Glasshouse in Gateshead announces its 2025/2026 season: from Haydn & Mozart to Kurtág, Gubaidulina & Berio

Royal Northern Sinfonia at the Glasshouse

The Glasshouse International Centre for Music has announced its 2025/26 season. The Royal Northern Sinfonia form a large component of the season, the orchestra celebrating both Dinis Sousa's continuation as artistic leader until 2030 and violinist Maria Włoszczowska's role as artistic partner.

Sousa's concerts with the Royal Northern Sinfonia include working with soprano Louise Alder in Mozart, baritone Bryn Terfel in Schubert (orchestrated songs) and pianists Imogen Cooper and Paul Lewis in Mozart piano concertos. There is also music by György Kurtág and Sofia Gubaidulina as well as a smaller scale event in Sage Two celebrating Luciano Berio. And also in Sage Two, Maria Włoszczowska directs reduced versions of Strauss' Metamorphosen and Mahler's Symphony No. 4 with soprano Hilary Cronin.

Other events include Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale directed by Live Theatre’s Artistic Director Jack McNamara and a collaboration with guitarist Sean Shibe featuring Cassandra Miller’s Chanter. Nil Venditti, principal guest conductor, returns for two concerts including Beethoven and Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto with Maria Włoszczowska.

Haydn runs through the season, Giovanni Antonini conducts the ‘London’ Symphony and Piano Concerto No. 11 with Kristian Bezuidenhout. Dinis Sousa conducts The Creation , and Maria Włoszczowska closes her own season of chamber-scale concerts with Haydn’s Farewell Symphony.

John Wilson (who was born and brought pup in Gateshead) and his Sinfonia of London join the Glasshouse as artistic partners with regular concerts featuring Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Bliss and Delius plus Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 with Alexandre Kantorow.

Visiting orchestras include: The Hallé under Kahchun Wong; London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Elim Chan with cellist Nicolas Altstaedt; and Vasily Petrenko with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and pianist Tom Borrow for Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra return with Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 under Domingo Hindoyan.

RNS Moves – Royal Northern Sinfonia’s sister inclusive ensemble – brings its ground-breaking music-making to new audiences this season, making debut appearances at the Royal Northern College of Music (Manchester) and King’s Place (London)

Full details from the Glasshouse's website.

Celebrating the viola at the Glasshouse International Centre for Music

There is a week celebrating the viola at the Glasshouse International Centre for Music, Gateshead, as it hosts the Tertis and Aronowitz International Viola Competitions from 19 to 26 January 2025. Named for two great English violists, Lionel Tertis (1876-1975) and Cecil Aronowitz (1916-1976) the competitions bring together talented young violists from across the globe for a week of outstanding performances, masterclasses, and workshops. Alongside the competitions, Tertis (for ages 19-30) and Aronowitz (for ages 18 and under) there is a programme of performances.

Viola player Timothy Ridout gives a solo recital performing music from Bach's suites for solo cello arranged for viola alongside a piece by Caroline Shaw. Two members of the Aronowitz jury, Asdis Valdimarsdottir and Thomas Riebl perform music by Telemann, Bach and Garth Knox, and Thomas Riebl will be playing a 5-string tenor viola! Members of the Tertis jury, Thomas Selditz, Lilli Maijala, Françoise Gneri (violas) with James Baillieu (piano) will perform music by Schumann, Lindberg, Korngold and Damström. Timothy Ridout and Nobuko Imai are joined by James Baillieu for a recital including music by Bach, Bridge, and Mozkowski. Nobuko Imai and Robin Ireland will be joined by competitors from both competitions for an evening of music for four violas including Ireland's own arrangements of Bach.

On Friday 24 January there is a concert featuring highlights from both competitions, and then the finales take place on Saturday 25 January with the Royal Northern Sinfonia.

There is also an exhibition and Timothy Ridout will give a session performing on fine instruments and bows made by makers from the exhibition, and Ridout joins violist Nobuko Imai for My viola and I.

Full details from the competition website.

