“You can take a girl out of Cuba, but you can’t take Cuba out of a girl” - Odaline de la Martinez finds her voice as a composer

Odaline de la Martinez (Photo: Malcolm Crowther)

Born in Cuba, and brought up in the USA, and based in the UK, in this guest posting composer and founder of Lontano Ensemble, Odaline de la Martinez talks about finding her voice as composer. 

On Friday 21 November, her Canciones will be performed by pianist Nigel Foster, soprano Ana Beard Fernandez and percussionist Gillian McDonagh as part of the London Song Festival's concert, Songs by Latin American Women Composers. Canciones was commissioned and premiered by Janis Kelly and Simon Limbrick with Timothy Barrett at the Wigmore Hall in May 1983.

I always knew I wanted to be a composer and a conductor but everyone, apart from my family, said that women couldn’t be conductors, so in my mind, I put it off. Ever since I was a child, I was always beating rhythms and dancing for any guests who entered the house. Our home in Cuba was in a town with a large Afro Cuban population, and the sound of Afro-Cuban drumming was very present. I went to sleep many nights to this hypnotic soundtrack, which instilled in me a love of rhythm. Rhythm gives life and energy to music and is my own life-blood.

After the Bay of Pigs, my parents sent my sister and me aged 11 to stay with an aunt in Kansas and later Arizona with the idea of returning when things had settled down. Then our parents joined us in the US and we ended up moving to New Orleans, another city where music is everywhere.

One of my first pieces was for voice and guitar written in Spanish and I quickly realised that in Spanish, it didn’t stand a chance of winning any competitions, so I quickly translated it into English and won several competitions in Arizona. Later in New Orleans, my high school asked me to write various hymns and anthems. When I went to Tulane University in New Orleans, it was initially to study maths and music but half way through, I was told I had to make a decision between the disciplines and of course music won.

When I won a Marshall Scholarship to come and to study in London, I thought that the Afro-Cuban flavour in my music was probably not going to be accepted at the Academy, so I started to write modern music. I had written a Misa Breve Afro Cubana and decided to temper the Afro-Cuban style in the first movement and make it more acceptable. I probably should have been stronger in my convictions and truer to myself, but it was only later that I found my voice. Anyway, I’ve restored the original first movement to the Misa Breve.

And so, I found myself becoming a conductor, founding Lontano Ensemble while at the Academy, where initially I was the pianist. Then I asked John Carewe whether I could try conducting and he encouraged me. I quickly realised that we needed to establish Lontano to promote the unheard voices of women composers and the music of Latin America, in particular Villa Lobos and Ginastera, whose music was very much connected to the cultures of Latin America. Ginastera abandoned tonality in favour of serialism. And yet, in my mind his best work is Cantata for Magic America for 14 percussionists and soprano, a combination of serialism with wonderful pre-Columbian texts. Shortly after in 1992, we set up a record label to record this music to create an archive of recordings and Lorelt was founded.

In 2006, we started the London Festival of American Music because so many American composers, beyond Glass, Adams and Reich, never get heard this side of the Atlantic but most of all to show the diversity in geography, style and gender and the most recent festivals have shown a spotlight on African-American composers. This coincided with me rediscovering my roots and composing an opera Imoinda, a story of love and slavery in collaboration with writer Joan Anim Addo. It’s a trilogy and in Plantation, Act III there is a section called “Bembe” where the drums and dancers go crazy.

There is so much Afro-Cuban culture which still needs to be discovered and recognised, including the music of Amadeo Roldan, whose mother was a black Cuban, and whose father was Spanish. The family moved to Cuba when he was 16. He then discovered Afro-Cuban music and went crazy for it. Though he has not been an influence on my music, the fact that he was interested in African music, inspired me.

My two sets of songs Four Afro-Cuban Poems and Three Afro-Cuban Poems are based on the Caribbean poems Motivos de Son by Nicolas Guillen, who was a black journalist and was very interested in Afro-Caribbean culture, strongly influenced by his meeting in 1939 with African American poet Langston Hughes. His poems mirror the rhythm of Afro-Cuban speech, which even in Spanish, put an emphasis on rhythm in different part of the word and certain consonants are swallowed up when spoken.

Conducting so much contemporary music has really helped me to understand orchestration and how to balance between an orchestra, choir and soloists and also how to notate so that others can understand the music. And while my musical soul is very much rooted in Cuba, Bach and Crumb remain my biggest musical inspirations.

Thankfully a lot has changed since I became the first woman to conduct at the BBC Proms in 1984 and Smyth’s opera The Wreckers in 1994. Smyth’s music and many other women composers’ music have now entered the mainstream. Now I hope that Afro-Caribbean music will achieve a similar prominence – we just need all musicians to play in 5/8 time!

• Odaline della Martinez will receive an International Alumni Award for Exceptional Achievement from Tulane University at a Gala in New Orleans on 18 April 2026.
• Her Canciones will be performed by pianist Nigel Foster, soprano Ana Beard Fernandez and percussionist Gillian McDonagh on Friday 21 November at the London Song Festival at Hinde Street Church, W1.

Engaging delight & profound melancholy: Purcell celebrates St Cecilia whilst Blow & Henry Hall lament his death in Dunedin Consort's concert at Wigmore Hall

John Blow by Robert White, line engraving, published 1700
NPG D1075 © National Portrait Gallery, London

Purcell: Welcome to all the pleasures; Raise, raise the voice, Blow: An Ode on the Death of Mr Henry Purcell, Hall: Yes, my Aminta, 'tis too true, Draghi, Croft; Jessica Cale, Samuel Boden, Nicholas Mulroy, Chris Webb, Dunedin Consort; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 18 November 2025

Blow's fabulous Ode for the death of Purcell given its due in a programme that explored Purcell's later music alongside that of his contemporaries and friends in performances that engaged and delighted

In 1695, John Blow and Henry Purcell published Three Elegies Upon the Much Lamented Loss of our Late Most Gracious Queen Mary as a shared homage. By the end of the year, Purcell would be dead at only 36 and Blow, some ten years Purcell's senior, would resume his post as Organist at Westminster Abbey which he had relinquished in favour of his talented pupil.

