The sound of Carnival: in advance of this year's Notting Hill Carnival I chat to Eversely Mills the band manager of Metronomes Steel Orchestra about the sounds and traditions of steel bands

The Notting Hill Carnival this year is from Saturday 23 August to Monday 25 August and a big feature, as ever, will be the Steel Bands with the Steel Band Competition on the Saturday and the Parade on the Monday. We are all familiar with the sound of the steel band, yet as a musical ensemble it remains distinct yet distinctive. I recently chatted to Eversely Mills the band manager of Metronomes Steel Orchestra to find out more about the ensemble and the traditions behind it.

Formed in 1973, Metronomes is an innovative steelband and unique community based in Ladbroke Grove, West London. They teach and perform steelpan music, promote Caribbean heritage, and run projects to benefit local people.

The tradition of playing steel drums arose in Trinidad and Tobago where they turned 22 gallon oil drums into instruments, creating what quickly became a community tradition. Eversely explains that the steel orchestra (his preferred term rather than steel band) is made up of different types of instrument that have different functions. The bass and tenor bass provide the low notes whilst the different cello instruments play chords with further instruments playing harmony and runs with the double tenor (which is actually at soprano pitch) providing the melody. 

Playing in steel orchestras is very much a community-based thing with players in youth clubs, community centres and a lot of schools. Whilst you can have a three or five-piece band, a steel orchestra will be made up of twelve to fifteen people. An arranger has to work out the chords and melody; whilst a chord will have three to five notes in it, a single player with only two sticks can play just two notes at a time, hence they need to be allocated, splitting the chord. Whilst the arranger use music, having the arrangement written down, the vast majority of players perform from memory.

Eversely explains that the level of difficulty depends on the individual, some are natural players whilst others are able to develop the skills. You need dexterity, a good memory, and a sense of basic timing, along with being collaborative. And, of course, different players are suited to different pans.

Metronomes has three bands. There is the junior academy, the adult intermediate band and the adult stage-side band, which is their A team. Whilst some players strive to get into the stage-side band others are happpy to be where they are, finding their roles less stressful. Each band will generally have a repertoire of 12 to 15 tunes. Rehearsals are seasonal, normally a band would get together twice per week but at the moment rehearsals are full-on as they gear up for the Carnival. In addition to the arranger, bands have a drill master who rehearses with them and gets them performance ready. Often, nowadays, bands will perform with the drill master conducting out front.

When I ask about how Metronomes is funded,  Eversely laughs; they are reliant on a mix of fundraising, income from performances and grants.

Performing at the Carnival is, itself, a very full-on activity. They prepare from 8 am, get on the route at about 12 pm and finish the circuit at around 7pm, all of which is hard work. Also, as they are playing percussion instruments, it is a very physical activity.

Metronomes stageside band

Metronomes will be performing at the Carnival on Saturday and Monday, and they will be rehearsing on the streets the Thursday (today) and Friday (tomorrow) before the Carnival.
 

New challenge and new repertoire: trumpeter Matilda Lloyd her new disc, Fantasia, pairing four contemporary pieces with Baroque music

Matilda Lloyd (Photo: Geoffroy Schied)

When I met up for coffee with Matilda Lloyd last month, she was laden down with five trumpets, ranging from a piccolo trumpet to a flugelhorn, all of which come into play on her new disc Fantasia on Chandos Records, recorded at Waltham Abbey Church earlier this year with organist Richard Gowers. The disc features Baroque music by Bach, Krebs, Martini, and Pachelbel, alongside four premiere recordings of music by Roxanna Panufnik, Richard Barnard, Owain Park, and Deborah Pritchard. However, Matilda explains that the idea for the disc has been in the works for a long time, dating right back to when she played Bach's Toccata and Fugue in an arrangement for brass quintet while at Junior Guildhall and enjoyed the majestic sound.

Richard Gowers & Matilda Lloyd at Wiener Musikverein
(via Facebook)

The idea for performing music for trumpet and organ developed with her duo partner, Richard Gowers, who was the organ scholar whilst she was at university. Having exhausted the existing repertoire, they made new arrangements. 

They had the idea of expanding the repertoire, effectively developing the legacy of playing Baroque music on a trumpet, which began with the French trumpeter Maurice André (1933-2012), who rose to international prominence in the 1960s and 1970s with a series of recordings of Baroque works on piccolo trumpet.

Matilda and Richard expanded further by contrasting the new arrangements with new pieces.

The four pieces on the new disc are all new commissions, designed to complement the Baroque pieces. The album is called Fantasia, which in the Baroque period implied a work that was lyrical and improvisatory, but Matilda asked the four composers to compose a work inspired by whatever Fantasia meant to them. Each composer took the word 'Fantasia' in a different direction with dreams and the borders of sleep, poetry, landscape and stained glass.

Matilda had an existing relationship with each of the four composers. She and Owain Park studied music at Trinity College together. She has known him for over a decade and admired his compositional voice, whilst he was both an organist and a trumpet player. She has recently recorded a collaborative programme with Park and his ensemble, Gesualdo Six, and the disc Radiant Dawn was recently released. His piece for the Fantasia disc, Warm, hazy rain, is inspired by landscape, Park suggests "perhaps gazing out of a train window or reminiscing about a leisurely bicycle ride through warm, misty country lanes."

