Getting the keys to the toyshop: I chat to Ryan Wigglesworth about being Featured Artist at the 2026 Aldeburgh Festival featuring him as conductor, composer, & chamber musician

Ryan Wigglesworth (Photo: BBC/Gordon Burniston)

At this year's Aldeburgh Festival, which runs from 12 to 18 June 2026, the festival's Featured Artist will be Ryan Wigglesworth and over the 17 days of the festival there will be a chance to experience the various aspects of Ryan's career from concerts with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBC SSO), of which he is chief conductor, and the Knussen Chamber Orchestra, to a semi-staged production of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande and chamber music with friends and colleagues, all this alongside performances of Ryan's music and the premiere of his Viola Concerto written for violist Laurence Power.

Ryan comments that being Featured Artist means that to some extent he gets the keys to the toyshop and can help shape the festival. His performances are dotted throughout the festival but with hot spots at the beginning and end. The selections of performances bring the various parts of his life together, with orchestral performances, playing chamber music with colleagues which is a rare occurrence, and add in the premiere of his Viola Concerto.

Aldeburgh as a place is somewhere he has been involved with for a long time: it means so much to him, and he has always felt at home there. Oliver Knussen lived there and Ryan spent so much time with him there that the connection goes deep. Ryan adds that it is difficult to pinpoint what it is about Aldebugh, but it is a special place to work and the Aldeburgh Festival returns something of the founding ethos with friends making music together on stage. Britten and Pears created the festival because they wanted to do what they do but at home, and the festival has kept something of that ethos. This is why Ryan is drawn back to the place.

Ryan Wigglesworth conducting the Knussen Chamber Orchestra at the 2025 Aldeburgh Festival (Photo: Britten Pears Arts)

Ryan's own works are usually tied to the performers for whom they were written. His Piano Concerto (2019), which he and the BBCSSO perform at Aldeburgh this year with Steven Osborne, was written for Marc-Andre Hamelin but pianist Steven Osborne has performed it a few times. What is important to Ryan are relationships that go beyond just the odd concert together, with performers such as Osborne and violist Laurence Power for whom Ryan has written his Viola Concerto. Ryan takes pleasure in getting to know them as musicians, and this is when the ideas come, when he has a player's particular sound in his head. He comments that Power has a unique sound and that he is built to get a sound out of the viola. For Ryan, Power has such a personal approach to everything he that it is a special gift to hear his own music played by Power. Also at the festival, Ryan and soprano Sophie Bevan are performing Ryan's song cycle Till Dawning (from 2018, setting poetry by George Herbert). The cycle was written for Sophie Bevan and as she is Ryan's wife he describes this as the deepest collaboration of all.

Beautifully well-matched casting & superb singing brings alive the latest revival of David McVicar's production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at Covent Garden

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro - Andrey Zhilikhovsky, Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, Louise Alder, Alex Esposito - Royal Opera House (Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic)

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro; Alex Esposito, Louise Alder, Andrey Zilikhovsky, Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, Svetlina Stoyanova, director: David McVicar/Lea Hausman, conductor: Bertrand de Billy; Royal Opera House
Reviewed 4 June 2026

Still in robust health, David McVicar's classic production benefits here from a fine quality cast, all beautifully well-matched, so we were enthralled dramatically and musically

David McVicar's production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, which is rapidly acquiring classic status, has returned to Covent Garden with a lively new cast. Revived by Leah Hausman (the original movement director), we caught the performance on 4 June 2026 conducted by Bertrand de Billy. Louise Alder was Susanna [last seen as the Countess at Glyndebourne last year, see my review] and Alex Esposito was Figaro with Andrey Zilikhovsky and Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha as Count and Countess Almaviva, and Svetlina Stoyanova as Cherubino [last seen as Sesto in Handel's Giulio Cesare at Glyndebourne, see my review]

This was the third or fourth time I have seen the production, and it remains as engaging as ever. McVicar's fondness for placing the action in the context of a busy household with actors as the household staff providing a lot of incidental comedy that manages to never quite pull focus. That said, I did wonder whether things had become a little broader or perhaps this was just familiarity. With any performance of this production, there is the risk that the sets or the antics of the household will take precedence in the memory over the performances. There is little chance for intimacy here.