In 1696, Henry Playford published Blow's Ode on the Death of Mr Henry Purcell, ‘Mark how the lark and linnet sing’. The Ode set a poem by John Dryden, one of Purcell's favourite collaborators, and twelve poems in Purcell's honour were produced; of these, at least five inspired musical settings. These include works by Daniel Purcell (setting another Henry Purcell collaborator, Nahum Tate), Godfrey Finger, Jeremiah Clarke and Henry Hall.

Blow's Ode on the Death of Mr Henry Purcell and Henry Hall's own tribute, Yes, my Aminta, 'tis too true formed the centrepieces of the Dunedin Consort's concert at Wigmore Hall on 18 November 2025. Purcell died on the eve of St Cecilia's Day so it was appropriate that the concert included two of his St Cecilia odes, Welcome to all the pleasure from 1683 and Raise, raise the voice (c. 1685). Along with these there were instrumental pieces by Purcell, Giovanni Draghi and William Croft. The performance was directed by tenor Nicholas Mulroy (Dunedin Consort's Associate Director) who was joined by Jessica Cale (soprano), Samuel Boden (tenor), and Chris Webb (bass) with the instrumentalists Matthew Truscott and Huw Daniel (violin), Thomas Kettle (viola), Jonathan Manson (cello), Laszlo Rozsa and Olwen Foulkes (recorder), Toby Carr (theorbo) and Stephen Farr (organ).

In terms of length and musical complexity, Blow's Ode on the Death of Mr Henry Purcell is a substantial piece but it uses compact musical forces: two voices, two recorders and continuo, the use of recorders leaning into the instrument's association with mourning. The voices intended were probably high tenors, as here, singing full voice lightly with some falsetto: what the French termed haut-contre. For the post-War revival of music by Purcell and his contemporaries we got used to hearing this music sung by modern countertenors and the change in sound world can be remarkable.

Classical & grime to disco, pop, & jazz: Brixton Chamber Orchestra's Christmas Estates Tour 2025

Brixton Chamber Orchestra's annual Christmas Estates Tour is back for 2025. From 12 to 21 December 2025, the orchestra will be taking seasonal setlist around Lambeth. There will be something for everyone - from classical and grime to disco, pop, jazz, and, of course, your festive favourites. 

The tour begins on 12 December at Loughborough Primary School and ends on 21 December at Stockwell Park Estate, along the way popping up at estates across Lambeth. And entry is free!

There is one rather special venue this year, on 19 December the orchestra will be playing at Streatham Hill Theatre, that marks a return to performing in this magnificent space that first opened in 1929 as one of London's largest and most revered venues outside of the West End.

Full details from the Brixton Chamber Orchestra's website. 

From A Queer Holiday Extravaganza to Messiah to Corelli & Locatelli on tour: Christmas with Royal Northern Sinfonia

A Christmas Gaiety 2022: Peaches Christmas and Edwin Outwater

The Royal Northern Sinfonia is certainly going all out for Christmas in the season at The Glasshouse International Centre for Music as well as on tour. TV presenter Matt Baker joins the Orchestra, plus Chorus of Royal Northern Sinfonia, Voices of the River’s Edge with conductor Ellie Slorach for Christmas at the Glasshouse, whilst conductor Edwin Outwater, drag icons Peaches Christ and Baga Chipz, drag musical phenomenon Le Gateau Chocolat, musical theatre star Kellis Ellis and soprano Rebecca Bottone join the orchestra for Christmas Gaiety - A Queer Holiday Extravaganza! 

Still in the more popular vein, Stephen Bell will be directing the Orchestra in Christmas from the Musicals. Then John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London are joined by vocalist Matt Ford for A Christmas Songbook, and another guest artist will be saxophonist Jess Gillam and her ensemble for their Christmas concert.

 More traditional fare features in the Winter Tour for brass and percussion players from the Orchestra promising a musical sleigh ride through Newcastle, Hexham and Heaton directed by Tim Burke. Still on tour, the Orchestra will be in Alnwick, Musselburgh, Sunderland, Berwick, Newcastle and Carlisle, with a Baroque programme featuring Corelli's Christmas Concerto (of course), alongside Leclair, Locatelli,  Torelli and Purcell's The Fairy Queen. Whilst in Kendal, Cullercoats, Redcar, Bishop Auckland, Hartlepool and Hexham, the programme moves from Dowland and Handel to Marais and Lully.

And of course Christmas means Handel's Messiah, and Kristian Bezuidenhout will be directing the Orchestra and Chorus. 

There is big screen fun with Home Alone with a live score from the Orchestra, along with the Glasshouse choir for 18 – 35-year-olds, Voices of the River’s Edge, completes the wonder by singing the main theme Somewhere in My Memory. And what would Christmas be without The Snowman. The classic film with Howard Blake's music performed live by the Orchestra features with Ellie Slorach conducting and the programme is completed by We're going on a bear hunt with a terrific score by Stuart Hancock.

The fun continues after Christmas with an evening of music from Bond films and of course the 'traditional' Viennese classics.

Full details from the Glasshouse's website. 

Faith, fragility, & the passing of time: new work by Arthur Keegan alongside Messiaen for Hebrides Ensemble's Scottish tour

Arthur Keegan (Photo: Alejandro S Garrido)

The Hebrides Ensemble has announced a new tour in February 2026. Music for Time will tour to Dumfries House, Cumnock (1 February) as part of The Cumnock Tryst’s year round programme, Fruitmarket, Edinburgh (2 February), Bun Sgoil Ghaidhlig Phort Righ, Skye (6 February) presented by SEALL & Skye Chamber Music and Adelaide Place, Glasgow (7 February).

The programme features Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, a work that has a particularly special place in Hebrides Ensemble’s history as it was part of their first-ever concert performance 35 years ago, and was amongst the Ensemble’s first recordings on Linn Records.

