Music in unexpected places: Wimbledon International Music Festival returns for the second festival under artistic director Anthony Friend

Wimbledon International Music Festival returns next month with 26 events on offer from 7 to 29 November 2026. This year's festival, the 18th, is the second festival under the artistic directorship of Anthony Friend who took over from the festival's founder, Anthony Wilkinson in 2025.

When he founded the festival in 2009, Anthony Wilkinson had a long-held dream of creating a new concert hall in Wimbledon. Under Anthony Friend, the festival has embraced a diversity of venues. The main concert venue is St John the Baptist, Spencer Hill but there are also events in Auditorium, Wimbledon High School; Upper Hall, Sacred Heart Church; King’s College School, Wimbledon, along with more unusual spaces including Merton Arts Space, Wimbledon Library; The Rushmere pub, Ridgway; Jeroboams wine bar, Wimbledon Village; along with a schools' concert in New Wimbledon Theatre.

The festival opens with Sacred Splendour, music from Venice and Madrid performed by Academy Choir of Wimbledon, conductor George Inscoe (Sub-Organist at St Paul’s Cathedral) , and His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts. And the festival concludes with a recital by pianist Angela Hewitt, who returns to the festival for the third time.

Other highlights include a recital by pianist David Khrikuli, a laureate of the Chopin International Piano Competition in Bach, Chopin, Ravel and Rachmaninoff, and festival artistic director Anthony Friend joins Quatuor Agate for Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, plus quartets by Korngold and Schubert. Spanish pianist Antonio Oyarzábal joins the Solem Quartet for piano quintets by Dvorak and Amy Beach. Members of Sinfonia Cymru are led by Haim Choi in a programme that moves from Mendelssohn's Octet and Oli Mustonen's Nonetto II to smaller line-ups for music by Lili Boulanger, Louise Farrenc and Jean Francaix.

Max Barley (Director of Music, Holy Trinity Sloane Square) returns to the festival with the latest programme of Bach, this time the cantata Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, the motet O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht, and Magnificat. Sinfonia Smith Square are conducted by Charlotte Corderoy in Anna Clyne's virtuosic orchestral showpiece Sound and fury, a new flugelhorn concerto, Hargrove, by Gabriel Jackson with soloist Imogen Whitehead (for whom it was written) and Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony.

A rising star of the viola, Edgar Francis was just 22 years old when he won the 2021 Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition. At this year's festival he is joined by pianist Jâms Coleman for the Tertis Memorial Concert with music from Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann, Rebecca Clarke and Frank Bridge.

There is a gala recital by rising opera stars from the English National Opera, featuring favourite arias accompanied by piano and English sparkling wine from Roebuck Estates. The Festival takes over The Rushmere pub for two nights: jazz singer Natalie Williams and her band, in association with Ronnie Scott's, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, performing French Baroque music in their lighthearted Night Shift format. 

Candlelit concerts bring a cosy Scandinavian atmosphere to performances by the Lodestar Trio, combining Nordic folk music with Bach, and soprano Ruby Hughes with lutenist Jonas Nordberg, performing a programme devoted to John Dowland. Whilst events at at Jeroboams in Wimbledon Village, pair music with wines from around the world: Neapolitan song with wines from Naples and southern Italy, and Piazzolla with Argentinian wine. There is an evening of live music and live painting, with Jérémie Queyras and violinist Charlotte Spruit creating three large-scale canvases during the concert, which will be available for sale afterwards.

Alongside its public performances, the Festival reaches thousands of young people through its partnership with Merton Music Foundation, supporting music education and bringing live performance to schools across the borough.

Full details from the Festival's website. 

 

A sustained & compelling sense of atmosphere: Alex Mills & Anna Blom's Reverence at Brompton Cemetery Chapel

Anna Blom & Alex Mills: Reverence - Brompton Cemetery Chapel

Alex Mills is a composer for whom music and the visual arts are intertwined. Earlier this year, alongside his debut album Look How Brightly, he co-curated an exhibition with 22 artists responding to the music [see my article]. 

This weekend (3-4 October 2026) he and artist Anna Blom presented an installation, Reverence in the Chapel at Brompton Cemetery. 

Reverence brought together four of Blom's large-scale paintings alongside Mills' generative sound installation. The whole intended to evoke our connection to the natural world, something that we easily overlook. Blom's paintings were created outdoors using raw pigments and Blom's process allows traces of the forest itself to become part of the work. Each image was striking in its own right, but placed in an arc in the centre of the chapel they made a compelling assemblage.

Around them Mills' sound installation breathed. Mills' starting point was the breath. He and cellist Clare O'Connell recorded some five or six hundred fragments of O'Connell's cello playing, creating a sense of the instrument inhaling and exhaling. Alongside these Mills used samples of recorded bells and chimes plus a synthesized organ. These samples were brought together by software so that the music was constantly changing and never the same. Mills had worked on the piece so that it used pitches and harmonies that he liked, but the exact combination at any one time was up to chance.

Mills has used chance before in his pieces, but this is the first time he has used it in combination with technology. The piece was almost a living breathing thing, and if he had introduced new pitches, new samples onto his laptop the software would absorb them and change things.

The resulting sound world filled the chapel and created a sense of something inhaling and exhaling, a slow symphonic feel that built and died, constantly changing yet always within the same parameters. There was a slowness to the result that made you, almost compelled you to sit and absorb (and yes, the chapel does have seats!) The whole had a remarkably sustained and compelling sense of atmosphere.

On the Saturday, Clare O'Connell came and gave a live performance where she improvised over the sound installation which was using her material but strung together in an order she did not recognise. An intriguing multilayering of concepts. And on Sunday morning there was a breath workshop.

Brompton Cemetery is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries established in the 19th century to alleviate overcrowding in existing parish burial grounds as London's population grew. Unlike the others, Brompton was very flat, and the architect Benjamin Bauda was brought in to create the domed circular chapel and colonnades designed to evoke St Peter's in Rome.

When Does Georgian Music Stop Being “Georgian Music”?

