Explaining the unexplainable: a seductive & magical album from Lotte Betts-Dean, Dimitris Soukaras, everything you've ever lived on Delphian

everything you've ever lived: Baden Powell, Ravel, Seiber, de Falla, Richard Rodgers, Burt Bacharach, My Brightest Diamond, Vincente Asencio, Debussy, Sinead O'Connor, Caroline Polachek, Britten, Asik Veysel, Jorge Cardoso, Paurillo Barroso, Armando Soares; Lotte Betts-Dean, Dimitris Soukaras; Delphian Records
Reviewed 1 October 2025

A mysterious and seductive recital from a voice and guitar duo that moves smoothly and hauntingly through countries, eras and styles to create a little bit of magic

There is a phrase in Megan Stellar's rather flowery booklet note for mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean's latest disc which helps to elucidate the rather elusive nature of the programme. "That melange of ambiguity and subconscious understanding lifts alongside Lotte and Dimitris's interest in harmonic connection and the subtle stories that can be told...". 

For the disc, everything you've ever lived on Delphian Records, Lotte Betts-Dean is joined by guitarist Dimitris Soukaras for a recital which moves effortlessly and nearly seamlessly through Baden Powell, Ravel, Seiber, de Falla, Richard Rodgers, Burt Bacharach, My Brightest Diamond, Vincente Asencio, Debussy, Sinead O'Connor, Caroline Polachek, Britten, Asik Veysel, Jorge Cardoso, Paurillo Barroso and Armando Soares.

The album is described as 'exploring ideas of nostalgia, childhood memory and the state between waking and sleep'. Which covers a remarkable amount of ground. What is distinctive for me is not so much the subject matter of the songs as the way one flows into another with hardly a ripple. 

This is not so much a recital of songs as a sequence, lasting just over an hour, that flows smoothly and seductively. And make no bones about it, Betts-Dean's voice, no matter the subject she is singing about, is wonderfully seductive and beautifully smooth and partnered by Soukaras' stunning guitar playing. That at least ten of the tracks on the disc are his own arrangements must be to his credit in creating the sense of coherence and flow.

everything you've ever lived - Lotte Betts-Dean & Dimitris Soukaras - Delphian Records
(Photo: foxbrushfilms.com)

The London Opera Company to perform Götterdämmerung this October

Following sold out and critically acclaimed performances of Tristan und Isolde, Die Walküre [see my review] and Siegfried [see Tony's review], the London Opera Company (LOC) returns to Sinfonia Smith Square (formerly St John’s Smith Square) on Sunday 19 October with a full orchestra for its most ambitious concert yet - Götterdämmerung

The production features a cast of seasoned professionals including Katie Lowe, who made her Royal Opera House (ROH) debut in Die Walküre earlier this year, and Philippa Boyle, who returns as Gutrune following a wonderful Sieglinde for the London Opera Company in 2023. Philippa also performed for the first time at ROH in their award-winning Festen. Harriet Williams sings Waltraute. Neal Cooper takes on the role of Siegfried (currently singing Thibault at ROH) and Cara Mchardy following her excellent reviews for Siegfried and Die Walkūre with LOC continues her role as Brünnhilde.

They are joined by voices fresh to Wagner and an orchestra with a core of professionals playing alongside the best post-graduates from London’s top music colleges. LOC Orchestral Bursary offers a yearly prize and paid opportunity for a talented musician nurturing young talent.

Peter Selwyn conducts the orchestra. This follows his recent success with Opera Holland Park’s Der Fliegende Holländer [see my review], and see my 2022 interview with Peter Selwyn, 'From Bayreuth to Grimeborn'.

The Wagner Tubas and Stierhorn, kindly loaned by the Royal Opera House, will, as with the Company’s much celebrated production of Die Walküre, bring a special grandeur to the performance. 

Further details from Sinfonia Smith Square's website.

Clarinet & strings: Coleridge-Taylor & a new Jago Thornton piece in the Sacconi Quartet's Sunday concert at Conway Hall with David Campbell

Jago Thornton

Jago Thornton, Shostakovich, Coleridge-Taylor; Sacconi Quartet, David Campbell; Conway Hall Sunday Concerts
Reviewed 28 September 2025

Coleridge-Taylor's early masterwork paired with a new piece for clarinet and strings by Jago Thornton, commissioned as a pairing and inspired by the cityscape known to both composers.

The Sunday concert at Conway Hall on 28 September 2025 featured the Sacconi Quartet (Ben Hancox, Hannah Dawson, Robin Ashell, Cara Berridge) and clarinettist David Campbell in programme that culminated in Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Clarinet Quintet in F sharp minor and began with the premiere of Jago Thornton's Study in Submersion for clarinet and string quartet, commissioned as a partner for Coleridge-Taylor's quintet. Between the two, the quartet played Shostakovich's highly personal String Quartet in C sharp minor Op. 110. Before the concert, I gave a preconcert talk looking at Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's early life and training with background to the creation of his quintet and his best known work, Hiawatha.

Named for outstanding twentieth-century Italian luthier and restorer Simone Sacconi, the Sacconi Quartet celebrate they 25th anniversary next year, and still feature the original line up. The four players first got together whilst studying at the Royal College of Music. 

The youngest female composer ever commissioned by the Ulster Orchestra, marking her debut with national ensemble: premiere of Amelia Clarkson's The Rain Keeps Coming at Ulster Hall

Amelia Clarkson

Amelia Clarkson is a Northern Irish composer from County Down and she currently works between Belfast and Manchester where she is undertaking a PhD at the Royal Northern College of Music. She is the 2022 Mendelssohn Scholar. Awarded to a composer for for advanced study since 1856, this scholarship supports her current PhD where her research is centred on creating new music for dance.

On 10 October, Amelia Clarkson makes her debut with her home orchestra at Belfast's Ulster Hall when the Ulster Orchestra premieres her The Rain Keeps Coming, a stunning new commission by the Orchestra, where the soothing rhythms of rainfall lead through cycles of renewal and reflection. 