Alongside the Messiaen will be the premiere of a new piece by Arthur Keegan. Keegan's new work takes Messiaen’s ideas of eternity and renewal as a starting point, creating a contemporary reflection on faith, fragility, and the passing of time. And the premiere is supported by the Royal Philharmonic Society's Composers Programme. Keegan's work featured on the disc The Past & I: 100 years of Thomas Hardy [see my review] charting the composer's response to the poet as the result of a residency at the Red House in Aldeburgh.

Full details from the Hebrides Ensemble's website. 

A real radio opera: Claire Booth as a pianist labouring under the absurdity of life in Stalin's Russia in Joe Cutler's Sonata for Broken Fingers

Joe Cutler: Sonata for Broken Fingers; Claire Booth, Stephen Richardson, Christopher Lemmings, James Cleverton, Lucy Schaufer, BCMG, Sian Edwards, BRC
Reviewed 17 November 2025

Inspired by a probably untrue story, Joe Cutler and Max Hoehn's opera explores the horror and absurdity of life under Stalin in a vivid new radio opera

There is a story in Solomon Volkov's book Testimony, that one night in 1944 Stalin heard a performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 on the radio performed by Maria Yudina, and asked for a copy. It had been a live recording, so Yudina was rushed into the studio overnight to make a recording for Stalin's desk. Though probably not true, it is believable. It is this combination of sheer absurdity and horror of life under Stalin that composer Joe Cutler and librettist Max Hoehn explore in their opera, Sonata for Broken Fingers inspired by this story.

The opera has now been issued by Birmingham Record Company, the piece commissioned by Opera21 and co-produced in partnership with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Birmingham Record Company. The recording features Stephen Richardson as Stalin, Claire Booth as the pianist Maria Maximova, Christopher Lemmings as Gleb, the programmer of Radio Moscow, James Cleverton as Leonid, the minister and Lucy Schaufer as Dr Denisova and Public Prosecutor. Sian Edwards conducts Birmingham Contemporary Music Group - Flute: Helen Benson, Bass Clarinet: Oli Janes, Trombone: Tony Howe, Cello: Arthur Boutillier, Piano: Joe Howson, Percussion: Julian Warburton, plus Xenia Pestova Bennett pre-recorded piano fragments.

National Centre for Early Music & BBC Radio 3 announce the 2026 Young Composers Award writing for The Gonzaga Band

The Gonzaga Band

Each year the National Centre for Early Music Young Composers Award 2026 is presented by the National Centre for Early Music in association with BBC Radio 3 and for the 2026 instalment young composers will be working with musicians of The Gonzaga Band, specialists of late Renaissance and early Baroque repertoire.

Young composers are invited to compose a new song setting for soprano, cornett and keyboard, to be performed by the outstanding Gonzaga Band: (Jamie Savan cornett; Faye Newton soprano, Steven Devine keyboard). The song should take inspiration from the music of Claudio Monteverdi and his contemporaries, evoked in The Gonzaga Band’s recently released recital programme Love’s Labyrinth. Candidates should write a song setting that explores the theme of love through the relationship between the voice and instruments, setting a poem by Lady Mary Wrath, a contemporary of Shakespeare.

Composers selected for the final are invited to a collaborative workshop day in York on 16 April 2026, led by composer Christopher Fox and the members of The Gonzaga Band. This will be followed by a public performance of all the selected compositions at the National Centre for Early Music. 

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

The award is open to young composers up to the age of 25 resident in the UK and is divided into two categories: 18 years and under and 19 to 25 years.

Full details from the competition website. 

The Journey of Strings: Paraguayan classical guitarist Berta Rojas explores the guitar’s history and evolution in Latin America

Paraguayan classical guitarist Berta Rojas has been fulfilling a dream to explore the guitar’s history and evolution in Latin America starting with the 15th century, from the arrival of the vihuela and early guitars brought by conquistadors to the creation of unique string instruments that voice the soul of the continent’s people. 

Over two years, travelling to 10 countries, Berta collaborated with 17 guest artists, each performing on string instruments native to Latin America—some tracing their origins back hundreds of years.  The result is a project that encompasses vinyl, streaming platforms, performance videos, and an innovative AR-enhanced book. There are eleven tracks in all, each accompanied by a performance video, exploring instruments from the sonorous bass of the giant 25-string Chilean guitarrón to the more mandolin-like Puerto Rican cuatro.

Berta Rojas & Evangelina Mascardi (Photo: Sol Capasso)

You can explore further at The Journey of Strings website, and there is a YouTube playlist.

Youthful & engaging with relish for text & drama: Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea from HGO at Jackson's Lane Theatre

Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea - Hera Protopapas (Nerone), Theano Papadaki (Poppea) - HGO at Jackson's Lane Theatre (Photo: Julian Guidera)

Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea; Hera Protopapas, Theano Papadaki, Louis Pettit, Jasmine Flicker, Henry Saywell, Henry Kimber, Harriet Cameron, Clover Kayne, Betty Makharinsky, director: Ashley Pearson, conductor Seb Gillot, HGO; Jackson's Lane Theatre
Reviewed 15 November 2025

A young cast project both words and music with great vividness, drawing us into the drama in the small-scale but brilliantly realised production.

Most great music can take a variety of different approaches in performance, but it is worth remembering that the Venetian theatres in which Monteverdi's operas were premiered were not large affairs. His final opera, L'incoronazione di Poppea responds well to smaller, more intimate performance and, after all, the work is effectively a series of solo and dialogues. So, Jackson's Lane Theatre, the chosen venue for HGO's performances of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea was in many ways ideal. The company gave eight performances with two casts, with many singers having two alternating roles so that Theano Papadaki, the Poppea in the performance was saw, was singing Damigella on alternate nights. We caught the penultimate performance on Saturday 15 November 2025.

