Jess Gillam, Tom Fetherstonhaugh & Fantasia Orchestra in rehearsal (Photo: Fantasia Orchestra)
In May last year I chatted conductor Tom Fetherstonhaugh [see my interview] about Fantasia Orchestra which he founded way back in 2016 (when he was still at school). During 2024 the orchestra had debuts at the BBC Proms, Northern Aldborough Festival and Ryedale Festival, and it continues to go from strength to strength. Fantasia Orchestra and Fetherstonhaugh launch their 2025/26 season with a concert at Smith Square Hall on 23 November which also marks the start of a four-concert residency at the hall. On 23 November, Fetherstonhaugh and the orchestra will be joined by soprano Lucy Crowe for Birdsong, a specially-curated programme inspired by the beauty of nature and of avian song. The programme includes Spring from Strauss' Four Last Songs, 'Dove Sono' from Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Berg's The Nightingale from his Seven Early Songs, music from Messiaen's Harawi plus Handel, Vivaldi, Haydn, Gerswhin and a lot more.
In February the orchestra is in Nottingham with saxophonist Jess Gillam for a programme that includes James MacMillan's Saxophone Concerto, and music by Steve Reich, Kate Bush, Bartok, Joni Mitchell and much more.
In April they return to Smith Square with guest sitar player and composer Jasdeep Singh Degun for a programme that includes Degun's music alongside Rameau and Philip Glass including a movement from Degun's sitar concerto Arya. Still at Smith Square Hall, in may they are joined by pianist Steven Osborne for Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 1 (with trumpeter Aaron Akugbo) alongside music by Bartok, Cole Porter, Gershwin and some of Shostakovich's lighter pieces. Their final concert of the residency features mezzo-soprano Niamh O'Sullivan (who has been singing the title role in Bizet's Carmen at ENO) in songs by Alma Mahler, Richard Strauss alongside instrumental music by Strauss and Elgar, plus songs by Ellington, Kern, Sondheim and Cole Porter.
Two different approaches to Grieg's piano music - on a modern piano, played with intense poetic sensibility and on a selection of historic pianos with unequal temperament tuning that brings its own magic
Two recent discs have rather set me thinking about what sound we want for a particular composer when it comes to piano pieces. Do we always want the super-charged modern grand, or is something more period appropriate.
And then there is a question of temperament.
Edvard Grieg's own Steinway grand piano from 1892 still exists at his former home, Troldhaugen and is still use, though the museum's website does not give much in the way of detail about the instrument and its tuning. However, Leif Ove Andsnes recorded a selection of Grieg's Lyric Pieces on it in 2002 for Warner Classics.
The Lyric Pieces are central to two new recordings of Grieg's piano music. Grieg wrote 66 Lyric Pieces in total, publishing them in ten volumes from 1867 (Op. 12) to 1901 (Op. 71).
This is music in which Leipzig-trained Grieg managed to encapsulate the music of his native land, mixing folk idioms with compositional techniques learned in Germany, yet with a freshness that is disarming.
Into my inbox recently came two very different recordings of Grieg's piano music, focusing on the Lyric Pieces. Alexander Ullmann takes a modern, poetic approach on Rubicon that will appeal to many, whilst musicologist Ziad Kreidy turns to historic pianos with unequal temperament tuning to very different effect on Bandcamp. This is not Kreidy's first venture into this territory, and last year he issued a recording of Grieg's Lyric Pieces, Opp. 12, 38, 43 & 47 on an Érard Upright Piano from 1867, also on Bandcamp.
The Foundling Hospital chapel where Handel presented Messiah annually
Cities change and cities develop. Which means that a festival that seeks to celebrate Handel in the city of his adoption constantly needs to reinvent itself. There are few venues left associated with Handel's original performances. Apart from Athalia in Oxford, it is no longer possible to present Handel's major operas and oratorios in the venues where they were premiered.
And back in 1978, when Denys Darlow presented the first London Handel Festival the composer's music was, itself, only known patchily and the festival has done sterling work presenting rarities, unconsidered versions and generally encouraging people to explore the composer's music.
The 2026 London Handel Festival takes place from 18 Feburary to 28 March. Under the title, Heavenly Harmony, the festival's artistic director Gregory Batsleer is presenting a celebration of the composer that ranges widely across the composers output and visits many venues that he would have known. We might not be able to stage Handel opera in one of his theatres, but the festival is drawing St George's Hanover Square, Smith Square Hall, the Charterhouse, the Foundling Museum and Handel's own living room into the fold.
In recent years, the festival has been approaching Handelian opera by staging some of his smaller works, creating its Handel Opera Studio in 2023. Last year it was an intriguing double bill of The Choice of Hercules and Apollo e Dafne. This year, for the first time in a number of years the festival is dipping its toe back into staging opera seria. An expensive business for any small festival, but opera was a large part of Handel's life and it is terrific that the festival has the confidence again to stage a major work. This year it is Tamerlano with the festival's Handel Opera Studio presenting staged performances directed by Orpha Phelan at Shoreditch Town Hall. Laurence Cummings is music director with the Academy of Ancient Music, and a cast including James Laing as Tamerlano, Benjamin Hulett as Bajazet, Nardus Williams as Asteria, Jake Ingbar as Andronico and Kitty Whately as Irene.
Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo return as ensemble in residence and they open the festival in fine style with Handel's Saul in Smith Square Hall. Handel would at least have known the building, as St John's Smith Square it was built in 1728. A strong cast includes Christopher Purves in the title role, Hugh Cutting as David, Linard Vrielink as Jonathan, Jessica Cale as Michal and Emoke Barath as Merab. Also at Smith Square, Paul McCreesh and Gabrieli, amazingly making their festival debut, will be performing Handel's Ode to St Cecilia's Day and pairing it with Acis and Galatea with a cast including Carolyn Sampson and Laurence Kilsby, plus Will Thomas as Polyphemus.
On a smaller scale, the festival returns to Handel's parish church, St George's Hanover Square as Jonathan Cohen joins violinist Rachel Podger, soprano Hilary Cronin and friends for Handel's Neun Deutschen Arien alongside music by Handel's friend Telemann and great contemporary JS Bach. Still at St George's, Hilary Cronin joins Kristian Bezuidenhout and the English Concert for a programme that mixes Handel's Chandos Anthems with Bach's Brandenburg Concertos.
Leo Duarte and Opera Settecento have been exploring Handel's lesser known dramatic works, notably his pasticcios. This year they give the a modern-day London premiere of Handel's abandoned opera Titus L'Empéreur, creating a pasticcio with Handel's arias from the period and newly composed recitatives. They are joined by an outstanding line-up of soloists, including two recent winners of the International Handel Singing Competition, with Steffen Jespersen in the title role and Rachel Redmond as Berenice.
The Foundling Hospital no longer exists, it was demolished in the 1930s but the Foundling Museum preserves its memory and its Fine Rooms. These are the atmospheric venue for a concert from Arcangelo's young artists scheme, its awkwardly named Young Ensemblists. Directed from the harpsichord by Tom Foster they are exploring music composer by Handel and his contemporaries, Vastrucci, J.C. Smith, Corbett, Sammartini and Haym for Handel's orchestra. Another old venue that Handel would have known is Charterhouse, and there is a series of lunchtime concerts there with finalists from the Singing Competition, Ensemble Augelletti, and Ensemble Théodora.
At Handel's House in Brook Street, the Portrait Players will be presenting a pair of family concerts in Handel's own living room. At Shoreditch Town Hall, Apollo's Cabinet will be presenting a relaxed performance showcasing remarkable music from the Baroque era - deconstructing it, reinterpreting it, and reassembling it with other works to create something new
Less a concert and more a chance to hear Handel singers of the next generation, the London Handel Singing Competition runs across the festival with the gala finale on 11 March and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenement as accompanying ensemble, conducted by Steven Devine. At a totally different level, Richard Gowers will be directing a Come and Sing event which offers enthusiastic singers a rare opportunity to experience the exhilaration of performing Handel’s music with a live professional baroque orchestra. For the Handel Big Sing, children from schools across Westminster will be welcomed to St George’s Church, Hanover Square to perform with the London Handel Orchestra.
Schwanengesang - Thomas Oliemans at Oxford International Song Festival
Schubert Weekend: Nikola Hillebrand, Julius Drake, Thomas Oliemans, Paolo Giacometti; Oxford International Song Festival at Holywell Music Room Reviewed 19 October 2025
A young German soprano making her festival debut with a profoundly beautiful and expressive afternoon of favourite songs. Then in the evening, a festival favourite returned with an intense account of Schubert's final song cycle. Last words indeed.
Sunday 19 October was the second day of this year's Oxford International Song Festival's Schubert weekend with concerts including an afternoon event with soprano Nikola Hillebrand and pianist Julius Drake in favourite Schubert songs, and then in the evening baritone Thomas Oliemans and pianist Paolo Giacometti in Schubert's Schwanengesang plus two late-works for piano duet.
Nikola Hillebrand is a young German soprano making a name for herself in opera and song, bringing a lovely fresh approach to her afternoon recital. By contrast THomas Oliemans is a festival favourite. A born story teller in 2023 we heard him in Wolf's Mörike-Lieder [see my review] and in 2019 in a Day of the Dead themed programme [see my review] though we missed his astonishing self-accompanied Winterreise in 2022.
At the Holywell Music Room, Nikola Hillebrand and Julius Drake presented an afternoon programme called Im Abentrot, named for the Schubert song that opened a programme which then explored links both familiar and unfamiliar. This was Hillebrand's debut at the festival; she won the prestigious ‘Das Lied’ competition in Heidelberg in 2019. She was a member of the Semperoper Dresden ensemble from 2020 to 2024, along with appearances at Bavarian State Opera, Opera House Zürich, Hamburg State Opera and the Salzburg Festival. She appeared as Barbarina in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at Glyndebourne in 2016.
