Cross-cultural cross currents: Jasdeep Singh Degun with Fantasia Orchestra in Terry Riley's iconic In C performed by string orchestra, piano, sitar and tabla at Smith Square Hall

Jasdeep Singh Degun, Gurdain Rayatt, Fantasia Orchestra, Tom Fetherstonhaugh - Smith Square Hall (Photo: Pablo Strong)

Terry Riley: In C, Jasdeep Singh Degun, Philip Glass, Rameau; Jasdeep Singh Degun, Gurdain Rayatt, Fantasia Orchestra, Tom Fetherstonhaugh; Smith Square Hall
Reviewed 10 April 2026

Minimalism, classical Indian music & French Baroque in an entrancing mix which saw the iconic In C including sitar and tabla alongside Jasdeep Singh Degun's own music in performances full of infectious joy

Sitar player and composer Jasdeep Sing Degun joined Tom Fetherstonhaugh and Fantasia Orchestra for a concert at Smith Square Hall on Friday 10 April 2026 with a wide-ranging programme which saw Degun, on sitar, and tabla player Gurdain Rayatt joining the orchestra in Terry Riley's iconic In C alongside music by Degun, Philip Glass and Rameau.

The orchestra consisted of an ensemble of 21 strings with Fetherstonhaugh playing the piano for the first half. We began with Degun's In Search of Redemption from his first album, Anomaly. We began with Fetherstonhaugh playing a gentle melody on the piano, then as sitar and strings joined they played the same melody in free heterophonic fashion. As the piece developed we became aware of Degun, the composer, adding layers each one with a different timbre and playing subtly different rhythms. The work ended with a fast riff for sitar (Degun) and tabla (Rayatt) over a string drone.

Jasdeep Singh Degun, Fantasia Orchestra - Smith Square Hall (Photo: Pablo Strong)

Pianist Alessio Bax leads the inaugural London Festival of Chamber Music at Smith Square Hall as its Doors Open project gathers momentum

Smith Square Hall (Image: Burrell Foley Fischer)

The inaugural London Festival of Chamber Music takes place 25-29 March 2026 at Smith Square Hall, welcoming international artists and audiences to a series of concerts curated by 2026 Festival Artistic Director, pianist Alessio Bax. The musicians invited by Alessio Bax include Sarah Aristidou (soprano), Alena Baeva (violin), Lucille Chung (piano), François Leleux (oboe and conductor), Eugene Lee (violin), Lawrence Power (viola), Natalia Lomeiko (violin), Nabil Shehata (double bass and conductor), Paul Watkins (cello and conductor) and Radovan Vlatković (French horn).

The festival opens with a mix of orchestral and chamber music with Sinfonia Smith Square in Strauss's Horn Concerto No. 2 and Beethoven's Symphony No. 2, followed by an immersive late-evening performance with music by Schubert, Messiaen, and Berio, ending with Elgar's Piano Quintet. Thursday features Schubert's Trout Quintet with soprano Sarah Aristidou opening the evening with culture-spanning songs drawing on European, Middle Eastern and Indian traditions.

Schumann's Fantasiestücke and Clara Schumann's late Three Romances are combined with their friend Brahms's Horn Trio, whilst Beethoven's Second Cello Sonata is a prelude to his Triple Concerto performed with Sinfonia Smith Square. 

During the day on 28 March, Festival Artists join musicians from Sinfonia Smith Square for a day of public workshops focusing on chamber repertoire and ensemble craft, giving audiences insight into the collaborative process. The Festival closes with 19th century oboist, Antonio Pasculli’s Donizetti-inspired Oboe Concerto, alongside Respighi, Ligeti and Schubert’s Symphony No. 5, performed by Sinfonia Smith Square.

This is also an exciting time for Smith Square Hall. Over the next few years, an ambitious restoration project, Doors Open, will breathe new life into Smith Square Hall, revitalising its spaces to be fully accessible and welcoming for audiences, performers, guest artists. Recently it was announced that it has been awarded £500,000 from The Julia Rausing Trust in support of the ‘Doors Open’ project, marking a significant milestone in the campaign,

Full details of the London Festival of Chamber Music from the Smith Square website.

Echoes of war: Salomon Orchestra, Cathal Garvey & Charlie Lovell-Jones in Walton, Britten & Vaughan Williams

This year is the 80th anniversary of the ending of World War Two, and organisations are finding a wide variety of ways to create events that reflect this. 

For their concert at Smith Square Hall on 14 June 2025, Salomon Orchestra are joined by conductor Cathal Garvey and violinist Charlie Lovell-Jones for three 20th century English works that resonate with the anniversary in different ways - Walton's Orb and Sceptre, Britten's Violin Concerto and Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 3 'A Pastoral Symphony'.