U.S. premiere of Vaja Azarashvili’s Cello Concerto at Merkin Hall in New York, featuring Sandro Sidamonidze as soloist with Orchestra for People and conductor Hahnsol Kim (Photo: Matthew Holler)

Cellist Sandro Sidamonidze on a musical culture across borders - and knowing when the music begins to travel on its own

There is a peculiar moment that occurs when you perform music from your own country abroad. Before you play a note, the music has already acquired an adjective.

It is Georgian music.

At home, that adjective can be almost invisible. A concerto is a concerto; a composer belongs to the musical landscape you grew up with; certain melodies, harmonies and gestures arrive without requiring footnotes. Abroad, the same piece can suddenly find itself carrying the weight of a country. It becomes a representative. An introduction is expected. A cultural context has to be supplied.

I have spent much of my adult musical life outside Georgia, and the longer my career has developed internationally, the more interested I have become in this transformation.

I am proud to be a Georgian cellist. Georgia is inseparable from who I am, musically and personally, and introducing its music to audiences abroad has become one of the great joys of my life. But I have also begun to wonder whether the ultimate success of advocating for Georgian classical music would be the moment when its nationality becomes less important.

When, in other words, does Georgian music get to become simply music?

For me, that question became particularly tangible through Vaja Azarashvili’s Cello Concerto.

A concerto crosses the Atlantic

In November 2025, I walked onto the stage of Merkin Hall in New York to give the United States premiere of Azarashvili’s concerto.

znThe phrase “United States premiere” sounds grand. For me, however, it also contained something slightly unsettling.

Azarashvili was not some newly discovered composer whose manuscript had been sitting forgotten in an archive. He was a major figure in Georgian musical life. I did not approach his music as an archaeological curiosity. It belonged to the musical environment from which I came.

And yet in New York the concerto was arriving for the first time.

That discrepancy stayed with me.

How can a piece of music possess a meaningful life in one country and effectively have no performance history in another? What determines which works are allowed to travel? We sometimes speak about the classical canon as though it were the natural result of quality: great music survives and crosses borders because it is great. The reality is far less orderly.

        Music travels because somebody carries it.

To convey the true impact required depths only artistic responses could provide: David Önaç on how his Atlantic Requiem aims to memorialise the lost lives of enslaved Africans

David Önaç

How Lloyd’s insurance contracts from the transatlantic slave trade became the unlikely inspiration for a new choral work for the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) and BBC Singers. Composer David Önaç explains his Atlantic Requiem.

Legal insurance documents might not be an obvious inspiration for a choral work. But when Lloyd's opened up its archive of contracts from the transatlantic slave trade, the dramatic potential leapt off the page. Keen to respond on an artistic level to these insurance contracts, Dr Errol Francis, director of arts and heritage charity Culture& commissioned a ground-breaking new musico-dramatic work, soon to be premiered by the LSO and the BBC Singers conducted by Malcolm J. Merriweather.

Prof Alexandre White of Johns Hopkins University had meticulously digitised Lloyd's archives, creating an entire website Underwriting Souls (via "Black, Beyond Data" funded by the Mellon Foundation) testifying to the insurer's complicity in the transatlantic trade, insuring slave ships and their ‘cargo'.

Errol's deep concern was that such comprehensive, systemic undervaluing of human life was about more than facts and figures: indeed, numerical abstraction was part of the problem. To convey the true impact required depths only artistic responses could provide.

In a strange coincidence, when Culture& approached me to write a musical response, I was then arranging 20 Spirituals for Piano for EVC Music, and awaiting the premiere of a milestone: my violin duo "Out of the Blue" which at last integrated jazz, gospel and classical styles with a newfound confidence I had been seeking since childhood.

I grew up on both sides of the Atlantic, inspired by music from both sides of the ocean at the centre of the slave trade. Gospel, jazz and Junkanoo were styles I'd relished as a child in the Caribbean and tried to emulate on the piano as early as age four. Western Classical music was the air I breathed in the UK as a young solo pianist devoted to Rachmaninov (playing Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini was a teenage highlight), and then as a postgraduate composer studying at Cambridge tutored by Robin Holloway, and at Manchester tutored by Adam Gorb and Camden Reeves.

So the requiem proposal offered a vast 45-minute choral and orchestral canvas to paint the sounds of spirituals and more deeply explore sound palettes from my dual heritage.

Bach & Blood: a choral version of Bach's Chaconne, Pärt's Magnificat Antiphons for strings, & David Fenessy meditating on Hildegard & blood

David Fenessy: Blood - Jonathan Morton, Scottish Ensemble, Chamber Choir of NYCOS, Christopher Bell (Photo: Ed Maitland-Smith)

Bach & Blood: Bach,  Arvo Pärt, David Fenessy; Jonathan Morton, Scottish Ensemble, Chamber Choir of the National Youth Choir of Scotland, Christopher Bell; Milton Court Concert Hall
Reviewed 2 October 2026

A fascinating and thought-provoking programme that pairs David Fenessy's remarkable piece for solo violin, choir and strings, with Bach's Chaconne complete with its originating chorales and Pärt's string version of his magnificat antiphons 

The Scottish Ensemble's Bach & Blood programme brought together music by Bach, Arvo Pärt and Glasgow-based Irish composer David Fenessy on a short tour of Scotland and England which ended on Friday 2 October 2026 at the Barbican Centre's Milton Court Concert Hall. The Scottish Ensemble under its artistic director, violinist Jonathan Morton were joined by the Chamber Choir of the National Youth Choir of Scotland (NYCOS) and conductor Christopher Bell, the Choir's artistic director in a programme which moved from Bach's Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D minor for solo violin in Helga Thoene's version with accompanying chorales, Arvo Pärt's Greater Antiphons for string orchestra, and David Fenessy's Blood for solo violin, string orchestra and choir.

Professor Helga Thoene suggests that Bach's Partita No. 2, and especially its last movement, was a tombeau written in memory of Bach's first wife, Maria Barbara Bach (who died in 1720). The suggestion is not uncontroversial, but Thoene has created a version of the Chaconne which puts the violin line with the chorales on which Thoene suggests the music is based. And it is these chorales that suggested the tombeau idea.

