New Lamps for Old (with Hugill deuxieme)

Alistair Dixon and Chapelle du Roi are making their annual Christmas appearance at St Johns Smith Square on Friday 7 December, with their programme New Lamps for Old, in which they are singing old and new settings of the same texts, pairing contemporary composers (including two world premieres)  with Tallis, Sheppard, Victoria, Guerrero and Palestrina. Amongst the contemporary composers featured will be Roxanna Panufnik, Antony Pitts, and your truly. The group will be performing my introit, Puer natus est nobis, which they premiered in 2009.

Rosenblatt Recitals - Dimitra Theodossiou

Dimitra Theodossiou
(c) New Press Photo, Firenze

I have to confess that the name Dimitra Theodossiou was new to me. The Greek soprano won a number of competitions including the Belvedere and Operalia and for the last dozen years or so has established herself as a Verdi soprano with a career mainly in Italy. She sang Odabella in Attila at Covent Garden in 2002. This along with a Verdi Requiem seem to be the extent of her London appearances, so her  recital in the Rosenblatt Recitals series at the Wigmore Hall on Monday 12 November represented a welcome opportunity to hear her. Accompanied by Elda Laro, the vocal coach at the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania, Theodossiou performed a selection of arias by Verdi, Puccini, Donizetti  and Mascagni.

Exit from the Labyrinth

The Royal Opera House has announced that Antonio Pappano has withdrawn from the forthcoming revival of Harrison Birtwistle's opera The Minotaur which Covent Garden is reviving next year with John Tomlinson and Christine Rice returning to their roles. appano developed acute tendonitis during the recenPt Ring cycles and has been advised to withdraw on the advice of his doctors. Let us hope that the perils of conducting four Ring cycles on the trot do not linger too long.

The good news is that Covent Garden has managed to engage the services of young composer/conductor Ryan Wigglesworth to replace Pappano. Wigglesworth conducted the UK premiere of Detlev Glanert's Caligula with English National Opera (and will be returning to the Coliseum for Carmen.) He opened this year's Aldeburgh Festival conducting a double bill of Oliver Knussen's two operas Higgledy Piggledy Pop and Where the Wild Things Are.

Recent CD review

My review of the re-issued boxed set of David Wulstan and the Clerkes of Oxenforde in Gibbons, Sheppard, Tallis and White is Recording of the Month at MusicWebInternational.com.

Astonishing …. Amazing.  

BREMF - Celebrating Coronations

St George's Church, Brighton

The final event of this year's Brighton Early Music Festival saw the BREMF Singers, director John Hancorn, and the International Baroque Players, leader Kati Debretzeni, joining together at St George's Church, Brighton on 11 November in a programme of music for Coronations, with pieces by Handel, Purcell, Charpentier, Zelenka and Boyce.

Support the complete Warlock song edition.

The baritone Mark Stone is hoping to record the complete songs of Peter Warlock on his record label, Stone Records. The label has already song editions for Delius, Butterworth, C.W.Orr  and Havergal Brian in  progress with Stone himself singing. The Warlock edition will be on three discs and will be the first complete edition of Warlock songs on CD (around 120 songs in all, arranged thematically). The first CD will contain 40 songs and Stone is looking for funding via Kickstarter, so there is the opportunity to get involved in a truly worthwhile event. Pledge £20 and you receive a free signed CD in advance, pledge £100 and you also get a credit in the CD booklet, pledge £500 and you also get a copy of each of the other CD's currently in Stone Records catalogue at the time. How could you go wrong!

Further information from the Kickstarter website.

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.

Mozart: Requiem - John Adams: Wound Dresser

Mozart's manuscript

I have always been rather wary of large-scale symphonic performances of Mozart's Requiem. I first learned the work when I performed it in a chamber orchestra at university and have long preferred it on a smaller scale. (Though hearing Giulini conducting it on a huge scale at the Edinburgh Festival was the exception). For me, it comes down to balance. So, the performance from Polphyony and the City of London Sinfonia on Wednesday 14 November at St John's Smith Square is set to be a fine performance in this style.