The production was directed by Ashley Pearson who directed Handel's Agrippina for HGO in 2023 and Handel's Partenope for them in 2019 [see my review]. Music director Seb Gillot directed the period instrument ensemble of seven from the harpsichord and organ. Designs were by Sorcha Corcoran and Alice Carroll, with lighting by Sofia Alexiadou and Robin Hellier as intimacy/fight coach. Hera Protopapas was Nerone with Theano Papadaki as Poppea, Louis Pettit as Ottone, Jasmine Flicker as Drusilla, Henry Saywell as Seneca, Henry Kimber as Arnalta, Harriet Cameron as Amor, Clover Kayne as Virtu, Betty Makharinsky as Fortuna, Garreth Romain as Nutrice, Kristina Ammattil as Damigella, Emily Beech as Valetto, and Brennan Alleyne and Jack Harberd as soldiers.

Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea - Henry Saywell (Seneca), Henry Kimber (Famigliare) - HGO at Jackson's Lane Theatre (Photo: Julian Guidera)

The cast were all young singers; one of HGO's aims is to give younger singers a chance at exploring larger roles. In the case of L'incoronazione di Poppea this works historically as all the major protagonists (Seneca apart) were in their 20s or very early 30s. But there is a lot of dialogue in the opera, it is more like a sung place than later Baroque operas, and this can present a challenge to less inexperienced singers. It is to HGO's credit that, and thanks to assistant director/language coach Valeria Perboni, the cast all grasped the idea of the text with both hands. Italian diction was excellent all round and many of the singers attacked the Italian text with a wonderful relish. There were English surtitles, but this was the sort of performance where if your Italian was good enough, there was little need for surtitles.

Sorcha Corcoran's setting was quite straight-forward, just a rectangular space enlivened by billowing fabrics. There was some flexible scene setting, but the emphasis was on personal interaction and ensuring that scenes flowed. The end result was very much a feeling that we were at a sung play. Costumes were largely modern, though the goddesses were in antique garb whilst the soldiers had suggestions of armour and most of the protagonists wore coloured sashes.

From Amy Beach to Lori Laitman & Zachary James Bramble: The Life and Loves of Sarah Teasdale gave us the chance to explore contemporary American late-romanticism at London Song Festival

Sara Teasdale. Photograph by Gerhard Sisters, ca. 1910
Missouri History Museum Photograph and Print Collection

The Life and Loves of Sarah Teasdale; Kristin Dauphinais, Nigel Foster; London Song Festival at Hinde Street Methodist Church
Reviewed 14 November 2025

A chance to explore the work of an American poet not so well known in the UK along with a whole range of late 20th and 21st century American composers

The American poet Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) is perhaps not as well known in the UK as in the USA. Born into a wealthy family in Missouri, she would write seven books of poetry charting developments in her own life, from her experiences as a sheltered young woman in St. Louis, to those as a successful yet increasingly uneasy writer in New York City, to a depressed and disillusioned person who would commit suicide in 1933. Popular in her lifetime, Teasdale wrote poetry that used traditional forms with a reliance on metre and rhyme. It is worth bearing in mind that she was only four years older than T.S. Eliot and for a short period the two attended the same school! 

There is a strong sense that Teasdale's poetry was self-reflexive which made her a highly suitable subject for a recital which sought to elucidate Teasdale's story via songs setting her poetry. At the London Song Festival at Hinde Street Methodist Church on Friday 14 November 2025, mezzo-soprano Kristin Dauphinais and pianist Nigel Foster did just that with The Life and Loves of Sara Teasdale. Dauphinais is based in Arizona where she teaches at the University of Arizona and the recital has also been presented there. The selection of songs focused on settings by 20th and 21st century American composers, giving us a selection whose work I had not heard before.

We had a mix of living and historical composers with music by Amy Beach (1867-1944), Wintter Watts (1884-1962), Katherine Glen, John Duke (1899-1984), Robert Baksa (1938-2023), and Simon Sargon (1938-2022) many of whom were effectively Sara Teasdale's contemporaries, alongside contemporary composers Richard Pearson Thomas, George Crumb, Lori Laitman, Michael Ching, Zachary James Bramble, and Martha Helen Schmidt.

The Rain Keeps Coming: Amelia Clarkson, the youngest female composer ever commissioned by the Ulster Orchestra, on her new work for them which premiered last month

Amelia Clarkson

The Rain Keeps Coming by Northern Irish composer Amelia Clarkson was premiered by the Ulster Orchestra at the Ulster Hall in Belfast on 10 October 2025. The work explores cycles of personal renewal and reflection. Amelia is the youngest female composer ever commissioned by the Ulster Orchestra. 

Born in County Down, her music blends folk influences with contemporary timbres, exploring modern issues through the lens of nature, mythology and literature and has been described as having "inherent elusiveness… beautifully captured" (Het Parool). Her 2024 work, I float between, was premiered National Symphony Orchestra Ireland, conductor Gavin Maloney, at the National Concert Hall in Dublin in January 2025. The work was broadcast live by RTÉ Lyric FM, and this recording can be heard on Amelia's SoundCloud.

Amelia Clarkson · I float between (2024) National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland

Chatting to Amelia after the premiere, she comments that the performance went well, though with a relatively short rehearsal period, the time went very fast, and she did feel pressure. She first met the orchestra in 2023 and never expected to be working with them at such a young age. She has known she was writing a piece for them for two years. And whilst the prospect of writing for the orchestra had its scary aspects, the reality of working with them was lovely, both the musicians and the people behind the scenes. Amelia benefited from the orchestra workshopping the piece in May 2024, something that does not always happen. This gave the musicians and the composer the chance to get to grips with each other.

A spectacular new waterside home planned for Hamburg State Opera, designed by BIG architecture studio

BIG - designs for Hamburg State Opera, renders by Yanis Amasri (images: BIG)

Hamburg State Opera is on the move, or at least plans to be. The architecture studio BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) has unveiled plans for a waterfront home for Hamburg State Opera to replace the company's existing 1950s theatre. To be built within the German city's HafenCity quarter, the 45,000-square-metre venue will contain production and performance facilities for the State Opera and Hamburg Ballet, and the building will sit close to another architectural showpiece, the Elbphilharmonie.