Part travelogue, part musical exploration, part poetic meditation: Blair Coron's film Woven Ground

Blair Coron

Blair Coron is a musician and poet from Springfield, a small village in Fife, Scotland. His quiet and intimate music blends modern classical, storytelling and traditional melodies, with themes of nature, people, time and place. I featured his 2023 project, A Carrying Stream [see article], which consisted of a collection of music and accompanying exhibition. For his new project, Woven Ground, he has taken the music out into the landscape and created a film out of the process.

Woven Ground is an EP featuring Blair Coron - piano, harmonium, vocals, guitar; Charlie Stewart - fiddle; Miwa Nagato-Apthorp - vocals; Zoe Bestel - vocals, with four tracks: Isle of Canna, Midsummer, 5:54am, 2026, Sgùrr A' Mhaoraich, Beneath Six Black Poplar Trees and Moon Lament. The accompanying film, which is available on YouTube, features the creation of these four.

Blair Coron is a poet as well as a musician and amongst his forthcoming projects is the publication of his first book of poetry. This comes out in the film which is part travelogue, part musical exploration and part poetic meditation, filmed by Slaiste Kaniute. Coron's music and words suffuse the film, so that it becomes far more than a 'making of' type film.

Blair Coron at Margaret Fay Shaw's piano on the Isle of Canna

The first part takes place on the Isle of Canna, the westernmost of the Small Isles archipelago, in the Scottish Inner Hebrides. The islands were left to the National Trust for Scotland by their previous owners, the highly important Celtic studies scholars John Lorne Campbell (1906-1996) and his wife Margaret Fay Shaw, and one of Coron's previous projects featured Campbell's recording of birdsong made on Canna in the 1950s. A feature of Woven Ground is Coron's intention not only to record in situ but to include the sound of the surrounding landscape and birds, so his recording on Canna came 75 years after that original birdsong recording. And Coron's piece, Isle of Canna, Midsummer, 5:54am is recorded on Margaret's piano. We learn the background to the isle and this helps to set off Coron's atmospheric piece.

Next comes a travelogue involving moving a harmonium to Kinloch Hourn (the name comes from the Gaelic, Ceann Loch Shubhairne, for "the head of Loch Hourn".) with fiddle player Charlie Stewart. There we see and hear the two performing Sgùrr A' Mhaoraich (the name of a Scottish mountain which is viewed from Kinloch Hourn). The recording, done in the wild, is wonderfully atmospheric and again the film succeeds in being poetically contemplative rather that just a film.

Recording at Kinloch Hourn

Rather more artful is the section with Coron in a garden writing a poem, Beneath Six Black Poplar Trees, which develops into a piece involving voice and electronics as the film turns artful with a sequence where the film flow is reversed so flowers seem to be created not destroyed.

The final section involves the four musicians and sound recordist gathering in a glade in the Trossachs forest to play Moon Lament. This is a folksong where Coron (on voice and guitar) is accompanied by Charlie Stewart (fiddle), Zoë Bestel and Miwa Nagato- Apthorp (vocals), with the sound of the wind blowing through the branches and creaking of tree tops overhead.

Blair Coron's Woven Ground is available on BandCamp and the full film is on YouTube.

Why compose? After a career in film & TV, composer Gavin Greenaway is developing his own voice with Skylines, the new album from his Cloud Chamber duo with Caroline Dale

Cloud Chamber: Gavin Greenaway & Caroline Dale (Photo: ottantotto)

Cloud Chamber is the newly formed duo of Gavin Greenaway (piano) and Caroline Dale (cello), internationally renowned performers whose careers span film and concert music. As a composer, conductor and pianist, Gavin has worked extensively in theatre, film and television.

Cloud Chamber's debut album, Skylines featuring Gavin's music for the duo, was released on MVKA on 25 September. It is a project that has taken time to come to fruition.

Gavin explains, some years ago he was doing a recording of a film score with Caroline Dale and they commented how nice it would be to do more projects for themselves. Then during the long COVID period things seemed to shut down, and he wasn't creative. The spark came with the idea to write an album for someone he knew. Gavin has issued two discs of his own piano music (Woven and Il falco bianco) but felt that there was only so far he could go with solo piano. Having written the music he was nervous at playing the pieces for Caroline. He regards himself as a composer who can play the piano, but making music with Caroline seemed to come easily. 

They had plans to record the programme, but after conducting a World of Hans Zimmer concert in Toulon, Gavin was asked about performing is own music. The result was that he and Caroline gave a concert in Toulon and found joy both in performing and in the audience reaction. Gavin comments that in a big arena concert, it is difficult to judge the audience reaction, but in a small auditorium a concert can feel like a conversation.

How does a composer disappear from history? And what does it take to bring her back?

French composer Charlotte Sohy (1887-1955) was the daughter of an industrialist. Her early teachers included a pupil (and relation) of Cesar Franck whilst in 1903, her parents installed a Cavaillé‑Coll organ in the living room! Her later teachers included Alexandre Guilmant, Louis Vierne, and Vincent d'Indy, and she studied with and was friends with Nadia Boulanger and Mel Bonis.

Sohy wrote masses, art songs, piano pieces, trios, string quartets, a symphony and the lyrical drama L'Esclave couronnée, and her work was performed by Paul Dukas, Maurice Ravel, and Gabriel Fauré.

So, why haven't we heard her music?

An evening at the Maison Française d'Oxford on 23 October 2026 aims to change that. The Rediscovery of Charlotte Sohy. An evening of film, music & conversation asks the question 'How does a composer disappear from history? And what does it take to bring her back?'

The evening is curated by pianist Reiko Fujisawa and will feature the UK premiere of new documentaryCharlotte Sohy: la consécration d'une compositrice; a live Q&A between documentary makers Matthias Weber (Weber is Sohy's great-grandson) and Laurence Uebersfeld, and music writer Peter Quantrill; and the evening culminates with a performance of Sohy's enchanting Petite Suite and her richly expressive Piano Trio Op. 24, performed by Gina McCormack (violin), Adrian Bradbury (cello) and Reiko Fujisawa (piano).

Full details from the Maison Française d'Oxford's website.

