Powerful intensity & youthful vigour: Benjamin Hulett & Helen Charlston in Handel's Jephtha at Wimbledon International Music Festival

Thomas Hudson - John Beard, tenor who created the role of Jephtha for Handel

Handel: Jephtha: Benjamin Hulett, Helen Charlston, Rowan Pierce, James Hall, Academy Choir Wimbledon, Academy Baroque Players, Matthew Best; Wimbledon International Music Festival at Sacred Heart Church
9 November 2024

A finely satisfying performance from a strong young cast who really lifted Handel and Morell's tragedy off the page

Since the beginnings of the festival, the Wimbledon-based Academy Choir has a tradition of opening Wimbledon International Music Festival. This year was no different, so on Saturday 9 November 2024 at Sacred Heart Church, Edge Hill, Wimbledon, Matthew Best conducted Academy Choir Wimbledon and Academy Baroque Players, leader Alison Bury, in Handel's Jephtha with Benjamin Hulett as Jephtha, Helen Charlston as Storge, Rowan Pierce as Iphis, James Hall as Hamor, Conrad Chatterton as Zebul and Clementine Thompson as the Angel. And the concert was preceded by a pre-concert talk by the eminent Handelian authority, Ruth Smith.

Jeptha is not the longest of Handel's oratorios, but it is still substantial and the evening's performances used the version Handel and his assistant J.C. Smith created for later performances, with a shortened, more compact ending, the final scene losing the arias for Zebul, Storge and Hamor.

I shall hear in heaven: Tama Matheson's latest collaborative musical play premieres at Wimbledon International Music Festival

Wimbledon International Music Festival starts on 13 November 2021, returning for a full programme, live in Wimbledon across two weeks, with everything from  Sir Willard White, Imogen Cooper,  and The Tallis Scholars, to a tribute to the pioneer of American swing, Benny Goodman, and an evening of tango with music by Astor Piazzolla. 

One highlight is the premiere of I shall hear in heaven, Tama Matheson's musical play which brings to life Beethoven's with deafness and his own mortality. Directed and performed by Tama Matheson with Susie Kohane and Robert Maskell, the evening will include Beethoven's music performed by the London Mozart Players. This play is the latest in a series of collaborative musical plays on the subject of lives of the great composers by Matheson, who is artistic director of the Brisbane Shakespeare Festival.

I shall hear in heaven is at Trinity URC Church, Wimbledon, SW19 4AA, full details from the festival website.

Recitals with attitude: Wimbledon International Music Festival's 2020 on-line celebration

This year's Wimbledon International Music Festival will be a series of filmed performances which are being streamed on-line from 13 to 22 November 2020. But these will be more than just filmed performances, and each artist will explore their personal relationship with their chosen works.

The music of Beethoven is a theme running through the festival and the opening event is pianist Paul Lewis in Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. Then cellist Raphael Wallfisch and pianist John York will explore Beethoven cello sonatas. Founder members of London Winds, Michael Collins and Robin O’Neill are joined by pianist Michael McHale to discuss Beethoven’s chamber music and perform the Trio in B flat major OP. 11. The Solem Quartet will perform Beethoven's Quartet no. 13 in B flat major, op. 130  and, Piers Lane (piano) and Tama Matheson (actor) will join forces for Matheson's new drama which explores Beethoven's piano sonatas.      

Other music in the festival includes pianist Clare Hammond who will be talking about  the appeal and the challenges of each work in her programme, violist and painter Rivka Golani is joined by pianist Michael Hampton to explore the importance of colour in her life with music by Kreisler, Elgar, Dvorak, Brahms and Schumann, and The Telling bring their drama  Vision: The imagined testimony of Hildegard of Bingen. The festival ends with Florilegium,  Ashley Solomon (flute), Bojan Cicic (violin), Reiko Ichise (viola da gamba) & Julian Perkins (harpsichord), in a programme which the performers discuss the allure and quirks of their instruments which they illustrate with short solos as they explore the relationship between J. S. Bach, C. P. E. Bach and Georg Philipp Telemann. 

Full details from the festival website.