To honour the women by giving voice to their experience: pianist Deirdre Brenner introduces The Magdalene Songs which she brings to the Oxford International Song Festival

Deirdre Brenner (Photo: Andrej Grilc)

From 1922 to 1996 more than 10,000 women and girls were incarcerated in Ireland's Magdalene Laundries. Operated by four religious orders, these for-profit punitive institutions detained individuals against their will, committing serious systematic violations against human rights. 

The Magdalene Songs is an ongoing project initiated by pianist Deirdre Brenner that seeks to honour the women by giving voice to their experience bringing together prominent female Irish composers and the words of individual survivors into a collection of songs. The Magdalene Songs will be given by mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean and Deirdre Brenner on 23 October at the Holywell Music Room as part of the Oxford International Song Festival.

I recently caught up with Deirdre by Zoom (her in Vienna, me in London) to find out more about the project. Born in Massachusetts, Deirdre earned a Bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College with a double major in Engineering Sciences and Music, and Master's degrees from both the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Konservatorium Wien.

Song is a medium that she has worked in most. With its combination of text and music, there is a lot of opportunity and power in song performances yet the texts do not always resonate with modern audiences, though there is great potential for amplifying stories through song.

Former Magdalene Laundry in Galway, Ireland

A family affair: beginning as a memorial to his father, Andrew Arceci's Winchendon Music Festival has grown into a community enterprise

The Murdock-Whitney House, Winchendon History & Cultural Centre

Andrew Arceci is an American viola da gamba, violone, and bass player who studied at the Peabody Conservatory, The Juilliard School, and at Oxford. His UK performances have included the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Oxford Baroque, and Brighton Early Music Festival. Andrew is also the artistic director and founder of the Winchendon Music Festival. 

Andrew Arceci (Photo: Jeffrey Hornstein)

Winchendon is a small New England town with a population of around 10,000, located approximately two hours by car from Boston. Andrew's family is from the area, and though his family moved around a lot when he was a child, Winchendon was the one constant. Ten years ago, Andrew's father, a paediatric oncologist, was killed in an accident while riding his bike and was buried in Winchendon. Andrew organised a memorial weekend of concerts, including one featuring his mother's cousin, a jazz musician. There was sufficient interest for them to repeat the weekend the following year. Since then, the festival has developed and is now celebrating its tenth anniversary.

The concerts are very much a community enterprise; they are free to the community and rely on support. Andrew comments that each year, they have to prove themselves to attract support for the next season. Audiences come not only from Winchendon but also from the surrounding areas, including Worcester. As Andrew works as a professional musician, he tries to coordinate with colleagues and pull them to Winchendon, and performers enjoy the intimate nature of the festival's concerts. Coordinating schedules can be tricky, but he finds it exciting when things pull together. 

Andrew encourages performers to discuss both the pieces they are performing and their travels, sharing information about themselves and their instruments. He feels that the communal aspect of the festival's performance would not work in a big city. In Winchendon, the venues are all intimate, so it is easy for performers to chat to the audience.

A game changer: as RPS Conductors programme enters a new phase, I chat to founder Alice Farnham & an early participant, Charlotte Corderoy

Alice Farnham with members of the Royal Northern Sinfonia and members of the RPS Women Conductors programme at the Glasshouse including Charlotte Corderoy

In 2014, conductor Alice Farnham formed the Women Conductors programme, initially at Morley College; she joined forces with the Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) to create RPS Women Conductors in 2016, then in 2022, in partnership with the Royal Northern Sinfonia (RNS), a new high-level course was established in Gateshead at The Glasshouse International Centre for Music.

Now the programme is taking a new step and in June 2025 under the new name of RPS Conductors welcomed applications from any conductors at a sufficiently high level who can articulate how – through their lived experience, background or personal characteristics – they have encountered barriers to progress or limited access to an experience like this, and why it would therefore be transformative to their prospects.

This issue of women conductors far from resolved, however. In January 2025, 86% of conductors represented by UK artist managers were male, and 87% of titled conducting roles at UK orchestras were held by men. Addressing this remains a priority for RPS Conductors, and the opportunities presented remain primarily for women, trans and non-binary conductors.

Alice Farnham (Photo: Catherine Ashmore)

I recently spoke to conductor Alice Farnham, about the programme from its early founding to the present day, and I also chatted to conductor Charlotte Corderoy who was part of that first intake, when the first course was run in Gateshead with the RNS.

From Handel to Verdi & beyond: I chat to soprano Soraya Mafi about singing in Handel's Saul at Glyndebourne, & expanding into bel canto & Bernstein

Handel: Saul - Soraya Mafi - Glyndebourne Opera (Photo: Glyndebourne/ASH)

Soprano Soraya Mafi is currently singing the role of Michal in Handel's Saul at Glyndebourne in the 2025 revival of the 2015 production by Barrie Kosky which can rightly be called iconic [see my review]. Soraya returns to Handel next year when she makes her debut at the Komische Oper, Berlin in Belshazzar. Before then she will be performing the role of Cunegonde in Bernstein's Candide with Welsh National Opera this Autumn as well as premiering a new song cycle by Emily Hazrati at the Oxford International Song Festival. I chatted to Soraya recently, in a break between performances of Saul.

