Embodied sound: Zubin Kanga on his innovative approach to new technology through his interdisciplinary musical programmes

Alexander Schubert: Steady State - world premiere 7 May 2024 - Zubin Kanga at National Concert Hall, Dublin
(Photo: Roisin Murphy O'Sullivan)

Pianist, composer and technologist Zubin Kanga is known for both his championing of contemporary music as well as his innovative interdisciplinary musical programmes, exploring what it means to be a performer through interaction with new technologies. Zubin has a busy Autumn lined up with four world premières by Laurence Osborn, Alex Groves, Alex Ho and Claudia Molitor, plus a performance of Steady State, a ground-breaking work by Alexander Schubert which expands Zubin's use of new technologies.

Zubin Kanga (Photo: Raphael Neal)

On 10 October Zubin will premiere Laurence Osborn's piano concerto, Schiller's Piano with the Manchester Collective in a programme entitled Fever Dreams at the Royal Northern College of Music, repeating the programme at the Southbank Centre on 12 October. Osborn's work calls for Zubin to play both the piano and a keyboard controlling samples. These samples are all sounds that Osborn recorded in the Southbank Centre's piano workshop where the centre's pianos are restored and looked after. Thus Osborn has captured the sound of different components being restored, along with visceral sounds from the inside of the piano.

The work is inspired by Osborn seeing a replica of Schiller’s piano. In 1942 the furniture in Friedrich Schiller's house in Weimar was replaced by replicas, with the originals stored underground. The replicas were made by prisoners in Buchenwald, and when it came to the piano they copied the outside only, it was unable to play music. This replica piano is now at Buchenwald, and in writing Schiller's Piano, Osborn has responded to fascism’s empty attempts to recreate the past. Osborn came to Zubin with the concept for the piece and the two were in frequent contact as Osborn was writing it. Zubin describes Osborn as writing virtuosic piano music, so there were practical considerations related both to the physicality of playing two keyboards and the timing of the sounds from the different sound worlds. There were plenty of technical intricacies and they spent six months working on the piece, and when I chatted to Zubin they were still working on details.

This type of collaboration with the composer is what Zubin always does with a new work. He likes collaborating and feels that it is good for the performer to be part of the creation process and in fact, wrote his PhD on the topic! When working with new technology this becomes even more important, especially as they might need to get advice about the technology itself.

Compelling performances: Stephen Hough, YL Male Voice Choir, Santtu-Matias Rouvali and the Philharmonia launch Nordic Soundscapes

Akseli Gallen-Kallela: Kullervo Sets Off for War
(Mural, 1901, in the Old Student House, Helsinki University)

Sigfúsdóttir: Oceans, Grieg: Piano Concerto; Sibelius: Kullervo; Stephen Hough, Johanna Rusanen, Tommi Hakala, Ylioppilaskunnan Laulajat (YL) Male Voice Choir, Philharmonia, Santtu-Matias Rouvali; Royal Festival Hall
Reviewed 26 September 2024

A contemporary composer spanning orchestral and post-rock, and two 19th century composers balancing Nationalism and the Germanic symphonic tradition. A fascinating start to Nordic Soundscapes

Sibelius' Kullervo remains an intriguing, sprawling and sometimes mesmerising work whose importance is immense. It premiered in 1892, only the second large-scale symphonic work to come out of Finland and an important way-marker in the country's musical history and journey to political independence. But the work does not occupy a place on concert platforms as often as it might.

On Thursday 26 September 2024, Santtu-Matias Rouvali and the Philharmonia opened their 2024/25 season at the Royal Festival Hall with the first concert in their Nordic Soundscapes season, performing María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir's Oceans, Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto with soloist Stephen Hough and Jean Sibelius' Kullervo with soprano Johanna Rusanen, baritone Tommi Hakala and Ylioppilaskunnan Laulajat (YL) Male Voice Choir.

Sibelius: Kullervo - Johanna Rusanen, Tommi Hakala, Ylioppilaskunnan Laulajat Male Voice Choir, Philharmonia, Santtu-Matias Rouvali - Royal Festival Hall (Photo: Philharmonia/Mark Allan)

It was a long concert, Kullervo lacks the concision of Sibelius' later symphonic utterances, the young Sibelius had been listening to a bit too much Bruckner in Vienna. There was a sneaking suspicion that, perhaps, we did not quite need another performance of Grieg's eternal piano concerto, but then that was to countered by the remarkable charisma that soloist Stephen Hough.

Investing in the magic of Purcell's music: The Fairy Queen from The Sixteen at Cadogan Hall

Dorset Garden Theatre in 1673 where Purcell's The Fairy Queen premiered

Purcell: The Fairy Queen; Antonia Christophers, Matthew Brook, Robin Blaze, Katy Hill, Alexandra Kidgell, Charlotte Mobbs, Mark Dobell, Oscar Golden Lee,, Ben Davies, The Sixteen, Harry Christophers; Cadogan Hall
Reviewed 25 September 2024

Focusing on the music, a stylish and engaging performance that drew us into Purcell's magical world, aided by a delightful narration

After the performance of Purcell's The Fairy Queen with Les Arts Florissants and Mourad Merzouki's Companie Käfig at the BBC Proms [see my review] where Purcell's music seemed to take second place to the virtuosic hip-hop-inspired dance, it was a pleasure to reencounter the work in an entirely different and more sympathetic musical context.

On Wednesday 25 September 2024, Harry Christophers and The Sixteen presented Purcell's The Fairy Queen at Cadogan Hall as part of Choral at Cadogan 2024. The soloists consisted of two visitors, countertenor Robin Blaze and baritone Matthew Brook, along with six members of the choir sopranos Katy Hill, Alexandra Kidgell, and Charlotte Mobbs, tenors Mark Dobell and Oscar Golden Lee, and baritone Ben Davies. The whole was drawn together using a narration by Jeremy Sams, performed by the actor Antonia Christophers, who is co-founder and co-artistic director of the theatre company, Box Tale Soup.

