Less is more: Elena Langer's Ariadne & Purcell's Dido hit home in finely abstract productions, a real ensemble achievement from English Touring Opera

Purcell: Dido & Aeneas - Michael Lafferty, Samantha Price - English Touring Opera [Photo: Richard Hubert Smith]

Elena Langer: Ariadne; Jessica Cale, Kieron-Connor Valentine, director: Anna Morrissey
Purcell: Dido & Aeneas; Samantha Price, Michael Lafferty, ISabelle Atkinson, Lydia Shariff, director Rebecca Meltzer, conductor: Alex Robinson
English Touring Opera at Hackney Empire
Reviewed 17 October 2026

Two tragic classical heroines in productions set in an abstract mythic present showcasing powerful performances from Jessica Cale and Samantha Price in productions that were a terrific ensemble achievement.

Alongside its version of Gluck's Orpheus & Eurydice [see my review], English Touring Opera (ETO) features another iconic early work as part of its autumn tour, with a double bill of Elena Langer's 2002 opera, Ariadne and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas. We caught the double bill on 17 October 2026 at the Hackney Empire. Ariadne was directed by Anna Morrisey and featured Jessica Cale as Ariadne and Kieron-Connor Valentine as Theseus. Dido & Aeneas was directed by Rebecca Meltzer and conducted by Alex Robinson. Samantha Price was Dido and Michael Lafferty was Aeneas, with an ensemble of eight singers from whom were drawn the solo roles, Isabelle Atkinson (Belinda/First Witch), Alexandra Meier (Second Woman, Second Witch), Lydia Shariff (Sorceress), Kieron-Connor Valentine (Spirit), Guy Elliott (Sailor), Binny-Supin Yang, Daniel Gray, Jonathan Eyers, and Peter Lidbetter. Designs for both operas were by Alex Berry with lighting by Joseph Hornsby.

Elena Langer wrote Ariadne in 2002 as part of her residency at Almeida Theatre and the opera was her first collaboration with poet Glyn Maxwell. The work is essentially a mono-drama performed by Ariadne (Jessica Cale) with four musicians - Hannah Conliffe (oboe), Gary Ngan (violin), Hannah Gardiner (viola), James Heathcote (cello). The action takes place largely in Ariadne's head after she discovers Theseus's (unexplained) absence. In fact, the work forms a modern counterpart to Haydn's Arianna a Naxos.

Elena Langer: Ariadne - Jessica Cale - English Touring Opera [Photo: Richard Hubert Smith]

As JW3's classical music series returns for its 4th year, I chat to artistic director David Waterman

JW3

JW3, also known as Jewish Community Centre London, is an arts, culture and entertainment venue, an educational facility and a social and community hub in north London. It is located at 341–351 Finchley Road, London, and opened on 29 September 2013. Describing itself as "a new postcode for Jewish life", the venue's name is a wordplay on its postal address, situated in the NW3 postcode area.

Whilst this year the centre celebrates its 13th birthday, their classical music concert series returned for its four year with a season opened by Russian-Israeli pianist Boris Giltburg on 30 September 2026. The curator of JW3's classical music series is cellist David Waterman, one of the founder members of the Endellion Quartet. David explains that his brief was for a high-quality classical music series. There is no particular emphasis on Jewish artists or Jewish composers, it is the high quality that counts.

Depending on the line-up of performers, JW3's recital hall seats up to 250 people. It is an intimate space, where people can see clearly wherever they sit, and all feel near the action. The atmosphere is intimate and friendly, with an audience that is often local. David describes the audience as listening extremely well, and being very enthusiastic. David plays in around half of the concerts each season and introduces the others. He enjoys meeting the audience, and finds that artists enjoy playing there.

Modernising Gluck: English Touring Opera's new production of Orpheus and Eurydice puts a distinctly contemporary spin on the work

Gluck: Orpheus & Eurydice (Dance of the Blessed Spirits) - Louis T Partridge & Angus Bartlett - English Touring Opera [Photo: © Richard Hubert Smith]

Gluck/Leo Grant: Orpheus and Eurydice; William Morgan, Galina Averina, Rosie Lomas, director: Jenny Ogilvie, conductor: Iwan Davies; English Touring Opera at Hackney Empire

Bravely essaying the Paris version of Gluck's masterwork, ETO combine a modern tenor hero with composer Leo Grant's interventions to higlight the more emotional intensity of the work in an anti-mythic production that remained curiously sterile visually

At the Paris Opera, opera scores were not stable entities and often underwent subsequent transformations. Lully's operas remained in the repertoire for around a century after his death (in 1687) thanks to the fact that at each revival much of the music was recomposed to suit contemporary tastes. [Hervé Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel recorded Louis-Joseph Francoeur's 1778 version of Lully's Armide in 2019, see my review]. 

And then in 1824 there were plans for the young tenor Adolphe Nourrit (1802-1839) to sing the role of Orphée in Gluck's opera Orphée et Eurydice, which was created for the Paris Opera in 1774 with a high-tenor in the role of Orphée. Nourrit had made his operatic debut in 1821 as Pylade in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride (written for the Paris Opera in 1779). This 1821 performance would have a profound effect on the young Berlioz. Nourrit would go on to create the principal tenor roles in all of Rossini's French operas, as well as Halévy's La Juive (1835), and Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots (1836).

In 1824, it was quite obvious that a leading young tenor should sing the role of Orphée. The problem was that the role was too high for Nourrit and transpositions had to be made. This wasn't Nourrit's fault. Roles written for the haut-contre sit high in the tenor register with occasional excursions to the top of the range. Unfortunately for Nourrit, the pitch level in Paris had been rising. Pitch had been a constant battlefield between singers and instrumentalists, with rising pitch often coming about because of the desire for a brighter tone. The end result was the creation of Berlioz's version of Orphée et Eurydice combining the French and Viennese versions into a new synthesis for female mezzo-soprano. Thus was the modern Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice born! [see my article, 'Berlioz and the creation of Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice as a 19th century masterpiece']

For their new production of Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice, English Touring Opera (ETO) have leaned into this tradition. The version used is based in Gluck's 1774 Paris version in a new English translation by George Robarts. The title role has been adjusted for a modern tenor (William Morgan), and the work re-orchestrated for smaller orchestra by Leo Grant. But Grant has gone beyond this, adding his own additional music and electronics. The production opened in Sheffield on 10 October and we caught the performance on 16 October at Hackney Empire. Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice in a new version by Leo Grant was directed by Jenny Ogilvie and conducted by Iwan Davies. William Morgan was Orpheus, Galina Averina was Eurydice and Rosie Lomas was Amor with ensemble of Isabelle Atkinson, Alexandra Meier, Guy Elliott and Jonathan Eyer, and dancers Angus Bartlett and Louis T Partridge. Designs were by Noemi Daboczi.