Soraya first appeared on these pages when studying at the Royal College of Music where in 2012 she was in Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea, with Louise Alder as Poppea [see my review] then in 2013 she was Arianna in Handel's Arianna in Creta [see my review] in collaboration with the London Handel Festival. Since then we have seen her as Mabel in G&S's The Pirates of Penzance at English National Opera [see my review], Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare in English Touring Opera's brave staging of the uncut opera [see my review], Titania in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream at ENO [see my review], Gretel in Humperdinck's Hansel & Gretel at Grange Park Opera [see my review], Amor in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice at ENO [see my review], and Morgana in Handel's Alcina at Glyndebourne [see my review], as well as in recital at Wigmore Hall [see my review].

Performing in Saul at Glyndebourne has been an intense and physically demanding experience she has found. She needs to be on full all the time, the stage is raked and her role is very active, she describes her character, Michal as very bouncy. All of which means that it is aerobically challenging. But she is also finding the performances inspiring, working with Iestyn Davies and Christopher Purves (both of whom are returning to the roles they created in 2015) and finding them coming back to the roles with the same level of dedication. She finds the performances fresh and exciting.

Handel: Alcina - Soraya Mafi, Samantha Hankey, James Cleverton - Glyndebourne Opera. 2022 (Photo Tristram Kenton)

An alternative way people can encounter classical music: Baldur Brönnimann & Felix Heri introduce Between Mountains Festival

This summer, the Between Mountains Festival makes its debut on 19 July at Holdenweid in Hölstein, Switzerland. More than just another music festival, Between Mountains seeks to redefine how classical music is presented and experienced by bringing it into conversation with electronic, ambient, and experimental genres. Set against the unique backdrop of a former psychiatric facility turned cultural centre at the foothills of the Jura Mountains, the festival appeals to curious audiences interested in a different classical musical experience.

The festival is the vision of conductor Baldur Brönnimann and cultural manager Felix Heri. Longtime collaborators with a shared mission to challenge traditional classical concert formats, Baldur and Felix have created Between Mountains to bridge divides – between genres, audiences, and generations – and to foster a new kind of musical community in Switzerland. Drawing inspiration from Germany’s Detect Classic Festival, they have tailored this project to resonate with local artists and listeners while maintaining a spirit of experimentation and openness.

In this interview, we speak with Baldur Brönnimann and Felix Heri about the origins of the festival, their ambitions for changing classical music’s cultural landscape, and how Between Mountains invites audiences to encounter music in unexpected ways.

How did the idea for Between Mountains Festival first come about? What inspired you to create a new kind of music gathering in Switzerland?

Baldur & Felix: We worked together for years, sharing the philosophy of breaking up the classical music concert formats and bringing them in tune with 21st-century audiences and 21st-century listening habits. We worked together as a chief exec and as a principal conductor at Basel Sinfonietta, and from that time, we always tried to present classical music in unexpected and non-traditional ways, because we felt that the format often stood in the way of establishing a direct relationship between the listener and the music.

Baldur: In 2021, I worked at the Detect Festival in Germany with the Junge Norddeutsche Philharmonie, and I thought this festival was really an interesting concept. It was a festival that had a younger audience who were looking for a great musical experience without the formalities of a traditional classical concert.

Then, when I won the culture prize of Baselland in 2023, we started to talk to the region about starting a new classical event for new audiences. And there was a political interest. That's when we first had the idea to bring the concept of Detect to Switzerland. We looked at several locations, but finally, Holstein was the ideal place to try and make our first festival work.

Maiden, Mother and Crone: mezzo-soprano Rowan Hellier talks about her interdisciplinary project integrating music & movement exploring the fascinating figure of Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga workshop -Ana Dordevic, Rowan Hellier, Carola Schwab - (Photo: Pascal Buenning/Deutsche Oper)

Rowan Hellier is a mezzo-soprano who, along with her operatic career, is known for creating projects which blur the boundaries of genre, discipline and aesthetic, often centring on women’s stories and her concepts have featured at major venues such as Wigmore Hall. At the Oxford International Song Festival in October, Rowan is presenting her latest project, Baba Yaga: Songs & Dances of Death. This production combines music, dance, spoken word, and a specially commissioned song cycle by Elena Langer. 

Baba Yaga workshop (Photo: Tina Dubrovsky)

For the evening, Rowan will be joined by pianist Sholto Kynoch, dancers Ana Dordevic and Carola Schwab and will be collaborating with choreographer Andreas Heise, whose version of Winterreise with Juliane Banse was a highlight of the 2023 Oxford International Song Festival. Baba Yaga is a co-production between Beethovenfest Bonn and Oxford International Song Festival, and the new cycle by Elena Langer is an Oxford International Song Festival production.