They are conducted by Stephen Layton and have assembled a strong cast. The soloists are Elizabeth Watts, Clare Wilkinson, Jeremy Ovenden and Roderick Williams, a very fine group. But almost even more tempting is the fact that the Requiem is being paired with a performance of John Adams's profoundly elegiac The Wound Dresser, with Roderick Williams as the baritone soloist. This setting of Walt Whitman's poem was, amazingly, written in 1989.

Further information from the St. Johns Smith Square website.

The Pilgrim's Progress at the London Coliseum

Roland Wood (Pilgrim)
(c) Mike Hoban

I have known and loved Vaughan Williams' opera The Pilgrim's Progress since the late 1970's, when I first learned it from records in Sir Adrian Boult's recording with John Noble in the title role. I had no conception that I would ever hear it live, but have been lucky enough to see it three times all in very fine performances. First off at the Royal Northern College of Music, in Joseph Ward's staging (with Richard Whitehouse in the title role with Igor Kennaway conducting); a production that proved that the work was a viable opera (rather than an oratorio in disguise) and worked brilliantly on stage. Then I have seen two semi-stagings in London, both conducted by Richard Hickox. One, in 1997, at the Barbican and the other, in 2008, at the Sadlers Wells Theatre. The piece works quite well being semi-staged, especially as both performances had very strong casts. In 1997 Joseph Ward directed with Gerald Finley as Pilgrim, in 2008 Roderick Williams was Pilgrim with David Edwards conducting. (Incidentally Joseph Ward sang Lord Lechery in the operas performances in the 1950's). So it was with great interest and anticipation that I looked forward to ENO's new staging, the first professional full staging that the work has received in the UK since the 1950's. We saw the performance on 9 November (its second night).

New role for Liam Scarlett

25-year old dancer and choreographer Liam Scarlett has been appointed the Royal Ballet's first artist in residence. Scarlett will stop dancing with the company and concentrated on choreography. His first work for the Covent Garden main stage, Asphodel Meadows, won an Olivier Award in 2010. He choreographed a pas-de-deux for the recent Our Extraordinary World gala at Covent Garden and his ballet, Viscera, recently received its UK premiere at Covent Garden as part of a triple bill with ballets by Wayne McGregor and Christopher Wheeldon.

Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation invests in young artists training

The Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation has announced that it is giving £380,000 in grants to various organisations to help support their education programmes. The Royal Ballet School's Dance Partnership and Access programmes receive support with their programmes supporting young people with workshops and tuition. This funding is particularly valuable as the Department of Education has frozen their grant.

RPS 200

Ivory concert tickets belonging to
founder directors of the Philharmonic Society

1813 seems to have been quite an auspicious year. Both Wagner and Verdi were born (as were the explorer David Livingstone, the philosopher Kierkegaard and the composer Alkan). Also, the Royal Philharmonic Society was created. From the outset its aims were 'to promote the performance, in the most perfect manner possible, of the best and most approved instrumental music' and to 'encourage an appreciation by the public in the art of music'. Aims which are as relevant today as 200 years ago. From the outset the society was associated with contemporary music, giving the UK premieres of two Beethoven symphonies and three piano concertos as well as commissioning the ninth symphony, and supporting the composer when he was ill and in need of money. Wagner was the society's musical director for its 1855 season, he conducted eight concerts, was scathing about the press and hated the weather. The society's celebrations for its 200th birthday are threaded through with these aims, reflecting the continuing contemporary relevance that the society has.

The Opera Awards - nominations open

The Opera Awards are new; they seek to reward excellence in opera whether it be from performers, producers or the teams that work in opera. The awards are being produced in association with Opera magazine, and sponsored by the Opera Foundation. Nominations are now open, and anyone can nominate a person or a company or a production. So get your thinking caps on and come up with the outstanding events in your operatic year (the awards cover the whole of 2012). Closing date is 31 January 2013 and the awards will be presented at an awards ceremony on 22 April 2013 at the Hilton Hotel in Park Lane. So lets see if we can make the Opera Awards a serious celebration of the best in opera. Nominations are via an on-line form on their website.