Gluck: Orpheus & Eurydice - English Touring Opera [Photo: Richard Hubert Smith]

Share the Stage: Massed forces from the North-East join Dinis Sousa & Royal Northern Sinfonia at The Glasshouse in Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius

Dinis Sousa conducts Royal Northern Sinfonia & massed forces from the North-East in Tippett's A Child of our Time as part of The Glasshouse's Share the Stage in 2024

On Sunday 8 November 2026 at The Glasshouse in Gateshead, Dinis Sousa conducts the Royal Northern Sinfonia in Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius with soloists Benjamin Hulett, Sarah Connolly and Roderick Williams. They will be joined by hundreds of non-professional singers and instrumentalists from across the region. The concert is the third event in The Glasshouse's Share the Stage series, which brings professional and non-professional musicians together to rehearse and perform major works.

Previous Share the Stage concerts included Michael Tippett's A Child of Our Time, in 2024, and Verdi's Requiem. For The Dream of Gerontius the 300 performers on stage will include 290 passionate non-professionals between the ages of 23 and 85. Share the Stage is very much driven by Dinis Sousa's ambition to bring professional and non-professional musicians together to perform major works on the same stage. Dinis Sousa comments:

"The Dream of Gerontius is an extraordinary piece of music to perform. It moves between moments that feel incredibly intimate and these huge, overwhelming passages where the orchestra, soloists and chorus come together with enormous power.

"That makes it a wonderful piece for Share the Stage. There is something very special about bringing hundreds of people together to make this music, with Royal Northern Sinfonia and our guest soloists performing alongside singers and instrumentalists from communities across the region. Everyone on that stage has a part to play in creating the performance, and I think the scale and energy of that will be incredible to experience in Sage One."

Singers from the North-East in rehearsal for Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius, 2026

On stage will be families, friends and musicians from different generations are coming together, alongside participants with very different musical experiences. Among those returning this year is 73-year-old Suzanne Shell from Morpeth, who rediscovered singing through Share the Stage in 2024 after more than 50 years away from serious singing. 

Full details from The Glasshouse's website. 

 

What does it feel like to improvise with AI?

Pianist Zubin Kanga returns to the Southbank Centre on 17 October 2026 with a host of premieres in a  double bill of  Ghost in the Machine + After Dark: Club Cyborg. Zubin Kanga is currently based at Royal Holloway University where he is leading a £1.4m grant-funded research project 'Cyborg Soloists,' which explores AI and technology in music. [see Robert's 2024 interview with Zubin Kanga]

In advance of Zubin Kanga's premiere of George Lewis's Blombos Playground on 17 October at the Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London, he asks the question 'What does it feel like to improvise with AI?'

I’ve often experienced a deep connection with other musicians onstage when playing chamber music or improvising together, like we're having a musical conversation. But how does it feel to have a musical conversation with AI? Does it feel anything like playing with a human musician on stage? And what can it tell us about what makes human creativity unique? These are questions I’ve been grappling with while working with American composer George Lewis on his new work composed for human and AI keyboardists, Blombos Playground, which I’m about to premiere at the Southbank Centre in London.

While many people today think of AI art as being a recent development and associate it with the lazy production of bland results, trained via the internet through unethical means, it actually has a long and much more interesting history in experimental music, going back to the 1950s. Early developers of AI music systems never sought to replace human musicians, but instead to explore new ways for human performers to interact with musical technologies – and with each other.

Beautifully curated: Carolyn Sampson & Joseph Middleton explore all manner of obsession in Reason in Madness at Oxford International Song Festival

Reason in Madness: Gösta Nystroem, Alma Schindler-Mahler, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Strauss, Wolf, Duparc, Koechlin, Debussy, Saint-Saens, Chausson, Poulenc; Klara Solén, George Herbert, Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton; Oxford International Song Festival at Holywell Music Room
Reviewed 11 October 2026

All manner of obsession: Sampson and Middleton moved between Gretchen, Ophelia, Mignon and Bilitis with Strauss's Ophelia lieder, Wolf's Mignon and Debussy's Bilitis being particularly highlights in a beautifully curated whole

The Sunday of the first weekend of the Oxford International Song Festival (11 October 2026) was devoted to thematic recitals, albeit three vastly contrasting themes. In the morning we had Immortal Mozart [see my review], exploring Schubert's admiration for Mozart, then in the afternoon we had Britten in Love [see my review], with an interweaving of Britten's music and emotional life, and finally in the evening it was Reason in Madness.

At Holywell Music Room, soprano Carolyn Sampson and pianist Joseph Middleton presented a programme exploring obsession and just how far feelings can go. We heard songs by Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Strauss, Wolf, Duparc, Koechlin, Debussy, Saint-Saens, Chausson and Poulenc, whilst the characters invoked included Gretchen, Ophelia, Mignon, Bilitis and Cocteau's La dame de Montecarlo.

Reason in Madness - Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton - Oxford International Song Festival at Holywell Music Room
[Photo: Carolyn Sampson's Instagram]

The evening was begun by two of the Festival's Emerging Artists, mezzo-soprano Klara Solén and pianist George Herbert performing songs by Gösta Nystroem and Alma Schindler-Mahler.