The idea for the show originated when Rowan was reading the writings of Mexican-American writer and Jungian psychoanalyst Clarissa Pinkola Estés, best known for her book Women Who Run with the Wolves (1992). Rowan was interested in Estés' ideas about the wildness and wisdom inherent in women and how these relate to archetypes like Baba Yaga. She was fascinated by the ambiguities which Baba Yaga embodies; a figure from Slavic folklore, you don't know whether she is good or bad. In some tales, she helps people and in others she hinders. She can be seen as an ogress, a snake, a death figure, the shadow self or a matriarchal ancestress. All of which link to the idea of witches. 

Rowan is interested in reclaiming the idea of the witch as an alternative to society's script for older women. In a culture obsessed with youth, this feels like a radical act, she says. The figures of real witches were originally medicine women and healers in the community, yet they were then turned upon and persecuted.

For music, Rowan has turned to folk music, Slavic, Scottish, Lithuanian, so that alongside Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death there will be music by Tcherepnin, Dvorak, Janacek, Jake Heggie and Tori Amos, plus Elena Langer's new commission. 

A sonic portrait of British Jewish families: composer Na'ama Zisser on the JMI Archive

Tai Rona at the launch event for the JMI Archive at Stone Nest

The Jewish Music Institute (JMI) is the UK’s home for Jewish music and for decades as part of its Archive, JMI has been collecting music resources from families, collectors and foundations. Since last year, composer Na'ama Zisser has been the CEO and artistic director of JMI, and she has been spearheading a project aimed at relaunching and revitalising the Archive. The collection had been in a storage facility in Surrey, some 6,000 items, vinyls, shellac discs, tapes, scores and manuscripts. With the support of the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe, these materials were catalogued and then experts helped to assess the collection.

Na'ama explains that, as with other archives across the world, the decision was taken to preserve a smaller number of meaningful, rare, and historically important items, rather than keep thousands in storage without proper attention or access, especially without a dedicated physical space. The JMI Archive does not have a building, so it would have been a hard task to keep the full 6,000 items in proper order. A small selection was chosen for the permanent collection, things not commercially available or of historical significance such as rare shellac discs of the world-renowned cantor Gershon Sirota, who died in the Holocaust, rare opera in Yiddish and field recordings of Jewish ritual life in the Middle East.

At a launch event last month, the Archive was brought to Stone Nest in Soho, with a performance by Iranian-American singer Elana Sasson and a curated deep-listening set by DJ and composer Tai Rona, featuring many recordings not heard in decades. The event closed with a late selection by JMI Archive curator Wajima Tapes.

Intrigued by stories & narratives: members of Apollo's Cabinet on their musical exploration of the world of 18th century actress Kitty Clive

Apollo's Cabinet at Bachfest Leipzig in 2024 (Photo: Emanuel Mathias)

The early music ensemble Apollo's Cabinet is known for its evocative, story-driven programmes. Their first disc, Musical Wanderlust: Charles Burney's European Travels in Pursuit of Harmony, focused on the 18th-century musicologist Charles Burney's diaries, with the disc being issued on the Prima Classic label in versions featuring English narration by Alexander Armstrong and German narration by Jürgen Maurer. 

Their latest disc which sees its official launch this month is based on their programme The Comic Muse: The Theatrical World of Kitty Clive, and this year has seen the group touring the programme with future performances at Strawberry Hill House, London (Thursday 19 June 2025); two dates in Scilly Isles (Monday 7 and Tuesday 8 July 2025); Penlee Park Open Air Theatre, Penzance (Wednesday 9 July 2025); and Lichfield Festival (Tuesday 15 July 2025). 

For their Kitty Clive programme, Apollo’s Cabinet comprises Jonatan Bougt (theorbo, Baroque guitar), Harry Buckoke (viola da gamba), Thomas Pickering (harpsichord, recorder, flute), and Teresa Wrann (recorder) along with a soprano (Angela Hicks and Lauren Lodge-Campbell sharing duties). I recently met up with Thomas and Teresa to find out more.

Apollo's Cabinet in A Birthday Party for the King

A terrific sense of collaboration: composer Colin Matthews and writer William Boyd on their first opera, A Visit to Friends

William Boyd and Colin Mathews (Photo: Mark Allan)

During his long career the composer Colin Matthews has been associated with several other composers, he assisted both Benjamin Britten and Imogen Holst at the Aldeburgh Festival, he and his brother David assisted Deryck Cooke on the completion of Mahler's Symphony No. 10, whilst more recent projects have seen Colin orchestrating Debussy. And since his orchestral Fourth Sonata (written 1974–75) won the Scottish National Orchestra's Ian Whyte Award, Colin's work has unfolded in a variety of genres, but until now never opera.

On 13 June 2025, Colin's first opera, A Visit to Friends will premiere at the Aldeburgh Festival. The new opera is a collaboration with novelist and playwright William Boyd (whose first opera libretto it is), and intriguingly whilst Boyd's libretto has its origins in the Chekhov short story of the same name, written in 1898 almost as a study for The Cherry Orchard, Colin's music is partly inspired by that of Scriabin. I recently went to chat with Colin and William about the new opera and their collaboration.

The new opera takes the form of a group of contemporary singers rehearsing a hitherto unknown opera by a Russian composer from the early years of the 20th century, with William's libretto for the 'rediscovered' opera channelling Chekhov and Colin's music channelling Scriabin, but around these scenes are scenes of the contemporary singers rehearsing and gradually, for them, life starts to imitate art.