We had an orchestra of 21 and a choir of 18 (including those singing solo roles), so this was a generously proportioned performance. The choir remained stationery and for much of the 'action' the soloists simply stepped forward and retreated, but some episodes, notably the Drunken Poet (Matthew Brook with Charlotte Mobbs and Katy Hill), and Coridon and Mopsa (Matthew Brook and Robin Blaze), were more dramatised. What drew everything together was the delightful narrative. Antonia Christophers (who has in fact played Titania in the play) presented a slightly amused narrator cum Titania who repeatedly broke the fourth wall to mix descriptions of what should have been on stage with lamentations about the present lack of scenery, staging and actors. The result could have been horribly arch, but despite some rather false-sounding amplification, Antonia Christophers made the whole extremely engaging and helped to bind the disparate elements together.

Leonardo dreams of flying machines & Harriet Quimby flies across the English Channel: Dominic Ellis-Peckham & London Oriana Choir launch their 2024/25 season

London Oriana Choir and Dominic Ellis-Peckham

London Oriana Choir, musical director Dominic Ellis-Peckham, celebrated its 50th anniversary last season, and they are continuing the excitement with a 2024/25 season full of good things. The season opens on 18 October at St Paul's Church, Covent Garden with Take Flight, a programme celebrating the night sky with Cecilia McDowall's Night Flight (with cellist Gabriella Swallow) and Eric Whitacre's Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine plus music by Bob Chilcott, Ben Parry and many more. 

Cecilia McDowall's Night Flight was written in 2014 to mark the centenary of Harriet Quimby's pioneering flight across the English channel, setting texts by Sheila Bryer on the mysterious powers of the sea, earth, and air. It won the 2014 British Composer Award in the Choral category. Written in 2001, Eric Whitacre's Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine uses a text by Whitacre's friend and long-time collaborator Charles Anthony Silvestri which tries to imagine what it would it sound like if Leonardo Da Vinci were dreaming? 

December sees the choir in Christmas carol mode with two candlelight concerts at St James' Piccadilly with music by Sir David Willcocks, Cecilia McDowall, Errollyn Wallen and Eric Whitacre. March 2025 finds the choir performing a Baroque masterpiece, Bach's Mass in B Minor at Holy Sepulchre, Holborn Viaduct, and in May they perform a programme of motets by Brahms and Bruckner at Our Most Holy Redeemer Church, Exmouth Market, and the choir then takes this programme to Padua and Venice. A packed season ends in July 2025 when they are joined by guests Maz O’Connor, Will Lang and Niopha Keegan for Four Corners, folk stories and sounds from the four corners of the Isles at Cecil Sharp House.

Full details from the choir's website.

High-quality music-making & imaginative programming in the special natural setting of Exmoor & Dartmoor: I chat to Tamsin Waley-Cohen of the Two Moors Festival

Tamsin Waley-Cohen performing at the Two Moors Festival in 2022

Founded in 2001, the Two Moors Festival takes place each October in venues across Dartmoor and Exmoor. This year's festival runs from 3 to 13 October 2024 under the artistic direction of violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen, who took over the festival in 2020. For this year's theme, Tamsin has chosen the daily 24 hour cycle of various lights and darknesses, wakefulness and slumber that we all experience.

She explains, "I’ve chosen to explore this year’s theme from different perspectives, from the 24 hours of the day and the 24 keys of western music, to magic and dreamscapes, the bright sunlight of the baroque to the reflected moonlight of romanticism, and our connection to the Earth’s daily turn on its axis. This promises to be a Festival full of evocative experiences and storytelling from both internationally established and exciting up-and-coming artists."

The festival brings together locations in two National Parks, an area where a lot of people live but which is one of the most sparsely populated places in the UK. The festival was created by John and Penny Adie in 2001, in response to the devastation caused by foot and mouth disease. And then, of course, Tamsin took over in 2020, shortly before the COVID pandemic hit.

Tamsin describes the aims of the festival as to perform chamber music and song with top international artists in beautifully intimate venues in a special natural setting, thus bringing high quality music making to the doorstep of the people living in the National Parks. The festival also attracts visitors, people come for a weekend away from business, combining nature with music. Tamsin describes the audience as a mix of people, they have a dedicated core of local followers, many of whom travel to the various concerts, whilst the festival also encourages and welcomes visitors.

George Xiaoyuan Fu performing at the Two Moors Festival in 2021

A superb sense of community: Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana at Blackheath Halls Opera

Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana; Katherine Broderick, Oliver Johnston, Janis Kelly, Michel de Souza, Idunnu Münch, director: Harry Fehr, conductor: Chris Stark, Blackheath Halls Opera;  Blackheath Halls
Reviewed 24 September 2024

Professionals and non-professionals come together to create a real sense of community in a production that had real clarity to the story telling and strong performances from all concerned.

A bell rings and the villagers fill the stage with movement and song. At the heart of Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana are the villagers themselves; the whole action takes place in and around village events with the Easter Hymn as one of the centrepieces. So, the opera makes a lot of sense for a community company like Blackheath Halls Opera. For their 2024 production at Blackheath Halls, the company brought together the community performers of Blackheath Halls Chorus, Blackheath Halls Orchestra and Blackheath Halls Youth Opera Company, students for Charlton Park Academy and Greenvale School, under musical director Chris Stark and director Harry Fehr for Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana (seen 23 September 2024). Katherine Broderick was Santuzza, Oliver Johnston was Turiddu, Janis Kelly was Mamma Lucia, Michel de Souza was Alfio and Idunnu Münch was Lola. Designs were by Elliott Squire and Alice McNicholas. Students and recent graduates from Trinity Laban provided section leaders for the chorus and the orchestral brass section.

LSO Jerwood Composer+ A deep dive into the potential of the violin & bringing the Isle of Mull’s wild Atlantic rainforest to LSO St Luke's

LSO Jerwood Composer+ supports early-career composers in planning and delivering two artistic projects, with two composers selected each year for a 15-month placement. Mentored by LSO staff, they are encouraged to develop entrepreneurial skills around programming for specific audiences, planning, marketing, budgeting, fundraising and evaluation.

The 2023/24 composers were Anselm McDonnell [see my review of his recent disc, Kraina] and Rufus Isabel Elliot, and some of the fruits of their labours are going to be apparent as two LSO Jerwood Composer+ showcases at LSO St Luke's are curated by Anselm McDonnell and Rufus Isabel Elliot.