From complex Renaissance harmonies to contemporary improvisation, O/Modernt's exploration of Labyrinths in Wimbledon culminated in a terrific account of Strauss' Metamorphosen

Hugo Ticciati & O/Modernt at the O/Modernt Festival in Sweden

Labyrinths; Hugo Ticciati, O/Modernt, Sonoro Consort; Wimbledon International Music Festival at St John's Church
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 16 November 2019 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
A fascinating sequence of musical labyrinths, old and new, culminating in a gut-wrenching account of Strauss' Metamorphosen

Hugo Ticciati is the artist in residence at this year's Wimbledon International Music Festival, giving a number of performances with his O/Modernt ensemble. On Saturday 16 November 2019, there was a double bill of concerts at St John's Church, Spencer Hill, Wimbledon under the theme of Into the Labyrinth, exploring a variety of labyrinths in music. 

In the afternoon, there was Brahms' Clarinet Quintet, preceded by a performance whereby Bach's The Art of Fugue (Contrapunctus I, VI, IX & XII) metamorphosed into Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, via Ticciati's own De/Constructing Fugues. In the evening, Ticciati and O/Modernt were joined by the nine singers of the Sonoro Consort, conductor Neil Ferris, for a sequence of music which took in the plainchant Tonus Peregrinus, the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis from William Byrd's Second Service,  Locatelli's Harmonic Labyrinth caprice, Gesualdo's Io parto e non più dissi, Aurelio de la Vega's The Magic Labyrinth, Monteverdi's Lamento d’Arianna madrigal sequence, Claudio Ambrosini's Ciaccona in Labirinto and Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen.

Jools Scott's The Cool Web opens 2017 Wimbledon International Music Festival

This year's Wimbledon International Music Festival, the ninth festival, opens on Remembrance Day with Jools Scott and Sue Curtis's oratorio The Cool Web based on the war poems of Robert Graves (who was born in Wimbledon), performed by Sonoro, Merton Music Foundation Young Voices, Philharmonia Orchestra, conductor Robin O'Neil, with baritone Edward Grint. The work was premiered in 2014 at Bath Abbey to mark the beginning of the World War One centenary (there is a review of the original performance on The Fine Times Recorder). The festival ends on 26 November with the Philharmonia and Robin O'Neill returning for a programme of Mozart and Haydn symphonies plus Richard Strauss's Oboe Concerto with Gordon Hunt.



The Academy Choir and Baroque Players, conductor Matthew Best, with soloists Mary Bevan, David Allsopp, Andrew Tortise are performing Bach's Mass in B Minor, and the Schubert Ensemble perform a double concert celebrating the music associated with Vienna from Mozart to Mahler.

Other highlights include violinist Victoria Mullova and friends (including cellist Matthew Barley) in music by Brazilian composers, and Sir Willard White and Counterpoise in a programme of American inspired music from Gershwin to Art Tatum and Piazzolla. Tenebrae, conductor Nigel Short, will combined movements from Joby Talbot's Path of Miracles, with Holst's Evening Watch, plainchant and Palestrina. The Wihan and Sacconi Quartets join forces for a programme of octets, Quatuor Diotima performs a programme of Debussy, Dutilleux, Stravinsky and Ravel, and trumpeter Hakan Hardenberger joins forces with percussionist Colin Currie.

Other artists performing include viola player Timothy Ridout (first ever British winner of the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition), Red Priest, pianist Yevgeni Sudbin,  and the Soloists of the Russian Virtuosi of Europe.

Full details from the Wimbledon International Music Festival  website

Wimbledon Music Festival 2016

This year's Wimbledon Music Festival runs from 12 to 27 November 2017 with a whole variety of musical events in and around Wimbledon including St John's Church, Spencer Hill, Trinity Church, Mansel Road, Sacred Heart Church, Edge Hill and Wimbledon Synagogue. This year's festival takes as its theme Music inspired by Folk Sources.

