As Jonathan Bloxham becomes principal conductor, London Mozart Players announces its 2025/26 season

For the 2025/26 season, Jonathan Bloxham steps into a new role as principal conductor and artistic advisor with London Mozart Players (LMP), building on his three-year tenure as conductor in residence and artistic advisor. LMP#'s flagship season opens at St Martin in the Fields with Bloxham conducting an all-Mozart concert featuring soprano Danielle de Niese in arias from Don Giovanni, Il re pastore and La Clemenza di Tito alongside Mozart's Symphony No. 40. 

The season also includes Bach's Brandenburg Concertos directed by Simon Blendis; a celebration of Samuel Coleridge Taylor's 150th birthday in Croydon with the composer's Violin Concerto with Braimah Kanneh-Mason alongside new music by Ryan Morgan and Tunde Jegede; and violinist Fenella Humphreys in Stephen McNeff's Violin Concerto conducted by Jonathan Bloxham. Further ahead there is Mozart, Boulogne and Haydn, Bach's St John Passion, Vivaldi and Piazzolla, and the season ends with Jonathan Bloxham conducting Britten's Serenade for tenor, horn and strings with Laurence Kilsby and Ben Goldscheider, plus Mendelssohn a new piece by Anna Clyne.

LMP's wine-tasting experience, Tasting Notes returns to Smith Square Hall for its 10th edition with four chances to pair wine with music. Family friendly, community concerts in Upper Norwood continue with Christmas brass music, plus musical story-telling in The Penguin who was blown away and The Duck with no luck! And pianist Howard Shelly returns with four instalments of their popular lunchtime series The Piano Explored at St Paul's Knightsbridge with all five of Beethoven's piano concertos being featured. 

Full details from LMP's website.

London Mozart Players in 2024/25: Resident at Fairfield Halls, performing at Smith Square Hall & on the South coast, plus a new season at St Martin-in-the-Fields

London Mozart Players is resident at Fairfield Halls, Croydon and performs at Smith Square Hall and on the South coast, but in addition the orchestra launches its 2024/25 season with six concerts at St Martin-in-the-Fields. In September, violinist Ruth Rogers directs Four World Season which fuses Vivaldi and Roxanna Panufnik’s interpretation of the world’s seasons, complete with live immersive digital projections which will transform St Martin’s into a visual spectacle. In October, Jonathan Bloxham conducts the orchestra in Mendelssohn and the Schumanns with Louis Schwizgebel in Schumann's Piano Concerto, Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony and Clara Schumann's Three Romances (an orchestration of her late masterpiece for violin and piano). November sees Jonathan Bloxham returning for The Ages of Mozart with pianist Angela Hewitt in programme which moves from Mozart's Symphony No. 1 to Symphony No. 6 'Linz' plus Piano Concerto No. 9 'Jeunehomme'.

The new year sees French Connections: Music from the Parisian Stage with pianist Zee Zee in Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major, Flights of Fancy with programmatic music from RVW to Coleridge Taylor, and A Place in Time when the orchestra's Education Ambassador, saxophonist Jess Gillam, joins the orchestra as soloist and presenter for this folk-inspired programme.

Other events include Christmas with London Mozart Players at Smith Square Hall with the LMP Brass ensemble, Croydon SDA Gospel Choir and Trinity Boys Choir and Trinity Girls Choir. The brass ensemble will also travel to Henry Ward Hall, Hastings and St John’s, Upper Norwood for Christmas Crackers. In Croydon, Changing Seasons ;at Fairfield Halls responds to the climate emergency by interspersing Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons with new seasonal-themed commissions from four community groups; Queer Croydon, Club Soda, Subrang Arts and Croydon Music & Arts. The event will be preceded by a free afternoon showcase in the open spaces of Fairfield Halls, featuring local talent from over 30 music and dance groups.