An inclusive approach and inventive instrumentation: RNS Moves and BSO Resound join forces for Kate Whitley premiere

Clarence Adoo, founder of RNS Moves

RNS Moves, the inclusive ensemble bringing together disabled and non-disabled musicians from Royal Northern Sinfonia (RNS) are joining forces with players from BSO Resound, the disabled-led ensemble at the core of Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, for a performance at Sage Gateshead on 3 March 2023.

They will perform a new piece, Falling, by Kate Whitley (co-founder of the Multi-Storey Orchestra). Falling was composed after a series of workshops and has been specially orchestrated to feature the accessible electronic instruments used by the musicians – including a Linnstrument and the Headspace. The performance will be conducted by RNS Principal Conductor Dinis Sousa. The evening, which also features the Royal Northern Sinfonia, will include works by Ligeti, Sibelius, and Kodály. 

The Linnstrument is an expressive MIDI controller for musical performance that senses the fingers’ subtle movements in five ways, enabling musical performance expression that can rival that of fine acoustic instruments. 

The Headspace is an innovative MIDI wind instrument controlled by breath and head movements. It was created by German composer-inventor Rolf Gehlhaar for Clarence Adoo MBE, who co-founded RNS Moves after a life-altering car accident left him paralysed from the neck down, meaning he could no longer hold his position as a trumpeter in RNS. 

Full details from the Sage Gateshead website.

Dr Haydn's London Academy: Sir Roger Norrington bid farewell to the podium with a final concert with the Royal Northern Sinfonia

Sir Roger Norrington (Photo Manfred Esser)

In the early 1980s I went to a performance in the Queen's Hall, Edinburgh where Roger Norrington conducted the London Classical Players in Heinrich Schütz's Musikalische Exequien. It was one of the defining performances of my early concert-going, and helped consolidate my love of historically informed performance. In London in the 1980s, Norrington's weekend experiences at the Queen Elizabeth Hall would be ways of exploring repertoire deeper, from Purcell's King Arthur to Mozart's The Magic Flute to Berlioz and Wagner (when the soprano booked to sing the Liebestod famously did not turn up!). Throughout these events, Norrington's was an engaging yet informed presence, his enthusiasm encouraging us to explore. This sense of exploration continued as he worked with other ensembles.

Now, Sir Roger Norrington has announced his final public concert. On 18 November 2021, he conducts the Royal Northern Sinfonia at the Sage Gateshead in Dr Haydn's London Academy, a recreation of one of Haydn's London concerts from the 1790s, where symphonic movements are broken up with songs and chamber music.

Joining Norrington and the orchestra in this evocation of 18th century concert going will be soprano Susan Gritton and forte-pianist Steven Devine, who will perform two sets of Haydn's Canzonettas, written in London during his visit. The movements of the ‘Drumroll’ Symphony will be broken up not only by songs, but also Haydn’s String Quartet Op.76 No.5 featuring players from the orchestra. Bringing the academy to a close will be one of the composer’s best loved symphonies, No.101 ‘The Clock’.

The concert will be streamed live and available for 48 hours following the broadcast. Full details from the Royal Northern Sinfonia website.

He started as a film-maker, founded his own orchestra, now Portuguese conductor Dinis Sousa brings a wealth of experiences to his new role as principal conductor of Royal Northern Sinfonia

Dinis Sousa at the Sage Gateshead (Photo Sage Gateshead/Royal Northern Sinfonia)

In March 2021, the Portuguese conductor Dinis Sousa became the new principal conductor of Royal Northern Sinfonia (RNS) and his first concert with them since the announcement was also the orchestra's first concert this year with a live audience at Sage Gateshead in April 2021 [see my review].

Dinis is the founder and artistic director of the Portuguese ensemble, Orquestra XXI, and in 2018 was appointed the first-ever assistant-conductor of the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras working closely with Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Dinis has now moved his base to the North-East, and I recently caught up with him by Zoom.