The work just grew through Colin and William's collaboration, but from the outset, Colin was clear that he wanted to write an opera about opera. The two men first met in 2019 and agreed to collaborate, but initially with no clear idea of the direction the collaboration would take. 

Something juicy that you can get your teeth into: composer Libby Croad chats about The Brontë Suite which gets its UK premiere next month

Libby Croad (Photo: Alexander Barnes)

On Sunday 22 June 2025, Brighton Festival Chorus and City of London Sinfonia join forces at Cadogan Hall under the baton on James Morgan for a concert that features Duruflé’s Requiem, Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending (with violinist Alexandra Wood) and Fantasia on Greensleeves, plus the UK premiere of British composer Libby Croad's The Brontë Suite.

Libby wrote The Brontë Suite in January 2024, she was on sabbatical and as she loved the Brontë sisters' poems the idea of a piece based on them had been in the back of her head and the time seemed right. She effectively had free reign as there was no commission and she wrote it for choir and string quartet, figuring that was a nicely economic line-up. 

The piece uses three poems, Emily's Spellbound, Anne's A Reminiscence and Charlotte's Life. The three poems are not technically meant to be together but Libby feels that their themes of life, love and loss work well.

In fact, choirs asked her about a string orchestra version and it was this version which was used at the work's premiere by the Willoughby Symphony Choir in Sydney, Australia in March 2025 and will be used on 22 June. Ironically, the original version for choir and string quartet has yet to get an outing.

When I ask about her musical style, she comments that someone in another choir she was working with said that her music sounds very English. She admits that she likes a good melody, which is not wildly fashionable at the moment. She starts with the text, then melody and she loves scrunchy harmonies, using quite a lot of modes. She trained as a violinist and feels that you can tell this with her string writing, she likes something juicy that you can get your teeth into.

Her first study at the Royal Academy of Music was violin, with composition as second study. On leaving college, she focused on the violin but felt that something was missing. In 2016 she rekindled her writing and though she loves the violin and still plays, composition is the dream. But she feels that the two strands of her musical life help each. She comments that she has just finished playing the music for the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Hamlet whilst at the same time writing a new work of her own, and the influences feed into each other. She loves the way the two can interact, and says that she could not be a composer in an ivory tower.

She is pleased that her composing has really taken off and she now has a waiting list.

Unsurprisingly, her inspirations include RVW and Elgar, but also Rachmaninov whose Symphony No. 2 she has fond memories of playing in the youth orchestra. At college, her teacher was Gareth Wilson (who is now at Girton College). He was a great encouragement to her writing, he commissioned her first choral piece for his choir in Chelsea when she was still at college. She realised that she loved writing music and he helped her develop her writing.

The day before the London concert she has a premiere in Nottingham, The Nightingale for choir and strings, setting Walter de la Mare's poem King David. This is for the charity, Music for Everyone, with whom Libby has worked before and this new piece is about the healing power of music which will be performed by Nottingham Chamber Singers and Nottingham Chamber Players at a concert celebrating the choir's 40th birthday, further details.

She has just finished music for a play, the first time she has written for the theatre and it was an amazing experience. The play is Chronically Hopeful, a multi-disciplinary piece about unseen disability being developed by Musici Ireland. A workshop performance of the piece took place in Bray, Ireland a few days after I chatted to Libby with a big performance planned for the Autumn.

Next up, she is starting a new commission for the Dionysus Ensemble, for string quartet, clarinet and harp. The theme of the work is river safety and it will be part of a project the ensemble is doing with local children. 

Libby Croad: The Brontë Suite
Duruflé: Requiem
Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on Greensleeves
Alexandra Wood (violin)
Brighton Festival Chorus
City of London Sinfonia
James Morgan (conductor)
22 June 2025

Full details from the Cadogan Hall website.

 

A carefully curated programme rather than a disc to dip into: Christopher Gray on his first disc with the Choir of St John's College, Cambridge

Christopher Gray (Photo: Richard Marsham)

Christopher Gray has been director of music at St John's College, Cambridge since 2023. He was formerly director of music at Truro Cathedral and took over at St John's from Andrew Nethsingha (now at Westminster Abbey). During May 2025, Christopher's first recording with the choir is released on the St John's Cambridge label (in conjunction with Signum Classics); Lamentation & Liberation features the premiere recording of Joanna Marsh’s triptych Echoes in Time, Gray’s first commission for the Choir – setting poetry by Malcolm Guite. Two other recent commissions for the Choir feature on the recording, Helena Paish’s The Annunciation and Martin Baker's organ prelude Ecce ego Ioannes, alongside Sir James MacMillan’s Cantos Sagrados and works by Roxanna Panufnik and Dobrinka Tabakova.

