Music that barely survived, brought back to life: Ensemble Pro Victoria's Tudor Music Afterlives

Tudor Music Afterlives: Taverner, John Sheppard, Jacob Clemens non Papa, Jacotin Le Bel (or Claudin de Sermisy), Philip van Wilder, Orlande Lassus, Robert Parson, John Taverner and Christopher Tye, Ensemble Pro Victoria, Toby Ward, Toby Carr, Magnus Williamson; Delphian
Reviewed 6 December 2022 (★★★★)

A fascinating disc that examines the diverse after-lives of the pieces of Tudor music that were overlooked, forgotten or discarded, all in stylish and vibrant performances

This new disc from Toby Ward and Ensemble Pro Victoria on Delphian has the somewhat confusing title of Tudor Music Afterlives, and on it, the ensemble performs music by Tallis, Nicholas Ludford, John Taverner, John Sheppard, Jacob Clemens non Papa, Jacotin Le Bel (or Claudin de Sermisy), Philip van Wilder, Orlande Lassus, Robert Parson, John Taverner and Christopher Tye.

The idea behind the disc is to look at the wide variety of ways Tudor music survived, to go beyond the seeming monolith of the works that have a secure history to those that have only partially survived, survived in another form or have been reused.

In a piece of rare late, late Offenbach, New Sussex Opera proves exemplary in their grasp of staging operetta with charm, energy and style

Offenbach: Belle Lurette - Cameron Mitchell, Tristan Stocks, Michael Ferguson, Monica McGhee, Robin Bailey, Kristin Finnigan, Paul Featherstone - New Sussex Opera

Offenbach: Belle Lurette; Monica McGhee, Kirstin Finigan, Paul Featherstone, Robin Bailey, Files Davies, Michael Ferguson, Cameron Mitchell, Tristan Stocks, director David Foster, St Paul's Sinfonia, conductor Toby Purser; New Sussex Opera at the Bloomsbury Theatre
Reviewed 6 December 2022 (★★★★)

Offenbach's last operetta, incomplete at his death, shows the master still on form in this engaging and stylish revival

In 2021, New Sussex Opera delighted us with a revival of a rare Offenbach operetta, La princesse de Trébizonde [see my review]. And this Autumn the company returned to this territory with the first production in the UK for over 140 years of Offenbach's last operetta. Belle Lurette. Both operettas are in Offenbach's later, more sentimental vein. Following the upsets of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune, when Offenbach returned to Paris, he largely abandoned satirical operetta for something more sentimental and lyrical. His output included works written for the Opera Comique, and Belle Lurette is in this vein. Unfinished at Offenbach's death, Delibes completed the work and provided the orchestration.

We caught New Sussex Opera's final performance of Offenbach's Belle Lurette at the Bloomsbury Theatre on Tuesday 6 December 2022. Toby Purser conducted St Paul's Sinfonia; the production was directed by David Foster and designed by Victoria Gillians. Monica McGhee was Lurette with Kristin Finnigan as Marceline, Paul Featherstone as Malicorne, Robin Bailey as the Duc de Marly, Giles Davies as Belhomme, Michael Ferguson as Campistrel, Cameron Mitchell as Merluchet and Tristan Stocks as Cigogne. The operetta was sung in a new English version by Paul Featherstone, with a new orchestration by James Widden (leader of the St Paul's Sinfonia).

Offenbach: Belle Lurette - Cameron Mitchell, Michael Ferguson, Tristan Stocks - New Sussex Opera

At the time of his death, Offenbach was actually working on three different pieces, Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Belle Lurette and Moucheron. Belle Lurette was largely finished but Delibes had to tidy it up and provide the orchestration. Whereas La princesse de Trébizonde was described as an opéra bouffe, Belle Lurette was an opéra comique, more a sentimental comedy that comic opera. The plot concerns a Parisian laundress, Belle Lurette, and her liaison with an aristocrat, the Duc de Marly. It is a work full of engaging tunes, Offenbach still on great form, but the work is not without problems.

