arabic love song, and selections from Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 echo the exotic and rapturous singing of the Jewish cantors in the temples. 

On Sunday 26 April, they will be again joined by musicians from the English Baroque Soloists for Fencing Match – Duelling Double Concertos at Snape Maltings.

Full details from Apollo's Fire's website. 

Cross-cultural cross currents: Jasdeep Singh Degun with Fantasia Orchestra in Terry Riley's iconic In C performed by string orchestra, piano, sitar and tabla at Smith Square Hall

Jasdeep Singh Degun, Gurdain Rayatt, Fantasia Orchestra, Tom Fetherstonhaugh - Smith Square Hall (Photo: Pablo Strong)

Terry Riley: In C, Jasdeep Singh Degun, Philip Glass, Rameau; Jasdeep Singh Degun, Gurdain Rayatt, Fantasia Orchestra, Tom Fetherstonhaugh; Smith Square Hall
Reviewed 10 April 2026

Minimalism, classical Indian music & French Baroque in an entrancing mix which saw the iconic In C including sitar and tabla alongside Jasdeep Singh Degun's own music in performances full of infectious joy

Sitar player and composer Jasdeep Sing Degun joined Tom Fetherstonhaugh and Fantasia Orchestra for a concert at Smith Square Hall on Friday 10 April 2026 with a wide-ranging programme which saw Degun, on sitar, and tabla player Gurdain Rayatt joining the orchestra in Terry Riley's iconic In C alongside music by Degun, Philip Glass and Rameau.

The orchestra consisted of an ensemble of 21 strings with Fetherstonhaugh playing the piano for the first half. We began with Degun's In Search of Redemption from his first album, Anomaly. We began with Fetherstonhaugh playing a gentle melody on the piano, then as sitar and strings joined they played the same melody in free heterophonic fashion. As the piece developed we became aware of Degun, the composer, adding layers each one with a different timbre and playing subtly different rhythms. The work ended with a fast riff for sitar (Degun) and tabla (Rayatt) over a string drone.

Jasdeep Singh Degun, Fantasia Orchestra - Smith Square Hall (Photo: Pablo Strong)

Gregory Spears opera Fellow Travelers celebrates its 10th anniversary with a nationwide USA tour collaborating with the Lavender Names Project

Gregory Spears: Fellow Travelers - Andy Acosta, Joseph Lattanzi - Seattle Opera (Photo: Sunny Martini)

They served their country. Their country fired them. And it's still happening 

Gregory Spears opera Fellow Travelers, with a libretto by Greg Pierce, premiered at Cincinnati Opera in 2016, directed by Kevin Newbury. Since then the work has been staged by more than 15 opera companies including London’s University College Opera.

The work is based on Thomas Mallon’s best-selling 2007 novel which tells a love-story set against the Lavender Scare, a piece of LGBTQ+ history from the 1950s that is still relatively unknown. The opera speaks to the experiences of those who were banned from government employment and subject to humiliating investigations because of their sexuality. The novel went on to form the basis for the 2023 TV series starring Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey, which reached wide audiences.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Spears' opera, director Kevin Newbury's production is undertaking a nationwide tour of the USA. The tour launched in February and March at Seattle Opera and Portland Opera. In his review of the Seattle Opera premiere, Thomas May said in The Seattle Times that 'Though rooted in fear from seven decades ago, the story feels unsettlingly present' and described the score as 'a sound world at once intimate and unexpectedly expansive, its modest forces carrying emotional weight well beyond their scale — much like the opera itself. '

The USA tour, one of the largest consortium projects ever attempted in the US opera industry, continues this summer with performances at San Diego Opera (July 10-12) and New York’s Glimmerglass Festival (July 18-Aug. 16), and 2027 performances begin with the opera’s Texas premiere at Austin Opera (Feb. 6-7), with Andy Acosta and Joseph Lattanzi in the two leading roles.

For this tour, the staging broadens its impact through the Lavender Names Project, a pioneering collaboration with the American LGBTQ+ Museum, ALL OUT, and the Lambda Archives of San Diego building community around the country by shedding light on a forgotten chapter of LGBTQ+ history that echoes today's political climate, which is again marked by the policing of identity.  This nationwide, grassroots archival research and community outreach initiative will galvanize libraries, universities and LGBTQ+ organizations in each city. 

Gregory Spears: Fellow Travelers - the closing scene at Seattle Opera (Photo: Sunny Martini)

Over the past year, the Lavender Names Project has collected photos and stories of members of the LGBTQ+ community who were systematically discriminated against, fired and mistreated by federal and local governments in the United States, including the military, from the "Lavender Scare" in 1953, to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in the 1990s, to today.  The tour includes curated lobby installations for each performance venue which will feature these collected stories and exhibits detailing the history of the Lavender Scare.