Britten in Love: Robin Tritschler & Malcolm Martineau explore the composer's emotional life through his music

Britten & Lennox Berkeley (Photo: https://www.lennoxberkeley.org.uk)

Britten in Love: Lennox Berkeley, Benjamin Britten; Robin Tritschler, Malcolm Martineau; Oxford International Song Festival at Holywell Music Room
Reviewed 11 October 2026

Songs from Lennox Berkeley and Benjamin Britten linking together the emotional and inimate threads of Britten's life 

In 2024, tenor Robin Tritschler's disc Songs for Peter Pears [see my review] explored songs written for Peter Pears by Lennox Berkeley, Britten, Arthur Oldham, Richard Rodney Bennett and Geoffrey Bush. Now, Tritschler has taken a somewhat different look at the same time-period. On Sunday October 11 October 2026, Robin Tritschler was joined by pianist Malcolm Martineau at Holywell Music Room for Britten in Love as part of the Oxford International Song Festival. 

The recital presented a sequence of songs interweaving Britten's love-life in music. The first half included songs by Lennox Berkeley (with whom Britten had a brief romantic relationship), songs setting W.H.Auden (who was a big influence on the young Britten), as well as two of Britten's Sechs Hölderlin Fragmente which hint at Britten's close friendship with Wulff Scherchen, seven years his junior. Britten would dedicate one of Les Illuminations to Wulff, and another to Pears. 

The second half focused on Peter Pears, with songs from Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo (the first song cycle Britten wrote for Pears' voice) and The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, plus some of the folksong arrangements which Britten created for his and Pears' song recitals.

Immortal Mozart: Katharina Ruckgaber, Martin Häßler & Sholto Kynoch bring a light touch to their exploration of Schubert's admiration for Mozart

Schubert's diary in 1816

Immortal Mozart: Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Salieri; Katharina Ruckgaber, Martin Häßler, Sholto Kynoch; Oxford International Song Festival at Garsington Studios
Reviewed 11 October 2026

Inspired by Schubert's admiration of Mozart, a playful yet informed interweaving of their music to create a delightful recital with a distinctly dramatic feel to it 

Schubert had great admiration for Mozart and age 19 would write in his diary, "O Mozart! immortal Mozart! what countless impressions of a brighter, better life hast thou stamped upon our souls." It is this quotation which is behind pianist Sholto Kynoch, soprano Katharina Ruckgaber and baritone Martin Häßler's programme Immortal Mozart. This playful intermingling of music by Mozart and by Schubert was presented at Garsington Studios, Garsington Opera's performing arts hub - a purpose-built complex of studios, meeting rooms and ancillary spaces - as part of Oxford International Song Festival.

Both composers were Masons and both shared a similar taste in poets. The programme included both setting Goethe and both setting Ludwig Hölty. Other fascinating links include Schubert's duet Misero pargoletto, setting Metastasio and written whilst Schubert was studying with Salieri. In the first version of the duet (which we did not hear), Schubert includes an almost direct quote from the aria 'Ach ich fühl's' from Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. Die Zauberflöte threaded its way through the programme as the second half included two of Pamina and Papageno's duets, whilst in the first half Don Giovanni made an appearance too.

Immortal Mozart: Sholto Kynoch, Katharina Ruckgaber, Martin Häßler (Photo: Martin Häßler's Instagram)

Both singers sang from memory and whilst there was no overall dramatic thread, there was an element of staging with one singer reacting to another, and some songs seemingly in response to something said earlier. It was all done with a light touch, yet it was clear that much thought, research and love had gone into the programme.

Lived experience: Matthias Goerne & Tamara Stefanovich in Schubert's Winterreise at Oxford International Song Festival

Tamara Stefanovich, Matthias Goerne at Salzburg Easter Festival in 2025 [Photo: SF/Marco Borrelli]

Schubert: Winterreise; Matthias Goerne, Tamara Stevanovich; Oxford International Song Festival at Olivier Hall, St Edward's School 
Reviewed 10 October 2026

The further along the journey, the harder the going: Matthias Goerne makes Winterreise a remarkable piece of lived experience bringing a lifetime's work to the role 

It is nearly 30 years since Matthias Goerne made his debut at the Salzburg Festival with Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte in 1997, and nearly 25 years since his compelling account of the title role in Berg's Wozzeck at Covent Garden (in 2002, the one with the glass tanks!). Much water (and Wagner) has gone under the bridge since then. 

So it was with great interest that a capacity audience gathered at the Olivier Hall at St Edward's School in Oxford on Saturday 10 October 2026 for baritone Mattias Goerne and pianist Tamara Stefanovich's performance of Schubert's Winterreise at the opening weekend of the Oxford International Song Festival. The event was also Goerne's debut at the festival (amazingly!)

The concert was giving with subtitles which is a relatively new innovation at the festival. These help prevent the audience from spending the duration with their heads in copies, but in song like Schubert's where text is repeated and the flow adjusted, you sometimes miss the wider textual context of a line. 

Goerne sang from memory and the entire concert was a remarkable physical embodiment, his expressive physical language becoming as important as his vocal.  From the first notes it was clear that Goerne's expressive legato was limited but his vibrato gave the voice a remarkable fragility. This combined with his restless body language created the structure of his Winterreise. 

Words & music: at Oxford International Song Festival's opening weekend academics & performers combine for Defining Love

Defining Love
Emily Pillinger, Stephanie Oade, Fiona Macintosh, Elenora Pertz, Valerie Eickhoff
Holywell Music Room, Oxford International Song Festival

Defining Love: Satie, Schindler-Mahler, Britten, Schumann, Korngold, Faure, Schubert, Strauss, Mozart, Rodgers & Hart; Valerie Eickhoff, Elenora Pertz, Fiona Macintosh, Stephanie Oade, Emily Pillinger; Oxford International Song Festival at Holywell Music Room
Reviewed 10 October 2026

A colloquium on approaches to love in Ancient Greece combined with a delightful mix of songs expressing the subject to create and intriguing mix of words and music

This year's Oxford International Song Festival has the theme of Love Songs, and the subject of love was to the fore in the afternoon event on the first Saturday of the festival, 10 October 2026, at Holywell Music Room. Defining Love combined a colloquium between three academics, Fiona Macintosh, Stephanie Oade and Emily Pillinger - Fiona Mackintosh is Emeritus Professor of Classical Reception, at Oxford Stephanie Oade is an academic, teacher and former professional cellist, Emily Pillinger is Reader in Classics and Interdisciplinary Humanities at King's College London

We heard songs by Saties, Alma Schindler-Mahler, Britten, Schumann, Korngold, Faure, Schubert, Strauss, Mozart and Rodgers & Hart performed by mezzo-soprano Valerie Eickhoff and pianist Elenora Pertz.