Gardens and terraces wrap around the main volume, with visitors being able to move along the facades and glimpse performance and rehearsal spaces. Of course, the big question is, will the theatre be any good?

Jakob Sand (partner BIG) commented: "The main hall is the heart of the project - a space with state-of-the-art acoustics and perfect sightlines to the stage. Immersive concentric wooden rings shape the hall and its balconies, dissolve the boundaries between spectators and artists, between reality and fiction." 

Full details from the BIG website.

The Sixteen Ignite, a new, fully-funded, dedicated talent pathway for young singers

The Sixteen has announced a new strand to its Learning & Participation programme which seeks to support young singers in finding a pathway into choral music. The Sixteen Ignite features a new Academy, an extension of the existing Talent Development Programme and a set of digital resources.

The Sixteen Ignite: Academy is a new fully funded programme for singers aged 14 – 18 to gain experience in working in training environments, and to prepare them for working in programmes designed for young singers, such as Genesis Sixteen. The Academy will support 44 young people who show exceptional potential but who have faced barriers in accessing training in choral music. 

The Sixteen Ignite: Inspire will build on The Sixteen’s Talent Development programme, a collaborative partnership between The Sixteen and youth choirs across the UK. This partnership sees The Sixteen provide workshops to support young singers in established youth choirs. The Talent Development programme will continue to partner with new and existing choirs, with a new influx of funding to enable the programme to reach as wide a demographic of young people as possible. 

The Sixteen Ignite: Digital is a set of free digital resources which will be distributed to primary and secondary schools across the UK, allowing students the opportunity to sing virtually with the renowned choir. 

Agnes Baltsa, Marina Rebeka, Asmik Grigorian, Nicholas Brownlee, Adèle Charvet, Hugh Cutting & many more rewarded at the 2025 International Opera Awards in Athens

Agnes Baltsa, Lifetime Achievement Award winner
International Opera Awards 2025 - (Photo: GNO/Simopoulos)

'Tis the season for awards. Hot on the heels of the Ivors Classical Awards [see my article] comes the International Opera Awards whose ceremony, this year, was held in Athens at the Stavros Niarchos Hall of the Greek National Opera. The event featured performances by soloists Marina Rebeka and Nicholas Brownlee, winners of the Readers’ and Male Singer Awards respectively, along with performances of works by Greek composers Spyridon Samaras, Paolo Carrer, Theofrastos Sakellaridis, Nikos Skalkottas, Mikis Theodorakis and Giorgos Koumendakis from Greek National Opera forces. 

The evening was live-streamed and is available on OperaVision.

A concert celebrating the legacy of the legendary classical guitarist, Julian Bream, at Wigmore Hall promises a great night for guitar aficionados.

Thibaut Garcia,

Continuing the legacy of the brilliant and pioneering British classical guitarist, Julian Bream, the equally brilliant French-born classical guitarist, Thibaut Garcia, joins forces with the award-winning ensemble, Quatuor Arod, to perform the world première of Leo Brouwer’s new guitar quintet, Cuban Landscape with Danzas, at the Wigmore Hall on Friday 21 November (7.30pm).  

Founded in 2013, Quatuor Arod enjoy a good working relationship with Garcia while enjoying a blossoming and globetrotting career. For instance, in the present season, they’re quartet-in-residence at the Mendelssohnhaus, Leipzig and with La Belle Saison (a French chamber music network that organises concerts and fosters young artists) and clarinettist, Pierre Génisson, they’ll be performing at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Paris, whilst also visiting Brussels, Tenerife, Den Haag and Hamburg. 

They are also participating at the String Quartet Biennales in both Paris (Philharmonie) and Amsterdam (Muziekgebouw) where they’ll team up with Klaus Mäkelä, chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic. They’ll also team up with Quatuor Danel for concerts at London’s Southbank Centre and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. Recently, the Danels took part in a series of celebratory concerts in Paris marking the centenary of Valentin Berlinsky, founder and cellist of the Borodin String Quartet. 

Prize-winners all the way, too, they took full honours by winning First Prize at the ARD International Music Competition of Munich in 2016 while a year earlier they were awarded the First Prize at the Carl Nielsen International Competition of Copenhagen and the First Prize at the European Competition of the FNAPEC Concours a year before. They participated in the BBC New Generation Artists scheme from 2017 to 2019 and became an ECHO Rising Star for the 2018-19 season.  

Signed to Warner Classics, Garcia’s celebrated for his poetic artistry and refined technique while Quatuor Arod - Jordan Victoria (playing a violin by Francesco Goffriller), Alexandre Vu (violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini), Tanguy Parisot (composite viola by Carlo Ferdinando Landolphi, Pietro Giovanni Mantegazza, 1775) and Jérémy Garbarg (cello by Giovanni Battista Ruggieri, circa 1700) - offers a delightful programme at the Wigmore Hall traversing centuries of guitar music ranging from classical masterworks to contemporary innovation. 

2025 Ivors Classical Awards: Anibal Vidal, Anna Clyne, Helen Grime, Jonathan Dove, Luke Mombrea, Nneka Cummins, Anne Dudley, Anoushka Shankar and Debbie Wiseman

Jonathan Dove and April de Angelis, winners of the Award for Best Community and Participation Composition at The Ivors Classical Awards [Photo: Hogan Media - Shutterstock]

Last night, 11 November, The Ivors Academy presented awards to the winners at The Ivors Classical Awards. The celebration of outstanding new compositions by British, Irish and UK resident composers. BBC Radio 3 will broadcast the ceremony on 15 November in a special edition of the New Music Show and the episode will also be available on BBC Sounds.

Three special Gift of the Academy Awards were presented to Anne Dudley, Anoushka Shankar and Debbie Wiseman, and a further eight composers and librettists were recognised across six categories, with Ivor Novello Awards going to composers Anibal Vidal, Anna Clyne, Helen Grime, Jonathan Dove, Luke Mombrea and Nneka Cummins, and librettists April De Angelis and Zoe Gilbert. 