Contemporary music has played a significant role at St John's over the last few years whilst Christopher has done quite a bit at Truro Cathedral including releasing albums of music by Dobrinka Tabakova and Gabriel Jackson. Christopher wanted to continue this, yet felt the new album should be seen as a whole, rather than simply individual tracks. He had not collaborated with Joanna Marsh before and her new triptych consists of three pieces, commissioned for key dates in the liturgical calendar - The Hidden Light was premiered at the Choir’s Advent Carol Service in 2023, Refugee for the Epiphany Carol Service, and final movement Still to Dust for the Lent Meditation service.

For Joanna Marsh's triptych, she worked with two of Malcolm Guite's existing poems and they commissioned a third poem. The idea was to take the Biblical narrative of Advent, Epiphany and Ash Wednesday and find resonance in the world of 2025, tying the Biblical story to today because of the associations Guite makes. Seeing the Holy Family as refugees from Herod as dictator provides a lot of resonance with contemporary situations. [see my interview with Joanna Marsh at the time of the premiere of The Hidden Light]

Christopher Gray & the Choir of St John's College, Cambridge (Photo: Keith Heppell)

Requiem A is much more influenced by Swans, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and Sigur Rós: composer Sven Helbig in his new Requiem A

Premiere of Sven Helbig's Requiem A at the Dresdner Kreuzkirche (Photo: Oliver Killig)

The composer Sven Helbig has been on my radar since at least 2013 when his disc Pocket Symphonies came out [see my review] and I saw him live in Hamburg at the Reeperbahn Festival that year [see my review]. More recently he was one of the three composers to debut the Three Continents cello concerto (created with composers Nico Muhly and Zhou Long) at the 2019 Dresden Music Festival [see my review]. And I have interviewed him twice, first back in 2016 talking about I Eat The Sun And Drink The Rain [see my interview] and again in 2022 to chat about his album, Skills [see my interview].

His most recent work, REQUIEM A was created to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, honouring the victims of war and sending a profound plea for peace. The work was premiered in February 2025 at the Dresdner Kreuzkirche, with Sven Helbig’s live electronics, bass Rene Pape, the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Dresdner Kreuzchor conducted by Martin Lehmann. The work is being performed in Vienna at Vienna’s annual memorial event on 8 May 2025 in Heldenplatz at the heart of the city, with the Wiener Symphoniker and the Dresdner Kreuzchor, plus live visuals by Icelandic film artist Máni M. Sigfusson, adding an immersive and dynamic visual dimension to the experience.

Also on 8 May 2025, the work will be released on disc by Deutsche Grammophon and further ahead there will be a performance in the UK in October 2025. We are pleased to include a short interview with Sven exploring the work further.

Sven Helbig( Photo: Claudia Weingart)

Requiem – not the easiest subject to approach. How did you find your way into it?

The classical requiem moved me even before I had experienced deep grief or fully understood its religious content. Its compelling, unmistakable form and overwhelming intensity have always captivated me. Right now, I feel a profound sense of mourning for the ideals I grew up with—ideals of Humanism, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment. It felt only natural to turn to the form of the requiem as a way to engage with that loss.

The title REQUIEM A is intriguing. What does the “A” stand for, and how did you come to choose this title?

The “A” in the title stands for the German words Atem (breath) and Anfang (beginning). Requiem A dwells at the edge of grief. It seeks a path back into life. “Beginning” is not meant here as a tabula rasa—that would imply forgetting. After deep, despairing sorrow, forgetting is not possible. Rather, this is a beginning that follows a process of intense, Jungian inner work.

Here, beginning is first a decision—a first note, a first sound, which means nothing yet, only the idea of something new. And this newness inevitably carries the past within it. This beginning starts with a breath.

I found a beautiful passage on the letter A in the Grimm’s Dictionary:

“A, the noblest, most original of all sounds, resounding fully from chest and throat, the sound a child first and most easily learns to produce—rightly placed at the head of the alphabet in most languages.”

A conversation between similarities & differences: Jonathan Sells on his disc of Bruckner & Gesualdo with the Monteverdi Choir

Jonathan Sells (Photo: Paul Marc Mitchell)

In April, the Monteverdi Choir released a disc of motets by Bruckner and Gesualdo conducted by Jonathan Sells on the Soli Deo Gloria label. Recorded live in concert in October last year, this release marks the Monteverdi Choir’s 60th birthday and the 200th anniversary of Bruckner’s birth and represents Jonathan's first disc with the choir. Jonathan is perhaps best known as the artistic director of Solomon's Knot, the conductor-less ensemble known for singing everything from memory. As a singer, Jonathan was also a member of the Monteverdi Choir, but more recently has been conducting them and has now been appointed Choir Director.

The new disc interweaves sacred motets by Bruckner and Gesualdo in a programme that begins with Palestrina's Stabat Mater and includes Lotti's Crucifixus a 8. Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) whose motets are influenced by the Cecilian movement for church music reform, and Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613), whose sacred music is notoriously intense and chromatic, might not seem obvious disc fellows, but Jonathan makes a real case for the pairing.

For him, both composers' music triggers similar things and the programme became a conversation between similarities and differences. Amongst their similarities he includes that both wrote motets for the Catholic Church, using similar texts and the motets on the disc focus on the cross, the Crucifixion and Mary. Jonathan finds that both composers have what he calls an expressionist approach to the harmonic language.