Berlioz: Les nuits d'été - Dame Sarah Connolly, Royal Northern Sinfonia
Dinis Sousa at Sage Gateshead, April 2021 (photo taken from live-stream)

I asked him first how he was enjoying the weather, as compared to his native Portugal and he assured me that the East coast can be the sunniest part of England, sunny but cold, and he hoped that the weather would not be miserable all the time. Though he added that his Mum had told him that it was currently freezing in Portugal too. And, after all, he has not moved to the North-East for the weather!

Before this year, Dinis had conducted RNS in two programmes, to launch the orchestra's Beethoven 2020: The Next Generation series in Carlisle and Middlesbrough in January 2020, and more recently at the helm in a concert of Stravinsky, Mendelssohn and music by the young American composer Caroline Shaw, as part of the Sage Live 2020 series last Autumn. But even before then, he loved the way the orchestra played, their energy in live performance. From the first moment of conducting Beethoven with them he loved it, there was an energy and a style in the rehearsal room which affected him straight away, a really good energy and rapport. The way each player makes music appeals to him; they love music and playing in rehearsal so that in breaks during rehearsals and even after concerts have finished, players want to talk about the music.

The orchestra's previous two music directors have been instrumentalists (violinist Thomas Zehetmair and pianist Lars Vogt), so Dinis represents something of a change. But he is also a pianist and has directed concerts from the keyboard. Playing the piano will be an important part of his role including performing chamber music with musicians from the orchestra. But there is also the feeling that the orchestra wanted to try something different.

New season, new principal conductor, new leader: Royal Northern Sinfonia begins its 2021/22 concert series

Dame Sarah Connolly, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Dinis Sousa at Sage Gateshead
April 2021 (photo taken from live-stream)

Saturday 18 September 2021 not only marks the start of the Royal Northern Sinfonia's 2021/22 season, performing in front of a live audience at Sage Gateshead, but it will be Dinis Sousa's debut as the ensemble's new principal conductor [we will be featuring an interview with him this coming Saturday] and Maria Włoszczowska's first concert as leader of the orchestra. The programme features a new commission, a collaboration between composer and DJ Mira Calix and filmmaker Sarah Turner to reflect local people’s experiences of the past 18 months, plus Shostakovich's Cello Concerto no. 1, with soloist Anastasia Kobekina, and Dvorak's Symphony No. 8.

The orchestra's season continues with Joana Carneiro conducting a programme featuring accordion player Ksenija Sidorova in Piazzolla's Bandoneon Concerto plus music by John Adams and Beethoven. And Sousa returns to the podium with pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja for Schumann's Piano Concerto plus Beethoven and Mozart. Other concerts include Catherine Larsen-Maguire conducting Nielsen's Clarinet Concerto with soloist Magnus Holmander, alongside Grieg and Sibelius, and Sir Roger Norrington conducting an eclectic all-Haydn programme inspired by Haydn's London concerts, not so much learned colloquy as pot-pourri of musical styles from songs (with Susan Gritton), chamber music and symphonies.

Full details from the Sage Gateshead website.

Sheer enjoyment: Rachel Podger and Royal Northern Sinfonia's Bach to Bach

Bach to Bach - Rachel Podger, Royal Northern Sinfonia

Bach to Bach; Rachel Podger, Royal Northern Sinfonia; Sage Gateshead
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 11 June 2021
Rachel Podger's debut with the orchestra and their first concert this year with a live audience make for a vibrant mix

Baroque violinist Rachel Podger spent a week with the Royal Northern Sinfonia working on the music of Bach and the results were on display at the concert Bach to Bach at Sage Gateshead on Friday 11 June 2021 (and also on-line, which is how I watched the concert), both Podger's debut with the Royal Northern Sinfonia and the ensemble's first concert with a live audience this year. Rachel Podger directed the Royal Northern Sinfonia from the violin in the sonata from Bach's Cantata BWV31 Der Himmel lacht! Die Erde jubiliert!, Violin Concerto in A minor BWV1041, and Orchestral Suite No. 3.

This was a modern-instrument chamber orchestra but fielding just 14 strings, who were playing with gut strings and seemed to be making such adjustments as using minimal vibrato. The sound quality was warm yet lithe, with a noticeable emphasis on articulation and phrasing.