Ann Hallenberg, The Mozartists, Ian Page recording Gluck Arias (Photo: Ben Ealovega)
Swedish mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg has a new album out. For Gluck Arias on Signum Classics, she joined forces with conductor Ian Page, with whom she has had a long and fruitful relationship, and The Mozartists for a programme of arias from Gluck's operas, both known - Orfeo ed Euridice, Paride ed Elena - and unknown - Il trionfo di Clelia, Ipermestra, Ezio, Il Parnaso confuso, Semiramide riconosciuta, and Le nozze d'Ercole e d'Ebe. The operas stretch right across Gluck's career from his first complete surviving opera, Ipermestra (1744), to Paride ed Elena (1770). Their selection takes in both the original 1762 version of Orfeo ed Euridice and the rarely performed revised version Gluck produced for Parma in 1769. The disc has already received plaudits in the press with the Gramophone referring to it as "this skilfully curated exposition of Gluck’s humane genius".
Ann Hallenberg, The Mozartists, Ian Page at Wigmore Hall in 2016
Ann explains that the idea of the disc has been bubbling away for around ten years. Back in 2016, she performed at Wigmore Hall with Ian Page and the Mozartists, when they included a couple of Gluck arias. These went down well, and both Ann and Ian thought this might be a disc. Their relationship developed subsequently; not only has she performed with The Mozartists again (including at Wigmore Hall in 2023), but when she was artist in residence at Drottningholm, she invited Ian to conduct the production of Handel's Ariodante with Ann in the title role. She comments that it is nice to meet a conductor where you both think the same way, so you do not have to discuss everything. Things flow very easily with him.
They started with far more material than would be needed for a disc, sifting through the arias, checking that not only was the music suitable for Ann's voice but that she liked the aria. Often with recital discs, she explains that the selection must take account of the instruments available, but this time there were no such restrictions. She had the luxury of singing with a full orchestra. The result, she feels, is a good programme with a good mix of different sounds and colours.
Handel's collection of art is known to have included works by Canaletto, Watteau and Poussin which he owned in his home at Brook Street. In a forthcoming concert at his house, Handel & Hendrix in London is presenting Handel in Music and Art on 8 November 2025, a recital from Bridget Cunningham (harpsichord), Danni O'Neil (soprano) and Richard Dowling (tenor) reflecting the pastoral themes in Handel's art collection including arias from L’Allegro, Il Penseroso ed il Moderato, Semele and the Foundling Hospital Anthem.
Two days, later on Monday, 10 November, Bridget Cunningham and London Early Opera will present a lunchtime concert titled Handel at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens with countertenor Iestyn Morris of glorious music once performed at Vauxhall Gardens. The music reflects a visit to the London Pleasure Gardens which was decorated with artwork, walkways, grottos, statues and illuminated by lanterns where some of the finest music and entertainment for all the family could be heard.
Full details from Handel & Hendrix in London's website.
Handel: Giustino - Esme Bronwen-Smith, Polly Leech, Kelly Fuge, Mireille Asselin, Benjamin Hulett (with bag over his head) - La Nuova Musica at Royal Opera House (Photo: Marc Brenner)
Handel: Giustino; Polly Leech, Mireille Asselin, Keri Fuge, Esme Bronwen Smith, Jake Arditti, Benjamin Hulett, Jonathan Lemalu, director: Joe Hill-Gibbins, La Nuova Musica, conductor: David Bates; Linbury Theatre at the Royal Opera House Reviewed 15 October 2025
The Royal Opera returns to late Handel with a production of his problematic Giustino that brings out the musical riches along with a surprising emotional depth, along with a touch of glamour
Handel's late operas have generally been regarded as problematic, with their recitative and plot cut to the bone. The Royal Opera's production of Arminio (from 1737) proved that in the right hands these fascinating if flawed pieces can work on the modern stage [see my review]. Now, in collaboration with La Nuova Musica, the Royal Opera has returned to 1737 with a production of Handel's Giustino.
The libretto was originally written for a 1683 opera by Legrenzi which received a spectacular production in Venice featuring an elephant, elaborate naval and land battles and a welter of smaller roles. By the time the libretto reached Vivaldi in 1724 the characters had been reduced to nine. This was the source of Handel's libretto, though Handel's unknown literary collaborator made radical changes.
1175 lines of recitative are reduced to just 350 and the character of Andronico is removed (Winton Dean speculates that Handel may simply not have had a singer for it). He is a third brother (to Giustino and Vitaliano) and spends a lot of the early part of the opera courting Leocasta. Not only are aspects of the plot positively telegraphic - Arianna goes to join Anastasio's army but after three lines of recitative and a short aria he has lost a battle, Arianna has been captured and Giustino needs to go to the rescue. But without Andronico, Leocasta is left with nothing to do for large stretches of the opera.
Handel: Giustino - Polly Leech, Mireille Asselin (as La Fortuna) - La Nuova Musica at Royal Opera House (Photo: Marc Brenner)
Not surprisingly, the opera has not had that many outings. It was presented by Alan Kitching in the UK in 1960s, and there is a recording from Göttingen in 1995 based on a production that Winton Dean describes as grossly distorting the opera. The London Handel Society presented it at Sadler's Wells in the early 1980s. If memory serves me right, James Bowman sang the title role and it was a remarkably imaginative production.