The orchestra's LMP on the Move initiative will be popping up in local community venues and public places around the Borough of Croydon, bringing accessible performance formats to the local residents throughout the year. The orchestra will also take LMP on the Move to Hastings, building on their residency on the South coast. The orchestra's community residencies in Upper Norwood and on the South coast continue with Marvellous Maestros (St John’s, Upper Norwood) and Now That’s What I Call (Classical) Music: Baroque to Rock (De La Warr Pavilion), both focusing on the GCSE music set-work syllabus, helping local students to prepare for their exams.      

Full details from LMP's website.

Celebrating 75 years: London Mozart Players in wonderful form for all-Mozart programme at Fairfield Halls plus the launch of 100 Faces of Croydon

Mozart: The Mixtape - Imogen Cooper, Jonathan Bloxham, London Mozart Players - Fairfield Halls (Photo: William Vann via Twitter)

Mozart: The Mixtape; Anna Prohaska, Imogen Cooper, Martin James Bartlett, London Mozart Players, Jonathan Bloxham; Fairfield Halls, Croydon

Wonderfully vital performances with a strong presence and sense of engagement in London Mozart Player's celebratory all-Mozart programme recreating the composer's own 1783 concert in Vienna

The London Mozart Players is 75 and the centrepiece of the celebratory 2023/24 season was on Saturday 10 February 2024 at Fairfield Halls, Croydon when the orchestra's artistic associate and conductor in residence, Jonathan Bloxham directed the orchestra in a programme billed as Mozart: The Mixtape with a programme based on a celebratory concert that Mozart gave in Vienna in 1783 with Symphony No. 35 'Haffner', Piano Concerto No.13, with Imogen Cooper, Piano Concerto No. 5, with Martin James Bartlett, movements from Serenade No. 9 'Posthorn'  and arias from soprano Anna Prohaska. The evening was presented by Petroc Trelawney and will be on BBC Radio 3 on 23 February. 

But the concert also launched the orchestra's 100 Faces of Croydon. The brainchild of Jonathan Bloxham and photographer Kaupo Kikkas, 100 people from Croydon were photographed by 30 local photographers, each picked a different place in Croydon for the photograph's location. The project is available on a devoted website, but on Saturday the evening opened with the 100 faces being projected in the hall whilst the 100 people there photographed performed Ligeti's Poème symphonique for 100 metronomes. It was my first live encounter with Ligeti's piece, and the way the sound built up into an almost orgasmic moment before dying away was truly intriguing when combined with the images flashing up.

images from 100 Faces of Croydon

Mozart's programme from 1783 was definitely mix and match rather than the sort of programme we are used to. So, we opened with the first three movements of the Haffner Symphony, then the aria 'Se il padre perdei' from Idomeneo, then the third and fourth movements from the Posthorn Serenade, then the concert aria Misera, dove son! then Piano Concerto no. 13, then the aria 'Come scoglio' from Cosi fan tutte (actually written in 1789 and replacing Mozart's choice of an aria from Lucio Silla), then Piano Concerto No. 5 (for which Mozart wrote a new rondo finale specially for the occasion), then the closing movement of the Haffner Symphony. And for the concert, Mozart had written new clarinet parts for the outer movement of the symphony, too.

Jonathan Bloxham takes up a new role as London Mozart Players' conductor-in-residence and artistic advisor

Jonathan Bloxham (Photo Kaupo Kikkas)

The conductor Jonathan Bloxham takes up a new role this month as London Mozart Players' conductor-in-residence and artistic advisor. His next appearance on the podium with the orchestra is in February 2023 when he will be conducting a programme of Bloch and Mendelssohn at Fairfield Halls (where the orchestra is resident) with cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, and the concert will include on-stage conversation between Bloxham and Kanneh-Mason discussing the works being performed.

Bloxham made his debut with the orchestra in November 2019 at Kings Place with a programme of Mozart, Schubert and a new commission. Since then, his projects with the orchestra have included Beethoven and Mendelssohn symphonies, Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No.2 with Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Glazunov with saxophonist Jess Gillam and Tchaikovsky with the orchestra's young artist in residence, pianist Leia Zhu.