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro - Svetlina Stoyanova - Royal Opera House (Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic)

From the beginning, Bertrand de Billy took a practiced view of the speeds, keeping things flowing but never allowing the music to feel too rushed. Nor did he luxuriate even though he had the wherewithal to do so in both terms of the voices and the orchestra. Recitative-wise, I always enjoy this opera on a smaller scale so that the cast can really move the dialogue along but the Royal Opera House is hardly the space for that.

Mining the contemporary: two American opera releases by Ricky Ian Gordon & Tobias Picker take inspiration from the AIDS crisis & an historical figure of trans identity

Tobias Picker: Lili Elbe - Lucia Lucas - Theater St. Gallen 2023

Ever since John Adams and Alice Goodman focused on Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China, contemporary opera (and contemporary American opera in particular) has mined recent events and politics for themes. Two recordings scheduled for release during July and August highlight this. In July, Bright Shiny Things releases the premiere recording of Tobias Picker's Lili Elbe, first grand opera created for and about a historical figure of trans identity, and then in August Blue Griffin Records issue Ricky Ian Gordon's The Tibetan Book of the Dead: An Opera, a work from 1995 intimately bound up in the AIDS crisis.

Tobias Picker's Lili Elbe centres on the life of Danish painter Lili Elbe, one of the first known recipients of multiple experimental gender confirmation surgeries, which tragically ended her life. The work was premiered at the Theater St. Gallen in Switzerland in 2023 [see my article] and recorded live at the dress rehearsal. This recording is being issued in August to coincide with the American premiere of the work at the Santa Fe Opera Festival, where Picker's first opera Emmeline premiered 30 years ago.

The work has a libretto by Aryeh Lev Stollman, Picker's partner of over 45 years, novelist, and neuroradiologist at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City. Much of the material derives from historical sources. Picker who is drawn to writing operas about strong female protagonists, described Lili’s longing to fully inhabit womanhood as profoundly operatic -- a psychological and emotional conflict he sees as no less intense than that of typical operatic tragic heroines.

The title role was written for transgender baritone Lucia Lucas who sings on the recording and at Santa Fe and as does soprano Sylvia D’Eramo in the role of Gerda Wegener. The recording features Modestas Pitrėnas conducting the Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen.

Tobias Picker's Lili Elbe is released on Bright Shiny Things on 31 July 2026, and opens at Santa Fe Opera on 1 August.

Ricky Ian Gordon: The Tibetan Book of the Dead: An Opera
Eric Owens, Jonita Lattimore, Frank Hernandez - 1996 (Photo: Jim Caldwell)

Blue Griffin Records' recording of Ricky Ian Gordon's 1995 opera, The Tibetan Book of the Dead: An Opera is based on restored archival recordings made at The American Music Theater Festival in June 1996. The opera was co-commissioned by Houston Grand Opera and The American Music Theatre Festival and is inspired by ancient Tibetan Buddhist teachings, depicting epic journey of a dying soul through a series of spiritual and emotional planes along the road of rebirth.

The background to the opera is the AIDS crisis and the libretto dramatises, in seventeen scenes, the death of an individual, the journey through the "bardo," (in between) and the rebirth. The work's origins are intertwined with Ricky Ian Gordon's relationship at the time, with Jeffrey Grossi, who was already living with HIV when they first met. It was Grossi who encouraged the composer to learn Buddhist teachings and immerse himself in Sogyal Rinpoche's 1992 book The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. [Sogyal Rinpoche was a Tibetan Buddhist teacher who would eventually become a not uncontroversial figure - see the BBC article on his death in 2019] 

The opera came together relatively quickly. David Gockley, who had asked Gordon for a commission for Houston Grand Opera, suggested the book as a source for an opera and a libretto was created within two days. Despite his illness and largely being confined to bed, Jeffrey Grossi was able to see one of the Philadelphia performances of the opera, where archival tapes were made. 

It was these tapes that became the basis for the new release. Whilst working on his memoir Seeing Through: A Chronicle of Sex, Drugs, and Opera, Gordon wondered whether the archive tapes could be made viable. The final product is the result of painstaking work on the originals. The recording features artists from The Houston Grand Opera studio: baritone Frank Hernandez, bass Eric Owens, sopranos Nicole Heaston and Jonita Lattimore, mezzo-sopranos Beth Clayton and Jill Grove, tenors John McVeigh and Gabriel Gonzalez, and Orchestra 2001 conducted by Charles Prince.