The festival opens with Sonoro Choir and Wimbledon Youth Choir in David Fanshawe's African Sanctus. The Skampa String Quartet will be teaming up with the Hungarian folk ensemble Muzsikas for a programme which interweaves music by Bartok and Kodaly with Hungarian folk music. The Skampa Quartet will also be giving their own concert with music by Dvorak, Martinu and Smetana. The ensemble She'koyokh combine a klezmer band with a Bulgarian choir, quite a combination.


Christoph Pregardien and Sholto Kynoch will be performing Mahler, Schubert and Schumann. Stile Antico's programme celebrates Shakespeare 400 with music by Morley, Byrd, Dowland, Tomkins, Weelkes and Gibbons. The Academy Choir and Academy Baroque Ensemble, conducted by Andrew Edwards will be performing Bach's St John Passion with soloists Julia Doyle, David Allsopp, Robin Tritschler, and Benjamin Appl.

Raphael Wallfisch will be performing all six of Bach's suites for unaccompanied cello. Christian Tezlaff performs music for unaccompanied violin by Bach and Bartok, and the Tezlaff Quartet will give a programme of quartets by Mozart, Mendelssohn and Sibelius.

The festival closes with the City of London Sinfonia, conducted by Michael Collins in a programme which includes Copland's Appalachian Spring, Holst's St Paul's Suite and a selection of Grainger items plus Finzi's Clarinet Concerto with Collins as soloist.

Full details from the Wimbledon Music Festival website.

Wolfgang Holzmair and Sholto Kynoch in Die Winterreise

Wolfgang Holzmair

Schubert Die Winterreise; Wolfgang Holzmair, Sholto Kynoch; Wimbledon International Music Festival at St John's Church
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Nov 17 2014
Star rating: 4.0
Intense, inward, highly personal account of Schubert's great song-cycle

On 18 November 2014, the distinguished Austrian baritone Wolfgang Holzmair performed Schubert's song-cycle Die Winterreise at St John's Church, Wimbledon as part of the Wimbledon International Music Festival. Holzmair was accompanied by pianist Sholto Kynoch, who is artistic director of the Oxford Lieder Festival.

Holzmair and Kynoch came onto the platform, Holzmair closed his eyes and the cycle started. For much of the time Holzmair had his eyes closed, was looking down or was looking at a distant place far in his memory. Holzmair's account of Die Winterreise was extremely intense and inward, it was a profound personal journey. We did not witness the disintegration of the protagonist before our eyes as happened with Simon Keenlyside (see my review), nor did he beard us Ancient Marriner like to tell his tale like Sir John Tomlinson (see my review). Instead it seemed to be pain recollected. And there was undoubtedly pain, but it was highly internalised and the final song, Der Leiermann was quietly disturbing. The result might not have been to all tastes, but it was quite remarkable and profoundly consistent. It was also one of the swiftest accounts of the song cycle that I have heard in a long time, though never felt rushed.

Yehudi Menuhin School at Wimbledon Festival

St John's Church, Wimbledon

Pupils from the Yehudi Menuhin School at the Wimbledon International Music Festival
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Nov 14 2014
Lunchtime chamber music concert by young rising stars of the future

For the first of four free lunchtime concerts by young artists at St Juhn's Church, Waterloo, as part of the Wimbledon International Music Festival, pupils from the Yehudi Menuhin School performed a programme of chamber music on Friday 14 November 2014. The programme included a trio of works all written during the First World War, Janacek's Violin Sonata, Bartok's Piano Suite Op 14 and Delius's Violoncello Sonata plus a pair of works written by pupils from the school as part of the Flander Fields project.

Anthems for Doomed Youth - The Myrthen Ensemble

Anthems for Doomed Youth; The Myyrthen Ensemble; Wimbledon International Music Festival at St John's Church, Wimbledon
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Nov 12 2014
Star rating: 4.5
Intense and moving recital from this young ensemble

The Myrthen Ensemble is a group of young singers and accompanist who, in the mould of The Songmakers' Almanac, perform concerts together, sacrificing a degree of recital independence for the ability to create something which is greater than the some of its parts. On Wednesday 12 November 2014 the Myrthen Ensemble, soprano Katherine Broderick, mezzo-soprano Clara Mouriz, tenor Benjamin Hulett, baritone Marcus Farnsworth and pianist Joseph Middleton, presented their programme Anthems for Doomed Youth at St John's Church, Wimbledon as part of the Wimbledon International Music Festival.