Poetic exploration: Ensemble Près de votre oreille in an engaging exploration of chamber & vocal music by William Lawes

Lighten mine eies - William Lawes: selected psalms & harp consorts; Ensemble Près de votre oreille, Robin Pharo; Harmonia Mundi
Reviewed 11 November 2025

For their debut on Harmonia Mundi, the young French ensemble give us a poetic exploration of the music of William Lawes putting his imaginative Harp Consorts alongside his intimate psalm settings and theatre music 

Whilst 17th-century English composer William Lawes is best known for his viol consorts and music for lyra viol, his elder brother Henry Lawes is known for his vocal music with little instrumental music surviving. This new disc, Lighten mine eies from Ensemble Près de votre oreille and Robin Pharo on Harmonia Mundi sets William Lawes instrumental works against his vocal pieces in an attractive programme that mixes movements from the Harp Consorts, psalm settings and songs.

Henry, Willliam and their younger brothers Thomas and John were born to Thomas Lawes and his wife Lucris. Thomas senior was a church musician who became a lay vicar at Salisbury Cathedral. The family lived in the Close and it is presumed that the boys all sang in the choir. Thanks to a patron, William Lawes was apprenticed to English composer John Coprario (Cooper). By 1635 William had a Court appointment but had been writing music for the Court before this. William remained at loyal courtier, writing music for King Charles and Queen Henrietta Maria both for public and private use.

Ensemble Près de votre oreille features Maïlys de Villoutreys (soprano), Anaïs Bertrand (mezzo-soprano), Alex Rosen (bass), Fiona-Emilie Poupard (violin and viola da gamba), Pernelle Marzorati (harp), Simon Waddell (theorbo), Loris Barrucand (harpsichord and organ) and Robin Pharo (viola da gamba and direction). The ensemble was founded by Robin Pharo in 2017 and previous discs have included two devoted to Elizabethan song, Come Sorrow and Blessed Echoes.

Shimmer: the National Youth Orchestra launches 2026 with impressions of Spain and Anne Clyne's dancing cello

The National Youth Orchestra (NYO) launches 2026 with Shimmer, a three-date tour where the orchestra will be conducted by Alexandre Bloch in a programme with a distinctly Spanish theme. The evening begins with Debussy's Ibéria and ends with Ravel's Rhapsodie Espagnole and in between there is Karim Al-Zand's City Scenes and Anna Clyne's DANCE with cellist Inbal Segev. The tour begins at the Barbican Centre (4 January), followed by Warwick Arts Centre (5 January), Nottingham Royal Concert Hall (6 January) and free schools concert at the Elgar Concert Hall, Birmingham (7 January).

There will be around 160 musicians on stage, with over half of this year’s musicians new to the NYO. Demand for places in the orchestra of 2026 was at an all-time high with a record number of applications. Musicians hail from every corner of the country from Bromley to Ballymena and Abergavenny to Aberdeen. NYO’s concerts remain free for teenagers, to ensure there are no barriers for young people experiencing the power of a live orchestra. About half of the Orchestra will stay on in Birmingham to perform in a free schools concert for thousands of secondary school students on 7 January.

This will be conductor Alexandre Bloch's second time working with the Orchestra, he conducted them in in their 2024 Prom.

Anna Clyne wrote DANCE in 2019 for cellist Inbal Segev who gave the premiere of the work at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California. The work is in five movements, each inspired by a line from verse by Rumi: 

Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance, when you're perfectly free. 

 Clyne discusses her inspiration in more detail in an article on Boosey & Hawkes's website.

Karim Al-Zand is a Canadian-American composer. His music embraces a variety of interests, issues and influences. It explores connections between sound and other art forms, drawing inspiration from graphic art, myths and fables, folk music of the world, film, poetry, jazz, and his own Middle Eastern heritage.  His City Scenes from 2006 is described as 'three urban dances for orchestra'.

Full details from the NYO website. 

The other brother: music by Galileo Galilei's younger brother on this lovely new EP

It is now moderately well-known that the great scientist Galileo Galilei's father, Vincenzo was a fine musician and there have been music and music theatre projects linking the two such as Clare Norburn's Galileo which premiered at the Brighton Early Music Festival in 2016 [see my review]. 

In fact, the whole family seems to have been musical. Vincenzo was a lutenist and Galileo would play lute duets with his father. As a young man he assisted his father's experiments to prove that equal temperament was better than mean-tone tuning, and as his father was a member of the Florentine Camerata, whose experiments led to the development of monody and to opera, the music in Galileo's life was cutting edge. Galileo was present at, and almost certainly involved in, the creation of the Florentine Intermedi of 1589, a musico-dramatic presentation which was an important pre-cursor of opera.

But Galileo had a younger brother, Michelangelo and he was a musician too though his music is far less well-known. Echo ex iove from lutenist Israel Golani is an EP from Solaire Records (available on BandCamp) which presents six short dances by Michelangelo Galilei (1575-1631). The EP is something of a follow-up to Golani's previous disc for Solaire Records, In the Garden of Polyphony, exploration of the 16th-century French penchant for lute music, notably transcriptions of polyphonic vocal music [see my review]

Michelangelo Galilei was something of a child prodigy. His father, Vincenzo, died when Michelangelo was just sixteen and only two years later he was sent to the the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, where foreign musicians were much in demand, possibly under the wing of the powerful Lithuanian Radziwiłł family. He tried to come back to Florence, but failed to find employment at the court of the Grand Duke, however in 1607 he moved to the court of Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria where he stayed until his death. Of his eight children, three became lutenists.

Whatever musical success he had, money was clearly tight and much of his surviving correspondence with Galileo is about money. 

Most of his music is for lute, the ten-course lute and his book Il primo libro d'intavolatura di liuto was published in 1620. Israel Golani plays a suite of six dances beginning with a toccata, then corrente, passamezzo, saltarello and volta. There is an engagingly melodic quality to this music, but also a florid quality too. The suite makes a delightful EP with a lovely engaging quality to Golani's playing. I would not want a full-length disc of this music, but it would be lovely to have more.