Ricky Ian Gordon's The Tibetan Book of the Dead: An Opera is released on Blue Griffin Records on 14 August 2026.

A 4,000-year-old lullaby inspires Freya Waley Cohen's new piece for sister Tamsin as part of Lullabies programme with Cordelia Williams

Lullaby (noun) - A song sung to children to soothe them to rest. Also, any song which soothes to rest. (Oxford English Dictionary online)

Inevitably the idea of a lullaby is immediately associated with children but it can extend to any song related to rest and night. At the Southbank Centre's Purcell Room on Saturday 6 June, violinist Tamsin Waley Cohen and pianist Cordelia Williams are exploring lullabies including pieces associated with the atmospheres of night, slumber and dreams.

Central to the concert is a new work by Freya Waley Cohen (Tamsin's sister), Sweet as plum wine written for the performers. The piece is based on a 4,000-year- old lullaby text found etched on a Babylonian stone tablet in Akkadian cuneiform:

Little one, who dwelt in darkness
Now you’ve come and seen the sun.
Why the crying? Why the worries?
What has made your peace undone?
You have roused the household spirits
You have scared the guardian gods
‘Who has roused me? Who has scared me?’
‘Little baby woke you up!’
May you settle into slumber
Sweet as plum wine, deep as love

Freya Waley Cohen explains what came next:

"I memorised this text and started to sing it to my daughter at night. A sort of lullaby improvisation that quickly settled into a set melody. This melody is what you hear in this piece, and the piece is both a setting of my personal version of this lullaby, and a response to the ancient text itself."

The remainder of the programme moves from Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel to the famous Brahms lullaby, to Fritz Kreisler's arrangement of Dvorak's Songs my mother taught me, to music by Schubert and John Cage!

Back in 2024, I chatted to both Tamsin Waley Cohen about her work at the Two Moors Festival [see my interview] and to Freya Waley Cohen about her Spell book [see my interview]

Before the concert there is a talk Night Music: The Creative Power of Parenting, when Tamsin Waley-Cohen, Cordelia Williams and Octavia Bright discuss how parenting has affected their creative practices.  

Full details from the Southbank Centre website. 

In his passion for the music of Richard Wagner, Tony Cooper finds himself back in Germany attending Stefan Herheim’s widely acclaimed Ring cycle at Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Wagner: Das Rheingold - Deutsche Oper Berlin (Photo: Bernd Uhlig)

Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen; director: Stefan Herheim, conductor: Sir Donald Runnicles; Deutsche Oper Berlin
Reviewed by Tony Cooper (4 June 2026)

Auf wiedersehen! Following this Ring cycle, Sir Donald Runnicles bows out as General Music Director of Deutsche Oper Berlin, a position he has grandly held since 2009. 

From my hotel on Bayreutherstraße just off Wittenbergplatz, Berlin’s most fashionable department store KaDeWe stares me straight in the face while a quick three-stop tube journey from Wittenbergplatz drops me right at the doorstep of Deutsche Oper situated at the junction of Bismarckstraße and Richard-Wagner-Straße located in the western part of the city in Charlottenburg. 

Sir Donald Runnicles

A city I favour and enjoy so much, I’m in Berlin attending Stefan Herheim’s Ring cycle at Deutsche Oper, a large, comfortable 1850-seat theatre boldly designed in the Modernist style and simply ideal for large-scale productions. And none come much larger than those penned by Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss and. Giacomo Meyerbeer. 

In fact, I fondly recall enjoying Meyerbeer’s two great masterpieces Les Huguenots and Le prophète at Deutsche Oper Berlin in 2016. Both operas were written at the peak of his career in 1836 and 1849 respectively and the finale of Le prophète - culminating in fire, destruction and death - closely mirrors the catastrophic ending of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. 