Opera Holland Park Awards 2012

What was your favourite production at Opera Holland Park this year? The striking new Eugene Onegin with act 3 in Soviet Russia, the atmospheric Lucia di Lammermuir featuring Elvyra Fatykhova in her UK debut, Cosi with Julia Riley and Elizabeth Llewellyn, the rarity of Mascagni's Zanetto, the lively Gianni Schicchi or the 1950's period Falstaff. The Opera Holland Park Awards enable you to vote for your favourite production and your favourite artists. You can vote on-line at the Opera Holland Park 2012 Awards website. Voting closes Monday 26 November.

Life from Light - interview with Toni Castells

Toni Castells

If you have heard of Toni Castells new piece, Life from Light, it is probably because one section details with sexual intercourse and the composer has used a graphic text describing this, taken from Wikipedia. Castells is comfortable with the piece being seen as controversial, saying that 'controversy is good, as long as it makes people think about these important issues. The system needs numb people but the planets need them fully aware and awakened'. In fact Life from Light, which debuts on 15 November at the Union Chapel in Islington, deals with far wider issues than just sexual intercourse and can be seen as controversial in other ways.

Royal Philharmonic Society bicentenary

RPS Ticket from 1869

To the Argyll Arms pub off Regent Street to launch the celebrations for the Royal Philharmonic Society's 200th Birthday. There has been a pub on the site of the Argyll Arms since 1740, though the present interior is an amazing high Victorian one. In the early 19th century, the members of the Royal Philharmonic Society would repair to the pub after their concerts at the Argyll Rooms concert hall in Regent Street. Back in the present day we were welcomed by John Gilhooly, Chairman of the Royal Philharmonic Society.

Sicut Illium

St George's Cathedral, Southwark

Cantores Chamber Choir under their conductor David Allinson are giving a concert on 17 November at 3pm at St George's Cathedral, Southwark, entitled Sicut Lilium. Focussing on the Virgin Mary and featuring music by Taverner, Parsons, Josquin, Mouton, Guerrero, Victoria and Palestrina, the concert takes place in the Lady Chapel of the Cathedral. (Allinson and his other choir, Renaissance Singers, featured in Saturday's performance of the Florentine Intermedi at the Brighton Early Music Festival). More details on Sicut Lilium from the Cantores Chamber Choir website.

New President for British Youth Opera

British Youth Opera has announced that Dame Felicity Lott will be taking over from Sir Thomas Allen as President. Allen was appointed Chancellor of the University of Durham in 2012 and continues to work as a baritone and director. Lott's appointment comes in time for the celebrations of BYO's 25th anniversary. There is a celebratory concert on 18 November at Cadogan Hall, London, with 35 soloists, all BYO alumni including Rosemary Joshua who sang in the first BYO Season.

The BYO 2013 Summer season takes place at the Peacock Theatre in September. Possible repertoire includes Britten's Turn of the Screw, and Paul Bunyan, Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto and Mozart's La finta giardiniera.

Further information from the British Youth Opera website. Information on the Nov 18 concert from the Cadogan Hall websites.

Paul Hamyln Foundation 2012 Awards for Artists

The Paul Hamlyn Foundation has announced the recipients of its 2012 Awards for Artists.going to visual artists and musicians. The visual artists are Ed Atkins, Pavel Büchler, Andy Holden, Elizabeth Price and Lis Rhodes. The musicians are varied group: Steve Beresford, composer, arranger and free improviser extraordinaire, the English Folk musician Eliza Carthy and young composer Edmund Finnis. The grants are given with ‘no strings attached’, allowing each recipient ‘the freedom to develop their creative ideas and contributing to their personal and professional growth’.

Puppetry in Opera

There is a two day seminar, fascinatingly titled Puppetry in Opera being organised by the Puppet Centre. Taking place on 9 and 10 November at the Barbican and Central School of Speech and Drama. Day one includes a showing of work in progress at the Pit, plus speakers such as David Pountney, Daniel Snowman and Annabel Arden. Then day two has a series of workshops taking a forthcoming Opera Group/Opera North/ROH2 production as a case study with sessions including 'How to make a puppet sing'. Sounds completely fascinating. More details from the Puppet Centre website.