New Beginnings indeed: the Royal Northern Sinfonia and its principal conductor designate, Dinis Sousa, launch Sage Gateshead's new live season

Berlioz: Les nuits d'été - Dame Sarah Connolly, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Dinis Sousa at Sage Gateshead
(photo taken from live-stream)

Haydn, Berlioz, Boulanger, Prokofiev; Sarah Connolly, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Dinis Sousa; Sage Gateshead
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 16 April 2021
Engagement, excitement and a sense of chamber music detail characterised the young Portuguese conductor's first concert with the Royal Northern Sinfonia since being named as principal conductor

There was an extra excitement to the Royal Northern Sinfonia's concert at Sage Gateshead on Friday 16 April 2021. Not only was it the ensemble's first live concert this year, and the start of Sage Gateshead's New Beginnings season of live concerts, but it was the orchestra's first concert with the young Portuguese conductor Dinis Sousa since he was named as the orchestra's new principal conductor (a post he takes up next season). Under the title Dawn and Dusk, Sousa conducted a programme that moved from Joseph Haydn's early Symphony in D 'Le Matin', to Hector Berlioz' Les nuits d'été with mezzo-soprano Dame Sarah Connolly, to Iain Farrington's arrangement of Lili Boulanger's D'un matin du printemps and ending with Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1 'Classical'. But the programme began with an extra item, Elgar's Elegy played in memory of HRH Prince Philip.

Dinis Sousa studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he was Conducting Fellow. Since then he has formed his own ensemble, Orquestra XXI which brings together some of the best yung Portuguese musicians from around Europe. He was worked regularly with the English Baroque Soloists and Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique, being appointed the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra's first ever assistant conductor, as well as working with modern instrument orchestras. 

Haydn's Symphony in D was one of a trio Le matin, Le midi and Le soir, which he wrote shortly after joining the employ of Prince Esterhazy (Haydn would work for the Esterhazy family exclusively for the next 30 years). The first movement began with a lovely sunrise, and employing real chamber forces, Sousa drew stylish playing from his players. In the second movement (where the wind are tacet), there was a chamber elegance to the playing highlighted by the way Haydn writes concerto grosso-like solo passages. Sousa and his players brought a chamber of level of detail to the music along with a sense of engagement, and I look forward to hearing them in lots more Haydn. The minuet was delightfully characterful whilst the trio featured a terrific bassoon solofrom Stephen Reay, whilst the finale went with a zip yet remained full of character.

Live and on-line: Sage Live 2020 launches with three concerts from the Royal Northern Sinfonia

Sage Gateshead (Photo Simon Burgon)

The Sage Gateshead is returning to live performances with Sage Live 2020, a seven-week season of live concerts beginning 23 October 2020, with all performances being live-streamed. The concerts are being announced in waves, with the first three weeks of concerts now confirmed.

The Royal Northern Sinfonia will be giving three Friday evening concerts. Jessica Cottis conducts a programme which includes Jean Francaix's Concerto for Double Bass (with Philip Nelson) and work by the contemporary American composer Jessie Montgomery. Lars Vogt will be directing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 'Emperor' from the piano, alongside a new commission from Kristina Arakelyan. Chloe van Soeterstède conducts a programme which includes Tchaikovsky's Andante Cantabile (with cellist Steffan Morris) and Iain Farrington's chamber version of Sibelius' Symphony No.5. Other gigs include an appearance from she of the Northumbrian pipes, Katheryn Tickell.

Sage Gateshead also recently launched its 20/21 season of online activity, including Make Music – its weekly programme of adult music classes, its Young People’s Programme which usually offers musical activity for over 10,000 young people, and its artist development programme which supports musicians from across the region. This activity has now moved online to ensure that people across the North can continue their music making as we head into the winter months.

The centre has also launched an ambitious fundraising campaign to raise £3 million to enable it to continue working in the current climate.

Full details from the Sage Gateshead website