Johannes Worms in the Gemäldegalerie - State Museums of Berlin (Photo: Jana Kiesser)
The young German baritone Johannes Worms has been exploring the wider shores of song, presenting programmes that focus on playful explorations of queerness and social narratives. He and his duo partner, Nasti presented their programme Speak Low - Songs about masculinities and queer utopias in the recital hall of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg last season.
Now Worms is returning with another intriguing programme, Die Florenzer – L'amore masculino created by the Argentinian-German stage director duo Vöcks de Schwindt. Billed as a music theatre monologue for voice and lute the evening will feature Johannes Worms and lutenist Neo Gunderman in an imaginative monologue about homosexual desire in Renaissance Florence, a summer night of queer narratives, accompanied by delicately playful Renaissance music/
"In imagined stories and chants accompanied by lute play, we immerse ourselves in a seductive world of l’amore masculino, friendship+ and early modern daddies and twinks. While the verb florenzen historically meant mainly gay sex, the evening explores the affective connections behind it with speculative imagination. So revelling in stories of connectedness and friendship unfolds a picture of what the everyday life of the Florence could have looked like."
The programme will be at the Monolog Festival at TD in Berlin in 8 and 9 November 2025.
Further details from the Monolog Festival website.
A new collaboration between Orpheus Sinfonia and the Scherzo Ensemble invites the audience to be part of Mozart’s memorial service, taking part by singing a hymn and surrounded on all sides by the musical and dramatic action in this immersive production.
Relying on eyewitness accounts from the composer's family and friends to reconstruct his last year, the dramatised performance, which includes an actor (playing the role of Mozart’s brother in law), dance, movement and professional lighting, includes music from many of Mozart’s most famous works, including the Clarinet Concerto, The Magic Flute, Contradances, La Clemenza di Tito and Masonic Cantata. The event culminates with Mozart’s Requiem, uncompleted on the composers death, it is performed here without later completions, leaving a tantalising ‘what if?’ at the end of the evening.
A Requiem for Mozart takes place at Holy Trinity, Winchester (5 November) and St George's Hanover Square, London (6 November). Matthew O'Keeffe conducts Scherzo Ensemble and Orpheus Sinfonia. The project is the second such collaboration between Orpheus Sinfonia and Scherzo Ensemble following on from 2024’s production of Haydn's Creation, which was staged with dance and theatrical lighting.
Orpheus Sinfonia is a London-based chamber orchestra that aims to make world-class music accessible to all, bringing together some of the UK’s most talented emerging and established musicians to give exceptional performances across concert halls, festivals, and bespoke events. Scherzo Ensemble is a professional development platform for emerging artists, primarily classical singers, offering performance and development projects for early-career artists to develop their understanding, experience, and professional networks, including a fully staged production at Longhope Opera.
Further details from the Scherzo Ensemble website and the Orpheus Sinfonia website.
Daniele Gatti, Berlin Philharmonic - Philharmonie, Berlin
Webern: Langsamer Satz, Stravinsky: Symphony in C, Brahms: Symphony No.3 in F major, Op.90; Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, cond: Daniele Gatti; Philharmonie, Berlin Reviewed by Tony Cooper on 9 October 2025
Hearing the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, under Daniele Gatti, in the confines of the swishy Philharmonie Berlin proved a big treat
Never really wanting a day off, especially in Berlin, I thoroughly enjoyed a marvellous concert by the Berlin Philharmonic under Daniele Gatti at the Philharmonie Berlin offering a programme right up my street. They performed a trio of handsome and entertaining works comprising Webern’s Langsamer Satz - Slow Movement for String Quartet in E flat major, Stravinsky’s Symphony in C and Brahms’ Symphony No.3 in F major, Op.90.
Completing Langsamer Satz in June 1905, Webern was inspired to write it by the innermost feelings for his future wife, Wilhelmine Mörtl, whom he enjoyed a mountain holiday prior to marriage. An emotionally charged work, for sure, it conveys themes of yearning, turmoil and tranquillity and is notable for its post-Brahmsian tonal idiom.
Born in 1883 into a wealthy aristocratic Viennese family, Webern was close to Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg, a trio of progressive composers dubbed the ‘Second Viennese School’. Schoenberg, of course, invented the twelve-tone technique therefore Webern was well acquainted with this musical style and kept up to date with the latest developments in music.
In July this year, percussionist James Larter joined Frederick Waxman and his ensemble Figure to reimagine Vivaldi's The Four Seasons for an array of pitched and unpitched percussion instruments alongside the strings. Now Larter and Waxman are taking this collaboration further as Larter has written a percussion concerto, Toros, to be premiered by Sinfonia Smith Square on 6 November with Waxman conducting at Smith Square Hall. The concert is called, with a hint of Miles Davis, Spanish Sketches and also features music by Victoria, Boccherini, Arriaga, and Victor Jarra.
James Larter's Toros is inspired by Picasso's art and Neruda's poetry. The two men were friends. In 1949, Neruda appeared at the First World Congress of Partisans for Peace, in Paris having spent the preceding months in hiding in Chile. Picasso had secured the poet’s legal right to appear in public in France despite an arrest warrant in Chile. In his poem 'Picasso' from Grapes and the Wind, Neruda describes the painter’s studio in the south of France and celebrates his art.
