Dog days: Opera Rara & The Hallé to collaborate on the UK premiere of Offenbach's political satire, Barkouf

Offenbach by André Gill, 1866, with Barkouf in the bottom right

By 1860, Offenbach had written countless one-act operas for the Bouffes-Parisiens along with longer works such as Orphée aux enfers and Geneviève de Brabant, but his three-act opéra bouffe, Barkouf was his first work for the Opéra-Comique. 

In Barkouf Offenbach wrote in a more complex vein, with modern harmonies and complicated part-writing while remaining with the spirit of opéra-bouffe. The reactions of the critics were violently opposed to the work, and after its first run it was not revived. However, the work's modern editor Jean-Christophe Keck has suggested that Offenbach had never pushed his musical language so far, and would not go further – until Les Contes d'Hoffmann.

Most of Barkouf survived in manuscript in the hands of Offenbach's descendants, and editor Jean-Christophe Keck has tracked down the missing pages. The work received its first performance since 1861 in 2018 at the Opéra du Rhin in Strasbourg.

Now Opera Rara is giving us a chance to hear it as in collaboration with The Hallé they will be presenting the work's UK premiere on 4 October 2026 at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester in association with a recording of the work using Jean-Christophe Keck’s critical edition. The Hallé will be conducted by Paul Daniel who led the award-winning revival of Offenbach’s La Princesse de Trébizonde (ORC63) [see my review], with the chorus of English National Opera. The cast includes Anne-Catherine Gillet, Antoinette Dennefeld and Katia Ledoux, who all appeared in La Princesse de Trébizonde, and they are joined by Opera Rara newcomers Mathias Vidal, François Piolino, Philippe Talbot and Thibault de Damas.

The opera is a political satire which seems alarmingly prescient today. A dog, Barkouf, is appointed governor of a fictitious place called “Lahore”, whose population has reached its wits’ end with the corruption and incompetence of successive leaders. This wasn't the first time that Offenbach had featured a dog as a character, Orphée aux enfers features Cerbère (Cerberus), three-headed guardian of the underworld who barks though the scene may have been cut

Full details from the Opera Rara website. 

The Seal Man: Rebecca Clarke's song reinvented with shadow-puppet animation by Jeremy Hamway-Bidgood,

The Seal Man is Rebecca Clarke's best-known song. This new animated film from Daniel Norman's Positive Note features shadow-puppet animation created by Jeremy Hamway-Bidgood, to music performed by mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately, violist Max Baillie and pianist Anna Tilbrook. The project was created as part of The Everyday Listeners, a research initiative led by Dr Kate Guthrie (University of Bristol), supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The film will be distributed to schools across the UK, inspiring children to create their own creative responses to Clarke’s powerful story and music.

Composed in 1922 to a text by John Masefield, The Seal Man tells a dark, otherworldly tale of a selkie — a mysterious half-man, half-seal creature — who lures a young woman away from her world to the depths of the sea. Clarke’s music is both lyrical and unsettling, filled with longing, danger, and irresistible beauty. 

The Seal Man also appears on The Complete Vocal Works of Rebecca Clarke, a new album by Kitty Whately, Nicholas Phan and Anna Tilbrook, released 7 November 2025 on Signum Records  

From Eisenach to Venice to London to Scotland: Rachel Podger & Friends in an engagingly eclectic programme at Highgate International Chamber Music Festival

Rachel Podger, Charlotte Spruit - Highgate International Chamber Music Festival, St Anne's Church, Highgate (Photo: Hannah Lovell)

Rachel Podger & Friends: Johann Bernhard Bach, Vivaldi, Bach, Nicola Matteis, Marcello, Purcell, arrangements of Scots airs; Rachel Podger, Charlotte Spruit, Jane Rogers, Jonathan Byers, Edward Mead, Ashok Klouda, Tom Foster, Sergio Bucheli; Highgate International Chamber Music Festival at St Anne's Church
Reviewed 6 December 2025

Rachel Podger and Friends in an engaging and eclectic Baroque programme that moved from Eisenach to Venice to London to Scotland, all bookended by music from Bach's older cousin Johann Bernhard Bach

Under artistic directors Natalie Klouda (composer and violin), Irina Botan (cello) and Ashok Klouda (cello) the 13th Highgate International Chamber Music Festival, which ran from 3 to 7 December 2025 at St Anne's Church, Highgate, explored everything from folklore, silent films, Schubert in song and chamber music and the art of the cello, ending with a finale featuring Shostakovich, Beethoven, Dvorak and Brahms. The festival's basis is a group of performers coming together with guest artists for each concert.

On Saturday 6 December 2025 focus shifted to the Baroque as violinist Rachel Podger made a welcome return visit to the Festival along with a group of friends, Charlotte Spruit (violin), Jane Rogers (viola), Jonathan Byers (cello), Edward Mead (cello), Tom Foster (harpsichord) and Sergio Bucheli (lute), and they were joined by Festival co-director Ashok Klouda, playing a Baroque cello borrowed from the Royal Academy of Music. The programme was an eclectic mix of both the known and the relatively unknown with works by Johann Bernhard Bach, Vivaldi, Bach, Nicola Matteis, Marcello, and Purcell plus arrangements of Scots airs.

Ashok Klouda, Sergio Bucheli - Highgate International Chamber Music Festival, St Anne's Church, Highgate (Photo: Hannah Lovell)

Christina Rossetti: Nigel Foster's London Song Festival turns its focus on the poet with soprano Susan Bullock and speaker Janine Roebuck

Christina Rossetti, drawn in 1866 by her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The Life and Loves of Christina Rossetti: Parry, Arthur Somervell, Juliana Hall, James Scott Irvine, Michael Head, Samuel Coleridge Taylor, Frederic Cowen, Charles Wood, Maude Valerie White, Martin Shaw, Thomas Dunhill, Cecil Armstrong Gibbs, Margaret Wegener, Ned Rorem, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Charles Ives, Liza Lehmann; Susan Bullock, Janine Roebuck, Nigel Foster; London Song Festival at Hinde Street Methodist Church
Reviewed 5 December 2025

In a rare recital appearance, Susan Bullock really brought out the sense of sung poetry in a programme dedicated to poet Christina Rossetti with settings of her poetry that focused largely on early 20th century British composers

Having celebrated the life and loves of American poet Sarah Teasdale as part of its current season [see my review], Nigel Foster's London Song Festival focused its attention on another poet, English this time. On Friday 5 December 2025 Foster was joined by soprano Susan Bullock and speaker Janine Roebuck for The Life and Loves of Christina Rossetti on what would have been the poet's 195th birthday. There were songs by Parry, Arthur Somervell, Juliana Hall, James Scott Irvine, Michael Head, Samuel Coleridge Taylor, Frederic Cowen, Charles Wood, Maude Valerie White, Martin Shaw, Thomas Dunhill, Cecil Armstrong Gibbs, Margaret Wegener, Ned Rorem, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Charles Ives and Liza Lehmann.