Reflecting on the piece, she said “The Rain Keeps Coming is a celebration of the relentlessness of life. We move through these constant cycles of joy and pain, leading us to renewal and reflection. At times it feels overwhelming, as though we’re drenched by it all, and yet there is also wonder in that persistence. This piece is about holding resilience and fragility in the same breath, and finding the magic in feeling alive, even when caught in a downpour.”

At 29, Clarkson becomes the youngest female composer ever commissioned by the Ulster Orchestra, marking both her debut with national ensemble and a significant moment in the orchestra’s history.

Andrew Gourlay conducts in a programme that includes Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 with Vadym Kholodenko and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4.

Full details from the Ulster Orchestra's website.

Letter from Florida: Tianyi Lu conducts Bartók & Brahms with Lukas Vondracek & New World Symphony

Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 3 - Lukas Vondracek (Photo: New World Symphony)

Brahms: Academic Festival Overture, Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 3, Brahms: Symphony No. 1; Lukas Vondracek, New World Symphony, Tianyi Lu, Ziwei Ma; New World Center, Florida
Reviewed by Robert J Carreras (20 September 2025)

Inspiring accounts of strenuous works by Johannes Brahms and Bela Bartok in New World Symphony's first orchestra concert of the 2025-26 season conducted by Chinese-born New Zealander Tianyi Lu

Only at the very end of Peter Ustinov Reads the Orchestra is the conductor given some shrift. Just before the Finale, Ustinov refers to her as, “...one last member of the orchestra.” The marketing strategy of leaving the best for last escapes no medium, what you will. And if not best, the work of conductor should be described as most. Responsibilities fallen on conductor’s shoulders are as heavy-duty as they are infinite. 

Conductor of a major orchestra must be an avid interpreter of music as a language. She must be storyteller to the listener of the composer’s score. She must learn and recall many musical languages; old and new, established and emerging composers are part of standard concert programs. She must be conversant in a vast field of musical-speak.

She must be classically trained and reach the level of concert player in her own instrument, often the piano, and also get an applied grasp on the whole family of instruments of the orchestra. She must develop an understanding of these instruments so as to communicate with sections and individual players in credible and convincing ways. 

She must corral orchestral forces – from only a few in chamber music, to a few more, and a group of some 40 players (and singers) or more at a time. And, she must make the music play in a way that translates to audience comprehension, performance after performance.

Equal to these benchmarks is Tianyi Lu, as is sure enough the fresh liveliness and expressiveness she brings to New World Symphony (NWS). This program was an inspiring account of strenuous works by Johannes Brahms and Bela Bartok in NWS’s first orchestra concert of the 2025-26 season. Lu is sure and equal to the task of osmoting much positive influence on this, America’s orchestral academy. 

Peter Wiegold: Being in the room. How to make it happen.

Peter Wiegold

Composer, conductor, collaborator and remarkable artistic creative, Peter Wiegold will be giving an online talk for School of Sound on 14 October 2025. Titled Being in the room. How to make it happen, Peter Wiegold will reflect on what for him is the essence of a successful creative collaboration. What kind of presence, intelligence, awareness, playfulness leads to that vital creative spark? The sudden moment when the new, the spontaneous – the funny – happens. When it really comes together.

He will also show excerpts from his process and work, especially from his current project The Third Orchestra, a global orchestra with musicians from right across world traditions, classical, jazz, folk electronic and so on.

Peter Wiegold is known for his Club Inégales in London, with its cross-genre, cross-culture ensemble, Notes Inégales. It was out of these that came The Third Orchestra which was launched at the Barbican in 2019. He likens the orchestra to all the club nights in one. Not so much fusion, rather they reflect the experience, sensibilities and lineage of each person, allowing them to stay being that musician – in an alchemy with the others.

The School of Sound is a space to learn about the creative use of sound in the arts and media, through online events, short courses, research, reflection and our collection of writings, interviews and recorded talks.

Find out more from School of Sound website.

Upstairs at Ronnie's to host the first ever regular weekly classical night at Ronnie Scott's curated by Lizzie Ball & James Pearson

James Pearson & Lizzie Ball
(Photo: Monika C Jakubowska)

Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club has announced that from February next year it is reopening the first floor of the club (which closed in 2024) with a newly reimagined venue. Upstairs at Ronnie's will host the club’s first-ever regular weekly classical night, taking place every Monday with an early and late showing, as part of a packed schedule of programming including soul, R&B, gospel, hip-hop, global music and jazz.

The Monday evening classical nights will be curated by violinist, vocalist and producer, Lizzie Ball, whose Classical Kicks project featured at Ronnie Scott's from 2012 to 2019, and Ronnie Scott’s artistic director and pianist, James Pearson.

The classical programming will feature the Ronnie Scott’s Classical All Stars, a seven-piece ensemble directed by pianist James Pearson with musicians including Lizzie Ball and Shlomy Dobrinsky (violin); Megan Cassidy (viola); Gabriella Swallow (cello); Jon Shenoy (clarinet/flute/saxophone); Callum Au (trombone/horn) and James Turner (percussion). Together they will reimagine orchestral and symphonic favourites and iconic repertoire for a chamber-sized ensemble. Also featured will be Lizzie Ball's Classical Kicks with collaborators including cellist Gabriella Swallow, accordionist Miloš Milivojević, and percussionist James Turner, alongside special guests, performing music from Piazzolla, Bartók, Gershwin, and more.

Special events will include Her Ensemble, the UK’s first women and non-binary orchestra, directed by Ellie Consta, with cellist Laura van der Heijden and pianist Junyan Chen, in a programme celebrating female composers for International Women’s Day month. Other guests include the launching of a residency from Chineke! and violinist Elena Urioste and pianist Tom Poster's #UriPosteJukeBox blending classical repertoire, plus the Kings Singers.

Close Up Classical will offer audiences intimate evenings of music and conversation with leading actors, musicians, and cultural figures, including actress Juliet Stevenson and film composer David Arnold.

Full details from Ronnie Scott's website.