A former cellist (he made his concerto debut at the Berlin Philharmonie in 2012), Bloxham was assistant conductor with the CBSO from 2016-2018. Other engagements this season include invitations back to Salzburg, Munich, Residentie Orkest and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. He made his Glyndebourne debut in 2021 with Verdi's Luisa Miller. Bloxham is the founder of the Northern Chords Festival based in Newcastle [see my article about its 2022 season]

Further details about London Mozart Players' season from their website.

Julia Desbruslais to step down as executive director of London Mozart Players

London Mozart Players

In 2016, the players of London Mozart Players (LMP) took over running the orchestra thus making it the only professional orchestra in the UK to be managed both operationally and artistically by the players. The Executive Director for this new regime was the orchestra's co-principal cellist, Julia Desbruslais, and at the end of this year (2021) she is stepping down as Executive Director. It has been something of a rollercoaster ride, with the events of the last 18 months providing the unexpected challenges both in terms of performance and funding which have troubled all UK performing groups.

Resident at Fairfield Halls, the orchestra moved relocated its office from Fairfield Halls to the Church of St John the Evangelist, Upper Norwood, in advance of Fairfield Halls closure in 2016 for restoration. In Upper Norwood, the orchestra has embedded itself in the vibrant and diverse community around the church, putting on concerts in new and unusual venues around the borough, as well as returning to Fairfield Halls for performances as part of the re-opening celebrations. During lockdown the ensemble was an early adopter of digital performance, utilising both its home venue and other distinctive spaces. This year, the orchestra celebrated its 72nd birthday as a vibrant, innovative and community focused ensemble that continues to push boundaries and reinvent itself for the new musical landscape.

Julia comments, "The pandemic released this amazing creativity from within the LMP which has helped the orchestra to reinvent itself for the twenty-first century, kept it relevant and demonstrated how powerful we can be when we all work together. It has been wonderful to be part of such a giving team - from Management and Trustees to the LMP musicians - where there is so much mutual respect."

Full details of Autumn season plans from the orchestra's website.

Letters from Burma

In 2004, composer Roxanna Panufnik wrote Letters from Burna based on the writings of Aung San Suu Kyi. Perhaps now we have a rather different view of Aung San Suu Kyi but there is no doubt about the power of her remarkable collection Letters from Burna describing everyday life in the country, and written during her time under house arrest.

Now, as part of Refugee Week 2021, the London Mozart Players (LMP) and oboist Olivier Stankiewicz have released a new recording of Panufnik's Letters from Burma accompanied by a moving and thought-provoking video, filmed by students from Surrey University, which includes recent footage from Myanmar, plus an interview with noted human rights activist Benedict Rogers, brother of LMP's leader, Ruth Rogers. Benedict Rogers is the Senior Analyst for East Asia at the human rights organisation Christian Solidarity Worldwide, and author of three books on Myanmar.

This spring, the military in Myanmar once again seized power in a coup, launching a brutal crackdown on people peacefully protesting against military rule, and this has cast the composition in a new and poignant light. All money raised by the video will go to the refugee charity Advance Myanmar, which is providing emergency aid to thousands forced to flee their homes.

Roxanna Panufnik said:
"My father fled a totalitarian regime 70 years ago, and the courage and kindness of those who helped him stays with my family to this day. 'Letters from Burma' is inspired by a collection of the same title, of Aung San Suu Kyi's correspondence to a Japanese newspaper during her house arrest in the 1990s. They describe every facet of the beauty and also the severe hardship of the country but my piece finishes in triumph. I hope and pray Burma's surpressed will do so, one day too. Please help support those brave enough to endeavour to make this happen and the innocent victims of totalitarian oppression."

Further information from the London Mozart Players' website, and donations are welcome at the Advance Myanmar website.

From Mozart and Mendelssohn to Hummel and Moscheles: Piano Explored - online

Piano Explored, London Mozart Players' annual series of montly lunchtime concerts with pianist Howard Shelley is going on-line this year. The performances are planned to be monthly from February (with two in April), performed in a socially distanced manner without audience (until audiences are permitted). For each an hour-long programme, Shelley gives an entertaining and insightful introduction to one or two famous or not-so-famous works for piano and orchestra, before performing them with the London Mozart Players.