Born in 1830, the youngest of four siblings with poet/painter Dante Gabriel as one of her brothers and the sister of Lord Byron's friend and doctor, John William Polidori, as her mother, Christina Rossetti had a life full of just three things, illness, religion and poetry. A long teenage illness seemed to turn Rossetti towards an intense, austere type of religion, where she would come close to marriage twice, yet both times reject the suitor for religious purposes.

Much of her later work is devotional, but composers seem to have chosen widely from her output, and the evening wove together song and spoken text to narrate Rossetti's life. Janine Roebuck read from Rossetti's poetry and letters, whilst Nigel Foster filled in more practical gaps. The songs were chosen to link to this narrative, creating a sense of exploration. Parry's My heart is like a singing bird coming after she fell in love with Charles Cayley, Charles Wood's Boats sail on the rivers coming after Rossetti's description of Hastings where she went for her health, Martin Shaw's Over the sea and Thomas Dunhill's If hope grew on a bush after she rejected Cayley as he was an agnostic. The recital ended with a setting of one of Rossetti's best known poems, When I am dead, my dearest by Liza Lehmann.

Il pomo d'oro: the Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik celebrates its 50th anniversary with Cesti's extravagant opera

Stage set for the underworld scene in Antonio Cesti's opera Il pomo d'oro, performed in Vienna in 1668

In 1652 the composer Antonio Cesti became a member of the court of Ferdinand Charles, Archduke of Austria in Innsbruck and Cesti's opera, La Dori premiered in Innsbruck in 1657. Cesti is, however, best known by reputation for his opera Il pomo d'oro (The Golden Apple) which was written for the wedding in Vienna of Emperor Leopold I in 1666, and first performed in 1668, in a famously lavish production, with a large orchestra, numerous choruses, and various mechanical devices used to stage things like gods descending from heaven (deus ex machina), naval battles, and storms. 

Rather appropriately the Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik is celebrating its 50th anniversary by staging Il pomor d'oro complete - five acts and a prologue, roles performed by 20 singers, with dance and choral sections. The surviving manuscript in Vienna is famously incomplete, so the festival's musical director, Ottavio Dantone, has also composed the missing music for Acts III and V. The production is directed by Fabio Ceresa, with costumes designed by Giuseppe Palella, and sets by Nikolaus Webern, with dancers from Street Motion Studio and the NovoCanto choir.

A new production of Handel's Atalanta will feature young performers from the 2025 Cesti competition. The production is directed by François de Carpentries and Karine Van Hercke under the musical direction of Andrea Buccarella. Making their debuts in the opera will be, among others, Cesti winner Salvador Simão and third-place winner Pierre Gennaï. 

The Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik runs from 24 July to 30 August 2026, full details from the festival's website. 

Fatto per la Notte di Natale: the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin in festive Baroque mood

Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin

Biber, Vivaldi, Locatelli, Corelli, Telemann, Dall'Abaco, Bach; Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 3 December 2025

A programme that was seasonally Baroque, played with a lovely sense of collective engagement. But whilst we might have come for the Corelli, it was Locatelli's ravishing concerto gross that stayed in the memory

The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin with concertmasters Georg Kallweit and Mayumi Hirasaki brought Christmas to Wigmore Hall on Wednesday 3 December 2025 with a programme of Baroque works evoking the season, centred on Corelli's Christmas concerto. 

The programme opened with the 'Ciacona' from Biber's Mystery Sonata IV in D minor 'The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple', and continued with Vivaldi's Violin Concerto in E RV270 'Il Riposo per il Santo Natale', Locatelli's Concerto grosso in F minor Op. 1 No. 8, Corelli's Concerto grosso in G minor Op. 6 No. 8 'Fatto per la Notte di Natale', Telemann's Overture in F 'à la Pastorelle' TWV55:F7, Evaristo Felico Dall'Abaco's Concerto a più istrumenti in B minor Op. 6 No. 4, and Bach's Double Concerto for 2 violins in D minor BWV1043.

A journey through music shaped by migration: Roman Mints' Another Music Festival at St John's Waterloo

Roman Mints' Another Music Festival

Stefania Turkewich (Turkevycz) was the first Ukrainian woman composer. Born in Lemburg, Austria-Hungary (now Lviv, Ukraine) in 1898, she fled Lviv in 1944 and moved to the UK in 1946 where she died in 1977. In the late 1940s, Turkewich returned to composing and created a significant body of work. From time to time she acted again as a pianist, in particular in 1957 in a series of concerts in Ukrainian communities in Britain, and in 1959 at a concert of piano music in Bristol. She was a member of the British Society of Women-Composers and Musicians (which existed until 1972).

Stefania Turkewich in 1920

Yet, amazingly, her music is hardly heard. Like a host of other émigré composers, Turkewich found a refuge in the UK, but did not really find a musical home. Some composers like Andrzej Panufnik seemed to integrate into British musical life, but others like Berthold Goldschmidt did not. 

On 18 January 2026, young Ukrainian musicians Ira Marchuk and Maksym Artemenko will perform Turkewich’s violin sonata in the UK for the first time. They will perform from a photocopy of the manuscript, as the work has still not been published. The performance takes place at St John's Waterloo as part of Roman Mints' Another Music Festival which over three days explores the rich legacy of composers who have lived or continue to live in exile.