The programme includes Boccherini's Symphony No. 6 in D minor, ’The House of the Devil' written just before he left Vienna for Spain. The work's subtitle, which may not be authentic, could derive from the inspiration Boccherini drew from Gluck's Don Juan ballet. Also in the programme will be the Symphony in D major by Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, accomplished Basque composer who died at only 19. Finally there will be a jazz fusion arrangement of a song by Victor Jarra, the Chilean John Lennon, Manifesto which Frederick Waxman has written for orchestra, in which Larter and he will improvise.
Full details from the Sinfonia Smith Square website.
Britten: Albert Herring - Dan D'Souza, Caspar Singh - ENO 2025 (Photo: Genevieve Girling)
Britten: Albert Herring; Caspar Singh, Emma Bell, Carolyn Dobbin, Aoife Miskelly, Eddie Wade, Mark Le Brocq, Andri Björn Róbertsson, Dan D'Souza, Caspar Singh, Anna Elizabeth Cooper, Leah-Marian Jones, director Anthony McDonald, conductor Daniel Cohen, English National Opera; London Coliseum Reviewed 13 October 2025
A stripped back production that loses little of the sense of place, with an ensemble of strong character singers supporting an engaging account a central character who repaid all our attention
English National Opera has never before performed Britten's Albert Herring. A new production directed and designed by Antony McDonald rectified this lack as well as helping launch the company's season in Greater Manchester. Billed as a semi-staging, McDonald's production opened at the London Coliseum on Monday 13 October with a further performance on 16 October before travelling to the Lowry in Salford for two performances.
Britten: Albert Herring - Carolyn Dobbin, Eddie Wade, Emma Bell - ENO 2025 (Photo: Genevieve Girling)
Anthony McDonald's production was not so much a semi-staging as a stripped down one. The concept seemed to be that we were at some sort of recording, radio presumably. The basic set had a Brechtian quality to it with labels hung from the flats indicating the locations. The setting was 1940s, the era when the opera was written and the cast were all in period apposite costumes. Some fussy details relating to the omnipresent stage manager (actor Ashton Hall) apart, it worked remarkably well. Mainly thanks to the sense of detail that the cast brought to their roles. There was nothing semi- about the performances, we were certainly drawn into this quirky world.
Having re-worked Vaughan Williams' Riders to the Sea earlier this year [see composer Michael Betteridge's article], Southampton-based OperaUpClose has announced that its next project will be a reimagined version of Puccini's Gianni Schicchi. Gianni Schicchi (or Where There’s A Will) will debut at the Mayflower Studios, Southampton in March 2026 and tour to Chichester, Cambridge, Blackpool, Plymouth and London's artsdepot.
"When a wealthy second-home owner throws one last seasonal soirée, the evening quickly unravels. Enter Gianni Schicchi, the cunning opportunist who promises salvation but exposes the greed, entitlement and hypocrisies of the bourgeois elite instead."
For the updated text, writer Hannah Kumari takes inspiration from popular modern day ‘whodunnits’ such as The White Lotus and Knives Out in a 'brilliantly satirical and transformative' take on this much-loved family farce. Composer Vahan Salorian will be reorchestrating the piece for an ensemble of ten storyteller-musicians (six opera singers, accordion, cello, clarinet and violin), and the whole will be directed by PJ Harris. Dan D’Souza plays the title role with Cerefina Penny as Lauretta, and John Malloy as Simon.
There will also be a scene-setting spoken-word poetic overture by Ri Baroche.
This year the Malcolm Arnold Festival in Northampton celebrates the 20th festival and on 18 and 19 October 2025, there will be performances of all 20 of Arnold's concerts that feature a solo instrument. There are five concerts in all, daytime concerts at Northampton School for Boys and a gala evening concert on 18 October at St Matthew's Church.
Of the twenty ‘Concertos’ with opus numbers, seventeen are for instrumental soloist, of which three are duo-concertos, the majority lasting around fifteen minutes. The earliest were written for friends and colleagues, which led to commissions from world-renown soloists including Denis Brain (horn), Julian Bream (guitar), Benny Goodman (clarinet), Julian Lloyd Webber (cello), and Michala Petri (recorder) who is also appearing at the Festival. Some are considered masterpieces of the genre, such as the Flute Concerto no.2, and the Concerto for Guitar and Chamber Orchestra.
There are also those written for more unusual solo instruments, such as harmonica, organ, and piano duo. The festival will be giving the premiere of John Lenehan's two-handed arrangement of the Concerto for Two Pianos (Three Hands) which was originally written for Phyllis Sellick and Cyril Smith after Smith lost the use of his left hand. One of the more light-hearted ones is the Grand Concerto Gastronomique for Eater, Waiter, Food and Large Orchestra Op.76 – to give the piece its full title – was written for one of Hoffnung's festivals. Arnold composed several works for such occasions that often meant great fun, and this one does contain some fine music.