Engaging rom-com energy in Martin Constantine's not quite end of the pier production of Donizetti's The Elixir of Love at English Touring Opera

Donizetti: The Elixir of Love - Timothy Nelson & chorus - English Touring Opera (Photo: © Richard Hubert Smith)

Donizetti: The Elixir of Love; Natasha Page, Tamsanqa Tylor Lamani, Emyr Wyn Jones, Timothy Nelson, Rosie Lomas, director: Martin Constantine, conductor: Alice Farnham, English Touring Opera; Hackney Empire
Reviewed 27 September 2025

Relocated to a fading 1980s English seaside resort, Martin Constantine's production brings an engaging rom-com energy to Donizetti's comedy with some delightful performances from a strong ensemble

Opera companies seem to have a fondness for Donizetti's comedy L'elisir d'amore at the moment and productions have included St Paul's Opera's recent production, ENO in 2024, Wild Arts in 2023 (revived this summer), Longborough Opera in 2023, West Green Opera and Longhope Opera in 2022 and Waterperry Opera in 2021. That's a lot of elixir being drunk. Now English Touring Opera has produced their version which is touring to 12 venues this autumn alongside Britten's The Rape of Lucretia.

English Touring Opera opened Martin Constantine's new production of Donizetti's The Elixir of Love at the Hackney Empire on Saturday 27 September 2025. Alice Farnham conducted with Natasha Page as Adina, Tamsanqa Tylor Lamani as Nemorino, Timothy Nelson as Belcore, Emyr Wyn Jones as Dulcamara and Rosie Lomas as Gianetta. Designs were by April Dalton and movement by Jennifer Fletcher. 

The work was sung in Amanda Holden's English translation originally created for Stephen Medcalfe's 1993 production for English Touring Opera. The opera was performed in John Longstaff's orchestral reduction using forces that matched those of Britten's opera.

Donizetti: The Elixir of Love - Emyr Wyn Jones, Natasha Page, Timothy Nelson & chorus - English Touring Opera (Photo: © Richard Hubert Smith)

La Grande Audition de Leipzig: Paul Agnew & Les Arts Florissants take us to Leipzig in 1722 & 1723

A 1723 engraving by Johann Gottfried Krügner of the Thomaskirche, Leipzig

La Grande Audition de Leipzig; Telemann, Kuhnau, Graupner, Bach; Miriam Allan, Maarten Engeltyes, Thomas Hobbs, Edward Grint, Les Arts Florissants, Paul Agnew; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 26 September 2025

Bach's contemporaries and rivals in a concert exploring what Leipzig heard in 1722 and 1723 as the city authories sought to replace the late Johann Kuhnau 

When Johann Kuhnau died in June 1722, the city authorities in Leipzig moved fairly quickly to find a worthy successor. Kuhnau had been in post since 1701 and wrote a significant amount of church music (of which only around 30 pieces survive). The search, however, was not simple and between August 1722 and February 1723, the city authorities went through a total of four possible candidates. One (Johann Friedrich Fasch) refused even to audition, but three did - Georg Philipp Telemann, Christoph Graupner and Johann Sebastian Bach. The first two passed with flying colours, but Telemann managed to get better conditions in his existing job in Hamburg (where he would remain in post until 1767) whilst Graupner failed to get permission to leave from the authorities in Darmstadt (he would remain in post until 1754 when he went blind).

This has left us with a tantalising selection of cantatas which Telemann, Graupner and Bach wrote for their auditions. For their concert at Wigmore Hall on Friday 26 September under the title of La Grande Audition de Leipzig, Paul Agnew and Les Arts Florissants performed a programme of cantatas by Telemann, Kuhnau, Graupner and Bach related to these events. Les Arts Florissants fielded an instrumental ensemble of nine led by Tami Troman, with vocal ensemble of Violane Le Chenadec, Nicolas Kuntzelmann, Sean Clayton and Benoit Descamps joined by soloists Miriam Allan, Maarten Engeltyes, Thomas Hobbs and Edward Grint with all eight singers performing the choruses.

One little book sitting in a convent: Laurie Stras introduces the background to Musica Secreta's new recording of music from the Biffoli-Sostegni manuscript

The Siege of Florence (1558) by Giorgio Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence
San Matteo in Arcetri is the reddish building in the bottom left of the picture

Musica Secreta is the UK’s only all-female Renaissance ensemble. Their latest album, Ricordanze: a record of love, is released on the Lucky Music label on 1 October. This explores music from the Biffoli-Sostegni manuscript, the only surviving manuscript of polyphony from a Renaissance convent. The manuscript has been the subject of research by Laurie Stras, Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Southampton and director of Musica Secreta. The new album acts as a companion to Laurie’s online publication in the series Elements in Women in Music from Cambridge University Press, titled Music at a Florentine Convent: The Biffoli-Sostegni Manuscript and Suor Maria Celeste Galilei, due for release in October 2025. I met with Laurie, rather appropriately at the British Library, to find out more about her work on the Biffoli-Sostegni manuscript and its significance.

First of all, Laurie explains that the manuscript is the only known Renaissance manuscript of polyphony with a secure provenance from an Italian convent, though she points out that there are a dozen or more such manuscripts from the Medieval period. The Biffoli-Sostegni manuscript is the nuns’ choirbook from the convent of San Matteo in Arcetri, a modest community in the hills outside Florence. It was copied in 1560 for two nuns at San Matteo, Suor Agnoleta Biffoli and Suor Clemenzia Sostegni. Hence the manuscript's modern name - The Biffoli-Sostegni manuscript

Musica Secreta & Laurie Stras recording Ricordanze (Photo: Rosie Taylor)

Laurie started looking at the manuscript around ten years ago. It was apparent that it came from a convent, but which one was not clear. Laurie started looking and narrowed the manuscript's possible home to two places. One, a rich convent in the middle of Florence and the other, a small impoverished convent a mile or so outside the city. Her attempts to find traces of the manuscript in the richer convent's surviving archives proved fruitless. At the last minute, just pre-COVID in February 2020, she turned to the smaller convent, San Matteo in Arcetri. Here, in their relatively meagre archive, she found not only the names of the two nuns who gave the manuscript its name, but the names of their fathers and the sizes of their dowries. One of the fascinating things that came out of my chat with Laurie was the way that researching a single manuscript moved from musical history into a far more complex web of social and political history.  Thanks to a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship, Laurie was able to return and finish studying the manuscript, finding out a great deal more about the women and their history. But she found no more music.