There will be music from historical giants – Chopin, Hindemith, Stravinsky, Enescu, Bartók to neglected composers, including Ukrainian composer Theodore Akimenko (1876-1945), who was Stravinsky's first composition teacher. 

The programme features works composed both before and after emigration, highlighting the continuity and evolution of the composer’s artistic voice, including premieres of Alexey Kurbatov’s Quartet, Boris Filanovsky’s Supremus 3, and two UK premieres: Stephania Turkevych’s Sonata for Violin and Piano and Leonid Desyatnikov’s Leaden Echo.  

Such artistic enterprise does not come cheap, and the festival has a fund-raiser to help defray expenses. Do contribute at their GoFundMe page. 

Another Music Festival is at St John's Waterloo on 18, 21, 23 January 2026, full details from the festival website. 

Electric Voice Theatre's Winter Carols by Candlelight

If you are looking for something seasonal but that bit different, then Electric Voice Theatre's Winter Carols by Candlelight might be for you. At Conway Hall on Thursday 11 December 2025, Electric Voice Theatre - Laurence Panter (tenor & piano), Amy Kearsley (mezzo), Gwion Thomas (baritone), Frances M Lynch (soprano) - will be joined by Union Chapel Community Singers, the Dragon Cafe Singers and Christopher Hatton Primary School Choir.

From the beautiful Peace on Earth by Emily Josephine Troup (1853-1913) who was an active member of South Place Ethical Society, to a rousing Merry Christmas from singer and composer Harriet Kendall (1857-1933). Come "a-rambling" with Imogen Holst, celebrate the angels with Judith Weir and listen to some lovely Starlight rounds for children by Nicola Lefanu, sung by the choir of Christopher Hatton Primary School. Expect the unexpected, and of course some beautiful music by Conway Hall’s cherished composer Eliza Flower (1803 – 1846) echoing her own celebrated concerts at South Place Unitarian Chapel. 

Full details from the Electric Voice Theatre's website.

Stories of incredible women from Iranian history and literature: Daughters of Persia created by Margaret Fingerhut and Farhad Poupel

Daughters of Persia is a new evening of music and words, created by British pianist Margaret Fingerhut and rising Iranian composer Farhad Poupel, at Kings Place on 26 January 2025 performed by Margaret Fingerhut (piano), Bradley Creswick (violin) and Guy Johnston (cello), and a narrator to be announced. [see my 2022 interview with Farhad Poupel].

The evening uses a script by screenwriter William Nicholson which weaves together the stories of incredible women from Iranian history and literature with music by a mix of composers from Iran and elsewhere, featuring a new commission from Farhad Poupel The Laughter of Gordafarid for narrator and piano, long with music by fellow Iranians Reza Vali, Aftab Darvishi and Golnoush Khaleghi (1941-2021), one of the first female conductors in Iran.  There will also be much-loved music by Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev, Ravel and Pablo Casals.

The concert aims to not only entertain but inspire, deepen understanding and knowledge.  All proceeds from the show will help create scholarships for exceptional young women artists from Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. In partnership with British-Iranian Jaleh Esfahani Cultural Foundation, the Daughters of Persia Scholarship Fund will give these women living in the UK access to opportunities in the arts they might not otherwise be given. 

Full details from the Kings Place website. 

The internationally-renowned German-Colombian conductor Anna Handler to become new Chief Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra

Anna Handler (Photo: Peter Rigaud)

The Ulster Orchestra has announced that German-Colombian conductor and pianist Anna Handler will be its new chief conductor. Handler will join the Orchestra from September 2026, initially on a three-year contract, in time for the Orchestra's 60th anniversary season.

In 2019/20 the Ulster Orchestra appointed Daniele Rustioni as its chief conductor and in 2022/23, marking the strength of the relationship, he was appointed the Orchestra’s music director. Rustioni held that position until May 2024, when he became music director Laureate, and Anna Handler will succeed him, taking up the position of chief conductor in September 2026.  

Last month, Handler her Boston Symphony Orchestra subscription series debut at short notice, with violinist Joshua Bell. Handler was Gustavo Dudamel Fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the 23/24 season and is currently Assistant Conductor at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She also began her tenure as Kapellmeister of Deutsche Oper Berlin in September 2025 and she is scheduled to conduct eleven operas during her first season.  

Handler grew up in Munich and initially studied piano and conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich before continuing her studies at the Franz Liszt University of Music Weimar, the Accademia Pianistica Internazionale di Imola and the Folkwang University of the Arts. She completed her master's degree in conducting at the Juilliard School in New York in May 2023. At Juilliard, she was the first conductor ever to receive the prestigious Kovner Fellowship.  

Anna Handler’s first concert as chief conductor of the Ulster Orchestra will be the opening concert of the Orchestra’s 60th anniversary Season, in the Ulster Hall on Friday 25 September 2026. 

Full details from the Orchestra's website. 

A thrilling Lady, compelling Macbeth & powerful last-minute stand-in: Chelsea Opera Group celebrates its 75th anniversary with Verdi's Macbeth in the full Paris version

Verdi: Macbeth - Alexey Gusev, Mari Wyn Williams - Chelsea Opera Group (Photo: Matthew Johnson)

Verdi: Macbeth (1865); Alexey Gusev, Mari Wyn Williams, Simon Wilding, José de Eça, Jay Broadhurst, Grant Llewellyn, Chelsea Opera Group; Cadogan Hall
Reviewed 30 November 2025

Verdi's revised Macbeth given in all completeness by a finely theatrical group of soloists, ably supported by chorus and orchestra, celebrating COG's 75th anniversary. 

Having first performed Verdi's Macbeth in 1984 (in the revised version), and then given Verdi's original 1847 version in 2008, Chelsea Opera Group celebrated their 75th anniversary on Sunday 30 November 2025 with a performance of the Verdi's revised 1865 version of Macbeth, for once complete with the ballet music. Grant Llewellyn conducted with Alexey Gusev as Macbeth, Mari Wyn Williams as Lady Macbeth, Simon Wilding as Banquo, José de Eça as MacDuff and Jay Broadhurst as Malcolm. Or at least, that was the planned casting but on the night José de Eça was somewhat unwell and though he sang the part of MacDuff, the big Act Four aria was sung by Jay Broadhurst (who was otherwise singing Malcolm).