Walton's march was written for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 and whilst the work is influenced by earlier marches by Walton himself and Elgar, it also reflects the more confident atmosphere of post-War Britain. 

By contrast, Britten's Violin Concerto was written in 1938/39 and completed in the USA and Canada where Britten and Peter Pears were in self-imposed (and temporary) exile during the war. The premiere was conducted by John Barbirolli in New York and it only reached England in 1941 (at the Queen's Hall). Often lyrical and elegiac, the work is in rather contrast to Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem (of 1940) which reflected a darker more intense view of the international situation.

Soloist Charlie Lovell-Jones was a Christ Church Prize Scholar at Oxford University, he graduated in 2020 with a Gibbs Prize in Music. He received a Bicentenary Scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music and graduated in 2022 with the Strings Postgraduate Prize. He was the youngest-ever member of the John Wilson Orchestra and has since led the orchestra on occasion.

Whilst Britten would write the War Requiem in the aftermath of the World War Two, an intriguing fact about the earlier world war was the several of the composers who participated in it failed to write such intense, angry works in the aftermath, composers such as Ravel, Bliss, Holst and Vaughan Williams. RVW began ideas for A Pastoral Symphony whilst he was a stretcher bearer in the Royal Army Medical Corps and rather than the English cow gazing over a fence of Constant Lambert's jibe, the works initial genesis reflected the bleak landscape of war torn Northern France, with a bugler's slip in playing the Last Post. The whole tone of the work is reflective. RVW completed the work in 1922 as A Pastoral Symphony, only later numbering it (until his Symphony No. 4 he seemed to push against numbering his symphonies).

Full details from the Sinfonia Smith Square website.

Britten Sinfonia, Sinfonia Smith Square and the Choir of Merton College, Oxford, unite for a thrilling and exhilarating concert concluding with Olivier Messiaen’s Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum.

Messiaen: Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum - Britten Sinfonia, Sinfonia Smith Square, Nicholas Daniel - St George's Cathedral, Southwark (Photo: Britten Sinfonia)

Stravinsky: Symphonies of wind instruments; Poulenc: Timor et tremor, Vinea mea electa, Tristis est anima mea; Duruflé: Ubi caritas et amor; Stravinsky: Mass; Messiaen: Vocalise-etude, O sacrum convivium, Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum. Choir of Merton College, Oxford, cond. Benjamin Nicholas; Britten Sinfonia, Sinfonia Smith Square, cond. Nicholas Daniel; St George’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, Southwark, London
Reviewed by Tony Cooper, 30 April 2025

This concert marked Nicholas Daniel’s final performance with the Britten Sinfonia as principal oboist, a post he has held since being one of the founding members of the orchestra in 1992. 

I think it’s fair to say that this concert featuring a performance of Olivier Messiaen’s monumental work Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum performed by the Britten Sinfonia, and Sinfonia Smith Square with music by Poulenc, Duruflé and Stravinsky with the Choir of Merton College, Oxford, could well be described as a ‘once-in-a-decade’ musical experience.  

For sure, a tremendous piece, Et exspecto is rarely performed nowadays because of the sheer scale of the musical forces required such as the huge sections of wind and brass (no strings) needed alongside an extraordinary range of percussion and ‘knocking’ instruments comprising three sets of cowbells, three tam-tams and six tuned gongs were part of the hardware as well as a set of tubular bells all safely in the strong and skilful hands of half-a-dozen percussionists aka the ‘Heavy Metal Boys’.  

Commissioned by the French Minister of Cultural Affairs, André Malraux, to honour the Fallen of the First and Second World Wars, Messiaen conceived the work to be performed in large spaces such as churches and cathedrals and, indeed, in open-air performances. He found inspiration in writing the piece by the countryside of the Hautes-Alpes (a department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region of south-eastern France) and by the imposing images of Gothic and Romanesque churches. 

‘I feel that Et exspecto presents a rare opportunity for an unforgettable musical journey for audience and performers alike,’ enthused Nicholas Daniel, who conducted the work while marking his final performance with the Britten Sinfonia as principal oboist, a post he has held since being one of the founding members of the orchestra in 1992. 

He further added: ‘The unique soundscape is immense and powerful and bringing Et exspecto to life in the stunning surroundings of Augustus Pugin’s St George’s Cathedral, Southwark, beautifully designed in the Gothic style, is a lifetime’s ambition for me. I’m tremendously excited to share this experience with some of the great musicians in the UK including the exceptional and gifted young artists of Sinfonia Smith Square.’ 