Coleridge-Taylor at Conway Hall: Sacconi Quartet & David Cambell plus my pre-concert talk

 

The composer & his family - Samuel, Hiawatha Bruce, Gwendoline Avril & Jessie Coleridge-Taylor
Photo courtesy of the Royal College of Music

On Sunday 28 September 2025, the Sacconi Quartet will be joined by clarinettist David Campbell at the Conway Hall's Sunday Concert at 6.30pm with a programme including the world premiere of Jago Thornton's Study in Submersion, Shostakovich's Quartet No.8 Op.110 and Coleridge-Taylor's Clarinet Quintet.

Before the concert I will be giving a pre-concert talk about Coleridge-Taylor, exploring his background and focusing both on the early Clarinet Quintet and his defining trio of Hiawatha cantatas.

Full details from the Conway Hall website. 

From singing in pubs to staging Handel's penultimate Italian opera: Continuo Foundation brings total grants to over £1 million with latest round of funding

The Continuo Foundation has just announced its 10th round of grants totalling £120,000. This brings the total the foundation has awarded since its inception to over £1 million. In response to the strong demand and quality in this round, the amount was increased by £20,000 thanks to a generous private donor.

The current round of funding was distributed to 28 period-instrument ensembles, enabling more than 400 musicians to contribute to the remarkable vitality and innovation of Early Music performance in Britain. The 86 supported concerts will reach audiences in 45 locations across the country — from Purbeck and Norfolk to Doncaster, Belfast, Swansea, and Inverness - with pub gigs to fully staged opera, showcasing the variety and creativity to be found under the banner of Early Music.

Ensemble Augelletti will revive the 17th- and 18th-century tradition of tavern performance with A Tune among Friends, performing folk tunes, theatre songs, and music by Purcell, Corelli, and Handel in pubs and cafes. Emerging ensemble Londinium Consort, formed in 2022, will take the programme from their debut album, Crossing Paths, also funded by Continuo, to twelve locations across Scotland and Wales.

Cambridge Handel Opera Company will stage Handel’s penultimate Italian opera, the semi-seria pastoral opera, Imeneo. The project will invole young people from under-served communities working alongside professionals, participating in workshops and mentoring sessions, breaking down barriers to cultural participation.

Full details of the grants from the Continuo Foundation website, and a full list of concerts is on Continuo Connect.

A declaration of love to a composer who, in many ways, transformed my path as a “classical” musician: pianist Vanessa Wagner on Philip Glass' Etudes

Vanessa Wagner has been one of France’s most distinctive pianists for more than twenty years, equally at home in the classical repertoire and in contemporary music. Her latest project is the complete recording of Philip Glass’s twenty piano Études, releasing on 10 October 10. She has performed many of these pieces over the years, but recording the full cycle allows her to show how the Études work together, revealing both their technical demands and their subtle musical ideas.

The album follows Wagner’s recent recordings of minimalist and contemporary music, including Inland (2019), The Study of the Invisible (2022), and Mirrored (2022), which included works by Meredith Monk, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, and Brian Eno. With Philip Glass, she brings the same precision and clarity, shaped by years of performing the pieces in concert.

We had the chance to speak to Vanessa Wagner about why she chose to record the complete cycle, how her relationship with the Études has developed, and the particular challenges and rewards of playing these pieces.

Philip Glass’s Études have become central to your artistic life. What drew you to them, and why the decision to record the complete cycle?

After more than a decade of performing Philip Glass’s music and including several of his Études on my previous recordings, I felt the need to take things further and record the complete cycle. Heard as a whole, these pieces reveal a more emblematic and radical dimension.

For me, it is both a declaration of love to a composer who, in many ways, transformed my path as a “classical” musician, and an invitation to recognize these two books of Études as one of the landmark cycles of our time.

Iphigenia in Blackheath: community opera dares to go where few UK companies do with a compelling account of Gluck's French tragedy

Gluck: Iphigenia in Tauris - Danny Shelvey (Orestes) & the Furies - Blackheath Halls Opera (Photo: Julian Guidera)

Gluck: Iphigenia in Tauris; Francesca Chiejina, Danny Shelvey, Michael Lafferty, Dan D'Souza, director: Laura Attridge, Blackheath Halls Opera, conductor: Chris Stark; Blackheath Halls
Reviewed 23 September 2025

A sense of classicism and community combine with compelling individual performances to make this account of Gluck's great, but neglected opera into an engaging and moving evening in the theatre

Gluck's great French operas remain as tantalising a presence on the operatic stage as his big Italian hit, Orfeo ed Euridice is ubiquitous. I remember being bowled over by Iphigénie en Tauride when Kent Opera - remember them! - brought it to the Edinburgh Festival in the 1979 in a production conducted by Roger Norrington and directed by Norman Platt with Eiddwen Harrhy in the title role. The in the early 1990s, David Freeman's Opera Factory compressed both of Gluck's Iphigenia operas into one, rather unsatisfactory evening.

Since then, productions have been rather rare. Covent Garden presented a Robert Carsen production in 2007 (the first performance of the opera there since 1973) with Susan Graham [see my review not on Planet Hugill] and James Conway directed it for English Touring Opera with Catherine Carby in 2016 [see my review] Also in 2016, an enterprising small-scale production popped up at the Drayton Arms directed by Alastair Kitchen and with a cast that includes names that have become familiar [see my review].

Gluck's opera was premiered in 1779, his fifth opera for Paris. The work came at the end of a long career (his first opera dates from 1741) in which he had shown himself as a composer able to accommodate different national styles, and to innovate by synthesis. His Italian reform operas for Vienna merged elements of French and Italian opera, and this continued with his operas for Paris. Iphigenie en Tauride is a logical extension of this reform, effectively re-shaping the tragédie lyrique of Lully and Rameau into something more concentrated, more classical and more powerfully intense.  

There is little in the way of ballet in the opera, and certainly none of the divertissements beloved of Lully and Rameau. There is also no explicit love interest and the main relationships are the re-establishing of the fraternal bond between Iphigénie and Oreste, and the intense friendship between Oreste and Pylade. This latter while couched exclusively in the language of friendship ('amitie' rather than 'amour'), is in fact one of the most homo-erotic relationships in a major 18th or 19th century opera. 