Challenging genius: The Yellow Tie tells the dramatic story of Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache's rise to fame in a film written & directed by his son

The Yellow Tie - Ben Schnetzer (Sergiu Celibidache) - director: Serge Ioan Celibidache, Oblique Media

The Yellow Tie; Ben Schnetzer, John Malkovich, Kate Phillips, Miranda Richardson, Sean Bean, Olivia Popica, Tamzin Merchant, director: Serge Ioan Celibidachi, written by Serge Ioan Celibidachi & James Oliver, producer: James Oliver; Produced by Oblique Media; Icon Film Distribution

With Ben Schnetzer oozing sexual magnetism and self-belief, and John Malkovich in compelling form, The Yellow Tie manages to tell a remarkable classical music-based story in a cinematic fashion. 

There has been a fascination recently for films based on the lives of some of the great post-war conductors, from István Szabó's film based on Ronald Harwood's play about Wilhelm Furtwängler's de-Nazification problems to Bradley Cooper's Maestro based on the life of Leonard Bernstein. The latest of these is The Yellow Tie about the life of the Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache which debuted last year in Bucharest (and became the most watched Romanian film of 2026). The Yellow Tie, however, has an intriguing advantage in that the film is directed and co-written by Celibidache's son, Serge Ioan Celibidachi (whose character even appears in the film played by Charlie Rowe).

The Yellow Tie (Romanian: Cravata Galbenă) is released in the UK from 9 October and the film received its UK premiere on Wednesday night (29 September) at the Odeon Luxe at Leicester Square. The film covers almost the whole of Celibidache's life with four actors playing him at different ages - Andrei Isarescu (child), Ewan Horrocks (teenager), Ben Schnetzer (adult), John Malkovich (older). Other cast included Kate Phillips as Celibidache's wife Ioana with Miranda Richardson as the older Ioana, Sean Bean as Celibidache's father, Olivia Popica as Sonia (Celibidache's sister), Tamzin Merchant as Ortancia (with whom he has a youthful liaison in Berlin), Anton Lesser as Martin Steinke (who introduces Celibidache to Zen Buddhism) and Robert Dölle as Heinz Tiessen with whom Celibidache trained in Berlin.

The Yellow Tie - Ben Schnetzer (Sergiu Celibidache), Kate Phillips (Ioana Celibidache) - director: Serge Ioan Celibidache, Oblique Media

Filming was largely in Romania but the film is in English (with a tiny amount of Romanian), though the scenes in Germany use a creditable amount of spoken German.

It's coming home! Elgar collection of New Jersey businessman Arthur Reynolds donated to the Hallé

Piano Quintet. Manuscript dated January 21, 1919, of passages and queries about the work, consisting of questions from Elgar addressed to Harold Brooke [Jaeger’s successor at Novello], both as printer and as pianist. JNM's comment: “This half-sheet of music paper, filled on both sides, shows more clearly than anything known to me the working relationship between the two men, especially close over this work.”

New Jersey-based businessman and Chairman of the North American Branch of the Elgar Society (and regular visitor to the Three Choirs Festival), Arthur Reynolds built up his Elgar collection over six decades. Now the collection has a new home in Manchester. Reynolds has donated it to the Hallé in recognition of their historic connections with Elgar – the composer was friends with the Hallé’s second Principal Conductor Dr Hans Richter and the Hallé orchestra premiered Elgar’s Symphony No 1 in 1908 at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester.

The collection consists of some 1,500 items which were flown from New Jersey to London, then driven up to Manchester: the 3,500 mile journey funded by the National Heritage Memorial Fund. The National Heritage Memorial Fund awarded the Hallé nearly £105,000 to support the legal aspects of the donation and enable its transport to the UK – a vital piece in the puzzle to save the archive and prevent it from being split up (Arthur Reynolds was keen that the archive remained together in full and become publicly accessible).

The archive will be housed in the Hallé's current archive facilities in The Bridgewater Hall and will be available for the public to view, by appointment, Mr Reynolds' detailed catalogue will be added to the orchestra's online resources on the Connecting Manchester's Music Archives website, enabling everyone to explore what the archive holds. Some items from the collection will be included in future exhibitions and the Hallé aims to create a permanent new, fully accessible archive in the future.

Arthur Reynolds said: "Edward Elgar’s music offered me sensations of reverence to the United Kingdom. When I came to study there in the mid 1960s, I was surprised to find my admiration for Britain’s greatest composer unshared by my contemporaries whose interest in Elgar’s music had reached a nadir of negativity. One consequence was a neglect that threatened to consign Elgar memorabilia to an undeserved oblivion. I decided then and there to make it my life’s work to prevent the disappearance of material related to Elgar’s creative life. The result is the archive that has now reached its final resting place with Hallé."

Spanning autographed manuscripts, first-edition scores, correspondence with his contemporaries and personal items that reveal glimpses of Elgar’s everyday life, the collection offers an unrivalled insight into the world and work of one of the UK’s most celebrated composers. The archive also shows how Elgar was one of the first composers to embrace new sound recording technology – going on to play at the openings of both the first HMV retail store and what would later become Abbey Road Studios.

Further information from the Hallé website, and from the National Heritage Memorial Fund's website.

 

 

 

Beyond Coppélia and Lakmé: Bru Zane to release premiere recording of Delibes's Jean de Nivelle

Léo Delibes in 1875

If you say the name of composer Léo Delibes, then people will immediately think of his ballet, Coppélia, and opera, Lakmé, as well as perhaps ballets La Source and Sylvia. But beyond, Lakmé, we tend not to think of him as an operatic composer. That is, hopefully, about to change as Bru Zane (the recorded label of the Palazzetto Bru Zane - Centre de musique romantique française) is about to release the world premiere recording of Delibes' opera-comique Jean de Nivelle. Jean de Nivelle was something like Delibes' 24th opera (of a total of 26), just preceding Lakmé.

As a boy, Delibes had a fine singing voice and he sang in the premiere of Meyerbeer's Le prophète at the Paris Opéra in 1849. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire including with Adolphe Adam for composition. His first stage work was a one-act comic piece Deux sous de charbon in 1856, then for the next 14 years he produced about one opera per year, many for Offenbach's Bouffes-Parisiens. In addition to composing he had various careers but in 1862/3 he became chorus master at the Paris Opera. This led to the commission for ballets.