Reinventing the lute song: countertenor Iestyn Davies & harpist Oliver Wass in John Dowland, Purcell, Nico Muhly & Britten at Hatfield House Music Festival

Iestyn Davies & Oliver Wass
at Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival

Sweeter than Roses: Trabacci, Monteverdi, Frescobaldi, Cavalli, Purcell, Dowland, Muhly, Britten, Handel; Iestyn Davies, Oliver Wass; Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival in the Marble Hall
Reviewed 9 October 2026

Performing lute songs with harp accompaniment provides an imaginative solution to problems of scale, whilst Iestyn Davies and Oliver Wass's recital parts Dowland with an imaginative mix from Purcell and Frescobaldi to Britten and Muhly

Countertenor Iestyn Davies and harpist Oliver Wass debuted duo at Wigmore Hall earlier this year and they are touring it to the USA, first stop Hawaii. But en route they stopped at Hatfield House Music Festival to perform in the house's Marble Hall on Friday 9 October. We began with a harp solo by Giovanni Maria Trabacci followed by three Italian baroque arias, Monteverdi's Laudate Dominum, Cavalli's Delizie Contenti from Giasone and Frescobaldi's Se l'aura spira, then Purcell's Strike the viol from Come, ye sons of art. A sequence of seven songs by John Dowland was interspersed with instrumental movements by Bach. The second half began with Nico Muhly, three of his Four Traditional Songs written in 2011 and dedicated to Iestyn Davies. These were followed by Britten's Suite for Harp, Op. 83 (from 1969) and the evening concluded with Purcell's Sweeter than Roses and Evening Hymn, and Handel's Sento Amor from Partenope.

Delight in small things: the Telekom Beethoven Competition winner, Seth Schultheis in recital at Hatfield House Music Festival

Seth Schultheis [Photo: Norbert Ittermann]

Beethoven, Elizabeth Ogonek, Schumann; Seth Schultheis; Hatfield House Music Festival in the Marble Hall
Reviewed 9 October 2026

The 2025 Telekom Beethoven Competition Winner in an engagingly varied programme that found delight in a sequence of short movements by three very different composers

Hatfield House Music Festival's second day, 9 October 2026, began with a piano recital by Seth Schultheis. An American based in London, Schultheis is currently an Aud Jebson Fellow at the Royal Academy of Music, and he won First Prize (and Special Prize for Chamber Music) at the 2025 Telekom Beethoven Competition in Bonn.

He began with Beethoven, not a sonata but the 11 Bagatelles, Op. 119. These were followed by five preluddes by contemporary American composer Elizabeth Ogonek, and Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6 concluded the evening. 

Beethoven evidently referred to his bagatelles as 'cobbler's patches'. They are short, characteristic pieces where Beethoven is relatively unfettered by the constraints of form. Schulteheis began with classical poise in the opening minuet and trio, but then the music soon moved between quirky and characterful before classical balance returned. The robust vigour of a dance was followed by intricate rhythms, fleeting moments and the distinctly quirky. A further classical piece had a sense of questioning in the harmony leading to a showy dance with hints of Weber, then a helter-skelter dash to the touching conclusion.

Schultheis perhaps did not make us think these were free improvisations; not so much Beethoven at the piano as the the considered products of the composer's imagination. But Schultheis's sensitivity to the music's quicksilver changes and sly endings was impressive.

A real festival programme: varied lineups in music by Mozart, Britten, Shostakovich & Brahms at Hatfield House Music Festival

Frank Bridge, Benjamin Britten, Ethel Bridge by Unknown photographer
snapshot print NPG x15184 © National Portrait Gallery, London

Mozart, Britten, Shostakovich, Brahms; Musicians of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House; Hatfield House Music Festival in the Marble Hall
Reviewed 8 October 2026

Youthful Mozart, Britten and Shostakovich alongside autumnal Brahms in a real festival programme of varied and unusual line-ups, all played with love and energy

The advantage of festivals like the Hatfield House Music Festival is that they can bring together groups of musicians to perform music in instrumental combinations that are frequently less explored on the regular concert stage. For the second concert on Thursday 8 October 2026 in the Marble Hall at Hatfield House, Musicians of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House brought together Magnus Johnston and Jan Schmolck, violins, Gary Pomeroy and Judith Busbridge, violas, Tim Hugh and Kate Gould, cellos, Katherine Baker, flute, and Christopher Cowie, oboe, to perform Mozart's Flute Quartet in D major, K 258, Britten's Phantasy Quartet, and Brahms' Quintet No. 2 in G, Op. 111. 

An imaginative added extra to the programme was the Festival's first side-by-side event where four young artists supported by the J & A Beare Cultural Trust, Sophie Hayin Chung and Isabell Karlsson, violins, Andrew O'Reilly, cello, Harry Rughoo, viola joined So-Ock Kim and Jan Schmoick, violins, Gary Pomeroy, viola, and Kate Gould, cello, to perform Dmitri Shostakovich's Octet Op. 11.

Still remarkably youthful himself, Chromatica Orchestra's new chief conductor Oliver Cope sees their role as developing the next generation of musical talent

Oliver Cope

Oliver Cope was recently appointed as chief conductor of Chromatica Orchestra, making him one of youngest conductors in the country to hold a titled position with a professional orchestra.