Obviously, my mind is furiously on fast rewind, therefore I also fondly recall the final performance of Götz Friedrich’s monumental (and well-loved) ‘Cold War’ Ring that ‘lived’ on Bismarckstraße for an astonishing amount of time: 33 years, in fact, from 1984 to 2017. A disciple of Götz Friedrich, multiple-award-winning Norwegian director, Stefan Herheim, studied under him at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg from 1994 to 1999.  

Götz Friedrich crafted his ‘trade’ working as an assistant to the well-respected Austrian-born theatre/opera director, Walter Felsenstein, the iconic boss of East Berlin's Komische Oper in the early post-war years. His philosophy was that opera went beyond singing to encompass music-theatre: the intersections between music, sound and theatrical performance therefore Friedrich’s productions focused on pure dramatic and musical values which were thoroughly researched and, indeed, finely balanced. 

Such philosophy as found in Friedrich’s productions defines in my humble opinion Stefan Herheim’s direction. He has certainly crafted a brilliant Ring from the ashes of Valhalla to keep the Wagner flame truly alight at Deutsche Oper. He pulls no punches either and pays full attention to detail often incorporating ideological and historical references in his work. For instance, his celebrated 2009 production of Parsifal at Bayreuth, which I greatly enjoyed, used Parsifal and the search for the Holy Grail as a metaphor for the development of Germany as a Christian nation.  

Flow Interrupted: prepared piano performance by Teodor Doré in a space conceived by Zaha Hadid

Teodor Doré: Flow Interrupted

It's not often that I write about the London Festival of Architecture, but on 5 June 2026 Renaissance-21 is presenting Flow Interrupted, a prepared piano performance by Teodor Doré at Roca Gallery, London.

Set within Roca Gallery — a striking space conceived by Zaha Hadid — and presented in collaboration with Cluster, this immersive performance explores water, pollution, and belonging through a disrupted, evolving soundscape. The performance reflects on our fragile relationship with water through the altered voice of a prepared piano. Objects placed within the instrument - fragments evoking debris and pollution - transform its natural resonance into a disrupted, unfamiliar soundscape.

The result blends prepared piano, immersive sound art, and environmental installation,  

Teodor Doré is a London-based composer and pianist, a graduate of the Liceu Conservatory in Barcelona and founder of Renaissance-21.

Further details from the Roca Gallery website. 

Strauss & Korngold: little known works by well-known composers in passionate performances from Francesca Dego & Alessandro Taverna at Conway Hall

Alessandro Taverna & Francesca Dego

Korngold: Violin Sonata, Schoenberg: Phantasy, Richard Strauss: Violin Sonata; Francesca Dego, Alessandro Taverna; Conway Hall
Reviewed 31 May 206

Youthful Korngold and Strauss before he was Strauss in a remarkable pair of big late-romantic sonatas that remain surprisingly little known, in passionate and committed performances 

On Sunday 31 May 2026, violinist Francesca Dego and pianist Alessandro Taverna brought a pair of big violin sonatas to Conway Hall, both works by well-known composers yet neither work known. This remarkable pairing featured the violin sonatas by Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Richard Strauss alongside Arnold Schoenberg's late Phantasy. Beforehand, I gave the pre-concert talk exploring the background to both the Korngold and the Strauss.

Creative Minds in Song: Twelve Years of Listening

Creative Minds in Song (2023)

In this guest posting pianist Gavin Roberts, artistic director of Song in the City, introduces Creative Minds in Song.

On Friday 5 June, audiences at St Giles Cripplegate will hear the latest chapter in a project that has quietly changed lives through song for more than a decade. Creative Minds in Song, a collaboration between Song in the City, the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and writers connected to local MIND community services, brings together composers, singers and community writers to create entirely new songs from original texts. The 2026 performances mark the fourth major iteration of the project, following earlier projects in 2015 (as reported in the Guardian) 2021 and 2023.

At its heart is a simple yet surprisingly radical idea: that poets, composers and performers should work together as equal creative partners. Writers do not simply hand over texts to be set; they become active collaborators in an artistic process that unfolds over months of conversation, experimentation and discovery.

This year's project has explored memory, identity, humour, survival, imagination and mental wellbeing. Through a series of workshops and rehearsals, Guildhall composers and singers have collaborated with community writers to create a new body of songs, many of which will receive their first performances in June.