His last comic piece came in 1869 and the following year his score for Coppélia brought him to wider notice. He resigned from the staff of the Opera and devoted himself to composition. Over the next decade he produced mélodies (including Les filles de Cadiz); a work for the Opéra-Comique, Le Roi l'a dit which had limited success; and the grand mythological ballet, Sylvia.

His opera Jean de Nivelle premiered at the Opéra-Comique in 1880. Reviewers found the piece too episodic but praised the composer for "the rare and precise quality" of his melodies and "the delicate style in his writing" for the public. The piece ran for more than a hundred performances and was revived in 1908. Though described as an opera comique, in many respects it is close to the grand opera tradition typified by Meyerbeer. After the premiere, Delibes created sung recitatives to replace the spoken dialogue, mindful of the work's international potential (between 1881 and 1882, it was performed at La Monnaie in Brussels, Saint Petersburg, Copenhagen, Budapest, Vienna, and Stockholm).

The opera's plot is based on a 15th century French nobleman, Jean de Nivelle, who became a byword for failing to fulfill filial duties and treachery as he failed to join his father in assisting King Louis XI of France in his conflict with Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy; de Nivelle instead allied himself with Burgundy and was disinherited as a "dog".  

Lakmé followed in 1883, also at the Opéra-Comique before being taken up internationally. However, Delibes had been intermittently ill for some time and died in 1891, with an incomplete opera, Kassya still on his desk (it was completed and orchestrated by Massenet in 1893) .

Conducted by György Vashegyi with the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, Bru Zane's recording of Jean de Nivelle features Cyrille Dubois in the title role with Mélissa Petit as Arlette. The version being performed is that with sung recitatives.

Delibes' Jean de Nivelle is released on Bru Zane on 23 October 2026.

War, politics, love, & brotherhood: Kieran Rayner & Gamal Khamis's What If? at the Bloomsbury Festival allows the audience to decide the narrative

Baritone Kieran Rayner and pianist Gamal Khamis have created a recital programme, What If?, that explores the World War I through song including music by Finzi, Butterworth, Schubert, Robert & Clara Schumann, Ethel Smyth and more. But What If? is a recital with a difference. 

It takes the form of a story about two friends in love with the same woman, who is a suffragette: one man is patriotic, the other undecided. He must choose between desire and loyalty, between his duty and principles. What will he do? What path will his river take to the sea?

And that's where the audience comes in. There are eight possible endings to the story, and the branching narrative is controlled by the audience: they vote on what happens, shaping the musical programme. Whichever paths are picked, the recital promises a fulfilling and uplifting experience: an entertaining script connecting a rich selection of German and English songs

"A story told well with fun characterisation and lots of genuine humour… genuinely affecting … a feast of joys" – Everything Theatre

We last caught Kieran Rayner as Tarquinius in English Touring Opera's production of Britten's The Rape of Lucretia last year [see my review]

Rayner and Khamis debuted the programme at the Royal Over-Seas League in 2024, going on to perform it at the Jermyn Street Theatre. Now they are presenting What If? twice at the recital hall in City Lit, Holborn as part of the Bloomsbury Festival on Sunday 18 October. There are two performances, at 3.30pm and 6pm, so you could take in both and see two different endings, with refreshments available between performances.

Full details from the Bloomsbury Festival website. 

 

Following its centenary celebrations last year, the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra becomes resident at Brighton Dome

Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra, music director Joanna MacGregor

The Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra, music director Joanna MacGregor, opened its 2026/27 season at the Brighton Dome at the weekend with a programme mixing Rachmaninoff, Gershwin, Piazzolla and Janacek. This season marks a new development in the relationship between orchestra and venue as it has now been announced that the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra has become the resident orchestra at the Dome.

Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in 1925 and first performed on Brighton Dome’s Concert Hall stage in 1928. It has been a fixture of the venue’s event seasons ever since, most recently celebrating its centenary last year. Sir Thomas Beecham became its first President in 1932, a position later held by Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten. The orchestra has a rich tradition of championing living composers; in 1946 Francis Poulenc performed his own concerto at Brighton Dome, while recent seasons have included music by James MacMillan, Gwilym Simcock and the upcoming premiere of Eric Vloeimans' new work.

Joanna MacGregor, CEO and music director of Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra commented: "To become Brighton Dome’s Resident Orchestra is a wonderful recognition of BPO’s vibrant performances over the last century, and cements an already close partnership. We’re looking forward to developing ambitious, world class programmes and exciting artistic collaborations for Brighton audiences."

Further ahead, the orchestra pairs Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments, and Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments with Mozart's Gran Partita (11 October).

Full details from the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra's website.

The Continuo Foundation awards £108,000 in its 12th round of grants

The Continuo Foundation recently announced its 12th round of grants, awarding £105,000 to 28 Early Music Projects, supporting 68 concerts in 46 locations along with five recordings. Since being founded in 2020, the Foundation has raised and awarded £1.3 million, supporting 885 concerts in 289 different locations across the UK, alongside 63 recording projects, with 40 albums released so far.

Five emerging ensembles received first-time awards, and projects include a period-instrument Passion in Northern Ireland, a pioneering female composer of string quartets and music from Anne Boleyn’s manuscript.

All five of the first-time recipients are emerging ensembles, formed since 2020, and are among ten recently formed groups supported in this round which collectively received 40% of the total funding. Alongside opportunities to perform, the awards fund recordings and creation of video material that can help young musicians establish a professional presence and secure future work.

A grant makes possible the Ulster Consort's ambitious plan to performing Bach’s St Matthew Passion in Northern Ireland, where opportunities to hear this masterpiece are scarce and relatively few local period-instrument players are available.  Also in Northern Ireland, the grant awarded to Sestina Music will bring Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 to Belfast, combining Early Music specialists with its Next Generation Artists and, for the first time, local choristers from St George’s, St Polycarp’s and St Peter’s church choirs.

The Cambridge String Quartet’s Tales of Maddalena turns to little-known composer Maddalena Lombardini, whose six quartets appeared in 1769, while the genre was still taking shape. At King’s College, Cambridge, a display of first-edition parts will accompany the music. The grant will help pay for professional filming, giving the performance a further life as material with which the quartet can introduce its work to promoters and audiences. Fontanella Recorder Quartet’s A Falcon Fallen follows Anne Boleyn’s turbulent life through music from the manuscript associated with her, held at the Royal College of Music.