He was a prize-winner at the 2026 Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition, where he was awarded the BR-KLASSIK studio production prize with the Bamberger Symphoniker. He was also First Prize winner of both the Kussewitzky Competition and the International Athens Conducting Competition. Oliver read music at Clare College, Cambridge, and then studied with Sian Edwards at the Royal Academy of Music, and with Martyn Brabbins at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Chromatica Orchestra made its debut at Battersea Arts Centre in October 2024. Formerly Bath Festival Orchestra, the ensemble was relaunched as Chromatica by its founding artistic director, conductor Peter Manning, with a new base in South London. Regularly performing in Battersea, the orchestra has developed close partnerships with the Music in Secondary Schools Trust and Newham’s Bobby Moore Academy.

Chromatica Orchestra was founded to nurture the next generation of musical talent, bringing together outstanding emerging orchestral players with brilliant soloists, and Oliver is its first chief conductor. He regards his role as 'someone to steer the ship', and his ideas for the orchestra align with those of the players and management. Chromatica is a new orchestra, and London is not short of excellent orchestras. But for Oliver, Chromatica has a distinct reason to exist. It is focused on where the players are in their careers. He feels that there is a gap in London when it comes to early career players. He wants Chromatica to be free to look at ways to do things differently, whether it is the way they play programmes or experimenting with venues. Chromatica's regular concert series at Battersea Arts Centre is already a step away from traditional venues.

Music in anxious times: Hatfield House Music Festival opens with a captivating evening of music from the time the house first opened

Musicians preparing for the opening concert of Hatfield House Music Festival
under the watchful eye of Queen Elizabeth I in the Marble Hall

Music which pleaseth myne ear: Thomas Morley, John Dowland, William Byrd, Tobias Hume, William Lawes, John Coprario; The Sixteen, Fretwork, Joy Smith, Eligio Luis Quinteiro, Harry Christophers; Hatfield House Music Festival in the Marble Hall
Reviewed 8 October 2027

A captivating and enlightening evening of music by Byrd and his contemporaries mixing viol consort, vocal ensemble and instrumental dances complete with pavans for harp consort and some of Byrd's consort songs

When the first Lord Salisbury built Hatfield House (completed in 1611), he employed various musicians including a viol concert to perform in the house. The present Lord Salisbury cannot quite run to that, but this year marks the 15th anniversary of the Hatfield House Music Festival which was founded with cellist Guy Johnston as the artistic director. This year's festival celebrates not just that anniversary, but Lord Salisbury's 80th birthday, and of course the 400th anniversary of the death of John Dowland.

For the opening concert of the festival, at 5pm on Thursday 8 October 2026 in Hatfield House's Marble Hall (one of the first Lord Salisbury's original interiors now presided over by the 'Rainbow Portrait' of Queen Elizabeth I) we returned to the early 17th century for Music which pleaseth myne ear, a programme of music by William Byrd and his contemporaries. Music that would have been around at the time of the house's completion. Harry Christophers and members of The Sixteen (Katy Hill, Alexandra Kidgell, Elisabeth Paul, Mark Dobell, Oscar Golden Lee, Ben Davies, Rob Macdonald) were joined by the viol consort Fretwork (Emilia Benjamin, Christopher Terepin, Joanna Levine, Sam Stadlen, Richard Boothby), harpist Joy Smith, and lutenist Eligio Luis Quinteiro for a programme that moved between unaccompanied part-songs and devotional songs, viol consorts, dances and more concerted pieces.

The music of William Byrd was central to the evening and the sheer variety of his output was apparent. Here was sacred music in Latin and English both liturgical and intended for private devotions, secular music on classical subjects and for pure entertainment, and instrumental music including a pavan in honour of the first Earl of Salisbury. As Stephen Johnson pointed out in his programme notes, the way Byrd wrote to "please the powers at be whilst offering a message of consolation and hope to those with ears to hear it" rather resembles the balancing act the Dmitri Shostakovich had to undertake.

Celebrating John Joubert at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in advance of his 2027 centenary

John Joubert [photo: Graham Boulton]

Next year is the centenary of Birmingham’s pre-eminent composer John Joubert (1927-2019). Born in South Africa, John Joubert wrote over 180 works, ranging from operas and orchestral music to choral works and short carols [his final opera, Jane Eyre received its stage premiere at Grimeborn Festival last year, see my review].  

He made his home in Moseley where he lived for over 50 years and was a much-loved teacher and conductor at University of Birmingham.

As a taster for next year's centenary celebrations, Jeffrey Skidmore (founder of Ex Cathedra) will conduct RBC Chamber Choir in The Bradshaw Hall, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire on 29 October 2026 in a programme that mixes Joubert's music with that of Byrd, Parry and Rachmaninoff.  

Jeffrey Skidmore explains, "The idea for the programme came from a 50th anniversary concert that Ex Cathedra gave in Joubert’s honour in 1987.  Joubert wrote in the programme about the inspiration of his school in South Africa where he was introduced to works by Byrd, Parry and Rachmaninoff.  His own compositions, There is no rose, O Lorde the maker of al thing, and Torches, are now modern-day classics.  We’ll also include the Magnificat he wrote for the cathedral in Cape Town, and that links to the concluding piece South of the Line – which I consider to be his masterpiece – a setting of five of Thomas Hardy’s powerful anti-Boer War poems."

Full details from Royal Birmingham Conservatoire's website. 

O’Hare Music Centre, Britten Pears Arts’ new hub for music education, participation and artist development

Students on the Advanced Young Musicians Programme [Photo: Britten Pears Arts]

Britten Pears Arts’ O’Hare Music Centre has opened up in the newly refurbished Britten Pears Building at Snape Maltings. As part of phase 1 of Snape's capital programme, the modernisation of the Britten Pears Building – originally converted in 1979 - was led by architects De Matos Ryan and built by Hutton Construction. A new lift has been installed, five larger music studios have been created, all the technical facilities modernised and the upper floor has been transformed into a state-of-the-art Clore Learning Space.

The Centre brings together the organisation’s work with children, young people, and emerging professional musicians under one roof, offering musical opportunities for artists of all ages: from early years to advanced musicians aged 18, as well as training and creative development opportunities for experienced and internationally established professional musicians as part of the Britten Pears Young Artist & Residencies programmes. 