Yet given the right singer in the title role, the results can be rewarding. 

The work was a surprising yet effective and enterprising choice for this year's production from Blackheath Halls Opera.  

Gluck: Iphigenia in Tauris - Francesca Chiejina, Emily Williams, Ava Reineke, Eva Hutchins - Blackheath Halls Opera (Photo: Julian Guidera)

Returning for its 19th year, Blackheath Halls Opera's production of Gluck's Iphigenia in Tauris brought together Blackheath Halls Opera Chorus and Youth Company, Blackheath Halls Orchestra, and students from Greenvale School and Charlton Park Academy, along with students from Trinity Laban. The production was directed by Laura Attridge, conducted by Chris Stark, designed by Peiyao Wang, and movement by Corina Würsch with assistant movement director Sage Lacroix being a placement student from Central School of Speech and Drama. The opera was sung in a new English translation by Martin Pickard.

Francesca Chiejina (who sang the title role in Handel's Semele at Blackheath in 2023) was Iphigenia, with Danny Shelvey as Orestes, Michael Lafferty (a Trinity Laban graduate) as Pylades, and Dan D'Souza as Thoas. The cast included five Trinity Laban students, Emily Williams as the First Priestess with Ava Reineke and Eva Hutchins as priestesses, and Byron Davis-Hughes and Zac Conibear as Scythians. 

Cellist Natalie Clein joins Sinfonia Smith Square for a concert celebrating 40 years of The Stradivari Trust facilitating musicians acquiring instruments of the highest calibre

Natalie Clein & her cello whose acquisition was facilitated by The Stradivari Trust
(Photo: Michael Staab)

The Stradivari Trust is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Created in 1985 by Cambridge entrepreneur and philanthropist Nigel Brown, the trust's aim is to help Britain’s finest musicians to acquire instruments of the highest calibre. The inaugural scheme supported violinist Nigel Kennedy in acquiring the ‘La Cathédral’ Stradivari violin, an acquisition that laid the foundations for a model of syndicated ownership that has since become unique in its field. Contributors to each syndicate acquire shares in the instrument which the musicians buy back gradually over a set period, enabling them to eventually own the instrument.

In celebration of this cellist Natalie Clein will join Sinfonia Smith Square, conductor Roger Benedict, on 4 December 2025 at Smith Square Hall for a concert including Schumann's Cello Concerto and the slow movement from Schubert's String Quintet, plus music by Emilie Mayer and Judith Weir.

The concert celebrates not only 40 years of The Stradivari Trust but cellist Natalie Clein’s long association with the organisation as well as her completing her scheme and becoming an alumna of The Stradivari Trust. 

Natalie Clein says, "Thanks to The Stradivari Trust I met the instrument of my life – my soulmate! The cello has accompanied me through the last 25 years of my playing life and has become a deep part of my musical voice. How very lucky I feel that the Trust was able to help me in this way."

Over the past four decades, the Trust has facilitated more than 60 such schemes, with instruments collectively valued in excess of £30 million, benefitting musicians including Steven Isserlis, Lawrence Power, Jennifer Pike and Natalie Clein. In addition, to commemorate the Trust’s founder, the ‘Nigel Brown Fine Instrument Fund’ has been set up which welcomes donations eventually used to acquire certain fine instruments more quickly, before the fundraising has been finalised.

Full details from the Sinfonia Smith Square website.

New music, new appointments, Studio Ghibli & Queen: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's London season opens this week

Emilia Hoving (Photo: Laura Oja)

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's London season opens this week. 

They will be performing Mozart and Mendelsohn at the Windsor Festival tonight with conductor Alexander Shelley, music director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Canada (23 September). Then Shelley and the orchestra will be at Cadogan Hall on 25 September with a programme featuring Midori performing Sibelius' Violin Concerto, plus music by Strauss and Joe Hisaishi (the Studio Ghibli composer who is the RPO's Composer in Association). In between these two concerts, Matthew Freeman conducts the orchestra in Symphonic Queen at the Royal Albert Hall on 24 September. Quite a varied line-up!

The orchestra has recently announced three appointments. Sir John Rutter has been appointed as the RPO’s Artist Laureate, recognising his close relationship with the RPO spanning several decades, including composing, arranging, conducting, recording and programming. There will be celebrations on 5 November with an 80th birthday concert at St Paul's Cathedral when Rutter will conduct the premiere of a work composed for the occasion.

Kevin John Edusei (Photo: Marco Borggreve)

Emilia Hoving has been appointed as the RPO’s Associate Conductor for a three-year period starting this season. Having emerged as one of the most exciting young Finnish conductors of today, Hoving’s exceptional talents were demonstrated when she conducted the RPO last season at Cadogan Hall and the Bristol Beacon. This season she conducts the RPO at Cadogan Hall on 30 September when Alexandra Dariescu is the soloist in Croatian composer Dora Pejačević's Phantasie Concertante plus music by Sibelius, Ravel and Stravinsky.

Another young conductor, Kevin John Edusei will be the RPO’s Conductor-in-Residence at Cadogan Hall for the 2025-26 season and he will be on the podium on 16 October with American Gabriella Smith plus Grieg, and Sibelius, 26 February 2026 with Canadian composer Samy Moussa, plus Strauss and Beethoven, and 27 May 2026 with Ligeti, Gershwin, and Bartok.

The season will be going out with a colourful bang as Vasily Petrenko conducts Scriabin's Symphony No.3, ‘The Divine Poem’, Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead and the UK premiere of Joe Hisaishi's The Border (Concerto for Three Horns and Orchestra) at Bristol Beacon (4 June 2026) and the Royal Festival Hall (5 June 2026).

Full details from the RPO website.