The music this year includes familiar works by Mozart, Saint-Saens, and Shostakovich along with less familiar concertos by Mendelssohn (his Capriccio Brillant in B minor which was premiered in London in 1832), Johann Nepomuk Hummel (who had lessons from Mozart and was a friend of Beethoven's), and Ignaz Moscheles (another friend of Beethoven's, who created the piano score of Fidelio, and was also a close friend of Mendelssohn's). 

The season launches with the first concert (Saint-Saens and Mendelssohn) at 1.05pm, Thursday 18 February 2021, full details from the London Mozart Player's website.

London Mozart Players' Classical Club

London Mozart Players (LMP) is presenting an Autumn season of concerts which will have a limited, socially distanced audience and be available on-line as Classical Club to a ticketed audience. LMP is taking advantage of the present unusual situation and using a variety of more unusual venues for the concerts. And in order to support young artists at the beginning of their careers, the soloists include artists from the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT). The concerts are being presented in association with Scala Radio.

The season opens on 24 September 2020, with Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1 and Schumann's Cello Concerto (soloist Maciej Kulakowski), and future programmes include clarinettist Michael Collins in Weber and Mozart clarinet quintets, Walton's Facade with Samuel West as reciter, Strauss' late glorious Oboe Concerto (soloist Olivier Stankiewicz), two of Paul Patterson's Roald Dahl pieces narrated by Polly Ives, Stravinsky's The Soldiers Tale conducted by William Vann from the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, and Beethoven's Violin Concerto (soloist Jonian Ilias Kadesha).

Full details from the LMP website.

London Mozart Players return to performing live for the first time in three months

London Mozart Players (Photo Kevin Day)

For the first time since 13 March 2020, the players of London Mozart Players (LMP) will be performing together on Monday 15 June 2020. The concert, possibly the first concert by a UK chamber orchestra since lockdown, will be performed under strict social distancing rules with no audience and will be streamed live, and free to view, on Classic FM's Facebook Page. It is the first of three LMP Live! concerts to be given over the Summer months, which take advantage of the unusual conditions in which the concerts take place to give the performances in unusual locations.

All three concerts take place at 7pm, and will be directed by LMP co-leaders Simon Blendis and Ruth Rogers. On Monday 15 June, LMP will be performing from Westfield London, in Shepherd's Bush, on the first day of trading, and the programme will include music by Mozart, Elgar and Tchaikovsky. On Saturday 4 July, LMP will be at St Giles Cripplegate, celebrating the re-opening of churches to congregations, playing Grieg's Holberg Suite, Copeland's Hoedown, with RVW's The Lark Ascending giving us a chance to hear violinist Tamsin Little live before she retires later this year. Then on 22 July at Mansfield College, the last official day of home-schooling, the orchestra will be joined by violinist Jennifer Pike for Vivaldi's The Four Seasons.

All the concerts are available via Classic FM's Facebook page; full details from LMP's website.

Joanna Lumley's carnival and Alex Woolf's miniatures: London Mozart Players develop new digital content for LMP at Home

Illustration for Camille Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals by Cat Fuller

As the London Mozart Players' (LMP) daily on-line content continues with its LMP at Home initiative, the orchestra has announced that on Friday 24 April 2020, as part of its 'Family Fridays' slot, that there will be a family-friendly collaborative performance of Camille Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals with poems narrated by Joanna Lumley. And composer Alex Woolf has written a series of Homespun Miniatures for the orchestra, the first of which Duet No. 1 was premiered by LMP leader Simon Blendis and his wife Saoko Blendis on Channel 4 news.

Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals will be performed by different members of the orchestra and accompanied by animated illustrations created by designer Cat Fuller, and animal poems written by LMP violinist Martin Smith and narrated by Joanna Lumley. The performance will be premiered via LMP’s Facebook and YouTube accounts on Friday 24 April.

Alex Woolf has written a series of Homespun Miniatures for the orchestra to be premiered during April and May as part of LMP at Home. The first work, Duet No. 1, for violin and piano, can be seen on YouTube, and the second work Duet No. 2 for violin and cello will be premiered via LMP's digital channels on Wednesday 29 April 2020.