The launch marks a significant step in Britten Pears Arts’ commitment to nurturing future generations of musicians while strengthening access to high-quality musical opportunities across East Suffolk. A new significant partnership with the Norfolk & Suffolk Music Hub will enable its work for and with children and young people significantly across the next few years. This includes termly performance opportunities for pathways programmes within the Hub as well as a term-time, weekly Saturday school for children of all ages, and the establishment of new singing groups on a Friday afternoon.  

Advanced Young Musicians (AYM) is the organisation’s musical progression programme for talented young musicians from Suffolk and East Anglia. From September 2026, AYM enters an exciting new chapter, with expanded opportunities, a refreshed structure, and a new home in the Centre The programme brings together up to 40 young musicians for weekly Saturday sessions and students will be closely connected to the wider Britten Pears Arts programme, with opportunities to take part in the Aldeburgh Festival, attend masterclasses, observe rehearsals, and engage with an international community of artists.

Further information from Britten Pears Arts' website.

Emad Zolfaghari is the first viola winner in Windsor Festival International String Competition's history

First prize winner, Canadian violist Emad Zolfaghari performing at 
Windsor Festival International String Competition 2026 
[Photo: Julian Guidera]

 This year's Windsor Festival International String Competition celebrated its 10th anniversary and, for the first time, the final on 2 October 2026 featured concerto performances with orchestra - the Orpheus Sinfonia, conductor Rory Macdonald.

And in another first, the winner this year was a viola player: the 21 year old Canadian, Emad Zolfaghari. In what was an extremely close-run final, a joint second prize was awarded to two violinists - 18 year old Lithuanian, Rokas Diržys, and 23 year old American, Sophie Werner. Diržys also won both the Orchestra Prize and the Audience Prize.

Zolfaghari played Walton's Viola Concerto,  Diržys played Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto and Werner played Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major, K. 216.

There was an impressive line up of judges:

Joji Hattori: Violinist and Conductor, Hsin-Yun Huang: Violist, Raphael Wallfisch: Cellist, Sally Beamish: Composer, Rory Macdonald: Conductor, Alexander van Ingen: Executive Producer, Champs Hill Records, Tom Philpott: Director of Artistic Planning, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Martin Denny: Director, Windsor Festival.

As the winner, Emad Zolfaghari receives a cash prize, a solo recording with Champs Hill Records, performance in Windsor Castle during the 2027 Windsor Festival with associate orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra followed by a UK tour, a concerto commission from composer Sally Beamish, featuring a world premiere performance in London with Orpheus Sinfonia in June 2027, and recital opportunities.

Emad Zolfaghari is a graduate of the Curtis Institute, and is currently a Kovner Fellow at the Juilliard School. He plays on a fine 1700 Matteo Goffriller viola on generous loan from the Rachel Barton Pine Foundation [see my interview with Rachel]. 

Further information from the festival website. 

Music in unexpected places: Wimbledon International Music Festival returns for the second festival under artistic director Anthony Friend

Wimbledon International Music Festival returns next month with 26 events on offer from 7 to 29 November 2026. This year's festival, the 18th, is the second festival under the artistic directorship of Anthony Friend who took over from the festival's founder, Anthony Wilkinson in 2025.

When he founded the festival in 2009, Anthony Wilkinson had a long-held dream of creating a new concert hall in Wimbledon. Under Anthony Friend, the festival has embraced a diversity of venues. The main concert venue is St John the Baptist, Spencer Hill but there are also events in Auditorium, Wimbledon High School; Upper Hall, Sacred Heart Church; King’s College School, Wimbledon, along with more unusual spaces including Merton Arts Space, Wimbledon Library; The Rushmere pub, Ridgway; Jeroboams wine bar, Wimbledon Village; along with a schools' concert in New Wimbledon Theatre.

The festival opens with Sacred Splendour, music from Venice and Madrid performed by Academy Choir of Wimbledon, conductor George Inscoe (Sub-Organist at St Paul’s Cathedral) , and His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts. And the festival concludes with a recital by pianist Angela Hewitt, who returns to the festival for the third time.

Other highlights include a recital by pianist David Khrikuli, a laureate of the Chopin International Piano Competition in Bach, Chopin, Ravel and Rachmaninoff, and festival artistic director Anthony Friend joins Quatuor Agate for Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, plus quartets by Korngold and Schubert. Spanish pianist Antonio Oyarzábal joins the Solem Quartet for piano quintets by Dvorak and Amy Beach. Members of Sinfonia Cymru are led by Haim Choi in a programme that moves from Mendelssohn's Octet and Oli Mustonen's Nonetto II to smaller line-ups for music by Lili Boulanger, Louise Farrenc and Jean Francaix.

Max Barley (Director of Music, Holy Trinity Sloane Square) returns to the festival with the latest programme of Bach, this time the cantata Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, the motet O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht, and Magnificat. Sinfonia Smith Square are conducted by Charlotte Corderoy in Anna Clyne's virtuosic orchestral showpiece Sound and fury, a new flugelhorn concerto, Hargrove, by Gabriel Jackson with soloist Imogen Whitehead (for whom it was written) and Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony.

A rising star of the viola, Edgar Francis was just 22 years old when he won the 2021 Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition. At this year's festival he is joined by pianist Jâms Coleman for the Tertis Memorial Concert with music from Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann, Rebecca Clarke and Frank Bridge.

There is a gala recital by rising opera stars from the English National Opera, featuring favourite arias accompanied by piano and English sparkling wine from Roebuck Estates. The Festival takes over The Rushmere pub for two nights: jazz singer Natalie Williams and her band, in association with Ronnie Scott's, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, performing French Baroque music in their lighthearted Night Shift format. 

Candlelit concerts bring a cosy Scandinavian atmosphere to performances by the Lodestar Trio, combining Nordic folk music with Bach, and soprano Ruby Hughes with lutenist Jonas Nordberg, performing a programme devoted to John Dowland. Whilst events at at Jeroboams in Wimbledon Village, pair music with wines from around the world: Neapolitan song with wines from Naples and southern Italy, and Piazzolla with Argentinian wine. There is an evening of live music and live painting, with Jérémie Queyras and violinist Charlotte Spruit creating three large-scale canvases during the concert, which will be available for sale afterwards.