Youthful impulse and power: Mozart's Requiem from National Youth Choir, Sinfonia Smith Square and Nicholas Chalmers

The first page of Mozart's autograph score of the Requiem

Mozart: Symphony No. 35, Requiem, Bruckner, Rheinberger; Hannah Dienes-Williams, Bethany Horak-Hallett, Hugo Brady, Peter Edge, National Youth Choir (18-25 Years), Sinfonia Smith Square, Nicholas Chalmers; Smith Square Hall
Reviewed 17 April 2025

Vigour, flexibility and power with a lovely sense of impulse as the young singers of the National Youth Choir come together with the young emerging musicians of Sinfonia Smith Square in Mozart's late masterpiece

As part of its Easter Festival at Smith Square Hall, Sinfonia Smith Square came together with the National Youth Choir (18-25 Years) under the choir's principal conductor Nicholas Chalmers on Thursday 17 April 2025 for a programme centred on Mozart's Requiem with soloists Hannah Dienes-Williams, Bethany Horak-Hallett, Hugo Brady and Peter Edge. The first half of the concert featured Mozart's Symphony No. 35 'Haffner' and motets by Mozart, Bruckner and Rheinberger, with the choral items intriguingly interleaved between the symphony's movements.

This was a programme about youth, the choral singers were all in the 18 to 25 age bracket, the orchestral players are all emerging musicians hardly older than that whilst the four soloists are all rising stars. Sinfonia Smith Square brings together annually 34 young musicians in a programme aimed at bridging the gap between college and full time professional career. The programme aims to give the players real life problems, and the evening's programme was not just a musical challenge, but had been put together in a remarkably short time (a skill that orchestral musicians must learn). Whilst Chalmers and the youth choir had, until a couple of days ago, been on tour in South Africa.

Pegasus True Masters: masterclass with Roderick Williams as fundraiser for Pegasus Opera Mentoring Programme

Pegasus Opera's mentoring programme with Danielle de Niese in 2024

Pegasus Opera is being joined by baritone Roderick Williams for True Masters, the first of its public masterclass series and a fundraiser for Pegasus Opera Mentoring Programme which empowers the next generation of opera singers from global majority heritage backgrounds.

On Wednesday 4 June 2025 at Smith Square Hall, Roderick Williams will be joined by six emerging classical artists from global majority heritage, Tia Radix-Callixte (soprano), Julian Chou-Lambert (baritone), Neeharika Gollapalli (soprano), Joshua Elmore (countertenor), Masimba Ushe (bass), and Aivale Cole (soprano), and collaborative pianist Avishka Edirisinghe, for an evening focusing on interpretation and performance of arias and songs, including Mendelssohn's Hexenlied, Strauss' Morgen and arias from Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Wagner's Tannhäuser and Handel's Rinaldo and Semele.

Pegasus Opera launched its opera mentoring programme in 2020 in response to the continued under-representation of classical artists of global majority heritage on the UK opera stages. Now run annually, the programme pairs each mentee with established global majority mentors who are seasoned opera professionals delivering one to one coaching on repertoire, vocal technique and career advice. This year's programme, whose successful applicants have just been selected, is being run in partnership with Glyndebourne Opera House.

All proceeds of the event will directly support the ongoing work of Pegasus Opera Mentoring Programme. Full details from the Sinfonia Smith Square website.

Celebrating Creativity in Hospitals: Michael Stimpson's work inspired by his stay in ICU at hear of this concert for Horatio's Gardens

A concert to thank the NHS and to raise money for Horatio's Gardens, who produce beautiful gardens at NHS spinal injury centres to aid patients with their recovery, at Sinfonia Smith Square on 2 May 2025 will not only feature the Woburn Piano Trio (Emily Davis, Karen Stephenson and Sophia Rahman) in Beethoven's Piano Trio No.1 in E-flat major, and Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No.1 in D minor, but also features composer Michael Stimpson's Tales from the 15th floor inspired by his own time in ICU at Charing Cross Hospital after a life-changing illness.

Composer Michael Stimpson was 29 when he contracted Guillain-Barré Syndrome, the rare neurological condition that left him unconscious and paralysed in intensive care for four and a half months. His Tales from the 15th floor for cello and piano reflects this time in his life.

As a thank you to NHS workers and volunteers, they able to buy tickets at the discounted price of £5. All money raised at the concert will go towards Horatio’s Garden. Because of their link with spinal injury, wheelchair users and their carers can attend the concert for free.

