For one night only: RNCM takes over the Manchester Museum for Nature's Music, live ensembles amongst the museum's collections

Nature's Music - RNCM at the Manchester Museum (Photo: ©RNCM)

On Saturday 6 July 2024, the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) will take over the galleries of the Manchester Museum and present Nature's Music, an immersive show that puts live ensembles amongst the Museum's collections. RNCM students and guest artists will play well-loved and modern compositions inspired by the natural world, including a rare arrangement of Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending for violin and chamber choir.

Visitors will take a nocturnal journey through Living Worlds and Nature’s Library, the Fossils and Dinosaurs and South Asia galleries, and more, experiencing musical interpretations of birdsong, wind and water, land and sky, and compositions that conjure up England, Egypt, China, and beyond. Performers will include guest artists Trees.R.Good and the RNCM's new Community Chorus will be performing too.

Tickets for Nature's Music are available from the RNCM website.

Nature's Music is part of the RNCM's The Future is Green, a campaign to use music as a catalyst to spark discussion about the climate emergency as the college actively seeks to reduce its carbon footprint. The Future is Green reflects concerns of the college's current students and the conservatoire’s long-standing interest in supporting Greater Manchester’s net zero targets.

Other events as part of The Future is Green include Ancient and Natural Worlds (14 June), a free concert of music by Britten and Julia Usher exploring the wonders of the world; The Silent Planet (3 July 2024), a reimagining of Holst's The Planets from Delia Stevens and BBC Radio 2 Folk Musician of the Year, Will Pound, with RNCM musicians, players from Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and youth-led climate activists Force of Nature, and featuring an original new movement called 'Earth'. Silverwood (4-5 July 2024), RNCM Community Opera with the college's new Community Chorus telling the story of a local green space under threat from developers, written by the Chorus and current students alongside composer and conductor Kate Pearson and director Jonathan Ainscough.

Further information from the RNCM website.

'Let other pens dwell on misery and grief' - a joyous ensemble performance of Jonathan Dove's Mansfield Park from RNCM Opera

Jonathan Dove - Mansfield Park - RNCM Opera (Photo Robin Clewley)

Jonathan Dove: Mansfield Park; director Stephen Barlow, conductor Lee Reynolds, RNCM Opera; Royal Northern College of Music
Reviewed 26 March 2023

A young cast brings the operatic Mansfield Park to life in an engaging & ultimately moving production that placed Austen herself at its centre

Jonathan Dove's orchestral adaptation of his 2011 opera Mansfield Park (originally written for soloists and piano duet) debuted at The Grange Festival in 2017 [see my review]. With its cast of youthful characters, and a Mozartian-sized orchestra, the work makes a good fit for music colleges and the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) planned a production in 2020. Two months into rehearsals director Stephen Barlow and the cast came to a halt and the production was shelved. Amazingly it has been resuscitated.

On Sunday 26 March, Jonathan Dove and Alasdair Middleton's Mansfield Park opened at the RNCM as part of the college's 50th anniversary celebrations. Lee Reynolds conducted, Stephen Barlow directed, with designs by Yannis Thavoris, lighting by Jason Taylor, choreography by Bethan Rhys William. Olivia Tringham was Fanny Price, Rebecca Anderson was Lady Bertram, Jonathan Hill was Sir Thomas Bertram, Jessica Hopkins was Maria Bertram, Sarah Winn was Julia Bertram, Conrad Chatterton was Edmund Bertram, Christina Orjis was Aunt Norris, Anusha Bobby was Mary Crawford, Henry Strutt was Henry Crawford, and Liam Forrest was Mr Rushworth. The cast was largely new for 2023, with Olivia Tringham (Fanny) and Christina Orjis (Aunt Norris) returning from 2020.

Jonathan Dove: Mansfield Park - Olivia Tringham - RNCM Opera (Photo Robin Clewley)

Intriguing, illuminating, frustrating: Henning Kraggerud and RNCM Chamber Orchestra

Grieg: Violin Sonata No. 3 - Henning Kraggerud & RNCM Chamber Orchestra - RNCM

Grieg, arr. Kraggerud & Lund: Violin Sonata No. 3, Bach, arr. Kraggerud & Lund: Goldberg Variations (excerpts); Henning Kraggerud, RNCM Chamber Orchestra; Royal Northern College of Music
Reviewed 24 March 2023

Grieg and Bach orchestrated, inwonderfully engaged and vital performances from RNCM Chamber Orchestra under the charismatic Henning Kraggerud

The Royal Northern College of Music's (RNCM) Original Voices Festival celebrates new interpretations of classic works and as part of it, on Friday 24 March 2023, Norwegian violinist Henning Kraggerud (artistic director of the Arctic Philharmonic and International Chair in Violin at the RNCM) directed the RNCM Chamber Orchestra in a programme of orchestrations of smaller-scale works. So we heard Kraggerud and Bernd Lund's orchestral expansion of Grieg's Violin Sonata No. 3, and a selection of movements from Bach's Goldberg Variations. 

Modern Times in Manchester

Charlie Chaplin's 1936 film Modern Times marked the last screen appearance of Chaplin's character the Little Tramp. It is also features Chaplin's largest and most sophisticated score; the film was released as a sound film but with no dialogue, even though talking pictures had been established for more than a decade. There is just Chaplin's music and sound effects. The film itself is a biting and darkly funny critique of the dehumanising effects of industrialisation.

In 1999 the composer Timothy Brock restored and reconstructed the score for live performance and on Saturday 26 October 2013 at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester there is a chance to see the film with the score performed live by the RNCM Symphony Orchestra conducted by Clark Rundell, head of conducting at the RNCM. Further information from the RNCM website.

New Music North West

The Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) and the University of Manchester are presenting New Music North West, the UK's largest festival of new British music, from 26 October to 2 November. The week-long festival takes place mainly at the RNCM and at the university's Martin Harris Centre. There is the opportunity to hear groups such as the BBC Philharmonic, Psappha, Ensemble 10/10 and the House of Bedlam and the Liverpool-born composer Edwin Roxburgh features heavily. The festival includes over 10 world premieres and 24 of the concerts are free.

For the opening weekend MANTIS (Manchester Theatre in Sound) will be presenting a weekend of electro-acoustic concerts.  Works which received their premiere at the RNCM's Sound Histories event at the British Museum in July this year will be receiving their Manchester premieres on the RNCM concourse.