On Saturday 12 October 2024, The Expanded Violin, curated by Anselm McDonnell, features music by McDonnell, Judith Ring, Leo Chadburn, Kahlevi Aho, Catherine Lamb and Kaija Saariaho, performed by four violinists, Mira Benjamin, Larissa O’Grady, Chihiro Ono and Amalia Young. The evening is described as a deep dive into the potential of the violin, expanding and enhancing the instrument through microtonality, electronics, and the sound of multiple violins. The music includes Kalevi Aho’s soulful tribute to the young Finnish violinist Sakari Laukola, Saariaho’s Nocturne, which is an intimate tribute to Lutosławski, and the evening ends with McDonnell's new work Genesis Cradle, exploring alternative tunings through Just Intonation – intervals that are tuned to fit with the naturally occurring relationships in the harmonic series. [Further details]

On Saturday 16 November 2024, Waves Crash on Old Street, curated by Rufus Isabel Elliott, features music by David Fennessy, Christian Mason, Barbara Monk Feldman, Martin Arnold, Britta Byström, Ryoko Akama, Stuart MacRae and a premiere by Rufus Isabel Elliott. The performers are David Alberman, violin, Louise McMonagle, cello, and Mark Knoop, piano. Elliott has collaborated with artists Miek Zwamborn and Rutger Emmelkamp, based in Knockvologan, on the Isle of Mull, and the evening promises to bring the Isle of Mull’s wild Atlantic rainforest of Tireragan to LSO St Luke’s. [Further details]

Remembrance and renewal: Peter Seabourne's My Song in October

Peter Seabourne: Steps Vol 8: My Song in October, September, Just September; Karen Radcliffe, Michael Bell; Sheva Contemporary
Reviewed 20 September 2024

A step in contemporary composer Peter Seabourne's mammoth cycle of solo piano pieces, a touching act of remembrance for both composer and pianist, and a fine introduction to Seabourne's style

Peter Seabourne is a composer whose work you are, perhaps, more likely to hear on disc than in the concert hall though he has had some significant success. On disc, Sheva Contemporary have issued a remarkable sequence of Seabourne's music. The disc My Song in October features two works by Seabourne, Steps Vol 8: My Song in October performed by pianist Michael Bell, and September, Just September performed by soprano Karen Radcliffe and pianist Michael Bell.

There is a strong air of remembrance to the disc. Pianist Michael Bell is a long time collaborator and friend of Peter Seabourne and both men lost their wives in 2020. The piano cycle Steps Vol 8: My Song in October subtitled Nineteen album leaves caught by the wind features one of several in memoriam pieces Seabourne wrote, whilst the song cycle September, Just September was recorded by Michael Bell and his wife, soprano Karen Radcliffe some 20 years ago and reissued here in remastered form as something of a tribute to her.

Both audience & player go on a journey together: Latvian pianist Reinis Zariņš discusses Messiaen's Vingt Regards which he performs at the London Piano Festival

Reinis Zariņš (Photo: Andris Sprogis)

Latvian pianist Reinis Zariņš will be performing Olivier Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus, a work for which he is becoming known, at the London Piano Festival, co-Artistic Directors Charles Owen and Katya Apekisheva, at Kings Place on Sunday 6 October 2024. 

Written in 1944 and completed shortly after the liberation of Paris, the work premiered in 1945. A two-hour long, 20-movement meditation on the infancy of Jesus, Messiaen's work has a distinct wow factor and it has played a significant role in Reinis' performing life. Katya Apekisheva heard him playing it and was determined to find ways to get him to perform it again. He is delighted to be performing it at the London Piano Festival and somewhat amazed that the festival has found a way to include a recital that consists solely of one religiously flavoured piece. He understands how tricky programming is nowadays, so this result is a landmark achievement!

He first studied the work at Yale, during the Messiaen centenary when the members of his class each learned a couple of movements. He was given movements 5 and 6, two of the more difficult ones and these set him on his journey, learning the other movements and hearing other pianists performing the work, taking several years. He describes it as an absolutely genius concert piece, with its two-hour length there is nothing quite like it. Reinis feels that the thematic arrangement of the work with Messiaen's use of leitmotifs makes it rather like an instrumental opera, which is how he thinks of it, and it is this hidden narrative which contributes to the work's impact.

Word of Mouth: Nordic Music Days comes to Glasgow as the festival leaves the Nordic region for only the 3rd time in its history

Nordic Music Days was established in 1888 by the Council of Nordic Composers; curated by composers and creators, Nordic Music Days now presents almost entirely contemporary classical music and sound, featuring artists from Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland with partnership and exchange being key to the festival’s legacy which is also focused on sustainable practice and social responsibility.

For only the third time in its history, Nordic Music Days is taking place outside the Nordic countries. From 30 October to 3 November, the festival will be taking over Glasgow, and this year's curator team includes, Tróndur Bogason (Faroe Islands), Lauri Supponen (Finland), Guoste Tamulynaite (Norway), Gillian Moore (Scotland) and Pippa Murphy (Scotland). The Festival is an initiative of the NKR (Council of Nordic Composers) which works in collaboration with the lead partner in Scotland, Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

The festival sees concerts, sound installations, talks, screenings and participatory events as well as a wide-ranging industry programme happening across the city – from Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and The Old Fruitmarket, through the Centre for Contemporary Arts and City Halls to Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and Glasgow Film Theatre.