What makes the project distinctive is its commitment to placing artistic excellence alongside lived experience. Emerging professional musicians are challenged to respond to living writers rather than historical texts. Writers hear their words transformed through music, often for the first time. Performers become advocates for stories that are personal, complex and deeply human.

The impact of that process has been evident throughout the project's history. Participants in previous Creative Minds in Song projects have described the experience as helping them ‘re-engage my creative faculties in a context that was fully respectful of the situation I was in’, while another reflected that ‘my world is gently opening... small baby steps for a new beginning.’

For composers, the experience can be equally significant. One participant described it as the project that helped them realise ‘my main artistic interest as a composer’, while another reflected that it offered ‘great hope for the future of de-stigmatising mental illness’ while opening new possibilities around creativity, collaboration and accessibility.

Creative Minds in Song (2021)

Over the years, I have increasingly come to believe that the project's success rests on a culture of listening. The writers are not merely the subject of the work; they are its creative engine. Their words shape the music, and their experiences challenge everyone involved to think differently about collaboration, communication and artistic responsibility.

The project has also benefited from the expertise of a number of artists and mentors who have helped shape its development over the years. Poet and actor Alexander Knox has provided invaluable guidance in writing workshops. Countertenor Andrew Watts and mezzo-soprano Sarah Walker have served as performance coaches across several iterations of the programme.

The resulting programme is strikingly varied. Some songs are lyrical and intimate, while others are theatrical, humorous or experimental. Together, they form a rich portrait of contemporary lives and voices, brought to life by a new generation of composers and performers.

On 5 June at St Giles Cripplegate and again on 21 June at the Royal Foundation of St Katharine, audiences will hear these works for the first time. They will encounter new music, certainly, but also something perhaps rarer: a space where community and artistic creativity meet on equal terms.

Creative Minds in Song is presented by Song in the City, in partnership with the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and writers connected to local MIND community services. Song in the City is a London-based arts charity that creates concerts, workshops and interdisciplinary projects that combine artistic excellence with meaningful social engagement. Founded in 2011, the charity works across performance, education and community collaboration to make live music accessible, inclusive and socially meaningful.

Tickets for both 5 June and 21 June from TicketTailor. 

Einstein on the Beach, Cassandra Miller in residence, Gabriella Smith's Breathing Forests: BBC Philharmonic Orchestra's 2026/27 season

BBC Philharmonic & John Storgårds at Bridgewater Hall in 2024 (Photo: Chris Payne)

The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra's recently announced 2026/27 season spans from large-scale symphonic concerts at The Bridgewater Hall to more intimate performances at the RNCM, alongside ambitious large-scale collaborations at Aviva Studios and innovative live experiences at the orchestra’s home in MediaCityUK.

Cassandra Miller is composer in residence for 2026/27, and works to be performed include Swim, inspired by two chords by Robert Schumann and the writings of Anne Carson, and Chanter (with soloist Sean Shibe) which draws on Scottish folk music and the work of smallpipes player Brìghde Chaimbeul [see my review of the premiere with Sean Shibe in 2024]. The residency concludes with the UK premiere of Dad Goes to the Mountain, informed by Peruvian banda music and themes of memory and perception. 

Chief conductor John Storgårds opens the season with Gabriella Smith's Breathing Forests, with organ soloist James Vinnie [see my review of the UK premiere at the 2025 BBC Proms] alongside Sibelius' Symphony No. 5. Other new music at Bridgewater Hall includes a new orchestration of Miho Hazama's Dawn in Retiro, and music by Jennifer Higdon, Gabriela Ortiz and Caroline Shaw. In the series of concerts at the RNCM, contemporary composers include Errollyn Warren, Edmund Finnis, Tom Coult, Julia Wolfe and Alex Paxton.

Large scale works include the relative rarity, Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 ‘The Age of Anxiety’  and Strauss's Alpine Symphony. Principal guest conductor Anja Bihlmaier conducts Brahms' German Requiem, with soloists Julia Grüter and Joshua Hopkins, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 marking the 200th anniversary of the composer’s death with soloists Hera Hyesang Park, Jess Dandy, Robin Tritschler, Paul Grant.