Searching for possibilities: composer Noah Max on his four string quartets recently recorded by the Tippett Quartet on Toccata Classics

Noah Max (Photo: Richard Ecclestone)

Last month, Toccata Classics released a disc of the four string quartets by the young British composer Noah Max [see details] recorded by the Tippett Quartet (John Mills, Jeremy Isaac, Lydia Lowndes-Northcott, Bozidar Vukotic). This group premiered Noah's String Quartet No. 2 at the Thaxted Festival in 2023, where Noah was composer in residence [see my review]. This is the second disc of Noah's music on Toccata, the first Songs of Loneliness being a disc of varied solos and chamber music [see my review].

The four quartets were all written over quite a short period, yet are remarkably diverse. The first quartet from 2020 is linked to the fable The Man Who Planted Trees written in 1953 by French writer Jean Giono (1895-1970), narrated on the disc by Sir Michael Morpurgo. In three movements, the music is tonal and atmospheric, supplementing the narrative and the work interweaves text and music, sometimes keeping them independent and sometimes as melodrama. The result slows down the narrative somewhat but creates a striking synthesis. The work is ultimately positive, Morpurgo's last words are 'in spite of everything, humanity is admirable', and it forms a strong contrast with Noah's fourth quartet.

An incredible feeling when you get it right; horn-player Martin Owen on performing Mozart's complete horn concertos with Manchester Camerata

Martin Owen, Manchester Camerata, Gábor Takács-Nagy at the Stoller Hall (Photo; Rob Everett)

When horn player Martin Owen and I met to chat about his performances of Mozart's Horn Concertos with Manchester Camerata, our conversation began with the slightly unlikely topic of a health scare that Martin had a few years ago. The context being that he feels that to do full justice to Mozart's concertos you need life experience, nothing helps more than love and loss, pain and heartache in your life. In fact, Martin played and recorded the fourth concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra around 20 years ago but his current concerts with Manchester Camerata, and Gábor Takács-Nagy at The Stoller Hall in Manchester (Concertos Nos. 1 & 2, plus Concert Rondo on 2 April, Concertos Nos. 3 & 4 on 23 May) represent the first time he has performed all the concertos and after the second concert, they will be going into the studio to record them for Chandos, a logical extension to the orchestra's Mozart Made in Manchester series.

His approach to Mozart is very different now from what it was 20 years ago, you have different expectations and a different approach as you get older so the way a performer copes is inevitably different. When he was younger, he would have gone hell for leather at the concerto's opening, aiming for excitement and adrenalin, but his approach is now more considered. Martin is performing on a modern instrument but whilst he feels that modern values in Mozart veer towards the ideal of smooth tone, he is interested in getting a real variety of dynamics in the performance. He comments that he no longer thinks that aiming for perfection is the only idea. He points out that when Mozart wrote his concertos, the invention of the valve was 35 years away; Mozart's friend, Joseph Leutgeb for whom the concertos were written, played a natural horn. That is a horn with no valves, whereas Martin's modern instrument features valves of titanium and it also has a larger bore than older historical instruments.

Martin Owen (Photo: Davide Cerati)

Yet Martin's performances also include nods to historical information, not just the notes as Mozaart's scores for Joseph Leutgeb are littered with jokes and swear words. In some concertos, Mozart used different coloured pens, and Martin feels that the scores demonstrate quite how much fun Mozart and Leutgeb were having, and this personal link seems to separate the horn concertos from Mozart's other major concertos. In the slow movements of the horn concertos, Mozart has written some of his most beautiful music, music which is so difficult to bring off. You need to be able to turn a phrase so beautifully and so perfectly, and Martin finds it an incredible feeling when you get it right.

Utopian ideals & cross-cultural dialogue: Jocelyn Freeman's SongEasel takes song to South-East London with a focus on Robert & Clara Schumann

Jocelyn Freeman and Francesca Chiejina at SongEasel's 2024 series A Vast Obscurity

Pianist Jocelyn Freeman's South-East London-based song series, SongEasel goes from strength to strength and their seventh concert series, DREAMS: A Place, runs from 10 May to 13 July 2025. The series explores embracing utopian ideals and cross-cultural dialogue, and celebrates the much-anticipated marital union of Clara and Robert Schumann 185 years ago. As ever with SongEasel, concert locations  are outside the usual and this year includes churches in Borough, Catford, and Elephant & Castle, Dulwich College, and fringe events in a coffee shop in Walworth and a pub in Catford.

Jocelyn Freeman 

Jocelyn describes the series as having an umbrella of themes. One of the inspirations was Goethe's West-Eastern Divan (West–östlicher Divan), his collection of poems written in response to the reading the Persian national poet, Hafez, and Jocelyn wanted to shine a light on such an open exchange between West and East. An openness to cultural exchange is important in this day and age and society is not as tolerant as it could be. It is important to dream, to use art to demonstrate how society can be.

SongEasel's schools project has just taken place. Under the theme of My Place, the project brought together four schools from Lewisham to explore Mary Stuart's life and poetry, her journeys between France and Scotland, focusing on Schumann's Maria Stuart Lieder. The children came up with their own songs about the places where they were comfortable, and they were fully on board with it, taking ownership with confidence. 