Elgar, Sibelius & beyond: Kenneth Woods & English Symphony Orchestra's Sibelius on ESO Digital

Kenneth Woods & the English Symphony Orchestra (Photo: Michael Whitefoot)

Based in Elgar's home-town of Malvern, the English Symphony Orchestra (ESO), artistic director Kenneth Woods, is inevitably associated with the music of Elgar and their disc of his Symphony No. 1 and In the South, recorded live at Worcester Cathedral as part of the 2025 Elgar Festival and issued on the ESO's own label. But their reach is a lot further than that with recordings of symphonies by Philip Sawyers and Adrian Williams. One of the composer Woods and his orchestra are exploring is Elgar's great Finnish contemporary Sibelius

Until 25 September, ESO and Woods' performance of Sibelius' Symphony No. 5 (filmed at Wyastone Concert Hall) is available free on ESO Digital and if you want more of them the a subscription to the channel is very affordable. Sibelius began the symphony in 1914 and it was first performed in 1915 but he remained unsatisfied and for the next four years struggled with the work until the final version was premiered in 1919. These revisions are intimately linked to Sibelius' vision of wild swans which he saw in 1915.

"Just before ten to eleven saw sixteen swans. One of the greatest experiences in life. Oh God, what beauty: they circled over me for a long time. Disappeared into the sun like a silver ribbon, which glittered from time to time […] The Fifth Symphony’s finale theme. The trumpet will bind it together …."

Chalmers and ESO's recording of Sibelius' final symphonic masterpieces, Symphonies Nos. 6 & 7 and Tapiloa have been released as Volume 1 in the orchestra's Sibelius series. [See ESO website].

The orchestra's residency in Cheltenham launched earlier this month and they return on 2 December 2025 when Woods conducts chamber versions of Strauss' Four Last Songs (with April Fredrick) and Mahler's Symphony No. 9.

Further details from ESO website.

New research shows that access to live music making can be the key to success in any career path: new survey from Making Music & Association of British Orchestras

 

Photo Credit: Royal Scottish National Orchestra © John Young

A new survey has found that people who followed a career in the sciences, education and finance found it particularly beneficial to have access to music education in schools. The Association of British Orchestras (ABO) is raising awareness of the social and economic impact music education has on the UK and its industries. As part of the #AnOrchestraInEverySchool initiative, the ABO and its members are reaching out to children & young people who will be choosing their GCSE and A-Level subjects for the 2026 academic year and beyond, to show how impactful taking part in live music can be regardless of your chosen profession.

Making Music recently conducted a survey in collaboration with the ABO of 900 adult leisure-time musicians aged 18 or over.  This found that many transferable skills including practice and perseverance (89%), focus and concentration (87%) and teamwork and collaboration (85%) proved vital in respondents’ career paths. 

Over three quarters of those surveyed found that performance and presentation were essential skills that they developed through music education, with one respondent saying “I benefited enormously from getting over stage fright at a young enough age to make a difference, as otherwise I would have been too shy to be a doctor”.

•  Close to half of respondents use the transferable skills developed through music education in non-music or non-STEM professions, while 28% found their transferable skills valuable in their STEM career (STEM - Science, Technology, Engineer, Mathematics)
• 79% respondents play in an ensemble, orchestra or band
• 72% regularly go to concerts and 78% listen to music at home – many of those surveyed believed that having access to live music in their life has helped them achieve a positive work-life balance
• The most common sectors in which respondents worked were financial services, medicine (including consultants and specialists), emergency services and religion.
• Of those surveyed, 37% studied Music to A-Level qualification or equivalent (16+), while a third (32%) studied music education in secondary school (11-16) without formal assessment. Just 2% had access to live music making during primary school years only (4-11).

A second survey of 2000 adults, conducted by the Orchestra in the Age of Enlightenment and Opinium, revealed that  64% of respondents believe that cutting arts in schools harms children’s confidence and communication, with almost half describing the arts as one of the most valuable parts of their school experience, a figure climbing to 61% for Gen Z.

Barbara Eifler, Chief Executive, Making Music, says: "We are delighted to have this opportunity to showcase how valuable and appreciated music education is by adults who have chosen careers other than music or the performing arts. Famously, Einstein was an excellent violinist and credited his playing with helping him problem solve and think creatively – many of us may not be at that level of genius, but the data we have gathered demonstrate the very real positive impact of music in school on people’s later lives and careers.  We – and our members - strongly support #AnOrchestrainEverySchool, to open up the benefits of early access to music to all young people in the UK."

Full details from the ABO website.

A very fresh, a summer album: Hummel & Bertini from Sestetto Classico on MDG

Hummel: Quintet, Bertini: Grand Sextuor; Sestetto Classico; MDG
Reviewed by Andreas Rey (22 September 2025)

Two large-scale chamber works from the fringes of the repertoire from composers sitting between Mozart and Beethoven in fresh, idiomatic performances from a fine ensemble

A celebrated virtuoso pianist and composer who influenced a generation of Romantic composers, Johann Nepomuk Hummel is known for a handful of works and for his links to Mozart and Beethoven. This disc on MDG from Sestetto Classico and pianist Hiroko Maruko explores further with Hummel's Quintet Op. 87 for piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass, a work that inspired Schubert to write his Trout Quintet. This is paired with a work by Hummel's French contemporary, Henri Jérôme Bertini whose performances were compared to those of Hummel. Here we hear Bertini's Grand Sextuor Op. 90 for piano, two violins, viola, cello and double bass.

This is a very fresh, a summer album, so to speak, strongly influenced by Mozart and Beethoven in the first quintet, and by Boccherini in the second. An album to listen to as you would drink a rosé wine in the South of France. The quality of the Sestetto Classico'a playing, without heaviness and overly abrupt stops, and Hiroko Maruko's crystalline piano, blending beautifully with the quintet for a most charming fluidity, give this recording all its charm. 

This disc begins with Hummel's Quintet Op. 87, allowing the listeners to move beyond his too well-known trumpet concerto and discover this composer through one of his chamber music works. A student of Mozart, he embraced his teacher's style and language. Thus, like his master, the student's style remains fluid, natural, and fresh. It is also strongly influenced by the concerto form, with the sextet here being almost a kind of chamber piano concerto, with the strings forming a unified ensemble responding to the solo piano. The amateur will recognize certain phrases that are more abrupt, more Beethovenian, so to speak, than those of Mozart, thus showing that between the two geniuses that were Mozart and Beethoven, there was room for an honest, humble, and valuable composer: Hummel. 