Despite the work's popularity, Macbeth retains hints of being one of Verdi's 'problem' operas. For a start, the jaunty music for the Witches does not sit with our current view of Shakespeare's play. Yet when I spoke to director Elijah Moshinsky in advance of his production of the 1847 version of the opera at the Buxton Festival in 2017, he had strong words to say about understanding the cultural background to the original [see my interview]. Add to this, Verdi's reworking of the piece for Paris in 1865 has provided it with some superb later Verdi, yet left the opera as something of a hybrid. 

Verdi: Macbeth - Chelsea Opera Group (Photo: Matthew Johnson)

I certainly retain a strong fondness for the 1847, but choosing the 1865 revision certainly provided a showcase for Chelsea Opera Group's orchestra and chorus, along with a fine group of soloists. Russian-British baritone Alexey Gusev sang the title role in Verdi's Rigoletto with IF Opera this summer, having sung Enrico in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor with them last year. Welsh soprano Mari Wyn Williams sang Lady Macbeth this summer with West Green House Opera, having sung the role also with Mid Wales Opera. And we last caught Simon Wilding as Hunding in the London Opera Company's performance of Wagner's Die Walküre at St John's Smith Square (as it was called then).

A new Elixir & first-time Bohemians: John Savournin announces his first season at Waterperry Opera Festival

Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore -  Oskar McCarthy as Dulcamara in 2021 - Waterperry Opera Festival

For John Savournin's first season as artistic director of Waterperry Opera Festival, the company will be performing Puccini's La Bohème and Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore as its main stage productions. Both works will be sung in English. La Bohème is receiving its first production at the Festival whilst they performed L'elisir d'amore in 2021 in a production by Dan Ayling [see my review].

The company aims to build on the success of its record-breaking 2025 season which saw unprecedented audience turnout and the Festival’s highest-ever selling main stage production.

La Bohème will be directed by Ruth Knight whose production of Handel's Rodelinda opened at Garsington Opera this summer [see my review]. Bertie Baigent, the Festival's co-founder and musical director, conducts with designs by Jennifer Gregory, who designed the 2025 production of Handel's Semele [see my review].

L'elisir d'amore (The Elixir of Love) see director John Wilkie returning to Waterperry for the third year, having directed Mozart's Don Giovanni in 2025 and Rossini's The Barber of Seville before that. L'elisir d'amore will reunite Wilkie with the creative team responsible for Don Giovanni, designer Ceci Calf and lighting designer Jake Wilshire. The conductor is Charlotte Politi.

The full 2026 programme, including family performances and further site-specific productions, will be announced in January. Priority booking will open in early March.

Further details from the Festival's website. 

Faster, higher, stronger: composer Andrea Farri on Orchestrating Harmony for the Olympic Games Milano Cortina 2026

Andrea Farri at Abbey Road Studios

The Italian classical music and film composer Andrea Farri, has been announced as the Musical Director for the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games Milano Cortina. In this guest posting, we talk to Andrea Farri and find out a little bit more.

Andrea Farri, born in 1982 in Rome, has established himself as one of Italy’s most versatile and original composers. Known for a distinctive compositional style that fuses classical orchestration with electronic textures, Farri often employs vintage analogue synthesisers to create a sound that is both rooted in tradition and strikingly contemporary. Over a career spanning cinema, television, and theatre, he has earned acclaim for his emotive, atmospheric scores, including the 2015 Globo d’Oro for Best Film Score and the 2023 Soundtrack Stars Award at the Venice Film Festival for his work on Matteo Garrone’s Io Capitano. Growing up immersed in Italy’s cinematic and theatrical world – his mother is the celebrated actress Lucia Poli, his father the director Pier Farri, and his uncle the legendary actor Paolo Poli – Farri developed an early understanding of storytelling through performance and music.

Now, Andrea Farri takes his storytelling expertise to a global stage as the Music Director of the Winter Olympic Games Milano Cortina 2026 Opening Ceremony. Scheduled for February 6th at Milan’s iconic San Siro Stadium, the ceremony, titled Armonia ("Harmony"), will combine live performances, cinematic staging, and immersive music to celebrate the Olympic spirit. Farri oversees the entire musical direction, creating original compositions that unify the show’s narrative, highlight Italy’s cultural heritage, and connect millions of spectators worldwide. In this exclusive interview, Farri discusses his artistic journey, the translation of cinematic sensibilities to an Olympic spectacle, and the universal language of music that will connect millions of spectators worldwide.

Your career has spanned cinema, television, and theatre. Which moments or turning points do you feel most directly led you to becoming Music Director for the Olympic Games Milano Cortina 2026 Opening Ceremony?

Andrea Farri: I imagine there were two in particular: the soundtrack of “Io Capitano” by Matteo Garrone (Silver Lion and Soundtrack Stars Award at the 2023 Venice Film Festival and Oscar and Golden Globe nominated) and the collaboration with Roland Emmerich on the action series “Those About to Die” (starring Anthony Hopkins and Iwan Reon), one of the most-watched TV shows in the world in 2024. Two memorable experiences with two great directors, on two completely different projects!

The Advent Carol Service at St John's College, Cambridge

Christopher Gray and the Choir of St John's College, Cambridge

The Advent Carol Service: Judith Weir, Laura Sheils, Paul Manz, Mendelssohn, Edward Picton-Turbervill, Orlando Gibbons, John Rutter, Herbert Howells, Britten, Errollyn Wallen; Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, Christopher Gray, Pascal Bachmann, Tingshuo Yang; Chapel of St John's College, Cambridge
Reviewed 29 November 2025

The Advent Carol Service at St John's has become a musical highlight of the season. This year with music Judith Weir and Errollyn Wallen, along with works by younger composers, with several pieces having links to the college.