Michelangelo Galilei: Echo ex iove - Israel Golani (lute) - Solaire Records

A bold, atmospheric work rooted in English folklore, ritual, & superstition: Shadwell Opera & Opera North give the stage premiere of Isabella Gellis' The Devil's Den

Ben Edge: Devil's Den

Last year I chatted to conductor Finnegan Downie Dear (artistic director of Shadwell Opera) and composer Isabella Gellis about Shadwell Opera's semi-staged presentation of Gellis' new opera, The Devil's Den at the Nevill Holt Festival [see my interview]. Now, the opera is getting its world premiere staging when Shadwell Opera joins forces with Opera North to present The Devil's Den at Opera North's Howard Assembly Room on 15 November 2025.

The production is directed by Jack Furness and conducted by Finnegan Downie Dear, with a strong cast featuring ennifer France, Lotte Betts-Dean, Nicholas Morris, and Ossian Huskinson. Also on stage will be Sheffield City Morris as the opera is the first ever to feature a live Morris Dancing Side as part of its dramatic structure. 

Inspired by the painting by British artist Ben Edge, The Devil’s Den tells a haunting story of a child, a rabbit, a druid, and a devil, set in a nameless English village bound by ancient ritual to create a bold, atmospheric work rooted in English folklore, ritual, and superstition.

Audiences are invited to make a day of it: alongside the two performances, the Howard Assembly Room will host folk singing and Morris dancing workshops, and talks with artists and musicians, creating a fully immersive folk-meets-opera day out.

Full details from Opera North's website.

Dramatic Messiah: Wild Arts brings its dramatised presentation of Handel's oratorio back for a third tour

Handel: Messiah - Wild Arts at Smith Square Hall in 2024 (Photo: Steve Gregson)

We caught Wild Arts' dramatised presentation of Handel's Messiah at the Art Workers' Guild in London in 2023 [see my review] in a staging devised by Tom Morris. The company brought the production back for a tour in 2024 and it now returns for a third time. 

Orlando Jopling directs a period instrument ensemble from the harpsichord with eight singers, Sofia Kirwan-Baez and Joanna Songi soprano, Martha Jones and Kate Symonds-Joy mezzo, Guy Elliott and Harry Jacques tenor, Timothy Nelson baritone, and Edward Hawkins bass, with many of the singers having performed in those first performances in 2023. The singers perform from memory, with choruses sung by all eight and solos shared. The results have a palpable sense of dramatic narrative.

This year, the tour kicks off at the Festival Theatre, Malvern (2 December) and then visits Smith Square Hall, London (9 December), New Theatre, Peterborough (11 December), Layer Marney Tower (14 December), Chichester Cathedral (16 December) and Chelmsford Cathedral (18 December). Many venues sold out last year and this year at least one has done so already!

Full details from the Wild Arts website.

An ambitious project that seeks to reimagine one of our great literary giants: Alastair White & Gemma A Williams ask how you adapt Finnegan's Wake for the musical stage

 James Joyce began his novel Finnegan's Wake in 1924 publishing it in instalments with the final book only being published in 1939. Joyce's radical reworking of language in the book was initially received with bafflement and open hostility. Its allusive and experimental style has resulted in it having a reputation as one of the most difficult works in literature. 

Now composer Alastair White is planning to adapt Finnegan's Wake for the musical stage. White has very clear intentions when it comes to the project. He seeks to capture the joyful, multidimensional beauty of Joyce’s text. He explains how "central to the adaptation’s approach is a radical re-reading of Finnegans Wake and the modernist canon: that authors such as Joyce, Eliot and Hemingway continue to be misread through romantic and post-modern analyses that sees them as depths rather than surfaces. The project contends that — like the sparse prose of Hills Like White Elephants —  Finnegans Wake has been ill-used by approaches that attempt to 'decode' it through what is absent: in ignorance of the sheer joy that the language embodies. There is no iceberg, no skeleton key; Finnegans Wake is not a cipher. It is only itself." 

As part of Irish Design Week, Alastair White and his creative partner and wife, Tipperary-born curator Gemma A. Williams, will be in residence at the Thomas MacDonagh Museum, Cloughjordan, Co. Tipperary, Ireland from 17 to 23 November 2025. The week-long residency, selected as part of Design & Crafts Council Ireland’s flagship initiative, invites audiences to see opera in the making and witness how literature, theatre, fashion and music can intersect and redesign one another.  Education lies at the heart of the open studio, which includes talks, practical workshops and an outreach programme. The residency runs in the heart of Cloughjordan: home of the poet Thomas MacDonagh, whose teacher parents taught in the local school.

Further information from the Design & Crafts Council Ireland website.  

Fascinating, distracting & frustrating: Janáček's Makropulos Case gets its first production at Covent Garden in director Katie Mitchell's farewell to opera

Janácek: The Makropulos Case - Act 2: Heather Engebretson, Susan Bickley, Jenry Waddington, Sean Panikkar, Ausrine Stundyte - Royal Opera (Photo: Camilla Greenwell/Royal Opera)

Leoš Janáček: The Makropulos Case; Ausrine Stundyte, Heather Engebretson, Sean Panikkar, Johan Reuter, Henry Waddington, Peter Hoare, Daniel Matoušek, Alan Oke, director Katie Mitchell, conductor Jakub Hrůša; Royal Opera, Covent Garden
Reviewed 7 November 2025

Covent Garden's first Makropulos Case in a fascinating yet distracting and too-complex production that is redeemed by strong musical performances including a mesmerising account of the title role

Leoš Janáček's The Makropulos Case (Věc Makropulos) made its debut at the Royal Opera House this week, nearly a century after the opera was premiered in Brno in 1926. The production represented director Katie Mitchell's avowed final opera production, as well as being Jakub Hrůša's second new production as music director (and his first new production of a Czech opera).