The second work on this disc is a sextet by French composer Henri Jerome Bertini. This great sextet, Opus 90, which retains the same clarity of playing, is constructed with a less unified architecture than Mozart's, reminiscent of Boccherini or Haydn, creating a dialogue between the strings, such as the violins with the cello and viola, as well as the piano. The language is also heavier than in Hummel, although still very fluid. This album is refreshingly, introducing listeners to works that may be less well known but are nonetheless worthy of attention.

Reviewed by Andreas Rey

Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837) - Quintet Op. 87 [17.35]
Henri Jérôme Bertini (1798-1876) - Grand Sextuor Op. 90 [29.39]
Sestetto Classico (Gerhard Miessen, Laurentius Bonitz, Bertram Bantz, Eric Plumettaz, Ichiro Noda, Hiroko Maruko)
MDG 102 2371-2 1CD [47.42]

There are no dividing lines: conductor Jakob Lehmann on bringing historically informed Rossini to Cadogan Hall with the Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestra Révolutionnaire et Romantique

Jakob Lehmann (Photo: Sercan Sevindik)

As the Orchestra Révolutionnaire et Romantique makes its first foray into Rossini, we talk to conductor Jakob Lehmann about his passion for music of the period, how we need to learn to enjoy energy, freedom and rubato in the music, his discoveries about balance in the bass line, working with modern orchestras and much more.

On 2 October 2025, conductor Jakob Lehmann joins the Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestra Révolutionnaire et Romantique at Cadogan Hall for Rossini's Stabat Mater alongside excerpts from his opera Ermione. This will be the orchestra's first foray into Rossini and the inaugural event in a planned major new exploration of Rossini's music. Jakob was Associate Artistic Director of New York-based opera company Teatro Nuovo from 2019 to 2025 and is Artistic Director of Eroica Berlin, a chamber orchestra he founded in 2015.

Jakob's recent experience includes conducting Les Siècles in Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony at the International Bruckner Festival in Linz for the composer’s 200th anniversary celebrations, as well as performances of operas by Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi. When we spoke, Jakob was in Bloomington, Indiana and about to make his debut with Indiana University Concert Orchestra. The Cadogan Hall concert will be his London debut, whilst his UK debut was last month when he conducted the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in Rossini, Spohr and Schubert.

Historically informed performances (HIP) of Rossini's music in London have still been relatively rare, and I was interested in finding out what Jakob thought HIP brought to the composer. His thoughts were two-pronged. First, the added colours and textures of the period instruments allow a different type of storytelling through the new sound qualities. This is especially true of Rossini. Jakob feels that, unlike composers such as Mozart and Beethoven, with Rossini, we have not fully grasped the sound and style of period Rossini; we have not fundamentally absorbed the style change that has happened in other composers.

Jakob Lehmann & Anima Eterna Brugge (Photo: Koen Broos)

The other side effect of HIP is that we come to appreciate the sheer quality of the music in another way. As an example, Jakob mentions the Berlin Philharmonic, which, 30 years ago, would not have dreamed of doing an evening of music by Telemann or Vivaldi, but they do now, thanks to extensive period performances. We have a different view on the value and quality of the music. This is something that has not happened in Rossini, yet. Jakob feels that we still underestimate the composer. He was not just writing for singers, and we should appreciate how he writes for the orchestra.

Style, enthusiasm & scholarship: Ian Page and The Mozartists explore Opera in 1775

Haydn: L'incontro improvviso - Ava Dodd, Stephanie Hershaw, Chelsea Zurflüh, The Mozartists - Opera in 1775 - Cadogan Hall

Opera in 1775: Tozzi, Fischietti, Mozart, Myslivecek, J.C. Bach, Haydn, Sacchini; Ava Dodd, Stephanie Hershaw, Chelsea Zurflüh, Hugo Brady, Sebastian Hill, The Mozartists, Ian Page; Cadogan Hall
Reviewed 17 September 2025

Opera by the 19-year-old Mozart alongside works that he heard and works by composers he admired in an engaging evening of young talent and learning worn lightly

It is 1775, and Mozart is turning 19. He is largely marooned in Salzburg where he works as a court musician for the Archbishop. His salary is low and opportunities for composing opera are limited, especially as the court theatre closed that year. But he and his father make one visit, to Munich, where Mozart fails, again, to get any sort of court appointment but his opera La finta giardiniera is premiered, alongside Antonio Tozzi's Orfeo ed Euridice. However, the visit of Archduke Maximilian Franz to Salzburg engenders a flurry of activity, some of it musical, some of it even opera. Mozart's Il re pastore results from this, along with Gli orti esperidi by the Salzburg court kapellmeister, Domenico Fischietti.

This is the background to Ian Page and The Mozartists' Opera in 1775 at Cadogan Hall on 17 September 2025. The latest instalment in their Mozart 250 project. They were joined by sopranos Ava Dodd, Stephanie Hershaw and Chelsea Zurflüh, and tenors Hugo Brady and Sebastian Hill for an evening of operatic excerpts from operas premiered in 1775 including works by Tozzi, Fischietti, Mozart, Mysliveček, J.C. Bach, Haydn and Sacchini.

The same season as Mozart's La finta giardiniera premiered in Munich, Antonio Tozzi's L'Orfeo ed Euridice premiered also. In fact, delays to Mozart's opera meant that Tozzi's went first and Mozart would have heard it. Gluck's L'Orfeo ed Euridice had been performed in Munich in 1772, to conspicuous lack of success. Tozzi who was Hofkapellmeister in Munich, was commissioned to set a revised and 'improved' version of Calzabigi's libretto, which added extra characters and lengthened the work. Tozzi clearly followed Gluck's example in many ways, but the intriguing things is that the overture to L'Orfeo ed Euridice which has many Gluckian aspects also has distinct pre-echoes of the overture of Mozart's Il re pastore giving the impression that the younger composer listened and decided he could do it better!