The Advent Carol Service at St John's College Chapel, Cambridge was developed in the mid-twentieth century for the College community and is led by the College Choir. Since the 1980s the service has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and has become one of the musical highlights of the season. This year the service took place in St John's College Chapel on 29 November and 30 November, the latter broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, led by the Dean, The Rev'd Canon Dr Victoria Johnson and the Chaplain, The Rev' Graham Dunn. Christopher Gray, Director of Music, conducted the Choir of St John’s College which consists of around 20 boy and girl treble Choristers from St John’s College School, alongside 18 mixed-gender Choral Scholars and Choral Graduates. Earlier this year, I chatted to Christopher Gray about his first disc with the choir [see my interview, 'A carefully curated programme rather than a disc to dip into']

I was lucky enough to attend the service on Saturday 29 November. This featured music by Judith Weir, Laura Sheils, Paul Manz, Mendelssohn, Edward Picton-Turbervill, Orlando Gibbons, John Rutter, Herbert Howells, Britten, and a new carol by Errollyn Wallen. Several pieces had links to the college, including arrangements by former Directors of Music, George Guest and Christopher Robinson, whilst Laura Sheils has already written for the Choir, John Rutter's There is a flower was composed for the Choir in 1985, the Magnificat came from Howells' Collegium Sancti Johannis Cantabrigiense written for the Choir in 1957, there was a carol by one of the College's graduates, Edward Picton-Turbervill and Errollyn Wallen's new carol, Nolo mortem peccatoris was not only commissioned by the Master and Fellows but sets an anonymous 15th century text from one of St John's College's manuscripts.

Chapel of St John's College, Cambridge
which was built in the 1860s by George Gilbert Scott

Putting choral music at the centre of contemporary culture: conductor George Parris on the Carice Singers' An Ode to Our Planet collaborating with cellist Nicolas Altstaedt, celebrating Arvo Pärt & their debut at hcmf

George Parris & the Carice Singers (Photo: Lidia Crisafulli)

Conductor George Parris and the Carice Singers have been exploring Arvo Pärt's music alongside that of other Estonian composers, most recently (8 November) at St Giles Cripplegate where they performed music by Arvo Pärt, Evelin Seppar and Galina Grigorjeva [see the review on TheArtsDesk website]. The choir was founded in 2011 by George Parris and named for Elgar's daughter. Their repertoire spreads widely, and whilst the music of Nordic region and the Baltic looms large, George enjoys exploring further.

On 13 December 2025, they will be joining cellist Nicolas Altstaedt at Kings Place for An Ode to Our Planet as part of the Earth Unwrapped season. The concert features Bach's unaccompanied cello suites, two new pieces for cello and choir by French-British composer Josephine Stephenson, and Spanish composer Raquel García-Tomás, and two unaccompanied works by Ben Nobuto and Dobrinka Tabakova.

After the pandemic, George wanted the group to become more collaborative so the idea to perform with cellist Nicolas Altstaedt was most welcome. The idea for the concert originally came from Helen Wallace, the previous artistic director at King's Place, who was herself a cellist. The concert features new music for choir and cello, which is something they were looking to do. Josephine Stephenson’s work, Fire, river, garden, which has been commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society, will be a world premiere. Raquel Garcia-Tomas’s work, Vols brisés , which has been commissioned by Palau de la Musica Catalana and Kings Place, will be the UK premiere. Vols brisés was premiered in May this year by Nicolas Altstaedt with Cor de Cambra del Palau and Júlia Sesé at the Palau de la Música in Barcelona.

George Parris and the Carice Singers at the Cheltenham Music Festival, 2021

Ben Nobuto's work Sol, for eight unaccompanied solo voices and written in 2022 for the National Youth Choir Fellowship, is a playful ode to the sun and the energy that sustains life, while Dobrinka Tabakova’s Turn our Captivity, O Lord, which was written for The Sixteen, offers a serene plea for renewal and hope.

Style, engagement & joy: Handel's Partenope returns to ENO with a terrific young cast

Handel: Partenope - English National Opera (Photo: Lloyd Winters)

Handel: Partenope; Nardus Williams, Hugh Cutting, Ru Charlesworth, Jake Ingbar, Katie Bray, William Thomas, director: Christopher Alden, conductor: William Cole, English National Opera; London Coliseum
Reviewed 26 November 2025

1920s Paris-set production returns with director Christopher Alden back at the helm and a team of superb young soloists who sing stylishly and enter into the concept with a will

Part of the fun of Handel's Partenope is the games it plays with gender and perceived roles. Arsace is the notional hero, Handel wrote the role for a distinguished castrato, but rather than being a moral example the character is weak having ditched one woman for another. The secondary male lead, Armindo was played by a woman en travestie and the character is timid, taking nearly half the opera to admit his love to Partenope. But the woman that Arsace ditched, Rosmira, appears dressed as a man and the big reveal in Act Three is when Arsace insists that he and Rosmira's male incarnation perform their duel bare-chested. The work's comedy thus comes from this play with the original audience's expectations.

English National Opera's production of Partenope directed by Christopher Alden has played extra games with the audience since its debut in 2008. At the 2017 revival [see my review] Arsace was himself played by a woman (Patricia Bardon) and the production has never, I think, used a woman for Armindo as Handel did.

For ENO's latest revival which we saw on 26 November 2025, casting is firmly based on the characters' gender with a cast of young singers bringing new energy to the production. For this revival Christopher Alden returned to direct and Christian Curnyn, the original conductor, was due to be in the pit though his illness meant that William Cole was in charge. Nardus Williams was Partenope, with Hugh Cutting as Arsace, Ru Charlesworth as Emilio, Jake Ingbar as Armindo, Katie Bray as Rosmira and William Thomas as Ormonte.

Handel: Partenope - Nardus Williams, Jake Ingbar, Ru Charlesworth - English National Opera (Photo: Lloyd Winters)

Alden and designers Andrew Lieberman (sets) and Jon Morrell (costumes) set the opera at a salon in Paris in the 1920s with all the men flitting around Nardus Williams' stylish hostess, Partenope. Whilst I have enjoyed the production over the years, the setting and Alden's approach still does not quite convince. The 'battle' at the opening of Act Two remains unconvincing, but then HGO's 2019 beachside Victorian production had a similar problem [see my review]. From the middle of Act Two to the end of the opera, Alden seems to progressively abandon his own dramatic logic and by the middle of Act Three, when Jake Ingbar's Armindo did a tap dance during his aria and William Thomas's Ormonte oversaw the duet in extravagant 18th century drag, you felt that Alden was simply throwing everything at the piece to keep the audience entertained.