Ardour Baroque’s world-premiere recording of trio sonatas by Antonio Luigi Baldassini, will place the little-known Roman composer alongside Corelli and Handel. Queen Victoria’s Consort and the West Gallery Music Association will be recreating English parish music from around 1840, using instruments including the serpent, keyed bugle and English bass horn.

Full details from The Continuo Foundation's website.

Bass Brindley Sherratt to be artistic director of The Grange Festival following Michael Chance's retirement

Brindley Sherratt (Photo: Film and Star)

The Grange Festival (which is based at The Grange, Northington in Hampshire) has announced that the bass, Brindley Sherratt will be stepping up to take the reins as artistic director of the festival following the retirement of Michael Chance at the end of this year's festival. Michael Chance had led the company since its formation in 2016 (in succession to Wasfi Kani's Grange Park Opera which was founded at The Grange in 1998, departing after the 2016 season). 

The Grange is a country house in the style of an ancient Greek temple designed by William Wilkins. The house is an important example of the Greek Revival style in England. The house was subsequently extended by Robert Smirke and Charles Robert Cockerell, but for much of the later 20th century was effectively a roofed ruin. The opera house was created in Cockerell's orangery turned art gallery under Wasfi Kani's auspices. 

The Grange, Northington in 1870

Sherratt, who is about to sing Gurnemanz in Covent Garden's new production of Wagner's Parsifal (which opens on 1 October), is known for roles such as Sarastro in Mozart's The Magic Flute, Claggart in Britten's Billy Budd and Ochs in Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. In 2025, Sherratt's second gala for the Meath Epilepsy Charity was held at The Grange. I chatted to him in 2024 on the release of his first recital disc, see my interview 'A bit topsy turvey' Last year we caught him as Cadmus and Somnus in Handel's Semele at Covent Garden [see my review] and as Boris in Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the BBC Proms [see my review]

Sherratt will continue to perform internationally alongside his role as artistic director but will be more selective with his engagements to ensure he can fulfil his commitments. He commented: "It is an exciting prospect to be investing in British opera at such a crucial moment in this art form’s history. The Grange Festival provides a much-needed platform for the next generation of artists. I’ve benefitted from the support of the local community in so many ways – being a resident of neighbouring county West Surrey - I have seen first-hand the impact that the local audiences can make. In my most recent performance on The Grange’s stage, I held a fundraising gala with a roster of our greatest opera stars in aid of The Meath Epilepsy Charity, where my daughter, Amy, is a resident. Together with The Grange’s generous community, we raised over £180,000 for our cause.   

As a performer, I feel extremely lucky to have taken on roles I could have only dreamed of. Up until now, this role too was a dream, and I am looking forward hugely to working with the creative and administrative teams, as well as all the incredible line-up of artists who appear each year at this wonderful festival."

Sherratt begins his role next month, and full details of the 2027 Festival including its 10th anniversary celebrations will be announced shortly.

In other news, the Festival's chief executive, Tyler Stoops is stepping down after three years in the role, and the Festival's chief financial officer, Sheila Wye has been announced as interim chief executive. 

Full details from The Grange Festival's website.

Recorder player Tabea Debus joins York Early Music Festival as guest artistic advisor

Tabea Debus (Photo: Kaupo Kikkas)

Recorder player extraordinare Tabea Debus is joining York Early Music Festival as guest artistic advisor. She joins the current team of artistic advisers Lindsay Kemp (music writer and producer), Peter Seymour (emeritus professor of music at the University of York and director of Yorkshire Baroque Soloists & Choir), John Bryan (emeritus professor of music at the University of Huddersfield and member of the Rose Consort of Viols) and guest adviser Mark Seow (violinist, musicologist, writer and broadcaster). Tabea Debus has been appointed to support the 2027, ’28 and ’29 festivals and steps into the musical shoes of mezzo soprano Helen Charlston.  

Born in Würzburg, Germany, Tabea Debus studied at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts and at the Royal Academy of Music. In 2023, Tabshe ea joined the recorder quartet Palisander, whose theatrical concerts are devised for audiences of all ages and backgrounds. Palisander have performed regularly at the National Centre for Early Music where they also led workshops for children and young people.   

Tabea Debus commented: "I am absolutely delighted to be joining the team of Artistic Advisers and honoured to be working alongside these wonderful colleagues to contribute to the creation of the world-renowned York Early Music Festival. I can’t wait to spend the summer festival season in beautiful York in the coming years, delighting in concerts by fabulous musicians from across the UK, and beyond."

The York Early Music Festival was established in 1977 and is designed to celebrate York’s myriad of medieval churches, guildhalls and historic houses through historically informed music-making of the highest international standard. The festival is a central part of the National Centre for Early Music’s (NCEM) annual programme.
 The York Early Music Festival returns next year, 2027, from 2 to 9 July. Further information from the NCEM website. 

Collaborative music & art residency: Burgh House & Chamber Studio join forces with The Cosman Keller Art & Music Trust

Trio Musae

A new partnership between Burgh House, in Hampstead, and Chamber Studio will create a residency programme for emerging chamber ensembles at Burgh House. Selected string quartets and trios will take part in a series of residencies at Burgh House, where they will reunite with leading chamber musicians for masterclasses before sharing the results of their work with audiences in intimate evening performances. 

Among the ensembles taking part in the inaugural residency programme are Trio Musae, Talland Quartet and Quartet Concrète – three of the UK's most exciting emerging chamber ensembles. The first season will comprise three events taking place in October, December and February. Each residency will feature a free daytime masterclass followed by a ticketed evening recital in Burgh House's historic Music Room, offering audiences a rare opportunity to witness the creative process behind chamber music performance before experiencing the finished interpretation in concert.

The residency programme is funded by The Cosman Keller Art & Music Trust and builds on Chamber Studio's acclaimed Hans Keller Forum, an intensive mentoring programme for outstanding chamber ensembles who are at UK conservatoires. 