Horatio’s Garden builds and looks after extraordinary gardens in in the heart of NHS spinal

injury centres. They lead gardening sessions to grow and cultivate plants, arts workshops to discover new skills and a programme of live music and events. Designed to be enjoyed all-year-round, the gardens offer a warm, welcoming place for family and friends who may have travelled hours for a visit. They have now opened gardens in seven of the 11 NHS spinal injury centres in the UK and their vision is for everyone with a spinal injury to have a Horatio’s Garden as part of their rehabilitation care. 

Full details of the concert from Sinfonia Smith Square website.

Sinfonia Smith Square Hall awarded National Lottery Heritage Fund grant

Sinfonia Smith Square

Sinfonia Smith Square (formed from the merger of Southbank Sinfonia and St John's Smith Square) has been awarded £452,035 grant by The National Lottery Heritage Fund for upgrades to Smith Square Hall. The project aims to repair the historic fabric of the building, improve accessibility, expand the facilities for players and guest artists, and create outstanding experiences for audiences and visitors through upgraded lighting, sound, heating, and ventilation systems. In line with Sinfonia Smith Square’s ambition to become carbon neutral, the project will install renewable energy technologies throughout the building.

The initial investment has been awarded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund to support Smith Square Hall in progressing its plans to apply for a full National Lottery grant at a later date

Alongside the upgrade, the project will aim to capture reminiscences of people who have lived and worked in the local area or taken part in performances in the Hall, forms a key part of the engagement activities. The project is keen to hear from anyone who has a story to share, or who would like to volunteer to help record these stories and use them to better understand the building's history and significance.

The building, dating from 1728, is Grade I listed and now requires urgent repairs. It was bombed during the Blitz and rebuilt to its original design in the late 1960s. Work on the building is expected to commence in early 2027 and take around 18 months to complete. As part of the project, new 3 partnerships are emerging to embed the building within its local community and provide meaningful engagement opportunities for young people through training and volunteering placements. 

Sinfonia Smith Square's Christmas Festival

Sinfonia Smith Square's Christmas Festival

It's had a bit of a name change, but the Christmas Festival is returning to Smith Square this December for a programme of seasonal specials and favourites, with concerts from 9 to 23 December 2024 at Smith Square Hall (formerly St John's Smith Square).

Anna Lapwood and the choirs of Pembroke College begin things on 9 December with A Pembroke Christmas featuring music by John Rutter, David Bednall, and Kristina Arakelyan, plus Britten's A Ceremony of Carols and Patricia Van Ness’ The Nine Orders of the Angels: Archangelus. Then on 12 December, National Youth Voices join Sinfonia Smith Square and conductor Nicholas Chalmers for an evening Christmas choral classics including music by John Rutter, Errollyn Wallen, Matthew Martin and Judith Weir, plus Finzi's In Terra Pax and RVW's Fantasia on Christmas Carols.

Christmas with the London Mozart Players sees the orchestra's brass ensemble performing festive favourites, then Eric Whitacre and the Eric Whitacre Singers are joined by pianist Christopher Glynn for a Christmas programme that mixes Whitacre's own music with that by Anna Lapwood, Philip Stopford, Kristina Arakelyan and Shawn Kirchner.  And of course, it wouldn't be Christmas without The Snowman with Sinfonia Smith Square, conductor Ellie Slorach providing live accompaniment to the film and its animate sequal, The Snowman and the Snowdog.

Graham Ross conducts the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge in Bethlehem Star, programme of carols and motets including choral works by Rheinberger, Arvo Pärt, Reena Esmail, James Whitbourn, Cecilia McDowall, Jonathan Dove, and Clare College alumnus John Rutter. Then for something a little bit different, Opera Holland Park will be presenting two semi-stage performances of Will Todd's musical retelling of A Christmas Carol, directed by Martin Duncan with Alys Roberts, Fleur de Bray, Charlotte Badham, Victoria Simmonds, Charne Rochford, Julien Van Mellaerts, Robert Winslade Anderson and Paul Carey Jones and actor Kim Benjamin. London Choral Sinfonia (LCS) present Christmas Fantasia with RVW's piece making its second appearance alongside the winner of LCS Carol Competition.

Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars present In Dulci Jubilo, a selection of Gregorian chant, and the works it has gone on to inspire from Hildegard of Bingen to Arvo Pärt. Stephen Layton, Polyphony and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment make two appearances at the festival. First there are the first three parts of Bach's Christmas Oratorio with soloists Anna Dennis, Iestyn Davies, James Gilchrist and Neal Davies, then bringing the festival to a close is Handel's Messiah with Anna Dennis, Iestyn Davies, James Gilchrist and Neal Davies.

Full details from the Sinfonia Smith Square website.

