Dazzling aural journeys where the political commentary and sheer playfulness combine with a serious purpose: Anselm McDonnell's Politics of the Imagination

Anselm McDonnell: Stop Small Boats, Politics of the Imagination, The Union is our God, Cross-Purposes; Crash Ensemble, London Symphony Orchestra, Kosyne, Barrowclough, Joel the Custodian; Anselm McDonnell/Bandcamp
Reviewed 4 June 2025

Politics and playfulness thread their way through composer Anselm McDonnell's latest album as he collaborates with rappers on a music theatre piece that mixes political comment with magic realism, yet we also have a musical evocation of Northern Ireland's troubled past.

Politics of the Imagination is Anselm McDonnell's third album, released through his own label. Featuring works for 2022/23 commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra and Crash Ensemble, the connecting theme of the disc is politics and the works showcase collaborations with Birmingham rappers Kosyne, Barrowclough, and Joel the Custodian, performed with members of the London Symphony Orchestra and Crash Ensemble.

We begin with Stop Small Boats featuring dazzling vocals from the three rappers with music from Leonie Bluett (clarinet), Kate Ellis (cello), and Paddy Nolan (percussion) of Crash Ensemble. The words with their refences to the small boats political catch phrase form a vivid, seductively rhythmic line where meaning dissolves into seductive pure sound complemented by McDonnell's wonderfully bouncy clarinet line.

Kirklees Concert Season 2025/26: Orchestra of Opera North's year round concert season in Huddersfield and Dewsbury Town Halls

Elena  Urioste, Gary Walker & Orchestra of Opera North at Huddersfield Town Hall

The Kirklees Concert Season is a year-round programme of concerts presented by Opera North and Kirklees Council in Huddersfield and Dewsbury Town Halls. This year the Orchestra of Opera North is presenting seven concerts as part of a season running from September 2025 to June 2026, along with one concert from the Opera North Youth Orchestra. There are also seven chamber concerts showcasing and curated by musicians from the Orchestra of Opera North, and a series of lunchtime organ recitals on the Father Willis Organ in Huddersfield Town Hall.

Orchestra concerts begin in Huddersfield Town Hall on 25 September 2025 with Gary Walker conducting Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 1 and Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 with soloist Elena Urioste. In December, Chloe Rooke conducts music from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, Walton's Viola Concerto with soloist Dana Zemtsov and music by Elgar and Finnish composer Outi Tarkiainen.

In January 2026, the Father Willis organ in Huddersfield Town Hall gets to join in with Saint-Saens' Symphony No. 3 with organist David Pipe and conductor Sora Elisabeth Lee, plus music by Ravel, Chabrier and Augusta Holmes. In February, Karel Deseure conducts music by Mozart, Stravinsky and Beethoven, then in March, Oliver Rundell conducts the Opera North Youth Orchestra in selections from Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel. [The Youth Orchestra is also performing on 14 December 2025 in St. Paul's Hall, University of Huddersfield]

April sees Gary Walker conducting Thomas Ades, Rachmaninov and Brahms, and the season concludes in June with Katie Stilman directing Vivaldi's The Four Seasons from the violin.

Full details from the Opera North website.

Festival of Musical Ideas: Gresham College holds inaugural festival fusing music with science and the humanities

Gresham College is hosting the inaugural Festival of Musical Ideas on Friday 20 June 2025 at the college in Barnard’s Inn Hall, Holborn. Gresham Professors will present a day of learning, exploration and music, fusing music with science and the humanities.

Milton Mermikides, Gresham College’s Professor of Music, commented: "By bringing together leading thinkers from across science, humanities, and the arts, the festival invites us to explore music not just as sound, but as a shared and profound way of understanding the world."

The day concludes with a lecture from Sky at Night presenter Professor Chris Lintott (the current Gresham Professor of Astronomy) which explores historic and contemporary musical representations of astronomical data while exploring astro-sonification in black hole radiation and exoplanetary systems.

During the day, Professor Robin May asks if music is an extension of evolution, and why music can evoke strong emotions; Professor Morten Kringelbach, neuroscientist and the founding director of the Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing, talks to Milton Mermikides about music in the brain; Professor Melissa Lane explores Ancient Greek philosophies on music; and Gresham College’s Acting Provost Professor Sarah Hart explores the connections between music and mathematics.

Founded in 1597 by Sir Thomas Gresham, Gresham College has been providing free, educational lectures to Londoners for over 400 years from a lineage of leading professors and experts in their field who have included Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke, Iannis Xenakis and Sir Roger Penrose. 

Entry to every lecture is free and they will be streamed online, people can attend as much or as little as they like. Full details from the college website.