Performers include LGT Orchestra with conductor Hilary Davan Wetton, London Choral Sinfonia with conductor Michael Waldron, Equilibrium Symphony Orchestra with conductor Mattea Leow, Bedford Sinfonia with conductor Ian Smith, and Berkshire Youth Symphony Orchestra with conductors Jonathan Burnett and Ben Copeman. Soloists include Ben Goldscheider (horn), Michala Petri (recorder), Sarah-Jane Bradley (viola) and John Lenehan (piano).
The music in the festival is almost exclusively Arnold's with the admixture of his teacher, Gordon Jacob, his contemporaries Ruth Gipps, William Walton and Malcolm Williamson, plus Sibelius.
Handel: Solomon - John Butt, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Queen Elizabeth Hall (Photo: Mark Allan)
Handel: Solomon; Helen Charlston, Nardus Williams, Hugo Hymas, Florian Störtz, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Choir of the Enlightenment, John Butt; Queen Elizabeth Hall Reviewed 12 October 2025
The OAE begins its 40th anniversary celebrations with the rich textures of Handel's lavish oratorio giving us a feeling of profound satisfaction as one glorious event followed another.
The alarums and excursions associated with the 1745 Jacobite Rebellio, when the Jacobite army reached Derby, had a significant effect on the question of what sort of dramatic work an oratorio was supposed to be. Handel followed his pre-rebellion sequence of dramatic oratorios ending with Belshazzar in March 1745 with four military oratorios. Some, like the Occasional Oratorio were deliberately attuned to unstable times whilst Judas Maccabaeus had wider success. After Alexander Balus in 1748, where the military victories of the first half of the work are followed by personal tragedy, Handel seems to have set himself the challenge of returning to the question of what exactly was an oratorio.
What followed in 1749 was Susanna, a mix of pastoral comedy and moral tale, and Solomon, a plotless exploration of a sort of golden age rule, then in 1750 came Theodora, based on a romantic novel and much closer to what we might consider opera, then Jephtha in 1752 where the return of Handel's favourite tenor, John Beard led to the creation of a remarkable anti-hero.
Similarly the forces Handel uses in these works varies in a way that suggests deliberate choice rather than economic necessity. Solomon is perhaps one of Handel's most lavish with its double choruses and one of the largest orchestras Handel wrote for - flutes, oboes, bassoons, horns, trumpets and drums.
Handel: Solomon - Nardus Williams, Helen Charlston, John Butt, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Queen Elizabeth Hall (Photo: Mark Allan)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 Eroica - New World Symphony, Stéphane Denève - New World Center (Photo: Alex Markow)
James Lee III: Chuphshah! Harriet’s Drive to Canaan (2011), Copland: Lincoln Portrait (1942), Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 55, Eroica; New World Symphony, Stéphane Denève, Ziwei Ma, Joshua Malina; New World Center, Miami, Florida Reviewed by Robert J Carreras on 4 October 2025
In his latest Letter from Florida Robert J Carreras is made thoughtful by a programnme which turned the watchful lens of history on human bondage and oppression with contemporary composer James Lee III alongside Copland and Beethoven
Composers James Lee III, Aaron Copland, and Ludwig van Beethoven – a curious consort at first glance, it is agreed. Let’s look closer with the help of the program curated by New World Symphony (NWS) for this evening.
Lee’s Chuphshah! Harriet’s Drive to Canaan [inspired by the life of abolitionist Harriet Tubman] and Copland’s Lincoln Portrait turn the watchful lens of history on human bondage and oppression. The backstory of Beethoven’s Third Symphony explains how he presaged the human bondage and oppression of tyranny, and in so doing turned away from Napoleon Bonaparte I.
As a centuries-removed compatriot of “le petit caporal,” NWS Artistic Director and Principal Conductor Stéphane Denève is in an unique position to recount that Beethoven wanted this symphony to be a celebration of Napoleon’s revolutionary and democratic ideals. Why Napoleon was himself a revolutionary, almost jailed at one time for it.
New World Symphony, Stéphane Denève - outside New World Center (Photo: Alex Markow)
Lauren Lodge Campbell, Patrick Ayrton & ensemble recording Astrophil & Stella for VOCES8 Records
The more literary-minded amongst you may recall that Astrophil & Stella is the name of a sonnet sequence by the Elizabethan poet Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586). Containing some 108 sonnets, the sequence was written in the 1580s and printed in 1591, five years after Sidney's death. Contemporary composer Patrick Ayrton has taken the name Astrophil & Stella for his new song cycle, which is released on VOCES8 Records with soprano Lauren Lodge-Campbell and an instrumental ensemble which Patrick directs from the harpsichord.
Patrick is best known as an organ scholar and harpsichordist; he was Ton Koopman's assistant and currently teaches at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague. His Astrophil & Stella cycle takes its inspiration from Patrick's fascination with the world of Purcell, Blow, Locke, and other seventeenth-century English composers, and Patrick sets texts by Shakespeare, Sir Philip Sidney, Ben Jonson, and John Lyly.