Sinfonia Smith Square’s Fellowship programme welcomes 34 talented new graduate musicians for 2024/25

Sinfonia Smith Square (Photo: Camila Pastorelli)

Every year, Sinfonia Smith Square’s Fellowship programme welcomes 34 talented graduate musicians to form an orchestra. Through world-class collaborations, bold programming, and educational leadership projects, the programme intensifies their professional development and advances their musical careers. Since its formation (as Southbank Sinfonia) in 2002, it now has over 650 alumni, who have gone on to become leaders in the classical music world.

Every Fellowship place is free, and every player receives a bursary. More than just an orchestra, it is a community where promising young talents can find their own voice and develop their creative strengths, fulfil personal goals, make lasting contacts to take their musicianship to new frontiers.

Sinfonia Smith Square has just welcomed the latest members of the Fellowship programme. For 2024/25 these 34 players will perform together. For the first time, the group includes an organ scholar, Ben Collyer, whilst bassoon player Vladyslav Demianov, recently fled the war in Ukraine to complete his studies in the UK.

You can find out more about the current musicians from the Sinfonia Smith Square website, whilst they will be in action at Smith Square Hall on 24 October with The Orchestral Forest featuring music by Dobrinka Tabakova, Mendelssohn, Vagn Holmboe, Nadia Boulanger and Michael Nyman conducted by Maxime Tortelier. The concert is unseated and the audience is encouraged to move amongst the musicians. Full details from the website.

London Opera Company returns with a full-scale performance of Wagner's Siegfried

Wagner: Die Walküre - The London Opera Company, November 2023

London Opera Company presented a full-scale performance of Wagner's Die Walküre at Smith Square Hall (St John's Smith Square) in November 2023 conducted by Peter Selwyn. [see my review 'A remarkable sense of energy & engagement']

Now the company is returning to Smith Square for Wagner's Siegfried, again with full orchestra conducted by Peter Selwyn on Saturday 2 November 2024. 

Having sung Brünnhilde and Wotan in last year's Die Walküre, Cara McHardy and Simon Thorpe return as Brünnhilde and Der Wanderer, with Brad Cooper as Siegfried, Colin Judson as Mime, Stephan Loges as Alberich and Harriet Williams, who sang Fricka last year, is Erda.

The London Opera Company was formed in 2020 by singers to give opportunities to performers who had lost work in the pandemic. Starting from relatively small beginnings, with chamber versions of Wagner's operas, the company founded its own orchestra in 2022 and presented a full version of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.

The orchestra is a mix of professionals, music students and good amateurs. Selwyn is an experienced Wagnerian; he has been assisting on the most recent Ring Cycle at Bayreuth and conducted Grimeborn's Ring [see my interview with Peter, 'From Bayreuth to Grimeborn'] as well as being the chief conductor of the non-professional Lambeth Orchestra.

Full details from the Sinfonia Smith Square website.

A themed programme with an imaginative difference: Music from Pole to Pole with City of London Sinfonia and atmospheric physicist Dr Simon Clark

Music from Pole to Pole - City of London Sinfonia and Dr Simon Clark at Smith Square Hall - (Photo: Suzi Corker)

Music from Pole to Pole: Caroline Shaw, Webern, Dvorak, Lutosławski, Osvaldo Golijov, Marais, Vivaldi, Thomas Adès, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Bach; Dr Simon Clark, City of London Sinfonia; Smith Square Hall
Reviewed 15 October 2024

Cloud formations and music in a fascinating mix of informed talk and challenging music to create a bravura mix that made us leave wanting more

City of London Sinfonia's (CLS) Patterns of Nature series involves the ensemble sharing the platform with those outside classical music in an intriguing mix of talk and concert (much in the way that the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment does with its Bach, the Universe and Everything series). For the second of CLS' Patterns of Nature, at Smith Square Hall (St John's Smith Square) on Tuesday 15 October 2024, the title was Music from Pole to Pole with the tag line Cloud formations from Antarctica to the Arctic where CLS, director Alexandra Wood, was joined by atmospheric physicist Dr Simon Clark, a science communicator and author who specialises in studies of the Earth's atmosphere.

Quite how the music and science were going to match up was unclear, but the programme for the evening was definitely not pulling any musical punches with Caroline Shaw's 'in manus tuas', movements from Webern's 5 movements for string orchestra, Op. 5, Dvorak's Nocturne in B flat, Op. 40, the epilogue from Lutosławski's Musique funèbre, the first movement of Osvaldo Golijov's Last Round, the tempest from Marin Marais' Alcione, two movements from Vivaldi's Concerto in G minor Op. 8 No. 2 'Summer', the movement O Albion from Thomas Adès' Arcadiana, Op. 12, three movements from Anna Thorvaldsdottir's Spectra and the aria from Bach's Goldberg Variations. And we began, in almost total darkness, with a terrific performance of Joely Koos of Caroline Shaw's solo cello piece 'in manus tuas'.