The theme running through the festival is Word of Mouth. It invokes something personal, informal and close: the passing on, movement and the spreading of ideas, stories, knowledge and traditions. Highlights include:

• the opening concert, Qullaq, features the Scottish Ensemble and fiddle player Aidan O’Rourke alongside musicians from Norway, Finland, and Greenland, with music by Jukka Tiensuu (Finland), Seyoung Oh (Scotland), Anna Thorvaldsdottir (Iceland), David Fennessy (Scotland), and a collaboration between Aidan O’Rourke (Scotland), Nive Nielsen, Hans-Henrik Suersaq Poulsen, and Mikè Fencer Thomsen (Greenland)
  
• the closing concert, Echoes on the Edges, paired with a programme in the Glasgow Cathedral Festival, will bring the drama and philosophy of the Faroe Islands’ Klæmintsgjógv sea cave
  concerts to St Mungo’s Cathedral. A concept pioneered by Kristian Blak
  
• a world-wide, mass-participation project phōnḗ, a new work for massed choirs by Finnish composer Tytti Arola, underlining the importance and value of communication between people and cultures
• major orchestral concerts featuring:
• BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra with An Extraordinary Voyage! including Maja S K Ratkje’s trombone concerto Considering Icarus and music by Britta Byström, Faroese composer Eli Tausen á Lava and a choral work from Hildur Guðnadóttir
  
• Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Borealis with Swedish composer Anders Hillborg’s Viola Concerto and music by Madeleine Isaksson, James MacMillan and Jay Capperauld
  
• Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conductor Thomas Søndergård in Rune Glerup’s Dark to Light, plus music by Errollyn Wallen, Aileen Sweeney, and Bent Sørensen along with new work from Lisa Robertson, where the RSNO is joined by the young musicians of Big Noise Govanhill
  
• Hebrides Ensemble performing alongside Sámi vocalist Ánnámáret and Scottish composer / performer Clare Johnston
• the Vienna-based Chaos String Quartet make their first visit to Scotland, joining soprano Stephanie Lamprea and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s principal double bass, Kai Kim, for the UK premiere of a new work from Greenland’s Arnannguaq Gerstrøm, plus music by Danish composer Sandra Boss
• RSNO’s viola player Katherine Wren founded Nordic Viola in 2016 with the goal of exploring cultural connections between Scotland and the North Atlantic region. Arctic Edgelands is a collaborative music project featuring Katherine Wren, Greenlandic composer and flautist Arnannguaq Gerstrøm and Shetland-based percussionist, composer and sound recordist Renzo Spiteri.
• Finnish composer Anna Näkkäläjärvi-Länsman’s Bálvvosbáiki (meaning place of worship) is a work in which indigenous Sámi yoik is combined with electronic music, Carelian bowed lyre, and video art. Based on the yoiks of the Sámi artist Ánnámáret, this work explores and expresses how the Sámi relationship with nature, the ancient religion of nature, and the Sámi worldview continue to manifest themselves in Sámi life today
  
• From shops to concert halls to galleries and Glasgow’s parks, Nordic Music Day pops up across the city and across lifestyles to reach audiences on their doorsteps and in their daily lives

The is alos a daily programme of industry focused discussion and presentations, rooted in the concept of sustainability – both environmental and artistic – called NordEX which, among others, will bring Scotland, the Nordics and our neighbours in Canada, Ireland and the Baltics together to look at sustainability in the music sector

Full details from the festival's website.

Celebrating Jommelli in style: Ian Page & The Mozartists with Fflur Wyn, Ambroisine Bré, Hugo Brady make a compelling case for this neglected music

Jommelli: a celebration - Fflur Wyn, Ambroisine Bré, Ian Page, The Mozartists at Wigmore Hall (Photo: Benjamin Ealovega)

Jommelli - a celebration: Fflur Wyn, Ambroisine Bré, Hugo Brady, The Mozartists, Ian Page; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 18 September 2024

Celebrating the 250th anniversary of Jommelli's death with an evening of his fascinating and unjustly neglected music in killer performances from a trio of soloists that combined virtuoso dazzle with emotional commitment and great style

Opera composer Niccolò Jommelli died 250 years ago this year, not that you would know it looking at opera companies schedules. In a world where pre-Mozartian 18th century opera seems to start at Handel and stop at Gluck, with a brief stop at Vivaldi, exploring further is rare. Jommelli was enormously popular in his day, wrote some 80 operas and was something of a revolutionary. But since his death in 1774 he has been substantially ignored.

In 2016, Ian Page and The Mozartists revived Jommelli's opera Il Vologeso and now they followed that up with a concert exploring the composer's whole operatic output, 12 arias and duets spanning a 34 year period. At Wigmore Hall on Wednesday 18 September 2024, Ian Page conducted the Mozartists in Jommelli - a celebration, with soloists Fflur Wyn, Ambroisine Bré and Hugo Brady. 

Jommelli: a celebration - Fflur Wyn, Ian Page, The Mozartists at Wigmore Hall (Photo: Benjamin Ealovega)

Shortly before the concert, a conductor's worst nightmare happened; faced with a programme of rare and unperformed virtuoso vocal music, soprano Emily Pogorelc became ill and was unable to sing. Enter soprano Fflur Wyn who with remarkable virtuosity, killer sight-reading skills (presumably), superb aplomb, and a fabulous frock, sang the soprano solos. And don't forget that at that period, the soprano was the diva, so Wyn got to be Dido dying and Armida vowing her revenge on Rinaldo, along with much else besides.

Fire and water in the library: Siren Duo in an imaginative flute and harp recital for Temple Music

Siren Duo (Claire Wickes, flute, and Tomos Xerri, harp) in Middle Temple Library.

Debussy, Mozart, David Watkins, Astor Piazzolla, Adina Izarra, Toru Takemitsu, William Alwyn; Siren Duo (Claire Wickes, Tomos Xerri); Temple Music Foundation at Middle Temple Library
Reviewed 17 September 2024

Temple Music's first concert in the attractive 1950s neo-classical library with a wonderfully imaginative flute and harp programme based around images of fire and water

Temple Music puts regular concerts on in the grand historical spaces of Middle Temple Hall and Temple Church, but on Tuesday 17 September 2024, they presented their first concert in a smaller, more modern space, Middle Temple Library. Siren Duo (Claire Wickes, flute, and Tomos Xerri, harp) gave a chamber recital of music themed on Fire and Water (a theme perhaps not dear to the librarians' hearts) with music by Debussy, Mozart, David Watkins, Astor Piazzolla, Adina Izarra, Toru Takemitsu and William Alwyn.