Alongside its public performances, the Festival reaches thousands of young people through its partnership with Merton Music Foundation, supporting music education and bringing live performance to schools across the borough.

Full details from the Festival's website. 

 

A sustained & compelling sense of atmosphere: Alex Mills & Anna Blom's Reverence at Brompton Cemetery Chapel

Anna Blom & Alex Mills: Reverence - Brompton Cemetery Chapel

Alex Mills is a composer for whom music and the visual arts are intertwined. Earlier this year, alongside his debut album Look How Brightly, he co-curated an exhibition with 22 artists responding to the music [see my article]. 

This weekend (3-4 October 2026) he and artist Anna Blom presented an installation, Reverence in the Chapel at Brompton Cemetery. 

Reverence brought together four of Blom's large-scale paintings alongside Mills' generative sound installation. The whole intended to evoke our connection to the natural world, something that we easily overlook. Blom's paintings were created outdoors using raw pigments and Blom's process allows traces of the forest itself to become part of the work. Each image was striking in its own right, but placed in an arc in the centre of the chapel they made a compelling assemblage.

Around them Mills' sound installation breathed. Mills' starting point was the breath. He and cellist Clare O'Connell recorded some five or six hundred fragments of O'Connell's cello playing, creating a sense of the instrument inhaling and exhaling. Alongside these Mills used samples of recorded bells and chimes plus a synthesized organ. These samples were brought together by software so that the music was constantly changing and never the same. Mills had worked on the piece so that it used pitches and harmonies that he liked, but the exact combination at any one time was up to chance.

Mills has used chance before in his pieces, but this is the first time he has used it in combination with technology. The piece was almost a living breathing thing, and if he had introduced new pitches, new samples onto his laptop the software would absorb them and change things.

The resulting sound world filled the chapel and created a sense of something inhaling and exhaling, a slow symphonic feel that built and died, constantly changing yet always within the same parameters. There was a slowness to the result that made you, almost compelled you to sit and absorb (and yes, the chapel does have seats!) The whole had a remarkably sustained and compelling sense of atmosphere.

On the Saturday, Clare O'Connell came and gave a live performance where she improvised over the sound installation which was using her material but strung together in an order she did not recognise. An intriguing multilayering of concepts. And on Sunday morning there was a breath workshop.

Brompton Cemetery is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries established in the 19th century to alleviate overcrowding in existing parish burial grounds as London's population grew. Unlike the others, Brompton was very flat, and the architect Benjamin Bauda was brought in to create the domed circular chapel and colonnades designed to evoke St Peter's in Rome.

When Does Georgian Music Stop Being “Georgian Music”?

U.S. premiere of Vaja Azarashvili’s Cello Concerto at Merkin Hall in New York, featuring Sandro Sidamonidze as soloist with Orchestra for People and conductor Hahnsol Kim (Photo: Matthew Holler)

Cellist Sandro Sidamonidze on a musical culture across borders - and knowing when the music begins to travel on its own

There is a peculiar moment that occurs when you perform music from your own country abroad. Before you play a note, the music has already acquired an adjective.

It is Georgian music.

At home, that adjective can be almost invisible. A concerto is a concerto; a composer belongs to the musical landscape you grew up with; certain melodies, harmonies and gestures arrive without requiring footnotes. Abroad, the same piece can suddenly find itself carrying the weight of a country. It becomes a representative. An introduction is expected. A cultural context has to be supplied.

I have spent much of my adult musical life outside Georgia, and the longer my career has developed internationally, the more interested I have become in this transformation.

I am proud to be a Georgian cellist. Georgia is inseparable from who I am, musically and personally, and introducing its music to audiences abroad has become one of the great joys of my life. But I have also begun to wonder whether the ultimate success of advocating for Georgian classical music would be the moment when its nationality becomes less important.

When, in other words, does Georgian music get to become simply music?

For me, that question became particularly tangible through Vaja Azarashvili’s Cello Concerto.

A concerto crosses the Atlantic

In November 2025, I walked onto the stage of Merkin Hall in New York to give the United States premiere of Azarashvili’s concerto.

znThe phrase “United States premiere” sounds grand. For me, however, it also contained something slightly unsettling.

Azarashvili was not some newly discovered composer whose manuscript had been sitting forgotten in an archive. He was a major figure in Georgian musical life. I did not approach his music as an archaeological curiosity. It belonged to the musical environment from which I came.

And yet in New York the concerto was arriving for the first time.

That discrepancy stayed with me.

How can a piece of music possess a meaningful life in one country and effectively have no performance history in another? What determines which works are allowed to travel? We sometimes speak about the classical canon as though it were the natural result of quality: great music survives and crosses borders because it is great. The reality is far less orderly.

        Music travels because somebody carries it.

To convey the true impact required depths only artistic responses could provide: David Önaç on how his Atlantic Requiem aims to memorialise the lost lives of enslaved Africans

David Önaç

How Lloyd’s insurance contracts from the transatlantic slave trade became the unlikely inspiration for a new choral work for the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) and BBC Singers. Composer David Önaç explains his Atlantic Requiem.

Legal insurance documents might not be an obvious inspiration for a choral work. But when Lloyd's opened up its archive of contracts from the transatlantic slave trade, the dramatic potential leapt off the page. Keen to respond on an artistic level to these insurance contracts, Dr Errol Francis, director of arts and heritage charity Culture& commissioned a ground-breaking new musico-dramatic work, soon to be premiered by the LSO and the BBC Singers conducted by Malcolm J. Merriweather.

Prof Alexandre White of Johns Hopkins University had meticulously digitised Lloyd's archives, creating an entire website Underwriting Souls (via "Black, Beyond Data" funded by the Mellon Foundation) testifying to the insurer's complicity in the transatlantic trade, insuring slave ships and their ‘cargo'.