Music from Pole to Pole - City of London Sinfonia and Dr Simon Clark at Smith Square Hall - (Photo: Suzi Corker)

Engaging charm: Bampton Classical Opera in a delightful version of Alcina that does not take itself too seriously

Gazzaniga: Alcina's Island - Inna Husieva - Bampton Classical Opera (Photo: Anthony Hall/Bampton Classical Opera)

Gazzaniga: L'Isole d'Alcina (Alcina's Island); Inna Husieva, Sarah Chae, Charlotte Badham, Dafydd Allen, Monwabisi Lindi, Jonathan Eyers, Magnus Walker, Owain Rowlands, director Jeremy Gray, Chroma, conductor Thomas Blunt; Bampton Classical Opera at Smith Square Hall
Reviewed 13 September 2024

A comic take on Alcina with an opera that does not take itself too seriously in an engaging performance that showcased Inna Husieva's charmer of a sorceress

Last week we caught Vache Baroque in Pergolesi's 1736 opera, L'Olimpiade [see my review] with a libretto by Metastasio that wants to be serious and consider moral problems but uses dramaturgical infelicities that mean that modern audiences have difficulty taking the work's resolution seriously. 

Then this week, Bampton Classical Opera brought their production of Gazzaniga's L'Isole d'Alcina (Alcina's Island) to London. Written in 1771 and premiered in Venice, Giovanni Bertati's libretto does not take opera seria too seriously. It begins like the classic joke, an Englishman, a Frenchman, an Italian and a Spaniard are washed up on a desert island. Not any old island, but Alcina's island, yet the time period is contemporary and the four men (later five) are well aware of Alcina and her tale, told in Ariosto. The result is a delightful comic operatic romp.

On Friday 13 Setpember 2024, Bampton Classical Opera presented Gazzaniga's Alcina's Island at Smith Square Hall (St John's Smith Square) in a production directed and designed by Jeremy Gray with Thomas Blunt conducting Chroma, with Inna Husieva, Sarah Chae, Charlotte Badham, Dafydd Allen, Monwabisi Lindi, Jonathan Eyers, Magnus Walker and Owain Rowlands.

Gazzaniga: Alcina's Island - Magnus Walker, Monwabisi Lindi, Jonathan Eyers - Bampton Classical Opera (Photo: Anthony Hall/Bampton Classical Opera)

If the name of Giuseppe Gazzaniga seems familiar, that is because he and Giovanni Bertati wrote Don Giovanni in 1787, which was plagiarised by Da Ponte for Mozart! Gazzaniga's L'Isole d'Alcina was premiered in Venice at the Teatro San Moise, where Bertati was principal comic librettist. The theatre's first opera production was Monteverdi's Arianna in 1640 and its final productions were a series of farse by Rossini.

Happy 60th birthday: the Salomon Orchestra celebrates with Martyn Brabbins, Michal Oren, Mussorgsky and Elgar

The Salomon Orchestra in rehearsal at Henry Wood Hall

When the Salomon Orchestra celebrated its 40th birthday in 2003 it assembled the huge orchestra needed for Richard Strauss' Alpine Symphony, directed by founding conductor Nicholas Braithwaite, filling St John's Smith Square with so many orchestral musicians that you felt there was hardly room for the audience. The results, needless to say, were glorious. Now the orchestra is 60 and will be celebrating.

On Saturday 1 June 2024, Martyn Brabbins and Michal Oren will be conducting the orchestra in a celebratory 60th birthday concert at St John's Smith Square. Michal Oren conducts Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and then Martyn Brabbins conducts Elgar's Symphony No. 1. And the evening will begin with the world premiere of Martyn Brabbins' A Birthday Greeting, composed specially for the orchestra's birthday.

Conceived by Nicholas Braithwaite and a group of his contemporaries in Vienna in 1963, the Salomon Orchestra is one of London's oldest non-professional symphony orchestras and is widely described as one of its finest.

Martyn Brabbins is the orchestra's president and he has a long association with the orchestra including, notably, a series of 'marathon' concerts where they performed all the symphonic works of a particular composer in a single day. 