A Capella Summer School: work with Frances M Lynch of Electric Voice Theatre at Conway Hall

Performer, composer, director Frances M Lynch, who is the artistic director of Electric Voice Theatre, the contemporary music-theatre acappella ensemble, is running an A Capella Summer School open to singers aged 18 to 35 from 11 to 14 August 2025 at Conway Hall. This will be an opportunity to work with Electric Voice Theatre's expert a capella ensemble techniques via music by women composers.

The Summer school will feature special sessions with mezzo-soprano Jenny Miller, founder of Barefoot Opera, tenor and pianist Laurence Panter, music director of Barefoot Opera, composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad and BSL interpreter Lauren Lister.

Full details from the Electric Voice Theatre website.

1-2-3 Engegård Quartet! Norwegian ensemble celebrates 20 years at its own festival in Oslo

The Engegård Quartet has been playing together for 20 years and this year its 1-2-3 Festival in Norway celebrates its 10th anniversary. For this double celebration, the quartet is presenting 1-2-3 Engegård Quartet! at Sentralen in Oslo from 14 to 16 November 2025. The festival features some of the most important works from the quartet's repertoire in the last 20 years along with important collaborators. I chatted to members of the quartet back in 2020, see my interview.

The festival begins with Grieg and Schumann's Piano Quintet with a new work by Nils Økland, and they will be joined by former members of the quartet for a performance of Mendelssohn's Octet, whilst actress Gjertrud Jynge joins them for an evening based on Jon Fosse's Septology combining powerful texts with music from Bach to Kurtag to Norwegian folk. And the weekend ends with a concert combining Ibsen with Beethoven's String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132. The quartet will also be celebrating the completion of their recordings of all of Mozart's 26 quartets on Lawo Classics. Full detail of the festival from the website.

In the UK, the quartet will be at the Roman River Festival in Essex in September [further details], opening the festival's 25th anniversary season with a concert of Grieg, Mozart and Norwegian folk music. And the quartet is also in Hereford the same month with Grieg, Boyce and Beethoven [    ]

Grimeborn 2025: The first staging of John Joubert's Jane Eyre alongside Tristan, Lucia, Don Giovanni & more

The Grimeborn Festival returns to Arcola Theatre from 16 July to 13 September 2025 for a season which includes fresh versions of classics such as Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and Mozart's Don Giovanni as well as a the first full staging of John Joubert's late masterwork, Jane Eyre.

Arcola Theatre and Green Opera are collaborating on the first complete staging of John Joubert's Jane Eyre. John Joubert (1927-2019) worked on Jane Eyre from 1987 to 1997 but the work never had a proper professional performance and remained one of those tantalising possibilities. Kenneth Woods and the English Symphony Orchestra gave the work its professional premiere in October 2016 in Birmingham, and the resulting live recording was released on the SOMM label in March 2017 [see my review] to coincide with Joubert’s 90th birthday. Now Eleanor Burke directs the work's first full staging, with Laura Mekhail as Jane and Hector Bloggs as Rochester.

Regents Opera, fresh from their triumphant Ring Cycle earlier this year, present an intimate take on Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in a new chamber arrangement of the score, created by musical director Michael Thrift. Guido Martin-Brandis directs with Brian Smith Walters as Tristan, Elizabeth Findon and Becca Marriott sharing Isolde. Brandis directed Regents Opera's predecessor, Fulham Opera's impressive staging of Strauss' Die ägyptische Helena in 2021 also with Brian Smith Walters, see my review. 

Ensemble OrQuesta and Marcio da Silva return to Mozart with a stripped down version of Don Giovanni with the orchestral accompaniment by the Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra Ensemble, plus Oshri Segev, Flávio Lauria, Helen May, Rosemary Carlton-Willis, Anna-Luise Wagner, and John Twitchen. See my review of their production of Le nozze di Figaro at last year's Grimeborn Festival

Another returning company is Barefoot Opera who bring Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in a production blending storytelling and physical theatre, directed by Rosie Kat with Beren Fidan as Lucia. Other productions include Green Opera in Testament, a journey through four centuries of vocal music explores humanity’s evolving relationship with nature. Baseless Fabric reinvent Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore for today's social media savvy world, whilst Prologue Opera present Becoming Tosca an evening that explores Puccini's opera and its background, setting the story in context, combining newly commissioned music with an abridged version of Puccini’s score. And Neal Hampton's musical version of Sense & Sensibility returns after last year's sold-out run.

Full details from Arcola Theatre's website.

Sundays at the London Sketch Club: concerts from students and alumni of the Royal College of Music in their historic studio

The London Sketch Club

The London Sketch Club was founded in the late 19th century as a club for professional artists and illustrators. Today the London Sketch Club is still going strong and open to both professional and amateur artists with members, and non-members, enjoying weekly life drawing and portraiture classes at the club’s historic studio in Chelsea. In 1957, the Club moved to its current home in Dilke Street , with its magnificent studio which was built for Victorian portrait painter John Collier. The studio walls are decorated with silhouettes, some brought from the two previous premises, of Club presidents dating back to the early years which demonstrate its rich and illustrious history.

