Live music returns to Glasgow City Halls

Michael Mofidian at the Classical Opera and the Mozartists Gala Concert
Goldsmiths' Hall (Photo Roger Way)

Next month, BBC Radio 3 is planning to broadcast the first live classical concerts in Scotland. From 14 to 17 July 2020, there will be a series of four Lunchtime Concerts broadcast live from Glasgow's City Hall. The recitals will involve solo and duo performers based in Central Scotland; every concert will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and streamed on BBC Sounds and the City Hall's website.

The series opens with bass-baritone Michael Mofidian (a Jette Parker Young Artist at Covent Garden for from 2018 to 2020) and pianist Julia Lynch in a programme called Music when no-one else is near, with Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Ravel's Don Quichotte à Dulcinée and RVW's Songs of Travel. This is followed by pianist Steven Osborne in an all Schubert programme, then tenor Thomas Walker accompanied at the harpsichord by John Butt (director of the Dunedin Consort) in operatic arias and keyboard works by Handel and his contemporaries. The series finishes with percussionist Colin Currie in a programme of music by Per Nøgård, Bryce Dessner, Kalevi Aho, Kevin Volans, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Toshio Hosokawa, and Iannis Xenakis.

Full details from BBC Radio 3

Jess Gillam's Virtual Scratch Orchestra

Saxophonist Jess Gillam is inviting performers to join her Virtual Scratch Orchestra which will debut on 17 April 2020. The idea is that performers will play David Bowie's Where are we now? from Gillam's debut album, Rise, each recording their performance at home and the results will then be mixed together.

Jess Gillam said: ‘For me, music is all about people! People uniting, people sharing and people listening. At a very difficult time, when it is not currently possible to be physically together to share and make music, hopefully this is a way in which we can create something together from afar. ‘Where Are We Now?’ is one of my favourite songs by David Bowie. It’s hauntingly beautiful and seems very appropriate as we all reflect on the world and what is happening around us. This is the first song he released after a long period of silence in 2013.’

There are full instructions, parts to download and a click track, on Jess Gillam's website. You have to have sent the recordings in by Friday 10 April 2020 at 6pm, and the results will debut on Gillam's Instagram page at 6pm on Friday 17 April 2020.

Always Playing: London Symphony Orchestra on-line

Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the London Symphony Orchestra (Photo LSO)

The London Symphony Orchestra's on-line performances continue tonight (Thursday 26 March 2020) with Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducting Weber's overture to Euryanthe, Mendelssohn's Concerto for Violin and Piano (with Isabelle Faust and Kristian Bezuidenhout) and Schumann's Symphony No. 3, with Sir Simon Rattle conducting Janacek's Sinfonietta and Sibelius Symphony No. 5 on Sunday. 

Highlights further ahead include Valery Gergiev conducting Szymanowski's Symphony No. 1 and Violin Concerto (with Janine Jansen) on 2 April, Gianandrea Noseda conducting Verdi's Requiem with Erika Grimaldi, Daniela Barcellona, Francesco Meli and Michele Pertusi on 5 April, Sir Simon Rattle conducting Stravinsky ballets on 9 April, Semyon Bychkov conducting Mahler's Symphony No. 2 on 16 April, Simon Rattle conducting Mahler's Symphony No. 10 and Tippett's The Rose Lake on 23 April.

Full details from the London Symphony Orchestra's website, where you can find links to the orchestra's social media pages, as well as extensive digital programme notes for each of the concerts.

Voces8: Live from Home

The present situation is forcing artists and performers to be creative when it comes to creating on-line content. The VOCES8 Foundation has set up its #LiveFromHome initiative which will bring music and other content by Apollo5, VOCES8 and Paul Smith to your homes on a daily basis. They have put together a regular programme of performance videos, Interactive singing videos, workshops, and interviews which will be streamed live, and available via the archive. 

The current schedule is as follows:

Wed 25 March - 2pm GMT - Creative Music Making, Paul Smith
Thu 26 March - 2pm GMT - The Weekly Interview: Roxanna Panufnik
Fri 27 March - 2pm GMT - APOLLO5 video – The Dark Island
Sat 28 March - 2pm GMT - Intonation: A Multi-sensory Experience Blake Morgan
Sun 29 March - 2pm BST - Sheet Music Editing Jonathan Pacey

Full details from their Facebook, Instagram and YouTube pages.

Big Play - a film released every three minutes making a day of virtual celebration of children's music-making:

On Friday (27 March 2020), schools across the West Midlands will be celebrating the Big Play, the virtual grand finale of Big Month of Music. Schools with whole class instrumental tuition have been working with their local Music Service to film One Minute of Music in their classrooms. 

Over 150 films have been received and, between 9am and 5pm on Friday 27 March a One Minute of Music film will be released every three minutes on the West Midlands Music Twitter and Facebook pages.

A film about the Big Play will also be shown during the day and Young Ambassadors will be boosting the Instagram channel and doing social media takeovers throughout the day. Big Month of Music is the first major project of West Midlands Music, a collective of all 14 of the region’s Music Services, which is unique in the UK.

Jonathan Biss's Beethoven - on-line and at home

Pianist Jonathan Biss has completed his traversal of the Beethoven piano sonatas and his recordings, Beethoven: The Complete Piano Sonatas is released on Orchid Classics today. 

Unfortunately, live celebrations have been curtailed by the current emergency. Instead, Biss will be live-streaming a recital on Thursday 26 March 2020 from the 92nd Street Y, New York at 7.30pm local time (full details from the venue's website). Biss will be performing Beethoven's final three piano sonatas.

If you want to learn more about the sonatas, then Biss has produced a complete set of 32 lectures, one on each of the sonatas. There are available on-line, via Coursera, and Biss also produced a book, Beethoven's Shadow which in 2011 became the first Amazon Kindle Single to be written by a classical musician.

New Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra app

The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is celebrating its 125th birthday at the moment and last week the orchestra launched a new app, a video magazine which will be published six times per year as an app for iPad, RCO Editions. The new app will provide in depth insights into musical tops with the intention of offering a great diversity of interdisciplinary approaches making it attractive for a wide range of people. The first issue, Mozart: on the Road features John Eliot Gardiner's musical analysis of the Prague Symphony, a documentary on Mozart in Prague, and promises everything from historical performance practice to present day tour experiences of the orchestra. If they can get it right, it should be fascinating.