The orchestra first worked with Michal Oren when she was on Martyn Brabbins' conducting course at the Royal College of Music, and she is currently studying there for her Master of Performance in conducting. In 2020, she won the first prize in the conducting competition of the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music and, in September 2023, won first prize in the 4th International Academy and Competition of Orchestra Conducting in Estoril, Portugal.

Full details of the concert from the orchestra's website.

A dynamic performance where singers & instrumentalists actively participate in movement alongside the dancers: Scherzo Ensemble presents a danced version of Haydn's The Creation

A new danced version of Haydn's The Creation is being presented at New Hall Winchester and St John's Smith Square on 6 and 7 April 2024 by Scherzo Ensemble, and we are we are promised a dynamic performance where singers and instrumentalists actively participate in movement alongside the dancers!

Matthew O'Keeffe conducts the Orpheus Sinfonia with soloists Anna Gregg and Sam Harris as Gabriel and Uriel, and Michael Temporal Darell and Caroline Blair as Adam and Eve. The staging is a collaboration with Welsh choreographer Osian Meilir Jones (currently artistic associate of the National Dance Company of Wales), and designer Jennifer Gregory

Scherzo Ensemble is a professional development platform for emerging singers, best known for managing Longhope Opera in Hampshire where they are performing Donizetti's Don Pasquale on 6 and 7 July 2024, (see the ensemble's website) 

Further information on Haydn's The Creation from TicketSource (Winchester) and St John's Smith Square's website,

Easter Festival at St John's Smith Square

St John's Smith Square

2024 marks the 300th anniversary of the first performance of Bach's St John Passion, and St John's Smith Square will be marking this with a performance from Stephen Layton, Polyphony and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with James Gilchrist as the Evangelist on Friday 29 March 2024 as the culmination of this year's Easter Festival at St John's Smith Square.

The festival, which runs through Holy Week, also includes the National Youth Choir in Fauré's Requiem, whilst the Southbank Sinfonia is joining forces with the Purcell Singers and conductors Mark Ford and Jonathan Schranz for a concert that pairs Mozart's Requiem with Eric Whitacre's When David Heard, Knut Nystedt's Immortal Bach and Kerry Andrew's O Nata Lux.

Lunchtime concerts include organist Roger Sayer in Marcel Dupré's Symphonie-Passion plus music by Bach and Alfred Hollins, and the Civil Service Choir, conductor Stephen Hall, in masses by Schubert and Haydn.

Full details from the St John's Smith Square website.

A welcome relief from regular Christmas fare: the Tallis Scholars introduce us to the subtle riches of Jacobus Clemens non Papa

The Tallis Scholars (Photo: Hugo Glendinning)

Jacobus Clemens non Papa: Missa Pastores quidnam vidistis, Victoria, Pedro de Cristo, Giovanni Croce, Obrecht, Peter Philips; The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips; St John's Smith Square
Reviewed 21 December 2023

Coming to the end of their 50th anniversary year, the group's Christmas programme focuses on the shepherds with a low-key and beautiful subtle account of Clemens non Papa's mass

Peter Phillips and the Tallis Scholars have been celebrating the group's 50th anniversary this year and they brought the celebratory year to a close at St John's Smith Square, where the group gave its first London concert in 1976.

As part of St John's Smith Square's Christmas Festival on Thursday 21 December 2023, Peter Phillips conducted the Tallis Scholars in a programme entitled While Shepherd's Watched which centred on Jacobus Clemens non Papa's Missa Pastores quidnam vidistis along with the motet on which it was based, along with other motets on similar texts by Victoria, Pedro de Cristo and Giovanni Croce, plus motets by Obrecht and Peter Philips. The concert was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, which means that it is available for 30 days on BBC Sounds.

A remarkable sense of energy & engagement: Wagner's Die Walküre from the London Opera Company at St John's Smith Square

Wagner's Die Walküre - The London Opera Company

Wagner's Die Walküre; Ben Thapa, Philippa Boyle, Simon Wilding, Simon Thorpe, Harriet Williams, Cara McHardy, conductor Peter Selwyn; the London Opera Company at St John's Smith Square
Reviewed 25 November 2023

A full scale performance of Wagner's opera projected with remarkable energy, commitment and engagement by a strong cast with an orchestra mixing professionals, students and amateurs. A remarkable achievement

The London Opera Company was formed in 2020 by singers to give opportunities to performers who had lost work in the pandemic. Starting from relatively small beginnings, with chamber versions of Wagner's operas, the company founded its own orchestra last year and presented a full version of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde at St John's Smith Square. The company returned to St John's for Wagner's Die Walküre this year and plans to perform Wagner's Siegfried next year.