Delizie, contente: The Bellot Ensemble explore love in all its forms in 17th century Italy for Cupid's Ground Bass on FHR

Cupid's Ground Bass: Strozzi, uccelini, Farina, Cavalli, Kapsberger, Biber, Monteverdi; Lucine Musaelian, Kieran White, The Bellot Ensemble; FHR Records
Reviewed 26 November 2025

A young ensemble in one of those intelligently put together programmes where the engaging performances draw you in and with many of the items on the disc I thought 'I'd like to hear more of that!'

The Bellot Ensemble is a young period instrument ensemble that in October 2025 began a two-year term s the New Generation Baroque Ensemble with BBC Radio 3. For their debut disc on FHR (First Hand Records), Cupid's Ground Bass the group explores the sound world of 17th-century Italy through the twin mirrors of love and the ground bass. Both popular subjects for 17th-century Italian music, the disc casts its net widely with arias by Barbara Strozzi, Francesco Cavalli and Claudio Monteverdi along with instrumental music by Marco Uccellini, Carlo Farina, Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger, and Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber. 

For the disc, the ensemble features Lucine Musaelian (soprano, viola da gamba), Kieran White (tenor), Olivia Petryszak (recorder), Edmund Taylor and Maxim Del Mar (violin), Jacob Garside (cello), Nathan Giorgetti (viola da gamba), Daniel Murphy (theorbo, baroque guitar), and Matthew Brown (harpsichord, organ). We caught Lucine Musaelian and Nathan Giorgetti, as Intesa Duo at the Handel Hendrix House back in 2023 [see my review]

What the disc is really exploring is the way that 17th-century Italian music expanded its range and freedom, yet the forms often remained. Dances and ground basses were very much the norm, yet focusing on the ground bass can be something of a challenge with a danger of everything seeming to come out of the same mould. The Bellot Ensemble's selection is both ingratiating and canny.

Eleven artists were honoured as this year’s winners of the Aga Khan Music Awards which were held in London for the first time

Qalali Folk Band at Aga Khan Music Awards 2025 (Photo: Joao Peixoto)

Eleven artists were honoured at the weekend as this year’s winners of the Aga Khan Music Awards in a ceremony in the Southbank Centre, London. The Awards brought together the world’s music industry in a global celebration of cultural heritage in partnership with EFG London Jazz Festival, marking the first time the Awards have been held in the United Kingdom. 

Winners came from Morocco, Türkiye, Bahrain, Iran, Lebanon, India, Mali, Palestine, Greece, Pakistan and Senegal with a special Patron’s Award celebratomg two remarkable musical lineages of the great poet, composer, musician and Sufi saint Amir Khusrau (1253–1325), who was instrumental in shaping a large part of the music and cultural history of South Asia. 

At the ceremony, audiences enjoyed performances from winners Qalali Folk Band, Kamilya Jubran, Senny Camara, Farah Kaddour, Derya Türkan, Kyriakos Kalaitzidis, and Jordi Savall, David Mayoral, Yurdal Tokcan, and Hamid El Kasri and Gnawa Kouyous, alongside Karim Ziad. 

Farah Kaddour, Senny Camara, Kamilya Jubran at Aga Khan Music Awards 2025 (Photo: Joao Peixoto)

Full List of Winners of the 2025 Aga Khan Music Awards  

• Sahba Aminikia (Iran/USA) – Composer and social innovator Sahba Aminikia is the founder and artistic director of the Flying Carpet Festival.  
• Mariam Bagayoko (Mali) – Singer, dancer, and instrumentalist. Through her mentorship of women and girls, she has played a vital role in sustaining Mali’s musical and dance traditions.   
• Senny Camara (Senegal) – A kora player, singer, and songwriter, she  offers a luminous and distinctly feminine voice within Senegal’s musical landscape. 
• Kamilya Jubran (Palestine/France) – A pioneering voice in contemporary Arabic music, she draws on her Palestinian roots to explore new creative directions and adventurous cross-cultural collaborations. 
• Farah Kaddour (Lebanon) – Composer, performer, and scholar. She has expanded the expressive potential of the buzuq, a long-necked fretted lute with ancient Middle Eastern origins. 
• Kyriakos Kalaitzidis (Greece) – An oud player, composer, and scholar, he illuminates the deep connections between Islamic and Euro-Mediterranean musical traditions, and has championed research and performance of music from the Levant.  
• Hamid El Kasri (Morocco) –  A singer, guembri player and maâlem (master musician) in the Gnawa tradition, he is dedicated to preserving and renewing Morocco’s musical heritage. 
• Qalali Folk Band (Bahrain) – Established over a century ago, the Band is dedicated to performing and preserving Bahrain’s rich seafaring musical heritage. The ensemble is renowned for its renditions of sawt—a popular urban musical genre—and fijri, the traditional music of Bahrain’s pearl divers.
• Ustad Naseeruddin Saami (Pakistan) – A torchbearer of the Delhi gharana (hereditary lineage) of Hindustani music, Ustad Naseeruddin Saami traces his artistic lineage to Amir Khusrau. 
• Derya Türkan (Türkiye) – A classical kemençe player, composer, and educator, he has brought Turkish classical and folk music to audiences worldwide. He is known for blending Turkish traditions with jazz and European classical idioms. 
• Naseer and Nazeer Ahmed Khan Warsi (India) – Leading exponents of qawwali, the devotional Sufi music of South Asia, brothers belong to a family lineage tracing back to the Qawaal Bachhey (children of qawwali)—the singers and musicians trained by Amir Khusrau (1253-1325), the founder of qawwali. 

His Late Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV (1936-2025) was the 49th hereditary Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims and the founder of the Aga Khan Development Network. One manifestation of his hereditary responsibilities was a deep engagement with development spanning more than sixty years. He established the Aga Khan Music Programme in 2000. 

Full details from the Aga Khan Development Network website.