Rossini: La Cenerentola (Cinderella) - Deepa Johnny, Charles Rice - English National Opera (Photo: Mark Douet)
Rossini: La Cenerentola (Cinderella); Deepa Johnny, Aaron Godfrey-Mayes, Charles Rice, Simon Bailey, David Ireland, Isabelle Peters, Grace Durham, director: Julia Burbach, conductor: Yi-Chen Li, English National Opera; London Coliseum Reviewed 9 October 2025
A modern updating done with wit and imagination that still kept the focus on the two lovers, here played with great charm and stylistic brio in an engaging performance
Rossini's comic opera La Cenerentola (Cinderella) presents a number of challenges for modern opera companies. First off there is the obvious one, the finding of singers who can bring off the technical bravura that the roles require, thankfully there seems to be no shortage of Rossini stylists amongst young singers. Then there is the length, modern audiences do not expect comedy to last as long as tragedy, so performers and directors have to work hard to keep our attention.
Those first two comments apply generally to Rossini's comedies, but there is a particularity to La Cenerentola. First off, there is the eschewing of the fairy tale elements by Rossini and his librettist, along with British audiences fondness for the pantomime version. Frederick Ashton showed us how these various elements can live side by side in his brilliant ballet, and directors often tweak the role of Alidoro to make him something a little bit more. Another problem is that Rossini wrote only for male chorus. This was for a practical reason, Italian opera houses kept the male chorus on the books with the women being part time. The result is to make Ramiro's residence something of a bizarre boys club. There is also a homo-erotic theme in there somewhere, but I have yet to see a production that took that particular route.
Rossini: La Cenerentola (Cinderella) - Aaron Godfrey-Mayes - English National Opera (Photo: Mark Douet)
On Thursday 9 October 2025 we finally caught up with Julia Burbach's production of Rossini's La Cenerentola (Cinderella) for English National Opera at the London Coliseum. The conductor was Yi-Chen Li, set designs were by Herbert Murauer, costumes by Sussie Juhlin-Wallen, lighting by Malcolm Rippeth, video by Hayley Egan and choreography by Cameron McMillan. Canadian mezzo-soprano Deepa Johnny was making her ENO debut as Cinderella, with tenor Aaron Godfrey-Mayes, a recent member of Hamburg opera studio, as Ramiro, Charles Rice (seen earlier this year in Buxton's Bernstein/Poulenc double bill, see my review) as Dandini, Simon Bailey (a notable Wotan in Dresden Music Festival's historically informed Die Walküre, see my review) as Don Magnifico, David Ireland as Alidoro and Isabelle Peters and Grace Durham as the sisters, Clorinda and Tisbe. The eighteen men of the chorus were joined by a team of six dancers including Sarah Storer as the ghost of Cinderella's mother, plus ten children.
There is a chance next month to catch music from Odaline de la Martinez' powerful opera Imoinda: A Story of Love and Slavery. Vincent Godfrey is conducting the Merlyn Ensemble on 1 November 2025 at the Warehouse in scenes from Imoinda with Donna Bateman as Imoinda and Sandeep Gurrupadi as Okoin a programme that also includes music by Britten, Smyth, Coleridge-Taylor and Florence Price. The programme is repeated on 15 November at Guildford United Reformed Church.
Loosely based on Aphra Behn's 1688 novel Oroonoko: or the Royal Slave, one of the first published works by an English female writer, the libretto for Imoinda was adapted by award-winning poet and academic Joan Anim-Addo. The opera traces the beginning of the Afro-Caribbean Culture from Africa, through the horrific boat journey, to the arrival of the enslaved people in the Caribbean. [ticket details]
There will be more of Odaline de la Martinez' music in London in November as her Canciones for Voice, Piano and Percussion will be featured at the London Song Festival at Hinde Street Methodist Church on 21 November in as part of a Celebration of Latin American Women Composers performed by pianist Nigel Foster, soprano Ana Beard Fernandez and percussionist Gillian McDonagh who along with baritone Michel de Souza will be performing songs ranging in date from the 19th to 21st centuries, by composers from Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil and Cuba. [further details]
Ilan Volkov & the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in 2024 (Photo: Hannah Blake-Fathers)
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra has announced the appointment of Ilan Volkov as Principal Guest Conductor from 2026 to 2029. The appointment comes along with announcements of pianist Alice Sara Ott and saxophonist Jess Gillam as Collaborative Artists and builds on the announcement of a two-year contract extension for for Kazuki Yamada, meaning he will remain Music Director until at least the end of the 2028/29 season. All this is complemented by the continuing relationship with with Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla as Associate Artist, and the announcement of composer and producer Rushil Ranjan as Collaborative Artist for 2025-27.
Ilan Volkov has long been admired for his fearless programming and deep curiosity, spanning the core symphonic repertoire to contemporary, experimental and cross-genre projects. He has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, as Principal Conductor from 2003, Principal Guest Conductor from 2009 to 2024, and currently as Creative Partner. And he is artistic director of Techtonics Festival which he founded in 2012.
Details of the first programmes and projects that the Collaborative Artists will lead will be announced in line with the 2026-27 Season.
Countertenor Alex Pullinger's Ariel Music School London is launching later this month with a Trans+ Youth Singing Day which will be on 27 October at The Common Press Bookshop, E2 6DG.
Open to ages 16-25, with all levels welcome, the event offers a fun and friendly hour getting to know your voice with other young trans+ people. Participants are invited to bring along a song.