We caught the second performance at Covent Garden on Friday 7 November 2025. Directed by Katie Mitchell with designs by Vicki Mortimer and Sussie Juhlen-Wallen, lighting by James Farncombe and video by Sasha Balmazi-Owen, Jakub Hrůša conducted. Ausrine Stundyte was Emilia Marty, Heather Engebretson as Krista, Sean Panikkar was Albert Gregor, Johan Reuter was Prus, Henry Waddington was Kolenaty, Peter Hoare was Vitek, Daniel Matoušek was Janek, Alan Oke was Hauk-Sendorf.

If you asked, many people familiar with the opera would probably say that its biggest problem was in Act One when Janáček rather gets bogged down in the Jarndyce-v-Jarndyce-like case. It can be tricky to work out who is whom amongst the men (with three lawyers, two litigants plus the son of one) and audiences need some help. You cannot help feeling that Janáček could have done with a figure in the opening scene like Ferrando in Verdi's Il trovatore or Gurnemanz in Wagner's Parsifal, both of whom summarise the plot so far!

Janácek: The Makropulos Case - Final scene: Austrine Stundyte, Heather Engebretson - Royal Opera (Photo: Camilla Greenwell/Royal Opera)

But according to the programme book, the biggest problem for Katie Mitchell is the opera's ending. Why does Emilia Marty (now revealed as Elina Makropulos) hand the formula for eternal (well 300 years) life to Krista, a young woman whom she barely knows. Mitchell's solution is to add an extra layer to the plot, an affair between Emilia Marty and Krista so that Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern-like, Mitchell crafts an entire plot within the cracks of Janáček's existing opera. She does so via a device which is by turns fascinating, distracting and frustrating.

James Blades: Pandemonium of the One-Man Band - James Anthony-Rose on his new music theatre piece on the great percussionist

James Blades

The percussionist James Blades (1901-1999) had a career that not only spanned much of the century but also moved from circus drummer and accompanist to silent movies at the Wisbech Hippodrome, to the international classical concert hall, including a close association with Benjamin Britten, helping the composer with many of his percussion effects. But many remember him as an endearing communicator, touring the country with his lecture-recital-demonstrations.

James Anthony-Rose in James Blades: Pandemonium of the One-Man Band at Snape Maltings

Written by Robin Brooks and James Anthony-Rose, James Blades: Pandemonium of the One-Man Band was a music theatre show performed at Snape Maltings on 11 October 2025. Directed and produced by Fiona McAlpine with music direction by Tomi Rose, the event featured actor James Anthony-Rose with percussionist Sam Wilson in a show which reimagined one of Blades' lectures. Using demonstrations of instruments and techniques, and anecdotes and revelations, James Anthony-Rose told the story of Blades's remarkable life, together with a celebration of the power and mystery of his extraordinary talent and career. The BBC recorded the show, which will be broadcast on Radio 3 on 23 November 2025.

James Anthony-Rose, who co-wrote and starred in the show, is an actor, perhaps best known for his role in All Creatures Great and Small. When I asked what exactly James Blades: Pandemonium of the One-Man Band is, he laughed, said it was a good question that was really up to the listener. He described the show as a drama-documentary, though that term really came from BBC Radio 3, as that was the slot they were going to broadcast the show in. But James found the idea liberating; the show could be anything they wanted it to be.

He co-wrote the piece with Robin Brooks, who has written a lot for Radio 3. They used James Blades' autobiography, Drum Roll, as source material along with archive footage, and the show developed into a one-man show with James playing James Blades with a format not unlike Blades' percussion lectures. 

From bel canto to Harlem Renaissance: Lawrence Brownlee & Iain Burnside's recital at Wigmore Hall

Lawrence Brownlee

Tenor Lawrence Brownlee is on of the premier bel canto tenors around at the moment. And he's rightly busy, his season included a last-minute step-in as Elvino in Bellini's La sonnambula at the Met, where he recently opened in Donizetti's La fille du régiment, alongside Erin Morley, and further ahead there he stars in a new production of Bellini's I Puritani - the Met’s first in nearly fifty years.

The good news is that Brownlee is making a London appearance on 22 November 2025 in recital at Wigmore Hall with pianist Iain Burnside. Their programme is a fascinating showcase of music by Italian and American composers with nary an operatic aria in sight.

Instead, Brownless and Burnside open with a selection of songs by Donizetti before moving onto Respighi. Then they move on to Liszt's Tre sonetti di Petrarca in the virtuosic first version. Arias in all but name, this is music inspired by Liszt's sojurn in Italy in the 1830s and we can almost hear distant hints of Bellini in the vocal line, which makes it all the more desirable having them sung by a bel canto tenor.

The second half of the programme reflects Brownlee's engagement with more recent music. First there is Dominick Argento's Six Elizabethan Song and songs from Ricky Ian Gordon's Genuis Child.

Argento's songs were written in the late 1950s for the tenor Nicholas Di Virgilio. The composer said of them, "The songs are called 'Elizabethan' because the lyrics are drawn from that rich period in literature, while the music is in the spirit (if not the manner) of the great English composer- singer-lutenist, John Dowland. The main concern is the paramount importance of the poetry and the primacy of the vocal line over a relatively simple and supportive accompaniment."

Ricky Ian Gordon's Genuis Child is a cycle of ten songs written in 1993 for soprano Harolyn Blackwell. They set poems by Langston Hughes and the songs were described as "one of the freshest English language song cycles to come along in recent memory". 

Brownlee's project Rising, commissioned six of today’s leading African-American composers to set poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to song. Brownlee recorded their cycles alongside selections by Margaret Bonds and Robert Owens.  

And at the concert Brownlee will be singing Robert Owens' Desire, settings of four poems by Langston Hughes. Robert Owens (1925-2017) was born in Texas and studied in Europe after the War, returning to Germany in the late 1950s where he developed a career as a film and stage actor, composer, and pianist.

Brownlee will also be performing songs by Jasmine Barnes and Joel Thompson from his Rising project.

Full details from the Wigmore Hall website.