They also run regular concerts in the studio space, and on the last Sunday of the month The Sketch Club hosts a performance by young musicians, including students and alumni of the Royal College of Music. 

On 15 June, they welcome emerging young American-Russian pianist, historical keyboardist and collaborative pianist/répétiteur Paul Mnatsakanov, an alumnus of the Royal College of Music, to perform Schumann's Carnaval. Further concerts include further alumni of the RCM including cellist Carys Underwood in Bach's Cello Suite No. 4 and music by Malcolm Arnold and Edmund Finnis, Italian pianist Antonio Morabito in Scarlatti, Respighi, Chopin and Liszt including Sonetto del Petrarca Op.104 and Hungarian Rhapsody No. 15, and baritone Peter Edge with pianist John Whittaker in music by Whittaker alongside poetry by Anthony Pinching, a retired clinical immunologist (and poet).

Full details from the Sketch Club's website.

To invigorate the artistic life of the area: High Barnet Chamber Music Festival celebrates its 5th anniversary

Dr Joshua Ballance, founder of the High Barnet Chamber Music Festival

The High Barnet Chamber Music Festival is celebrating its fifth anniversary with a series of concerts celebrating the world of song. Beginning on Saturday 7 June 2025 the festival runs until 5 July at various locations in High Barnet. Founder, Dr Joshua Ballance explains, "When we launched this festival, in the middle of Covid, we were attempting to bring really high quality performances to High Barnet, to offer work to young musicians at the start of their careers and to invigorate the artistic life of the area. Five years on I’m pleased we’ve achieved those aim."

Things being with a flute and piano recital from Hannah Gillingham and Luke Lally Maguire. Birdsong, a Playful Introduction for Families is a family friendly afternoon concert with an emphasis on introducing over-sevens to chamber music. At the opposite end of the spectrum, baritone Jonathan Eyers joins Ballance and his ensemble Mad Song for Peter Maxwell Davies' iconic Eight Songs for a Mad King plus music by Berio, Lolavar, Benjamin, and Palmer.

Baritone Hugo Herman-Wilson and pianist Richard Gowers, feature music by Vaughan William, Madeleine Dring,  Britten and Ives at their afternoon concert at Queen Elizabeth's School, and the festival ends with  Ensemble Pro Victoria and music by Monteverdi, Strozzi and le Jeune.

Full details from the festival website.

With Helena Dix in top form, bel canto fireworks illuminate La straniera, a Bellini rarity given a welcome outing by Chelsea Opera Group

Bellini: La straniera - Helena Dix
acknowledging applause at Chelsea Opera Group performance
Cadogan Hall (Photo: c/o Helena Dix)

Bellini: La straniera; Helena Dix, Thomas Elwin, Georgia Mae Bishop, Dan D'Souza, Chelsea Opera Group, Stephen Barlow; Cadogan Hall
Reviewed 1 June 2025

Bellini's second big hit; a rather strange story brought alive by the bel canto ardency of Helena Dix finely supported by a terrific line up of talent

La straniera was Bellini's fourth opera, coming after the success of Il Pirata at La Scala in Milan moved Bellini from a local celebrity in Naples to a national celebrity. For La Straniera, Bellini was working again with the librettist of Il Pirata, Felice Romani. Bellini and Romani would go on to collaborate on all of Bellini's subsequent operas except for his final one, I Puritani. Romani is regarded as the best Italian librettist between Metastasio and Boito, he wrote for everyone but was incredibly busy. The partnership with Bellini was not without problems, and following Il Pirata you sense Bellini taking time to hit his stride.

After La straniera, Bellini and Romani would revise Bellini's second opera as Bianca e Fernando to mixed results. Their next collaboration, Zaira was a failure and much of the music ended up in I Capuleti e i Montecchi which was an unqualified success. After this came La sonnambula and Norma and the rest, as they say, is history.

As for La straniera, it premiered in 1829 at La Scala, Milan going on to be performed all over Italy as well as in London, Vienna, Paris, New York and Lisbon. The last known performance seems to have been in 1875, and the opera was only revived at La Scala in 1935. 20th century performances remained rare, often linked to a particular soprano. Stagings seem to be even rarer and Christoph Loy's 2013 production for Zurich Opera has had a couple of revivals. In London, Opera Rara presented the work in concert in 2007 in association with their recording with David Parry conducting and Patrizia Ciofi in the title role.

On Sunday 1 June 2025, Chelsea Opera Group gave Bellini's La straniera a most welcome concert performance at London's Cadogan Hall. Stephen Barlow conducted, with Helena Dix as Alaide, known as la straniera, Thomas Elwin as Arturo, Dan D'Souza as Valdeburgo, Georgia Mae Bishop as Isoletta, Will Diggle as Osburgo, Thomas D Hopkinson as the Prior and Kevin Hollands as Count Montolino.