There were four groups of songs , each with a loose theme and with songs from a different group of countries. Germany and Austria had songs of death and of ghosts by Schubert, Mahler and Wolf, France and Spain had songs by Faure, Duparc, poulenc, Grannados and Debussy on departures and returns (or failures to return), America and Russia had songs by Barber, Ned Rorem, Montsalvatge, Rachmaninov and Mussorgsky on the pain of army life, and The British Isles had songs by Ireland, Somervell, Finzi, James Macmillan and Ivor Gurney on the effects and aftermath of war. The result was a powerful and compelling programme.

War and Peace in Wimbledon

This year's Wimbledon International Music Festival takes as its theme, War and Peace. Running from 8 to 23 November 2014 in various venues in and around Wimbledon the festival will be kicking off with the Academy Choir and Baroque Players performing Haydn's Nelson Mass, whilst the final concert sees the Philharmonia Orchestra, conductor Robin O'Neill, performing Richard Strauss's Metamorphosen his response to the destruction of Munich and Dresden in 1945.

In between, artistic director Anthony Wilkinson (see my interview with Anthony) has put together a programme which explores all sorts of aspects of war. There is Spanish Civil War with Hungarian duo the Katona Twins performing guitar music, the young British artists of the Myrthen Ensemble in Anthems for Doomed Youth with music by Schubert, Wolf, Mahler and many others, Russian pianist Denis Kozhukin performs Prokofiev's Sonata No. 7, his war sonata. Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale will be given a staged performance at Wimbledon College of Art.

Away from war, the distinguished Austrian baritone Wolfgang Holzmair sings Schubert's Die Winterreise, the Borodin Quartet is joined by Michael Collins for Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, and York2 play the piano four hands versions of Holst's The Planets, Debussy's La Mer and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and the Fibonacci Sequence performs a pair of concerts exploring Schubert's chamber music.

On a lighter note, the Musicians of the Globe explore penny broad-sheet ballads in Death by Custard. And the festival ends not only with the Philharmonia Orchestra in concert, but with Jessica Duchen's Alicia's Gift at the Orange Tree Theatre.


Full information from the Wimbledon International Music Festival website.

Building an international brand - an encounter with Anthony Wilkinson of the Wimbledon International Music Festival

Anthony Wilkinson

Running a music and arts festival anywhere is hard work. But it would seem to be a thankless task to do so in an area where your potential audience has the delights of central London just a train-ride way. But Anthony Wilkinson, founder of the Wimbledon International Music Festival, seems to warm to his task with enthusiasm, even though this year is the sixth Festival (running from 8 – 23 November 2014).

In conversation, Anthony admits there are problems, mainly the perennial ones of finance, but our talk quickly diverges into his passion for people, plans and projects. It is clear also that what keeps him going is the genuinely enthusiastic response to the festival from local residents. Not only the gratifyingly high number of positive letters he receives after the festival, but the response people have to individual concerts. The festival is very much a personal one, and Anthony does not programme anything or anyone for whom he doesn't have enthusiasm. This means that the more obscure and lesser known means as much to him as the well known. He clearly enjoys the feeling that the Wimbledon Festival is a place where people might come to a concert and have their lives changed.

Wimbledon International Music Festival (WIMF) is a local festival that thinks big. Anthony is not frightened of programming major artists, this year includes Wolfgang Holzmair in Schubert's Die Winterreise and The Sixteen. But Anthony also brings smaller, quirkier programmes as well, such as violist Lawrence Power in Bax, and the Musicians of the Globe in 17th century broad-sheet ballads (a programme that he later refers to as Death by Custard!).