Alongside the residencies, Burgh House will present a complementary exhibition celebrating the work of Milein Cosman. One of Britain's most fascinating twentieth-century artists, Cosman was renowned for her expressive depictions of musicians, writers and artists, including Benjamin Britten, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. Featuring important recent acquisitions from The Cosman Keller Art & Music Trust—many on public display at Burgh House for the first time—the exhibition will be accompanied by curator-led talks. 

Moira Lascelles, Director, Burgh House comments, "By bringing together chamber music, visual art and the shared legacy of Hans Keller and Milein Cosman, this exciting new partnership perfectly reflects Burgh House's role as a home for artistic collaboration. It creates opportunities to nurture the next generation of musicians while celebrating Hampstead's remarkable cultural heritage. Hans Keller and Milein Cosman were central figures in the area's artistic life, and we are delighted to honour their legacy through this collaboration."

The first events as part of the residency are a masterclass (21/10) and recital (22/10) with Trio Musae. Full details from the Burgh House website.

A fresh take: youthful Daniel Dorn releases his debut album of Bach's Cello Suites in May 2027

The young German-American cellist Daniel Dorn (born 2008) has just started studying at the Royal Academy of Music with Guy Johnston. He began playing the cello at the age of three, and at ten, he made his orchestral debut as a soloist in Vivaldi’s Cello Concerto in D major (RV 403). Away from music, in 2020, together with his twin brother Max, he was awarded first prize in the Jugend forscht competition in the category Mathematics / Computer Science for their research on twin primes. 

In May 2027, Evidence Classics will release Daniel Dorn’s debut album, a journey through three of Bach’s Suites for Solo Cello. The album will present Suites Nos. 1, 2, and 3, while also offering listeners a rare musical curiosity: Robert Schumann’s accompanied version of the Second Suite, performed with Korean pianist Ji-Hwan Hong. 

Daniel Dorn plays a Jacob Stainer cello from 1645, and on the video of the Sarabande from Suite No. 2, his "gentle, fluid, and introspective" [Frederik Hanssen, Der Tagesspiegel] style gives a somewhat Romantic take on Bach's music.

Stream the EP [link tree] 

 

 

Britten's War Requiem: Edward Gardner takes an uncompromising & severe view softened by the poetic attention to the words from soloists in London Philharmonic Orchestra's season opener

Britten: War Requiem - Edward Gardner, Benjamin Appl, Paul Appleby
London Philharmonic Orchestra (Photo: Andy Paradise)

Britten: War Requiem; Natalya Romaniw, Paul Appleby, Benjamin Appl, London Philharmonic Choir, Tiffin Boys Choir & Girls Choir, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner; Royal Festival Hall
26 September 2027

Edward Gardner emphasises the austerity of Britten's sound world in a performance that contrasted austerity with poetry and only brought warmth and reconciliation in the final moments

London does not have a venue completely suitable for the full forces of Britten's War Requiem (and part of me wonders what the sound was like at that first performance at Coventry Cathedral). But the revitalised Royal Festival Hall now has the requisite space and an acceptable acoustic. So, the massed forces of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), London Philharmonic Choir and London Symphony Chorus filled the Royal Festival Hall stage on Saturday 26 September 2026 for the opening of the LPO's 2026/27 season. Edward Gardner conducted them in Britten's War Requiem with soloists soprano Natalya Romaniw, tenor Paul Appleby and baritone Benjamin Appl, plus the Tiffin Boys Choir and Girls Choir (conductor James Day). 

Paul Appleby was standing in for Allan Clayton at short notice; Appleby recently appeared in John Adams' Antony & Cleopatra at the Met in New York, and he has appeared at Glyndebourne as Jonathan (in Handel's Saul, 2015, see my review), Benedict (in Berlioz's Beatrice et Benedict, 2016) and Tamino (in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, 2024).

There was a stark quality to the work's opening with very pointed delivery from the chorus contrasting with the strength of the low instruments in the orchestra, until 'Et lux perpetua' was really hammered out. The children's choir's entry following the climax highlighted one of the limitations of the hall; placed in the balcony their sound was assured but very present. In 'What passing bells', Paul Appleby revealed a vibrant lyric voice, his intent and intense performance placing strong emphasis on the words. In the unaccompanied 'Kyrie' that followed the chorus was magically quiet, but the sound was very present.

Britten: War Requiem - Natalya Romaniw, London Philharmonic Orchestra (Photo: Andy Paradise)

Misha Mullov-Abbado on harp, Belgian roots & Finizi anniversaries: CD launches this week

It has been a busy week for live CD launches. On Wednesday harpists Oliver Wass and Lise Vandermissen had a joint launch at St Pancras Clocktower for Wass's Musica per arpa on Tactus and Vandermissen's Our Roots on Etcetera. Then on Friday, tenor Nick Pritchard and pianist Ian Tindale launched their disc of songs by Gerald Finzi, The Dance Continued on Signum Classics, at St Clement Danes.

Wass and Vandermissen's launch event was a delight because it involved two harps, both played on a modern harp but Vandermissen also played some repertoire on a 1911 Erard. For her latest disc, Our Roots, Vandermissen has turned to her own roots as she is Belgian, with a disc of music by Belgian composers Jeanne Adrienne Kufferath (1874-1919), Felix Godefroid (1818-1872), Jacqueline Fontyn (born 1930) and Vandermissen's own pieces. The styles proved interestingly varied with Kufferath's more salon-like pieces alongside Godefroid (known as the Paganini of the harp!), Fontyn's piece (which was had direct from the composer) which was a catalogue of advanced harp techniques and Vandermissen's own more personal works.

By contrast, Wass's two-disc set on Tactus, Musica per arpa, contrasted three large pieces by Misha Mullov-Abbado with mainly Italian Baroque works by Travaci, Palestrina, Cacini, and Barbara Strozzi, along with works by Tarrega and Elsa Respighi, plus a concerto by Luigi Molinom with Wass being joined by his Pelleas Ensemble (Oliver Wass - harp, Henry Roberts - flute, Luba Tunnicliffe - viola), and Ensemble APM (Luca Vacchetti - conductor).