Opera in 1775 - Sebastian Hill, The Mozartists - Cadogan Hall

Dazzling music by famous Baroque composers in two stunning eighteenth-century Norwich venues

Don’t miss the love:Handel Music Festival from The Brook Street Band this Autumn… 

Photo: Dan Bridge

The award-winning Brook Street Band return to one of their favourite cities, Norwich, for the love:Handel Baroque music festival on September 26-28 and October 3-5. Across two weekends, audiences can enjoy dazzling music by famous Baroque composers including Handel, Bach and Purcell, in two stunning eighteenth-century venues, the Octagon Chapel and Assembly House.

Described by BBC Music Magazine as “an ensemble so pin-sharp it merits a safety warning”, the Band takes its name from the London street where Handel – known worldwide for his famous Hallelujah chorus – once lived. Group founder Tatty Theo said: “Handel’s music is simply the best – whatever you’re feeling, he’s found a way to express it in beautiful music!”

Festival highlights from the first weekend include The Power of Three on September 26, with titans of Baroque music battling it out to see who’s best. On September 27, there’s the rare chance to hear Handel’s mini-opera Apollo e Dafne, with international soloists Ana Beard Fernández and Edward Grint. This dramatic work covers the full sweep of human emotions – love, infatuation, lust, rejection, determination, power, scorn and self-pity – all packed into one unforgettable performance. There’s also an illuminating pre-concert talk given by Handel expert David Vickers exploring how Ovidian transformative tales occurred throughout Handel’s career in Italy, Hanover and London. What better way to set the scene for Apollo e Dafne! 

 There’s new music from composers straddling the pop and classical worlds. Nitin Sawhney and Master of the King’s Music Errollyn Wallen (whose music opened the 2025 Proms) have written for the Brook Street Band. Audiences can catch these innovative works in two atmospheric performances on September 28, fusing music with narrated texts. Kitchen Conversations is full of juicy gossip and deep conversation, while As Steals the Morn Upon the Night invites listeners to suspend reality and journey through the mysteries of night.

love:Handel’s second weekend kicks off with world premiere performances of two pieces of music written especially for the Band as part of the 2025 Young Composers Award, held in conjunction with the National Centre for Early Music and Radio 3. The winning compositions by Avram Harris and Kit McCarthy take Handel’s trio sonatas as their inspiration, pairing them the best of both Op. 2 and Op.5. Prepare to be beguiled, hearing Handel through fresh new ears.

No Handelian event would be complete without a trip to the famous Pleasure Gardens, with music to entertain, delight, and distract from the cares of everyday life. Music by Handel and his contemporaries Arne, Avison and Geminiani is on the playlist in this collaborative orchestral concert with the city’s own renowned Baroque ensemble, Norwich Baroque.

love:Handel 2025 wraps up with some of the most beautiful accompanied vocal music of the Baroque era, sung by special guest, tenor James Gilchrist. James brings a selection of songs, arias and cantatas by Dowland, Purcell and Handel to Norwich’s Assembly House for what promises to be a grand festival finale!

All the concerts and talks are friendly and accessible. Thanks to local funding the Band has been running education programmes in Norfolk schools, and focussing on making concerts accessible within the Norwich community. There’s a totally free family concert on October 4, plus free tickets for any event for those under 23. Don’t miss this wonderful opportunity to try something new, relax, de-stress and experience world-class music- making right on your doorstep.

Huge thanks to funders and sponsors including Continuo Foundation, the Assembly House Trust, the Garrick Charitable Trust, Norwich Freemen's Charity, Anguish's Educational Foundation whose generous support makes love:Handel 2025 possible.

Full details from the Brook Street Band's website.

And there was dancing: Wild Arts' tour of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin concludes at Charterhouse with an immersive performance full of emotional truth

Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin - Wild Arts (Photo: Allan Titmuss)

Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin; Timothy Nelson, Galina Averina, Xavier Hetherington, Hannah Sandison, Emily Hodkinson, Sion Goronwy, Rozanna Madlyus, director: Dominic Dromgoole, conductor: Orlando Jopling; Wild Arts at Charterhouse
Reviewed 18 September 2025

Small scale but lacking nothing in heart or intensity, this was a performance that really drew you into the characters' world led by Timothy Nelson's sexily disdainful Onegin and Galina Averina's serious, intense Tatyana.

Since June, Wild Arts' production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin has been wending its way across venues in Southern England, starting at the company's home base of Layer Marney in Essex and visiting venues in Essex, Dorset, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire, and as well as visiting Opera Holland Park, London. I missed this last performance thanks to my attending the Salzburg Festival, so I was pleased to be able to catch Dominic Dromgoole's production in its last incarnation at a fundraising evening for Charterhouse.

Wild Arts performed Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin in the Great Hall at Charterhouse on Thursday 18 September 2025. The production was directed by Dominic Dromgoole, designed by Tatiana Dolmatovskaya with movement by Sian Williams. Orlando Jopling conducted the ten-piece Wild Arts Ensemble in his own arrangement of the score. Timothy Nelson was Onegin and Galina Averina was Tatyana with Xavier Hetherington as Lensky, Emily Hodkinson as Olga, Sion Goronwy as Gremin, Hannah Sandison as Madame Larina, Rozanna Madylus as Filipyevna, plus Robert Burt, Alex Pratley and Laura Mekhail.

The production was, I understand, Dominic Dromgoole's first foray into opera. Eugene Onegin appealed to him, an article in the programme book explained, because 'it's very lean, very dramatic, very narrative driven. It felt like there was a way for me to use the tools I know from directing drama to help clarify and elucidate what was already there.' 

Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin - Timothy Nelson, Galina Averina - Wild Arts (Photo: Allan Titmuss)

There was no concept and the setting was period, mainly established by Tatiana Dolmatovska's imaginative costumes. Dromgoole's focus was not on grand ideas but on the interaction of character. In terms of operatic staging, Charterhouse's Great Hall is not large and this was a very up close and immersive production, the audience on three sides of the acting area. This gave us the benefit of being able to see the characters' reactions in vivid detail and the performance really repaid this close attention to detail.

The set was simply a set of benches, put to a variety of uses with minimal props. Costumes were similarly simple yet effective with great use made of texture so that, for instance, the women's basic white shifts were made elaborate with collars of machine lace, whilst the use of Russian aprons lent a distinctive atmosphere to the more everyday scenes.