The origins of Middle Temple Library are lost in the mists of time, but a new building was created in 1625, to be eventually replaced in the 1860s by a Gothic style building which was badly damaged in the Blitz. The present library was designed by Sir Edward Maufe and opened in 1958. Inside it is striking, mid-Century classical with the main library room having a mezzanine running around it. The acoustic was on the dry side, but highly sympathetic for an intimate chamber recital.

An interview with the Snow Maiden: I chat to Ffion Edwards about taking on the title role in Rimsky Korsakov's opera with English Touring Opera

Rimsky Korsakov: The Snowmaiden - rehearsals - English Touring Opera (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Rimsky Korsakov wrote some fifteen operas across his career yet if you discount performances by visiting companies, the number of his operas performed in the UK remains alarmingly low and each time one comes along it is something of an event. Having performed Rimsky Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel in 2022 [see my review], English Touring Opera (ETO) is returning to Rimsky Korsakov and presenting The Snow Maiden as part of its Autumn 2024 tour. The work is being directed by Olivia Fuchs and will be conducted by Hannah Quinn with a cast including Ffion Edwards, Hannah Sandison, Edward Hawkins, Joseph Doody and Kitty Whately. 

The production opens at the Hackney Empire on 28 September 2024 and tours to Snape Maltings, Saffron Hall, Buxton Opera House, The Hawth in Crawley, Northcott Theatre in Exeter and The Lighthouse, Poole, [further details] as part of an Autumn season that also includes Judith Weir's Blond Eckbert [see my recent interview with Aoife Miskelly who sings Bird in that production]. In a break from rehearsals, I recently chatted to Ffion Edwards, a former Young Artist at National Opera Studio, about performing the title role in The Snow Maiden.

Rimsky Korsakov's opera The Snow Maiden, which premiered in St Petersburg in 1882, remained the composer's own favourite work. Based on a play by Alexander Ostrovsky (to which Tchaikovsky wrote incidental music in 1873), the story deals with the opposition of the eternal forces of nature. It involves the interactions of mythological characters and real people, centred on the Snow Maiden who is the child of Spring Beauty and Grandfather Frost. 

The opera does not get many outings in the UK, I saw the Chelsea Opera Group performing it in 1986 and the Kirov Opera performed the work in concert at Covent Garden in 2000, more recently University College Opera presented it in 2014, then Opera North staged it in 2017 in a production directed by John Fulljames [see my review], incidentally with Aoife Miskelly in the title role.

When I chatted with Ffion recently, she was in the midst of rehearsals for the production; she was busy as her character is on stage for a lot of the time.

New season, new challenges, new collaborations: Britten Sinfonia launches its ambitious 2024/25 season

Britten Sinfonia with sitarist Anoushka Shankar and percussionist Manu Delago at Barbican Hall, 2022 (Photo: Mark Allan

The Britten Sinfonia's 2024/25 season launches on 8 October with a trio of concerts (at the Barbican, and in Saffron Walden and Basingstoke) with Will Gregory’s Moog Ensemble, an event which promises a fusion of maths, music, and retro-futurist synths including tributes to electronic music pioneers Delia Derbyshire and Wendy Carlos, and the premiere of Gregory’s Archimedes Suite. Other cross-genre partnerships in the season include Irish folk singer Lisa O’Neill, jazz-giants Tim Garland’s Lighthouse Trio and the American bluegrass singer and mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile.

The ensemble will be marking 80 years since the end of World War II, the 50th anniversary of Shostakovich's death and Arvo Pärt's 90th birthday. Performances will include Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony op.110a, a scaling-up of his String Quartet No.8, dedicated to the “Remembrance of the Victims of Fascism and War, the world premiere of Michael Zev Gordon’s A Kind of Haunting, which explores the enduring and cross-generational trauma of the Holocaust, and Messiaen's rarely performed tribute to the victims of the World Wars, Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum. Some of Pärt’s greatest works -including Tabula Rasa - as well as the world premiere of a work for strings and percussion by Cheryl Frances-Hoad.

The ensemble continues to experiment with ways to expand and develop audiences for classical music in the East of England. Its Surround Sound Playlist tourfeatures performances in the cathedrals of Chelmsford, Ely, Peterborough, Norwich and St Edmundsbury, and audiences are invited to take in the music and majesty of these glorious cathedrals in less formal ways. Guests at these concerts include saxophonist Amy Dickson, oud virtuoso and composer Joseph Tawadros, and Tenebrae conducted byNigel Short.

The ensemble is also presenting concerts celebrating its own musicians. Principal trumpet Imogen Whitehead, who in 2023 became the first woman to be appointed to a principal brass role in a major UK orchestra in more than a decade, stars as soloist in Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto. Principal oboe, Nicholas Daniel, conducts Messiaen's powerful Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum, and other works by Stravinsky. Britten Sinfonia’s winds, brass and percussion are joined by those of Sinfonia Smith Square in the resonant expanses of Pugin’s St George’s Catholic Cathedral in Southwark.

Other performing partners include joining the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, conductor Daniel Hyde, for Mozart’s Requiem in King's College Chapel as part of Cambridge Music Festival’s 2024 Autumn series. The orchestra celebrates St Cecilia’s day with Saffron Walden Choral Society at Saffron Hall, in Britten’s Saint Nicolas.In 2025, Britten Sinfonia will begin a residency at Merton College, Oxford, with concerts, recordings and chamber music coaching across the year, including Bach’s St John Passion, conducted by Benjamin Nicholas in the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford.

Britten Sinfonia is commissioning and collaborating with three graduates of its Magnum Opus scheme, Jonathan Brigg, David John Roche and Crystalla Serghiou. This season’s cohort of Opus 1 composers will showcase eight world premieres in Cambridge, while the Magnum Opus Composer Showcase in London will present new concertos by Anibal Vidal, Alex Groves, and Eden Lonsdale performed by Britten Sinfonia musicians with soloists Imogen Whitehead (trumpet), Rakhi Singh (violin) and Alexandra Achillea Pouta (mezzo soprano)

Full details from Britten Sinfonia's website.