 

 

Bridging worlds: premiere of Eleanor Alberga's Symphony No. 2 by Academy of St Martin in the Fields alongside music by Grazyna Bacewicz, Florence Price, Carolyn Shaw

Bridging Worlds: Grazyna Bacewicz, Florence Price, Carolyn Shaw, Eleanor Alberga; Elena Urioste, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Tomo Keller; Church of St Martin in the Fields
Reviewed 9 April 2026

The premiere of Eleanor Alberga's vividly inventive second symphony alongside works by three other women composers spanning two continents and two centuries in compelling performances 

Back in 2020, a wind ensemble from the Academy of St Martin in the Fields gave the first performance since its premiere in 1993 of Eleanor Alberga's Nightscape, then in Autumn 2021 the Academy launched The Beacon Project, a digital offering of educational resources and performance films that shine a light on three beacons of contemporary music: Eleanor Alberga, Sally Beamish, and Errollyn Wallen, with the first film to be issued being Alberga's Nightscape. In 2022, I chatted to Eleanor Alberga about Nightscape and also about her first symphony, which she had just completed [see my interview].

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields were so taken with Alberga's music that the idea of a commission developed and finally, last night (9 April 2026), the Academy of St Martin in the Fields directed from the violin by Tomo Keller premiered Eleanor Alberga's Symphony No. 2 at the Church of St Martin in the Fields as part of a concert entitled Bridging Worlds which featured Grazyna Bacewicz's Concerto for String Orchestra, Florence Price's Violin Concerto No. 1 (with soloist Elena Urioste) and Carolyn Shaw's Entr'acte.

It was a fascinating programme of 20th and 21st century music by women composers moving between Europe and America. The first half focused on the mid-Century period as Price's Violin Concerto No. 1 dates from 1939 whilst Bacewicz's piece dates from 1948. Then in the second half we had Shaw's 2011 work and Alberga's immediately contemporary one.

Elaborate vocal lines, aching beauty & expressive pain: The Portrait Players & Dame Emma Kirkby in I Voci Segreti

The Portrait Players (Emilia Agajew, Kristiina Watt, Claire Ward, Mirim Nohl) with Dame Emma Kirkby

I Voci Segreti: Monteverdi, Luzzaschi, Quagliati, Piccinini, Ortiz, Malvezzi, Coma, Settimia Caccini, Marenzio, Francesca Caccini; The Portrait Players, Dame Emma Kirkby; City Music Foundation at Bart's Great Hall
Reviewed 8 April 2025

The seductive sweetness of three voices weaving in and around each other: Dame Emma Kirkby joins the young ensemble, The Portrait Players, for a programme celebrating the concerto delle donne and the fondness for all-female vocal ensembles in 16th century Italy

The court of the d'Este family, the Dukes of Ferrara in the 16th century is in many ways tantalising. Some of this is caused by distance, how can we know anything about life over 500 years ago. But in the case of the Dukes of Ferrara, when Alfonso II d'Este died without a direct heir in 1597 the d'Este family's hold on the dukedom withered and in 1598 it became papal fief and archives from the period were catastrophically lost.

Ferrara in 16th century matters, because it was a musical hothouse. Alfonso II created the concerto delle donne, a consort of professional female singers that existed from 1580 to 1597, famed for the singers' technical and artistic virtuosity. The women were upper class but not necessarily noble and the music performed was highly private, part of Alfonso's musica secreta concerts.

A highly trained ensemble, one of their innovations was to move from a single voice singing diminutions over accompaniment to two or three highly ornamented voices singing varying diminutions at once, with the ornaments notated in detail by the composers. The concerto delle donne was directed by court composer Luzzasco Luzzaschi and his surviving music for the group is precious.

This idea of a private ensemble of female singers was influential in Italy at the period and a recent concert by The Portrait Players, as part of the City Music Foundation's (CMF) lunchtime recital series in the Great Hall at St Bart's Hospital, explored this repertoire by focusing on the concerto delle donne in Ferrara and the music created for and by the Caccini sisters in Florence.

On Wednesday 8 April 2026, The Portrait Players (Claire Ward, soprano, Kristiina Watt, theorbo/voice, Miriam Nohl, cello and Emilia Agajew, harp) were joined by soprano Dame Emma Kirkby whose familiarity with this repertoire goes back many decades. Alongside madrigals by Claudio Monteverdi, Luzzasco Luzzaschi, Annibale Come, Settimia Caccini, Francesca Caccini and Luca Marenzio we heard instrumental music by Paolo Quagliati, Alessandro Piccinini, Diego Ortiz and Cristofano Malvezzi. Claire Ward was a CMF Artist from 2022 to 2024 and founded The Portrait Players in 2023.

Ferrara and its castle, home of the concerto delle donne

In fact, the members of the concerto delle donne in Ferrara all played instruments too, including the lute and harp. For this concert Kristiina Watt both sang and played theorbo, sometimes simultaneously, with Miriam Nohl and Emilia Agajew providing the other instrumental support.