Errol's deep concern was that such comprehensive, systemic undervaluing of human life was about more than facts and figures: indeed, numerical abstraction was part of the problem. To convey the true impact required depths only artistic responses could provide.

In a strange coincidence, when Culture& approached me to write a musical response, I was then arranging 20 Spirituals for Piano for EVC Music, and awaiting the premiere of a milestone: my violin duo "Out of the Blue" which at last integrated jazz, gospel and classical styles with a newfound confidence I had been seeking since childhood.

I grew up on both sides of the Atlantic, inspired by music from both sides of the ocean at the centre of the slave trade. Gospel, jazz and Junkanoo were styles I'd relished as a child in the Caribbean and tried to emulate on the piano as early as age four. Western Classical music was the air I breathed in the UK as a young solo pianist devoted to Rachmaninov (playing Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini was a teenage highlight), and then as a postgraduate composer studying at Cambridge tutored by Robin Holloway, and at Manchester tutored by Adam Gorb and Camden Reeves.

So the requiem proposal offered a vast 45-minute choral and orchestral canvas to paint the sounds of spirituals and more deeply explore sound palettes from my dual heritage.

Bach & Blood: a choral version of Bach's Chaconne, Pärt's Magnificat Antiphons for strings, & David Fenessy meditating on Hildegard & blood

David Fenessy: Blood - Jonathan Morton, Scottish Ensemble, Chamber Choir of NYCOS, Christopher Bell (Photo: Ed Maitland-Smith)

Bach & Blood: Bach,  Arvo Pärt, David Fenessy; Jonathan Morton, Scottish Ensemble, Chamber Choir of the National Youth Choir of Scotland, Christopher Bell; Milton Court Concert Hall
Reviewed 2 October 2026

A fascinating and thought-provoking programme that pairs David Fenessy's remarkable piece for solo violin, choir and strings, with Bach's Chaconne complete with its originating chorales and Pärt's string version of his magnificat antiphons 

The Scottish Ensemble's Bach & Blood programme brought together music by Bach, Arvo Pärt and Glasgow-based Irish composer David Fenessy on a short tour of Scotland and England which ended on Friday 2 October 2026 at the Barbican Centre's Milton Court Concert Hall. The Scottish Ensemble under its artistic director, violinist Jonathan Morton were joined by the Chamber Choir of the National Youth Choir of Scotland (NYCOS) and conductor Christopher Bell, the Choir's artistic director in a programme which moved from Bach's Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D minor for solo violin in Helga Thoene's version with accompanying chorales, Arvo Pärt's Greater Antiphons for string orchestra, and David Fenessy's Blood for solo violin, string orchestra and choir.

Professor Helga Thoene suggests that Bach's Partita No. 2, and especially its last movement, was a tombeau written in memory of Bach's first wife, Maria Barbara Bach (who died in 1720). The suggestion is not uncontroversial, but Thoene has created a version of the Chaconne which puts the violin line with the chorales on which Thoene suggests the music is based. And it is these chorales that suggested the tombeau idea.

Part travelogue, part musical exploration, part poetic meditation: Blair Coron's film Woven Ground

Blair Coron

Blair Coron is a musician and poet from Springfield, a small village in Fife, Scotland. His quiet and intimate music blends modern classical, storytelling and traditional melodies, with themes of nature, people, time and place. I featured his 2023 project, A Carrying Stream [see article], which consisted of a collection of music and accompanying exhibition. For his new project, Woven Ground, he has taken the music out into the landscape and created a film out of the process.

Woven Ground is an EP featuring Blair Coron - piano, harmonium, vocals, guitar; Charlie Stewart - fiddle; Miwa Nagato-Apthorp - vocals; Zoe Bestel - vocals, with four tracks: Isle of Canna, Midsummer, 5:54am, 2026, Sgùrr A' Mhaoraich, Beneath Six Black Poplar Trees and Moon Lament. The accompanying film, which is available on YouTube, features the creation of these four.

Blair Coron is a poet as well as a musician and amongst his forthcoming projects is the publication of his first book of poetry. This comes out in the film which is part travelogue, part musical exploration and part poetic meditation, filmed by Slaiste Kaniute. Coron's music and words suffuse the film, so that it becomes far more than a 'making of' type film.

Blair Coron at Margaret Fay Shaw's piano on the Isle of Canna

The first part takes place on the Isle of Canna, the westernmost of the Small Isles archipelago, in the Scottish Inner Hebrides. The islands were left to the National Trust for Scotland by their previous owners, the highly important Celtic studies scholars John Lorne Campbell (1906-1996) and his wife Margaret Fay Shaw, and one of Coron's previous projects featured Campbell's recording of birdsong made on Canna in the 1950s. A feature of Woven Ground is Coron's intention not only to record in situ but to include the sound of the surrounding landscape and birds, so his recording on Canna came 75 years after that original birdsong recording. And Coron's piece, Isle of Canna, Midsummer, 5:54am is recorded on Margaret's piano. We learn the background to the isle and this helps to set off Coron's atmospheric piece.

Next comes a travelogue involving moving a harmonium to Kinloch Hourn (the name comes from the Gaelic, Ceann Loch Shubhairne, for "the head of Loch Hourn".) with fiddle player Charlie Stewart. There we see and hear the two performing Sgùrr A' Mhaoraich (the name of a Scottish mountain which is viewed from Kinloch Hourn). The recording, done in the wild, is wonderfully atmospheric and again the film succeeds in being poetically contemplative rather that just a film.

Recording at Kinloch Hourn

Rather more artful is the section with Coron in a garden writing a poem, Beneath Six Black Poplar Trees, which develops into a piece involving voice and electronics as the film turns artful with a sequence where the film flow is reversed so flowers seem to be created not destroyed.

The final section involves the four musicians and sound recordist gathering in a glade in the Trossachs forest to play Moon Lament. This is a folksong where Coron (on voice and guitar) is accompanied by Charlie Stewart (fiddle), Zoë Bestel and Miwa Nagato- Apthorp (vocals), with the sound of the wind blowing through the branches and creaking of tree tops overhead.

Blair Coron's Woven Ground is available on BandCamp and the full film is on YouTube.