Exploring Georgian life: 18th-century food at Handel's House and celebrating the queer-coding of the Accademia dell’Arcadia at the Foundling Museum

Food historians Marc Meltonville and Robert Hoare

Two intriguing aspects of Georgian life are being examined this month as the Handel Hendrix House is bringing Georgian food demonstrations to Handel's kitchen, whilst at the Foundling Museum, A Queer Georgian Social Season launches its 2024/25 season with Queen Christina's Queer Cabal: Handel & Corelli.

As part of the recent restoration of Handel's house, which included returning the lower floors to their original layout, the kitchen's were recreated. Whilst we call this Handel's kitchen, of course it would have been the domain of his cook. And on 28 and 29 September 2024, as Simon Daniels, director of Handel Hendrix House explains: "Food historians Marc Meltonville and Robert Hoare will be in period costume and using replica Georgian kitchenware. For the first time since the house’s £3million restoration, visitors will be able to experience a kitchen filled with the sights and smells of Georgian cooking using recipes from the 1747 cookbook The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy by Hannah Glasse."

Visitors will be able to watch and talk to the cooks as they prepare different dishes throughout the day as well as finding out what life was like for the cooks working in the townhouses of Georgian London. And upstairs, there will be 18th-century music performed live by professional musicians in the room in which Handel himself performed. 

Full details from the Handel Hendrix House website.

At the Foundling Museum, the latest Queer Goergian Social Season launches on 19 September with Queen Christina's Queer Cabal: Handel & Corelli featuring Peter Bugeja and his ensemble, Les Bougies Baroques, with drag artist Aphrodite 1st, violinist Sam Kennedy and mezzo-soprano Maria Schellenberg.

Variously called by her contemporaries, a lesbian, a prostitute, a hermaphrodite, and an atheist, Queen Christina of Sweden eventually settled in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome where in 1656 she opened the Accademia dell’Arcadia (‘Academy of Arcadia’) where the participants enjoyed music, theatre, and literature. Participants, Queen Christina excepted, were largely male and there is a significant amount of queer-coding around the academy. Later members of the academy were Corelli and Handel, both of whom have homo-social links at the very least. Whilst in Rome, Handel wrote cantatas for the academy, many deliberately sexually ambiguous and commissioned by men, Cardinal Ottoboni and Prince Ruspoli in particular, who were identified with the homosexual/homosocial culture of their time.

The grand opening salon concert and social will be celebrating all these links, further information from EventBrite.

A journey of remarkable emotional depth: Laurence Kilsby and Ella O'Neill at Wigmore Hall

Brahms, Saint-Saens, Wolf, Schoenberg, Stenhammar, Rebecca Clarke, Hugh Wood, Weill, Britten, Jake Heggie; Laurence Kilsby, Ella O'Neill; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 15 September 2024

With a a remarkable combination of confidence and style, the young duo filled the hall with great presence in a thoughtful programme of remarkable emotional depth

Tenor Laurence Kilsby and pianist Ella O'Neill released their debut recital, Awakenings earlier this year [see my review] and on Sunday 15 September 2024 the two were at Wigmore Hall to present a programme based around the disc. Using a sequence of songs by Brahms, Saint-Saens, Wolf, Schoenberg, Stenhammar, Rebecca Clarke, Hugh Wood, Weill, Britten and Jake Heggie, the programme took is from innocence through experience to sheer animal passion.

We began with Brahms, Unbewegte laue Luft going from mesmerisingly still yet intent and concentrated to far more as Kilsby's rich tone expanded as Brahms unleased his inner passion. Saint-Saens and Wolf then returned us to innocence. Saint-Saens' La coccinelle proved to be a delightful narrative, with Kilsby relishing the story's details full of vocal colours and wit. Then Wolf's Der Knabe und das Immlein took us on a similar journey, the two performers filling out Wolf's narrative until the touching end.

At rest, Kilsby had quite a demure presence on stage, but he performed with a remarkable combination of confidence and style, effortlessly filling the space with presence without overdoing things. 

Engaging charm: Bampton Classical Opera in a delightful version of Alcina that does not take itself too seriously

Gazzaniga: Alcina's Island - Inna Husieva - Bampton Classical Opera (Photo: Anthony Hall/Bampton Classical Opera)

Gazzaniga: L'Isole d'Alcina (Alcina's Island); Inna Husieva, Sarah Chae, Charlotte Badham, Dafydd Allen, Monwabisi Lindi, Jonathan Eyers, Magnus Walker, Owain Rowlands, director Jeremy Gray, Chroma, conductor Thomas Blunt; Bampton Classical Opera at Smith Square Hall
Reviewed 13 September 2024

A comic take on Alcina with an opera that does not take itself too seriously in an engaging performance that showcased Inna Husieva's charmer of a sorceress

Last week we caught Vache Baroque in Pergolesi's 1736 opera, L'Olimpiade [see my review] with a libretto by Metastasio that wants to be serious and consider moral problems but uses dramaturgical infelicities that mean that modern audiences have difficulty taking the work's resolution seriously. 

Then this week, Bampton Classical Opera brought their production of Gazzaniga's L'Isole d'Alcina (Alcina's Island) to London. Written in 1771 and premiered in Venice, Giovanni Bertati's libretto does not take opera seria too seriously. It begins like the classic joke, an Englishman, a Frenchman, an Italian and a Spaniard are washed up on a desert island. Not any old island, but Alcina's island, yet the time period is contemporary and the four men (later five) are well aware of Alcina and her tale, told in Ariosto. The result is a delightful comic operatic romp.

On Friday 13 Setpember 2024, Bampton Classical Opera presented Gazzaniga's Alcina's Island at Smith Square Hall (St John's Smith Square) in a production directed and designed by Jeremy Gray with Thomas Blunt conducting Chroma, with Inna Husieva, Sarah Chae, Charlotte Badham, Dafydd Allen, Monwabisi Lindi, Jonathan Eyers, Magnus Walker and Owain Rowlands.

Gazzaniga: Alcina's Island - Magnus Walker, Monwabisi Lindi, Jonathan Eyers - Bampton Classical Opera (Photo: Anthony Hall/Bampton Classical Opera)

If the name of Giuseppe Gazzaniga seems familiar, that is because he and Giovanni Bertati wrote Don Giovanni in 1787, which was plagiarised by Da Ponte for Mozart! Gazzaniga's L'Isole d'Alcina was premiered in Venice at the Teatro San Moise, where Bertati was principal comic librettist. The theatre's first opera production was Monteverdi's Arianna in 1640 and its final productions were a series of farse by Rossini.