Under the title of Belonging the young Zambian baritone Themba Mvula will be giving a recital exploring his South African and Zambian heritage with songs touching on subjects such as the riots and students being shot, yet full of hope, bringing the full range of life to the music. Song duos who have been coached as part of SongEasel's Young Artist Programme will be presenting Lebendige Lieder (Living Song), examining lieder's place in society today. So there will be songs by Robert and Clara Schumann (including Goethe and Hafez settings), along with more fringe material including cabaret to create a programme relevant in today's age. Soprano Nadine Benjamin will be curating a programme My Journey highlighting her own journey, with song sung by a selection of her mentees from her Everybody Can!

The concert series will be highlighting the songs of Robert and Clara Schumann, focusing on the year 1840 when they finally were able to marry. This was the year that Robert produced a stupendous number of songs. SongEasel will be programming all of Clara Schumann's songs along with Robert's song cycles from 1840. The series opens with Myrthen, Robert's wedding give to Clara, performed by soprano Francesca Chiejina, Artist-in-Residence bass-baritone Stephan Loges, emerging baritone Isaac Tolley, with Jocelyn at the piano. They will also be including songs by Clara on themes related to Myrthen as well as Brahms' settings of Hafez in translation. There is also a Listening Club in Catford which will focus on Robert and Clara's music, with Stephan Loges joining former SongEasel Young Artist Catherine Hooper, and Jocelyn, to shed a light on some of the music in the series.

Jocelyn will be joined by tenor James Gilchrist in a programme that pairs Schumann's Dichterliebe with settings of Dylan Thomas by William Mathias, Rhian Samuel and a new commission from Isabella Gellis. Then, for the first time, SongEasel will be devoting an entire weekend to song. Mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston and pianist Sholto Kynoch will be performing Dichterliebe in the original version for mezzo-soprano, along with songs by Héloïse Werner and Fanny Hensel. Stephan Loges and Jocelyn will present Clara & Robert, a selection of Clara’s songs alongside Robert’s Liederkreis  Op 39 and selections from Kernerlieder Op 35. German soprano Juliane Banse partners Finnish pianist Pauliina Tukiainen for a programme centred on Frauenliebe und -leben. This recital will be at St Matthew’s Church, Meadow Row, Elephant & Castle, a church that has a significant Spanish population, and there is a Spanish thread through the concert too, with Spanish songs by Obradors, works by Viardot, and selections from Wolf’s Spanisches Liederbuch.

There are also a selection of fringe events, at a pub in Catford and a bar in Walworth, bringing a wide variety of repertoire including mezzo-soprano Nafissatou Batu Daramy in a programme ranging from English song to French mélodie and Korean folksongs, and including some of Nafissatou’s own compositions. 

Full details from the SongEasel website.

Telling a musical story: violinist James Ehnes on the challenges and rewards of his new recording of Bach's violin concertos with Canada's NAC Orchestra

James Ehnes & NAC Orchestra - National Arts Centre, Canada
(Photo: Curtis Perry courtesy of Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra )

Violinist James Ehnes has a long relationship with Canada's National Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra having made his debut with them in 1993, and he was artist in residence from 2021 to 2024. James also has a long relationship with the music of Bach, recording the complete Partitas and Sonatas in 2000 (re-recording them in 2020/21 on Onyx), and the Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord in 2006 on Analekta. Now these two strands have come together with the release last month of his recording of Bach's complete violin concertos with the NAC Orchestra on Analekta. The disc includes not only Bach's well-known concertos in A minor and E minor, the Double Concerto and the Concerto for Violin, Flute, and Harpsichord in A minor, but also four concertos reconstructed from Bach's harpsichord concertos.

I recently chatted to James, whilst he was in Adelaide, about his new disc, styles of Bach performance and how getting older has given him perspective, reconstructing Bach's lost violin concertos, differences between live and studio recording and finding the ideal recording process, and much more.

James explains that he always hoped to have a chance to record Bach's violin concertos, but for him, most successful recordings are those where everything peaks at the right moment (and he points out that this is true of live performance also). He has had a long relationship with both the NAC and the NAC Orchestra, having been artist in residence and toured with them. The last decade has been particularly special, so this seemed like the perfect time to capture something of that relationship. James knows the players well and the concertmaster, Yosuke Kawasaki (who joins James for the Double Concerto) is a friend from school. With the orchestra, James feels that he has as close, open and transparent relationship as possible which allows all to be active participants in the music. And they are supported by a great team at the NAC too, whilst the recording's producer worked on James' first Bach recordings.

Regarding the style of playing Bach, James feels that getting older has given him perspective; the way you are told that something should be, changes over the years. He has found this liberating, he no longer feels that he has to play in a particular way but that he can concentrate on telling a musical story. This is even more complicated with Baroque music, and whilst historical performance practice is important, he also feels that musicians can learn from performances of all ages. He mentions that we tend to have a recency bias, feeling that what we have just been told is best. This has probably always been true, and Mendelssohn probably felt this about the way he performed Bach. We can imagine Mendelssohn's performances of Bach being different to those of Bach himself but no less compelling. This is timeless music that always speaks through a prism of our own time.