Mullov-Abbado has written three pieces for Wass over the years and all three are heard on the disc. At the launch we heard Red Ruth for solo harp along with a work for the Pelleas Ensemble, Three Meditation Songs which was written for the ensemble some ten years ago. The Pelleas Ensemble also played two Barbara Strozzi vocal works in imaginative and free arrangements by the ensemble's viola player, Luba Tunnicliffe. As a finale, Wass and Vandermissen gave us a taster of a future project with a work by Oliver Davis for two harps which was written for them.

Earlier this month I chatted to tenor Nick Pritchard and pianist Ian Tindale about their latest disc, Gerald Finzi: The Dance Continued [see my interview] on Signum Classics reflecting the fact that this year is a double Finzi anniversary. 

So it was a delight to hear some of the music from the disc performed live at St Clement Danes (in an event supported by Finzi Friends). The church is now the central church of the Royal Air Force, a rather apt venue as Gerald Finzi's friend, the composer Howard Ferguson served in the RAF during the war. 

After Finzi's death (in 1956) Ferguson and Finzi's wife Joy created the posthumous song cycles Till Earth outwears Op. 19a and Oh fair to see Op. 13b both of which Pritchard and Tindale performed at the launch. The disc also includes Finzi's 1933 cycle A Young Man's Exhortation, both this and Till Earth outwears are settings of Thomas Hardy.

By contrast Oh fair to see features settings of hardy, Ivor Gurney, Christina Rossetti, Edward Shanks, Robert Bridges and Finzi's close friend Edmund Blunden. The cycle ends with Finzi's last song, a setting of Robert Bridge's Since we loved. But alongside this are two very early songs, and more early songs feature on the disc, all unpublished. All five of these were included in the recital. As Ian Tindale explained, the songs are unpublished for a reason but sufficient time has elapsed that we can explore how these songs reflect both Finzi before his style fully developed along with the moments that look forward to his mature style.

Relishing the challenge: mezzo-soprano Samantha Price on singing her first Dido in Purcell's opera on tour with English Touring Opera

Purcell: Dido & Aeneas in rehearsal - Michael Lafferty (Aeneas), Samantha Price (Dido) & ensemble - English Touring Opera (Photo: Craig Fuller)

As part of English Touring Opera's (ETO) Autumn season they are performing Purcell's Dido and Aeneas in a double bill with Elena Langer's 2002 opera Ariadne. Ariadne is directed by Anna Morrisey with Jessica Cale in the title role. Dido and Aeneas is directed by Rebecca Meltzer and conducted by Alex Robinson with Michael Lafferty as Aeneas and Samantha Price making her role debut as Dido. A graduate of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and a former Harewood Artist at English National Opera, Samantha sang the role of Romeo in ETO's 2025 production of Bellini's The Capulets & the Montagues [see my review].

When I spoke to Samantha, she was just at the beginning of rehearsals with ETO. Whilst she has not sung the role of Dido before she is familiar with the opera. Not only did she learn the aria (as most young mezzos probably do), but she sang the Sorceress in a production of the opera on the opera course at Dartington Hall (when Dartington College of Arts still existed). She comments that it feels a long time ago. She loves the role of Dido and relishes the challenge of it, particularly as the opera is so well known. She was introduced to the aria early and as a young singer found it useful having something in English.

The production of Dido and Aeneas (which is designed by Alex Berry) will be sharing the set with Ariadne and there is an element of keeping it abstract. The production is not specific to Roman mythology and they are aiming for a timeless feel. They want to present the plot as clearly as possible, particularly as there is not a lot of story. Rebecca Meltzer is working on unpicking the layers of myth and storytelling in the piece. Samantha points out that it is a short opera and Dido does not sing a great deal, with only two arias. There are important recits too, and though these are short they are very dense in plot. The story is very much part of the zeitgeist at the moment what with the release of Christopher Nolan's film, The Odyssey, and the popularising of mythology. This is something that they have been talking about in rehearsals, making the audience feel the sense of the work.

Bellini: The Capulets & the Montagues - Samantha Price (Romeo) - English Touring Opera 2025 (Photo: Richard Hubert Smith)

An exploration of how songs and music can have the unique ability to bring humans and cultures closer together: Sinfonia Cymru's Songs We Carry

Songs We Carry - Patrick Rimes, Ana Silvera, Saied Silbak - Sinfonia Cymru

Ladino song, Arabic music and Welsh folksong: Songs We Carry, Sinfonia Cymru's latest cross-cultural project brings together singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ana Silvera, composer, singer and oud player Saied Silbak and Welsh composer and fiddler Patrick Rimes with four Sinfonia Cymru musicians to bring Welsh music into dialogue with Ladino, Arabic, Turkish and European influences.

The programme arises out of an earlier Songs We Carry project where Silvera, and Silbak together explored their inherited music, the stories it carries and its power to connect people across cultures [see review of their 2024 show on The ArtsDesk]. The programme was inspired by family history: Ana Silvera's family history as Jewish refugees of the Spanish Inquisition, who resettled in Aleppo (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in the 18th century, and Saied Silbak's journey from his Palestinian hometown of Shafaa’mr in the Lower Galilee to London. 

The new programme includes new arrangements by Patrick Rimes of Ana Silvera and Saied Silbak’s music, performing the Ladino and Arabic songs alongside Rimes' Welsh folksongs. Together, it creates a powerful celebration of our diverse and shared musical traditions and the beauty of cultural exchange. An exploration of how songs and music can have the unique ability to bring humans and cultures closer together. 

Ana Silvera explains: "My ancestors were Jewish refugees, and our Ladino songs had almost disappeared. The Ladino language is now recognised by UNESCO as an endangered language. Songs We Carry was my opportunity to share Ladino music and language with new audiences, revealing its beauty and its power to connect us. I’m excited to bring it to Wales, a country that’s home to a thriving minority language, and a nation that is so passionate about sharing its Welsh language and story through song" 

Songs We Carry opens at Riverfront, Newport on 7 October and then tours to The Globe, Cardiff,  Mwldan, Cardigan, Theatr Clwyd, Mold, and Wiltshire Music Centre, Bradford-on-Avon with dates in London and Southampton next year.

Full details from the Sinfonia Cymru website.