The London Opera Company performed Wagner's Die Walküre at St John's Smith Square on Saturday 25 November 2023. Peter Selwyn conducted the London Opera Company Orchestra with Ben Thapa as Siegmund, Philippa Boyle as Sieglinde, Simon Wilding as Hunding, Simon Thorpe as Wotan, Harriet Williams as Fricka and Cara McHardy as Brünnhilde.

This was a concert performance, scores and music stands were in use, but a lot of thought had gone into the presentation and all the singers were very responsive, reacting to others and making it far more than stand and sing. As Brünnhilde, Cara McHardy was off the book for long stretches of the performance, and many of the other soloists similarly managed to make their performances go far beyond singing to their score. The result had a sense of dramatic engagement which carried the performance along.

Walküres take flight at St John’s this November

Fans of Wagner’s epic tale of love, feuding families, betrayal and retribution are in for a treat this Saturday 25 November. The London Opera Company, which has been delighting Wagner fans and critics since bursting onto the scene in 2020, returns to St John's, Smith Square, for what promises to be a memorable concert performance of Die Walküre.

Die Walküre features a world-class cast of singers and musical direction by Peter Selwyn, who has assisted on Bayreuth and Royal Opera House productions of Der Ring des Nibelungen.

The London Opera Company orchestra brings together a carefully chosen core of professionals alongside talented semi-professional musicians from London’s leading music colleges. And this performance will also deploy the Royal Opera House’s famous Wagner horns to achieve that authentic and stirring Wagnerian sound.

An equally impressive cast includes much-celebrated singer Sarah Pring, who starred as mentor and coach in Sky Art’s Anyone Can Sing, and fresh from performing with ENO at the BBC Proms, Gweneth Ann Rand, who returns as Sieglinde following last year’s rave reviews. They join experienced Wagnerian singers, some debuting roles for the first time including gifted tenor Ben Thapa as Siegmond.

The London Opera Company is a not for profit organisation dedicated to bringing audiences world-class performances at an affordable ticket price. They performed Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Peter Selwyn, at St. John's Smith Square in October 2022 having given Die Walküre in a chamber arrangement in 2021.

The London Opera Company will perform Die Walküre at St John's Smith Square on Saturday 25 November 2023, full details from St John's website.

The London Opera Company at St John's Smith Square

Cast List

Siegmund - Ben Thapa
Sieglinde- Gweneth Ann Rand
Hunding- Simon Wilding
Wotan- Simon Thorpe
Fricka- Harriet Williams
Brünnhilde- Cara Mchardy
Gerhilde - Nina Bennet
Helmwig - Sky Ingram
Ortlinde - Philippa Boyle
Waltraute - Harriet Williams
Schwertleite - Mae Heydorn
Roßweiße - Sarah Pring
Siegrune -  Carolyn Dobbin
Grimgerde - Katherine Taylor Jones

St John's Smith Square's Christmas Festival is back

St John's Smith Square's Christmas Festival is back

Howard Blake's The Snowman, Salmone Rossi & A Baroque Hanukkah, Gabriel Jackson's The Christmas Story, Handel's Messiah, Bach's Christmas Oratorio and more: St John's Smith Square's Christmas Festival is back next month for the 38th festival, from 9 to 23 December 2023. 

As a prelude to the festival, London Concert Choir joins Southbank Sinfonia and conductor Mark Forkgen for a programme of Schubert and Mendelssohn ending with his unfinished oratorio Christus on 8 December 2023.

Gabriel Jackson's The Christmas Story is premiered by the Choir and Girl Choristers of Merton College, conducted by Benjamin Nicholas with an instrumental ensemble using a libretto devised by Simon Jones, Chaplain of Merton, and including Merton poets. (9/12/2023). There is a film screening of The Snowman with Howard Blake's score played live by Southbank Sinfonia (10/12/2023). Samuel Ali performs Messiaen's La Nativité du Seigneur (14/12/2023).

The Vache Baroque Singers and La Vaghezza will be celebrating the music of Salomone Rossi in A Baroque Hanukkah (13/12/2023). Other  wisitors include The Gesualdo Six (12/12/2023),  the choir of New College, Oxford (15/12/2023), the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge (18/12/2023),  National Youth Music Theatre Chorus & Orchestra (16/12/2023), choir of Westminster Abbey (20/12/2023) and the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford (20/12/2023).

The Tallis Scholars and Peter Philips celebrate their 50th anniversary with While Shepherd's Watched (21/12/2023). Polyphone and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment come together with conductor Stephen Layton to perform Bach's Christmas Oratorio, parts 1-3 (22/12/2023) and Handel's Messiah (23/12/2023).

Full details from the St John's Smith Square website.