Sins of the Fathers

Cosima, Wagner, Lizst and Nietsche

Jessica Duchen's new play Sins of the Fathers was given a rehearsed reading at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond as the final event in this year's Wimbledon Music Festival. Illustrated with the composers' music, the play looks at the relationship between Richard Wagner, his second wife Cosima and her father Franz Liszt. John Sessions played Richard Wagner and Jeremy Child was Franz Liszt. The third actor, Sarah Gabriel, didn't play Cosima but a contemporary figure Vickie who got mixed up in their world.

The play had been billed as a simply exploring 'the intriguing relationships' between the three characters. This was a potentially very dark subject, neither Liszt nor Wagner seem to have been very pleasant characters, but then such is the way of genius. As a way of providing a modern critique of their attitudes, Duchen had created something which was rather more intriguing and complex in structure.

Wimbledon Music Festival

This year's Wimbledon Music Festival opens on 9 November 2013 and runs until Sunday 24 November. A theme running through the festival is chamber music with performers such as the Brodsky Quartet, clarinettist Michael Collins, violist Rivka Golani, pianist Angela Hewitt, Shaham-Erez-Wallfisch Piano Trio, Quatuor Mosaiques (the Austrian quartet playing on period instrument), Calefax Reed Quintet (the Dutch wind quintet), organist Jennifer Bate and trumpeter Crispian Steele-Perkins. The Gesualdo Consort will be celebrating Gesualdo's influence in the 20th century, and Sir John Tomlinson brings his programme based on the Michelangelo sonnets.

The festival opens on 9 November with Academy Choir and Baroque Players in an all Bach concert including the Actus Tragicus, Komm Jesu Komm and the Magnificat. And there is more Bach at the end of festival when Florilegium perform all the Brandenburg Concertos in two concerts on 23 November.

Christine Brewer at the Wimbledon Music Festival

Christine Brewer's appearances in the UK are not that frequent, so it was an especial pleasure to encounter her in recital accompanied by at the Wimbledon Music Festival at St John's Church, SW19 on Thursday 22 November. The first half of her programme consisted of Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs and Richard Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder with the second half being taken up with 20th century songs, all written as encore type pieces for sopranos such as Kirsten Flagstad, Eileen Farrell and Helen Traubel.

The Cardinall's Musick at Wimbledon Music Festival

Andrew Carwood and his ensemble, the Cardinall's Musick, brought their programme Il Siglio D'Oro: Muisc of Spain's Golden Age to St Paul's Church, SW19 as part of the Wimbledon Music Festival on Wednesday 21 November. Directed by Carwood, who provided illuminating and entertaining spoken introductions to the programme, the eight singers performed music by Guerrero, Morales, Esquivel, Victoria, Esquivel and Lobo, all of it dedicated in some way to the Virgin Mary. In one of his introductions Carwood explained that the Western Church, unlike the Orthodox Church, had no female personification in its representation of God. So at a time when God was often a man of war, it was to the Virgin that people turned for the feminine virtues. And this is reflected in the amazing flowering of music dedicated to her at the period.

Mark Padmore at the Wimbledon Music Festival

photo by Marco Borggreve

This year's International Wimbledon Music Festival includes a number of celebrity recitals and on Thursday 15 November tenor Mark Padmore and pianist Simon Lepper gave a recital of Beethoven and Schubert songs at St John's Church, Spencer Hill, Wimbledon. It was a joy to be able to hear Padmore in the relatively intimate confines of the church, and its acoustic proved to be surprisingly welcoming for lieder. The main work in the first half was Beethoven's song cycle An die ferne Geliebte with Schubert's Schwanengesang in the second half. Padmore's own short spoken introductions indicated how the cycles were linked through the Romantic concept of Sehnsucht.

Wimbledon Music Festival - Purcell Pageant

The Meeting of Dido and Aeneas
Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland

This year's International Wimbledon Music Festival has as its title A Music World Fair with the festival concerts and events celebrating music from all over the globe. For the opening concert, on Saturday 10 November at St. John's Church, Wimbledon, Festival Director Anthony Wilkinson had chosen to start firmly in England with an all Purcell programme. A concert performance of Dido and Aeneas concluded the programme with Susan Bickley and Njabulo Madlala in the title roles. The first half consisted of music from two of Purcell's odes, with one unexpectedly delightful extra.