The Game: director Leo Doulton on blending opera with interactive storytelling and video game at this year's Tête à Tête

Director and writer Leo Doulton has quite a varied practice, he is the marketing director of Tête à Tête, whilst as a writer he has a particular interest in interactive theatre and we caught We Sing/I Sang at Tête à Tête in 2020 [see my review]. This Summer he was assistant director on Wagner's Die Walküre, at Longborough Festival Opera and on 28 September he directs the premiere of Elif Karlidağ and Sam Redway's The Game at the Cockpit Theatre as part of Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival, with singers Eliran Kadoussi, Lore Lixenberg, Hestor Dart, and Rachel Roper, actor Mayra Stergiou, and Edo Frenkel as musical director, with game and AV design by Utkucan Eken.

The Game is described as 'blending opera with modern interactive storytelling and propelled by an experimental, narrative-driven, first-person video game', so is it an opera at all?

Leo is firm that The Game is an opera, he describes the set-up as depicting someone who is at The Cockpit and who starts playing a game and finds that they can't escape. On-stage there is the person playing The Game along with three singers playing the assets of the game, with a commanding off-stage voice. In many ways the piece is an absurdist comedy, examining the human situation and Leo is interested in examining how we fit into the world, and also how gameplay fits into the world. He is also relishing the challenge of doing the work at The Cockpit.

All change at the National Youth Choir as they bid farewell to three principal conductors

Greg Beardsell and National Youth Choir [Photo: Belinda Lawley]

It is all change at the National Youth Choir as three principal conductors reach the end of their five-year contracts and will be finishing in their current roles at the end of September. The three are Greg Beardsell, principal conductor of the National Youth Choir (15-18 Years) - formerly the National Youth Training Choir, Joanna Tomlinson, principal conductor of National Youth Choir (9-15 Years) - formerly the National Youth Girls’ Choir and Lucy Joy Morris, principal conductor of National Youth Choir (9-15 Years) - formerly the National Youth Boys’ Choir.

Greg Beardsall's association with the National Youth Choir goes back 30 years as he was a choir member and then section leader in the late 90s, more recently roles have also included associate director and deputy artistic director. Highlights from his time include leading the International Youth Choir Festival in 2017, working with beatboxer SK Shlomo to create She Lost My Crossed Heart, supporting the development of five new commissions by graduate Young Composers and creating the staged performance of Eric Whitacre’s Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machines at the National Youth Choir’s 40th anniversary concert in 2023. Greg Beardsall was also instrumental in developing early engagement work, including partnerships in Nottinghamshire, Cornwall and Cumbria.

Joanna Tomlinson & National Youth Choir [Photo: Sara Platt]

During her five years as principal conductor, Joanna Tomlinson premiered three new commissions including A Short Story of Falling by Joanna Marsh, which was nominated for an Ivor Novello award. She has also worked with our older participants, including preparing the National Youth Choir (18-25 Years) for the BBC Proms in 2022, and conducting the National Youth Chamber Choir. 

Highlights of Lucy Joy Morris' time with the choir include premiering the new commission I Am. We Are. by Oliver Tarney, and Just Being ME by Ben Parry (alongside Joanna Tomlinson). She has conducted the National Youth Choir (18-25 Years) for Carols at the Royal Albert Hall, and the National Youth Chamber Choir at the New Music Biennial festival. 

Full details from the National Youth Choir website.

Farinelli's Violin

Later this month violinist Jorge Jiménez and his ensemble Tercia Realidad are releasing their disc, Farinelli's Violin on Pan Classics. 

The disc features arias writtens for the castrato Farinelli in new versions where it is Jimenez' violin that astonishes. To give you a taster of the delights to expect, here is a video of Jorge Jiménez and Tercia Realidad performing live at the Festival de Musica Antigua de Ubeda y Baeza. They are performing Jiménez' arrangement of the aria 'Nell' Attendere Mio Bene' from the opera Polifemo by Nicola Popora, who also happened to be Farinelli's teacher.

The disc presents arias from Hasse's Artaserse, Broschi's Idaspe, Handel's Rinaldo, and Porpora's Polifemo.

Further details from Jimenez' website.

Opera in Virtual Reality: Alastair White's #CAPITAL direct from the Metaverse courtesy of Tête à Tête

Alastair White: #CAPITAL

Wikipedia defines the Metaverse as 'a loosely defined term referring to virtual worlds in which users represented by avatars interact, usually in 3D and focused on social and economic connection.The term metaverse originated in the 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash, and is now often linked to virtual reality technology, and beginning in the early 2020s, with Web3.'

In 2023, the worlds of opera and the Metaverse collided when Alastair White’s sixth fashion-opera, #CAPITAL, premiered at Metaverse Fashion Week 2023. The event took place within Metaverse Labs’ platform Dragon City, in bespoke fashion-opera house, the House of Synergos, designed by Sybarite architects (real-life architects working in a virtual/digital world).

When Alastair told me about the premiered last year, it was an event that you could only really appreciate if you had the right technology, if you could be [Virtually] there. 

But thanks to the wonderful people at Tête à Tête, those of us who live in a simple digital 2D world, can appreciate something of the event. #CAPITAL is being presented digitally, a Vimeo video, on the Tête à Tête website. The video presents a particular experience of the event, we are watching someone participate rather than being there ourselves, but it give us the feeling of the Greek amphitheatre-inspired opera house along with the astonishing fashion show curated by the events producer, Gemma A Williams.

The video begins with a discussion with Alastair White, and Gemma A Williams, plus Simon Mitchell (architect and co-founder of Sybarite), the architect of the bespoke fashion-opera house. As anyone who knows Alastair [see my 2021 interview with him], will understand, the discussion becomes fascinatingly theoretically challenging, talking about all sorts of advanced concepts and making us realise that there might be more to the arts and to musical theatre than simply an orchestra, singers and an opera house.