Following the UK premiere of Du Yun’s Angel’s Bone, the orchestra continues its collaboration with English National Opera and Factory International with a new staging of Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s iconic 1976 opera Einstein on the Beach, directed by Phelim McDermott. This completes ENO and Improbable’s Glass Portrait Trilogy, following the success of Satyagraha and Akhnaten. The production premieres in Manchester at Aviva Studios in June 2027 

Full details from the BBC Philharmonic's website. 

A remarkable combination of headlong energy with care & attention: Igor Levit & Leonkoro Quartet in Schumann's Piano Quintet at Wigmore Hall's 125 Anniversary Festival

Schumann: Piano Quintet - Igor Levit, Leonkoro Quartet - Wigmore Hall (Photo: Tom Wright/Wigmore Hall)

Henriëtte Bosmans: String Quartet, Robert Schumann: Piano Quintet; Igor Levit, Leonkoro Quartet; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 31 May 2026

A completely absorbing performance of the Schumann bringing a real sense of urgency to the music and refreshingly lacking romantic self-indulgence. The Quartet's performance of Bosmans' piece made you wonder why it was not better known 

Wigmore Hall's 125th Anniversary Festival continues apace. On Sunday 31 May 2026, pianist Igor Levit joined the Leonkoro Quartet - Jonathan Schwarz and Emiri Kakiuchi (violin), Mayu Konoe (viola), Lukas Schwarz (cello) - for the second of two collaborations. Having performed Brahms's Piano Quintet in F minor Op. 34 together on Saturday evening, Sunday morning saw them performing Schumann's Piano Quintet. The quartet began the concert with Henriëtte Bosmans' String Quartet.

BBC Proms: Tony Cooper makes his personal selection of events from the 2026 edition of the world’s largest classical-music festival

The BBC Proms, the world’s largest classical-music festival, salutes the USA in this year’s edition marking 250 years since the signing of the US Declaration of Independence. 

A feast of music like no other, the BBC Proms (running from Friday 17th July to Saturday 12th September) illuminates London’s famous Royal Albert Hall for eight action-packed weeks offering music lovers the sheer joy of getting to see and hear some of the world’s greatest orchestras and soloists playing some of the world’s greatest music in one of London’s most iconic venues that rock guitarist, Eric Clapton, fondly dubs ‘The Albert’. Pint of twos, please!  

So closely associated with Sir Henry Wood - lovingly known as ‘Old Timber’ who, incidentally, was no stranger to Norwich as he was artistic director/conductor of the Norfolk & Norwich Triennial Festival from 1908 to 1930 - this year’s Prom series features UK premières of major new works co-commissioned by the BBC from American composers Wynton Marsalis and Jessie Montgomery with appearances coming from prime conductors and star soloists as Simon Rattle, Marin Alsop, Angel Blue and Joyce DiDonato.  

Interestingly, there are so many associations with conductors and composers linked to Norwich and the Proms. For instance, the N&N Triennial commissioned Scottish-born composer, Thea Musgrave to write ‘The Five Ages of Man’, a masterful choral/orchestral work based on Hesiod’s ‘Works and Days’ - the scenario depicting the Greek myth of the decline and fall of humanity through five distinct ages: gold, silver, bronze, heroes and iron - premièred in St Andrew’s Hall on 6th June 1964 conducted by Charles Mackerras.  

Now 97 years old, Musgrave - who lived in Norfolk, Virginia (twinned, by the way, with Norfolk, England) for over a quarter of a century with her husband, Peter Mark, general music director of Virginia Opera from 1975 to 2010 - has come up with a new work for this year’s Prom series (a BBC commission) offering a bassoon concerto entitled ‘Out of the Darkness’ performed by Amy Harman (matinee show: 23 August) who has had works written for her by Olav Berg, Heloïse Werner, Brian Elias, Roxanna Panufnik, Robin Holloway and Simon Holt. A pretty good tally! 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Richard Strauss & his father, Franz
Photographed in 1901

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

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

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

Further details from Conway Hall's website. 

Dowland 400 celebrations in Norwich

Performers at the Dowland 400 festival in Norwich

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Further details from the RCM website. 

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

Further details from the Tête à Tête website.

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

Further details from the Tête à Tête website. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Full details from the festival's website.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Full details from the Orchestra's website.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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