Pitting the cello, as lone climber, against the heavens-touching vastness of mountains, Belfast-based composer Anselm McDonnell's new cello concerto premieres in Dublin

Anselm McDonnell

Belfast-based composer Anselm McDonnell appeared on these pages earlier this year with my review of his third album, Politics of the Imagination, featuring music where political commentary and sheer playfulness combine with a serious purpose. Now there is a chance to hear a major new work of his live, when his Cello Concerto No. 1 'Hostile Summits' is premiered by cellist Martin Johnson with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland (NSOI), conductor Ryan McAdams at National Concert Hall, Dublin, on 30 January 2026.

The concerto is a commission from the NSOI. Martin Johnson is a long-time collaborator of Anselm McDonnell's, with Johnson appearing on McDonnell's debut album Light of Shore in 2021 [see my review]. 

McDonnell is a keen hiker and for him the concerto 'explores different aspects of our relationship with mountains, from their might and terrifying beauty to their symbolism as places of divine power'. The work pits the cello, as lone climber, against the 'heavens-touching vastness of mountains, their forbidding majesty', whilst the final movement references Christ's Transfiguration, descending from the heights to heal a sick child.

McDonnell describes the work as having a huge amount of drama in it, along with some unusual uses of the orchestra.

Anselm McDonnell's Cello Concerto No. 1 'Hostile Summits'  is premiered by Martin Johnson, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and Ryan McAdams along with music by Wagner and Tchaikovsky at National Concert Hall, Dublin, on 30 January 2026. Full details from the concert hall's website.    

York-based music charity, the Richard Shephard Music Foundation celebrates its most successful year to date.

The Richard Shephard Music Foundation (RSMF), the York-based music charity founded in 2021 to bring 'the experience and enjoyment of music to children and young people in Yorkshire and beyond’ is celebrating its most successful year to date. Over 8,685 children received weekly music lessons through partnerships with 34 schools across Yorkshire and Tees Valley, which marks significant progress in the Foundation's goal to teach 10,000 children every week by 2026 - a target that will mean almost one in seven primary-aged children in the region will have regular access to high-quality music education.

Key Highlights from the Foundation’s 2024–25 Impact Report:

• 8,685 children received weekly music lessons, totalling 8,250 hours of high-quality music education.
• 34 partner schools participated – including new additions in East Yorkshire, Saltburn, Darlington, Richmond, and Selby.
• 450 children joined the Foundation’s biggest-ever Make Music Day, celebrating creativity and collaboration through live workshops and performances.
• 10 free “Music Explorers” holiday clubs reached 263 children, with an average of 57% eligible for Free School Meals – rising to 85% in Scarborough.
• 1,943 children took part in Foundation-led events, concerts, and community performance

Independent evaluations and teacher feedback revealed transformative results:

• 99% of staff reported improved confidence among pupils.
• 97% saw enhanced musical knowledge.
• 92% observed improvements in wellbeing.
• 94% said their school’s standard of music teaching had improved.

The recent Child of the North report from N8 Research Partnership [see the report] found that 93% of children are being excluded from arts and cultural education due to a lack of funding in state schools, with almost half (42%) of secondary schools no longer entering pupils for GCSE Music.

Full details of the Richard Shephard Music Foundation's from their website.

Battleship Potemkin: The Pit Orchestra celebrates the film's centenary with its own innovative score

Sergei Eisenstein: Battleship Potemkin (Photo supplied by BFI)

Sergei Eisenstein’s legendary 1925 silent film, Battleship Potemkin is widely considered a masterpiece in early cinema.  It was inspired by the failed 1905 Russian Revolution and its iconic climactic scene - a fictional massacre of civilians on the iconic Odessa steps in Ukraine - is widely studied for its editing and pioneering use of montage. Later in his career Eisenstein would famously collaborate with composer Sergei Prokoviev for two projects, Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible. 

In 2017, a new score for the film was commissioned and performed by The Pit Orchestra. The score was composed collectively by The Pit Orchestra members under the guidance of lead composers Tom Richardson, Chris Muirhead and Chris Bailey. Now, for the film's 2025 centenary, The Pit Orchestra is bringing back Battleship Potemkin with a new version of the score reimagined by Tom Richardson with technical guidance from composer Simon Dobson.

For one night only on 13 December, University of Plymouth’s The House performing arts centre will journey audiences to a Russian Imperial Navy battleship on the Black Sea when a mutinous uprising by the ship's crew against their ruthless officers, sparked by spoiled meat, becomes a violent clash and one of the most famous closing scenes in cinema history.

The event continues The Pit Orchestra’s mission to breathe new life into classic cinema through live performance. Twelve musicians will perform this moving revival, many of whom will play multiple instruments while also forming a dynamic choir. 

The Pit Orchestra is a freely evolving ensemble of trained and untrained musicians who mix classical and modern instruments and transform with every performance. They write original scores, soundtracks and musical accompaniments in collaboration with filmmakers and artists, and are inspired by a wide variety of musical genres including rock, folk, electro, jazz, ambient and classical. The orchestra formed in 2013 (as The Imperfect Orchestra) and has consistently maintained principles of collaboration, artistic expression, diversity, inclusivity and, perhaps most importantly, celebration of the amateur. 

The Ukrainian Singers of Plymouth will open the event with a performance of traditional and contemporary Ukrainian music.

Full details from The Pit Orchestra's website. 

Calling young conductors: 18th Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition in London & 6th Evgeny Svetlanov International Conducting Competition at CBSO in Birmingham

Donatella Flick and HRH The Duke of Kent announce Nicolò Foron as winner of 17th Donatella Flick Conducting Competition in 2023 © Mark Allan

Calling young conductors. Two international conducting competitions take place over the next year. The sixth edition of the Evgeny Svetlanov International Conducting Competition (CBSO) is to be held in Birmingham in September 2026 presented in partnership with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, music director Kazuki Yamada. The 18th Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition is coming next month and the 20 competitors have been announced.

The Evgeny Svetlanov International Conducting Competition is international and itinerant, having previously been held in Luxembourg, Montpellier, Paris (twice) and Monte-Carlo. The 2026 edition, travelling to Birmingham for the first time, offers young conductors the opportunity to work with the CBSO.