#CAPITAL itself is an astonishing solo performance from soprano Kelly Poukens who has featured in several of Alastair White's other operas, along with a performance from dancer/choreographer Zara Sands. And the video includes the opera not once, but twice, thus giving us two different views of the same reality.

I still miss the visceral thrill of hearing and seeing a performance live but this gives you a taster of what opera in virtual reality might be.

Full details from the Tête à Tête website.

Ghost: Emma Wheeler & Anna Appleby's life experience as queer, neurodivergent women has inspired their new electronica-opera premiering at Tête à Tête

If You Died, Who Would You Choose To Haunt?

Manchester-based composer and songwriter Anna Appleby's work includes a chamber opera-ballet Citizens of Nowhere in 2016/17, an opera, Drought in 2022, for the BBC Philharmonic and an award-winning collaborative youth opera for Glyndebourne, Pay the Piper. But she also has a performance alter-ego called Norrisette, the moniker under which she writes, records, performs and produces electronic music and contemporary songs, as well as starting a regular music night in collaboration with Industries called FLUFF which is a platform for queer electronic artists. FLUFF was featured in the Guardian for its role in the underground music scene in Manchester.

Now Appleby and classically trained singer, Emma Wheeler have created Ghost, a new electronica-opera premiering at Tête à Tête Festival on the 28th September 2024, at the Cockpit Theatre, London. It features just the two performers, who have also written and composed the show together, and you can expect to hear everything from synthesizers and hyperpop to haunting vocals and fast-paced comic monologues.

Ghost is built on Emma Wheeler and Anna Appleby's life experience as queer, neurodivergent women - stories that have not historically been told in opera. This opera is the coming-together of two musical worlds, from Appleby's Glyndebourne and BBC Philharmonic opera composition history and Emma Wheeler's rich mezzo vocals, to Norrisette and Rosé Gold's grungy underground electronica and DIY drag fashion extravagance. 

Prepare for a ghost story like no other!

Full details from the Tête à Tête website.
 

Web of influences: Harry Christophers & The Sixteen at Old Royal Naval College Chapel, Greenwich for latest stop of their Choral Pilgrimmage

Orlande de Lassus and the Bavarian court musicians, circa 1563-70 by Hans Mielich (1516-1573)

Masters of Imitation: Lassus, Casulana, Josquin, Châtelet, Bob Chilcott; The Sixteen, Harry Christophers; Old Royal Naval College Chapel, Greenwich
Reviewed 10 September 2024

Lassus' endlessly inventive and imaginative music in a programme that showcased 16th century composers' fascination for basing new works on existing material

The Chapel at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich dates from the early 18th century, built to Sir Christopher Wren's designs, but its interior is rather later, being rebuilt in 1779 following a fire by James 'Athenian' Stuart. Regarded as one of the finest neo-Classical interiors of the period it might seem an incongruous setting for a programme of 16th century music but Stuart's combination of richness, formality and artifice proved just the right backdrop for the Sixteen's programme of music founded on that example of very 16th century musical artifice, parody.

Tuesday 10 September 2024 was Harry Christophers and The Sixteen's latest stop on their 2024 Choral Pilgrimmage, Masters of Imitation, a tour that encompasses 20 concerts in seven momths, along with eight choral workshops. The programme featured pieces linked by a web of influences and connections. Lassus' motet Osculetur me osculo oris sui, setting the song of songs, and the Credo from his mass based on it, Missa Osculetur me. Josquin's Benedicta es caelorum,  Lassus' Magnificat Benedicta es caelorum Regina based on it and Jean Guyot de Châtelet's remarkable Benedicta es caelorum where he adds extra voice parts to Josquin's motet. There was the plainsong psalm Lauda Jerusalem Dominum and Lassus' motet that uses it, Lauda Jerusalem Dominum, and even more complex, Bob Chilcott's Lauda Jerusalem Dominum, commissioned for the tour, which used the same text but was a parody of Lassus madrigal Cantai, or piano. 

There was also Lassus' Salve Regina, along with two madrigals by Lassus' contemporary, Maddalena Casulana, and we know that her music was performed at the festivities for a ducal wedding in Munich that Lassus supervised, so the web of connections was completed.

With this style of music, we are not necessarily meant to perceive the complexity of the mechanism, instead we are often presented with textures whose sheer richness masks the more formal structure, the composer displaying their skill with the sheer inventiveness with which the original was used.

Showcasing the talents of young Welsh musicians: Cowbridge Festival's Young Artists Programme features Bute Wind Quintet & Quartet Draig

Since 2010, the Cowbridge Festival has been bringing classical music, jazz and folk to the community in the Vale of Glamorgan. The festival, which is now under the direction of the husband and wife team of violist Rosalind Ventris and conductor Joseph Fort, runs this year from 13 to 22 September, opening with the Castalian Quartet and Rosalind Ventris in Schubert, Coleridge Taylor, Beethoven and Dvorak.

Ahead of this, the festival has announced its 2024 Young Artists Programme, showcasing the talents of young Welsh musicians in two emerging ensembles, the Bute Wind Quintet and Quartet Draig. 

Bute Wind Quintet

Based in Cardiff, the award-winning Bute Wind Quintet (Gabriella Alberti, Sam Willsmore, Hannah Harding, Nathan Barker, Meg Davies) promotes contemporary and underperformed chamber music, delivering an uncompromising artistic image to a range of audiences. In addition to their festival performance, the quintet will receive masterclasses from renowned musicians and mentorship in areas such as stage presence and the business aspects of a musical career.  

Quartet Draig (Elliot Kempton, Jessica Meakin, Ben Norris, Tabitha Selley) formed in 2020 at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, winning several prizes, and performing at the Wigmore Hall as well as being Junior Quartet in Residence at the 2021 ESTA Conference. From 2021-2023, they developed creative programming at Saxon Barn with concerts on various themes to engage broader audiences. 

Quartet Draig

Both ensembles will be performing at the festival on 17 September, with an eclectic programme of music by Ross Edwards, Mervyn Burtch, Valerie Coleman, Imogen Holst, Dilys Elwyn-Edwards, Edward Kempton, Ernest Bloch, and Percy Grainger. Further details from the festival website.