Other highlights of LMP at Home include an introduction to Michael Nyman's Where the Bee Dances from saxophonist Jess Gillam on Wednesday h May, a Facebook-live recital from harpist Rosanna Rolton on Saturday 18 April and the next instalment of 'Mozart Mondays' on Monday 20 April featuring clarinettist Michael Collins, who will unpack and explore the first movement of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A Major.

Full details and schedule from the LMP website.

Celebrating the cello: Raphael Wallfisch performs Tchaikovsky, Schumann and Romberg with London Mozart Players at St John's Smith Square and in Upper Norwood

London Mozart Players at St John the Evangelist, Upper Norwood

Cellist Raphael Wallfisch is joining the London Mozart Players (LMP) for a pair of concerts at St John's Smith Square (30 January 2020) and at LMP's home base, the church of St John the Evangelist, Upper Norwood, SE19 (1 March 2020) celebrating the cello, with performances of three major concertante works from the 19th century, by Schumann, Tchaikovsky and Bernhard Romberg, with a significant new recording of two of Romberg's concertos to come.

At St John's Smith Square (30 January 2020) Raphael Wallfisch will perform Schumann's Cello Concerto and Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations with the London Mozart Players [see my interview with Raphael where he talks about the background to the original version of the Tchaikovsky], along with symphonies by Mozart and Haydn.

Raphael Wallfisch and LMP's concert on 1 March 2020 is part of LMP's commitment to bring classical music to the local community, encouraging those who would not usually attend a classical concert to try it out on their own doorstep. The concert will feature Romberg's Cello Concerto No. 4 plus music by Tchaikovsky, Dvorak and Rossini. And Raphael Wallfisch will be joined by cellists from every stage of the learning process including 15 young cellists from Croydon Youth Orchestra, and a cello ensemble of Constantin Macherel, Sebastian Comberti, Tim Posner, Dan Benn, Anna Crawford and Keira Morgan. The concert will be compèred by Classic FM presenter Sam Pittis who lives locally.

Later in 2020, Raphael Wallfisch will be recording Romberg's Cello Concertos Nos 4 & 6 with LMP. Bernhard Romberg (1790-1841) was a German cellist and composer who played in the court orchestra of the Elector of Cologne in Bonn, where he knew the young Beethoven. Romberg made quite a number of improvements to the design of the cello, and as a musician he was admired by Beethoven.

Full details from the London Mozart Players' website.

Sheku Kanneh-Mason joins the London Mozart Players for their first concert of 2020 at the newly restored Fairfield Halls in Croydon

Sheku Kanneh-Mason with the London Mozart Players in 2017

Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason joins the London Mozart Players for their first concert of 2020 at the newly restored Fairfield Halls in Croydon on Sunday 12 January 2020, performing Saint-Saens' Cello Concerto No. 1. 

This won't be the cellist's first appearance with the orchestra, in 2017 he performed the Haydn Cello Concerto with them at one of their community concerts at the church of St John the Evangelist in Upper Norwood. Kanneh-Mason, who is not yet 21, has had an extraordinary career since winning the BBC Young Musician in 2016 and this month sees him continuing with the release of his recording of Elgar's Cello Concerto with Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra on Decca (but this does not make Kanneh-Mason the youngest instrumentalist to record an Elgar concerto, that prize goes to Yehudi Menuhin who was 16 when he recorded the Elgar Violin Concerto with the composer conducting).

On Sunday 12 January 2019, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, the London Mozart Players, conductor Jaime Martin (himself a former flautist with the orchestra), perform Saint-Saens' Cello Concerto No. 1 as part of an all-French programme including music by Ravel and Bizet, alongside Mozart's Symphony No. 31. The symphony was written when the 22-year-old composer was in Paris, and features the largest orchestra that he had yet written for as the Concert Spirituel, where it was premiered, allowed him to write for double woodwind (flutes, oboes, bassoons AND clarinets), two trumpets, two horns and timpani.

Further details from the London Mozart Players' website.