The artistic direction of the Competition is led by René Koering, former music director of Radio France and founder of the Radio France International Music Festival in Montpellier, and the jury will be chaired by conductor Bertrand de Billy. Since 2007, the Svetlanov Competition has welcomed more than 90 young conductors from around the globe. Each edition selects 18 participants from an average of 350 applications representing over 50 countries. Remarkably, over 80 percent of past participants have gone on to enjoy international careers, confirming the competition’s reputation as one of the most effective springboards for emerging conductors worldwide.

Thee competition runs from 3 to 6 September 2026 with the semi-finals and final open to the public. The competition will be broadcast on Medici TV. Applications for the 2026 edition will be open from 1 March to 15 April 2026. Further details from the website.

Now in its 35th year and internationally recognised as one of the world’s leading conducting competitions, the Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition will see the conductors compete for the £15,000 prize awarded by Donatella Flick and for the opportunity to become Assistant Conductor with the London Symphony Orchestra for up to one year. For the first time, the Competition will be filmed for Sky Arts.

The finalists announced come from nine countries: Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The competitors are drawn from the best conductors aged 30 or under who are citizens of the UK; countries having full membership of the European Union; and Norway, Iceland, Lichtenstein or Switzerland.

The chosen finalists are:

Felix Benati - French,  Sieva Borzak - Italian,  Jooyoung Chang - Austrian,  Giovanni Conti - Italian,  Riley Court-Wood - British,  Matteo Dal Maso - Italian,  Nina Haug - Swiss,  Daniel Hogan - British,  Piotr Jaworski - Polish,  Maria Keller - German,  Leonhard Kreutzmann - German,  Julia Kurzydlak - Polish,  Kingsley Lin - British,  Jacob Niemann - German,  Alison Norris - British,  Friedrich Praetorius - German,  Roman Reshetkin - French,  Matthew Rhodes - British,  Konstantinos Terzakis - Greek,  Andreas van Tol - Swedish

Full biographical details from the Competition website, 

The competition is at LSO St Lukes from 2 to 4 December 2025, and further information is available from the website.

Ode to Pity: Penelope Appleyard & Jonathan Delbridge take Jane Austen celebrations into song with music by Donna McKevitt

The 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth is on 16 December 2025. Musical celebrations, however, seem somewhat sparse and Jonathan Dove's Mansfield Park apart, there seem to be few occasions where Austen's text has found its way into music. Yet Austen and her family loved music and their music books survive. Last year I chatted to academic Gillian Dooley about her book on Jane Austen and music [see my interview, 'She played and sang']

In celebration of the anniversary, soprano Penelope Appleyard commissioned composer Donna McKevitt to create a new Jane Austen setting. The result is Ode to Pity for soprano and square piano, setting one of Austen's early works using the sort of keyboard instrument that she would have been familiar with.

The song has been recorded by Appleyard and pianist Jonathan Delbridge (the duo, The Little Song Party) along with two other songs that Jane Austen knew, Song from Burns (as Their Groves of Sweet Myrtle was known in the Austen family), setting poetry by Robert Burns, and Robin Adair, an Irish tune which is the only song mentioned by name in Austen's novels. The three songs are available as an EP from VOCES8 Records.

The songs feature in Sense and Musicality, The Little Song Party's recital programme that features music that Jane Austen knew and played, along with composers alluded to in her novels.

You can catch up with The Little Song Party's performance schedule at their website, and they are presenting Jane Austen’s Christmas Gaiety with narrator Zeb Soanes as part of VOCES8's LIVE from London Festival (8 December to 6 January 2026), see website. 

This lively, engaging production drew us in with little sense of the artificial: Opera North revives Phyllida Lloyd's 1993 production of Puccini's La Boheme

Puccini: La Boheme - Opera North (Photo: Richard H Smith)

Puccini: La boheme; Joshua Blue, Isabela Diaz, Katie Bird, Josef Jeongmeen Ahn, Han Kim, Sean Boylan, director: Phyllida Lloyd/James Hurley, conductor Catriona Beveridge; Opera North at Theatre Royal Nottingham
Reviewed 22 November 2025

Still in vibrant health, Phyllida Lloyd's 1950s Paris-set production eschews artifice for directness and a young cast bring the opera to life in a lively and engaging manner

When Phyllida Lloyd and designer Anthony Ward created their production of Puccini's La boheme for Opera North in 1993, their setting of Paris in the 1950s was easily within living memory, just 40 years away.  But now, some 32 years after the production's premier, the time period slips into historical memory. In the programme book for Opera North's latest revival of the production, Phyllida Lloyd explains that her and Ward's intention was not to create a 1950s Paris version of the opera but simply to strip down the story to its essentials/

Yet 32 years is a long period in the life of a theatre production. Perhaps its stripped-back nature means that there is space for the cast of each revival to make it their own yet, my-grandfather's-axe-like, it remains Phyllida Lloyd's. We caught the final performance of Opera North's latest revival of the production and certainly it seemed in vibrant health.

We saw Phyllida Lloyd's production of Puccini's La boheme at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham on Saturday 22 November 2025. Catriona Beveridge conducted (taking over from Garry Walker who conducted the majority of the 16-date run)/ Sets and costumes were by Anthony Ward, and the revival director was James Hurley. Some roles were double cast and we caught Josef Jeongmeen Ahn as Marcello, Joshua Blue as Rodolfo, Han Kim as Colline, Sean Boylan as Schaunard, Isabela Diaz as Mimi, Katie Bird as Musetta and Jeremy Peaker (who was retiring after 37 years service in the Opera North chorus) as Benoit and Alcindoro.

Puccini: La Boheme - Opera North (Photo: Richard H Smith)

Beyond the 1950s setting, complete with Marcello's motorbike, the production had several imaginative touches. It was deliberately artful, each act was viewed through a frame as if seeing snapshot. At the end of Act One, for 'O soave fanciulla', a black curtain came down, then Joshua Blue and Isabela Diaz sang their duet in front of a projection of the moon. Artful yet practical so at the end of the act the cafe Momus scene flowed immediately. Here there was simply a mobile banquette of seats and much of the atmosphere relied on the chorus, sounding and looking vivid, and the children of the Opera North Youth Company. The banquette reappeared in Act Three for the bar were Marcello and Musetta were working, now a club called 'Reve', seen in occasional glimpses through the backdrop.