There will also be a research element, where participants in the event will have the option to complete a short anonymous survey afterwards, about how they found it and about the impact of having singing lessons in a trans-inclusive environment and learning with their peers. There will then be optional zoom calls for everyone involved to discuss their experiences of the trans+ youth singing day.
Also on 27 October, in the evening, is a launch party at the Queen Adelaide, Cambridge Heath, in support of trans+ music education.
Adam's Lament: Arvo Pärt at 90 - Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Tõnu Kaljuste - Barbican Hall (Photo: Raigo Pajula / Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir)
Adam's Lament: Arvo Pärt at 90 - Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten, L’abbé Agathon, Adam's Lament, Fratres, Te Deum; Maria Listra, Harry Traksmann, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Tõnu Kaljuste ; Barbican Hall Reviewed 7 October 2025
Mysticism, drama & intense spirituality in a selection of Arvo Pärt's music that mixed the familiar with the less familiar from performers closely associated with his work.
The UK celebrations for Arvo Pärt's birthday continued on 7 October 2025 with a return visit from Tõnu Kaljuste and Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir this time with Tallinn Chamber Orchestra at a concert at the Barbican Hall which was attended by His Excellency Alar Karis, President of the Republic of Estonia. The concert, titled Adam's Lament, featured a welcome mix of the well-known and the lesser known with Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten, L’abbé Agathon (with soprano Maria Listra), Adam's Lament, Fratres (with violinist Harry Traksmann) and Te Deum, along with Vespers by Ester Mägi, the former first lady of Estonian music who died in 2021 at the age of 99.
Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten opened the concert with the aethereal sound of bells, followed by the strings, very quiet and intent yet very present. The work, with its different lines moving at different speeds, uses a technique from Renaissance music yet the result feels modern and effortless, the continuous movement creating a single whole. The end, with its intimate decrescendo down to a single, everlasting chord, was magical.
Adam's Lament: Arvo Pärt at 90 - Maria Listra, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Tõnu Kaljuste - Barbican Hall (Photo: Raigo Pajula / Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir)
The Salomon Orchestra's new season has the theme Stage and Screen, and conductor Graham Ross joins the orchestra on Saturday 18 October at Smith Square Hall to launch the season with a concert featuring music by Miklós Rózsa, Zoltán Kodály and Nino Rota, Subsequent concerts feature ballet music by Ravel and Stravinsky, dance by Leonard Bernstein, and opera by Prokofiev.
Despite writing close to 100 film scores and receiving 17 Academy Award nominations including three Oscars for Spellbound (1945), A Double Life (1947), and Ben-Hur (1959), Rózsa retained a firm allegiance to concert life, writing concert works including concertos for violinist Jascha Heifetz and cellist Janos Starker.
The concert opens with the suite from Miklós Rózsa’s Oscar-winning score for Ben-Hur – widely considered his greatest. The score was, at the time, the longest ever composed for a film. It was described by Roger Hickman as “the last universally acknowledged score created in the classical Hollywood tradition prior to Star Wars”. The score was so lengthy that it had to be released on three LPs and to make it more listenable Rózsa arranged the score into his Ben-Hur Suite, which was issued on disc in 1959.
Kodály's Háry János is a folk opera based on János Garay's comic poem "The Veteran" (Az obsitos) about a drunkard named Háry János. The work was premiered in 1926 in Budapest but its extensive use of spoken dialogue means that transmission has been limited and the opera had to wait until 1982 for its UK stage premiere at the Buxton Festival. Kodály extracted a suite from the opera. This premiered in 1927 in Barcelona and has gone on to have a far greater popularity than the opera itself.
Kodály wrote in his preface to the score: "Háry is a peasant, a veteran soldier who day after day sits at the tavern spinning yarns about his heroic exploits... the stories released by his imagination are an inextricable mixture of realism and naivety, of comic humour and pathos."
Nino Rota is another film composer who retained a foot in the classical concert world. Best known for his scores for films by Fellini and Visconti, he wrote more than 150 scores for films from the 1930s until his death in 1979 and won an Oscar for his score for Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 film, The Godfather Part II.
His score for Fellini's 1954 film, La Strada was written after principal photography was complete. The film stars Giulietta Masina as a simple-minded young woman bought from her mother by Anthony Quinn, a brutish strongman who takes her with him on the road. Fellini routinely shot his films while playing taped music and for La Strada this included a variation by Arcangelo Corelli that he planned to use on the sound track. Rota, unhappy with that plan, wrote an original motif with rhythmic lines matched to Corelli's piece that synchronize with the actors' movements. In 1966, Rota wrote a ballet, La Strada for La Scala, Milan using music from the film and this forms the basis for his suite which ends the concert.
Full details of the concert from the Sinfonia Smith Square website, and details of Salomon Orchestra's full season from their website.
%202025%20%C2%A9%20Mark%20Douet.jpg "Rossini: La Cenerentola (Cinderella) - Deepa Johnny, Charles Rice - English National Opera (Photo: Mark Douet)")
%202025%20%C2%A9%20Mark%20Douet.jpg "Rossini: La Cenerentola (Cinderella) - Aaron Godfrey-Mayes - English National Opera (Photo: Mark Douet)")
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