I wanted music that would hold the listener’s attention throughout: Kristjan Järvi's Nutcracker: A Dramatic Symphony from the Baltic Sea Philharmonic

Kristjan Järvi and Baltic Sea Philharmonic recording Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker
(Photo: Siiri Kumari / Sunbeam Productions)

Christmas for many people is epitomised by Tchaikovsky's ballet, The Nutcracker. For all the work's ubiquity (and its terrific tunes), as a dramatic ballet The Nutcracker is somewhat unsatisfactory. The original production, in St Petersburg in 1892 (with choreography by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov) was not a success. 

Since the ballet's debut, countless choreographers and dramaturgs have worked on the complete ballet to give it a more satisfying form, frustrated that Tchaikovsky's final ballet should be coupled with such an unsatisfactory dramatic structure. The ubiquity of the ballet at Christmas is very much a post-war phenomenon. The first complete performance of The Nutcracker ballet outside Russia did not take place until 1934 when Ninette de Valois invited Nicholas Sergeyev to stage it in England. 

Before the work's premiere, Tchaikovsky had extracted a suite for orchestra, and this was an instant success, and in this orchestral guise, The Nutcracker remains immediately recognisable as one of the composer's best-known and most-travelled works.

Having released his own symphonic versions of Tchaikovsky's other two ballets, Kristjan Järvi and the young players of his Baltic Sea Philharmonic Orchestra have just released a disc devoted to The Nutcracker. Järvi has created a dramatic symphony from the ballet. Rather than simply presenting a suite of the well-known music, he wanted to give these musical bonbons a greater degree of context and to show that there is other fine music in the ballet. He comments, "When creating this Dramatic Symphony version, I didn’t make musical choices according to the popularity of certain movements. Instead, my choices were based on what material and movements I thought would be most interesting and riveting to listen to in sequence. I wanted music that would hold the listener’s attention throughout, so I reorchestrated and rewrote some elements, and created new transitions"

The orchestra's live concerts are usually dramatic events, with the players often playing from memory and the music accompanied by lighting and dramatic staging. The recording took place in Tallinn in September 2022, following the orchestra's tour of Germany and Estonia, and the atmosphere of a live concert was recreated in Estonian Public Broadcasting Studio 1. With no music stands, the musicians were mostly standing up, spread out and not in their sections, free to move and even dance to the music. Gertrud Leopard, an Estonian percussionist in the orchestra who was familiar with the studio in Tallinn, having recorded there twice before, says: "Recording from memory is a unique experience for me. It means I can focus more on the music, without having to concentrate on the score. With the special atmosphere in the studio, it really feels like we are performing, and we are building a unique connection within the orchestra."

Kristjan Järvi and the Baltic Sea Philharmonic's Nutcracker: A Dramatic Symphony is released on Sony Classical [see link tree], the orchestra's fourth disc on the label following The Ring: An Orchestral Adventure (2016), Stravinsky and Glass Violin Concertos (2020) and Sleeping Beauty (2020).

For Unto Us a Child is Born: Handel from Slovenia

Here is a familiar chorus from Messiah recorded by a Slovenian youth choir and Baroque orchestra, singing in highly creditable English and with great style. And they really look as if they are enjoying themselves.

'For Unto Us A Child Is Born' from Handel's Messiah performed by the Megaron Baroque Orchestra and Megaron Choir, conductor Gary Graden, recorded live from the Church of the Assumption of Virgin Mary, Koper (Capodistria) in Slovenia.

One of the best European youth choirs, Megaron Chamber Choir was founded in October 2003 from former students of the Diocesan Classical Gymnasium (School) at St. Stanislav’s Institution in Ljubljana. Since its founding the choir has evolved into a high-quality ensemble performing regularly in Slovenia and abroad.

The video director was Primož Zevnik, who shared the video with me.

Sleep, Jesus, Sleep: Roxanna Panufnik's new version of the Ukrainian carol features an Afghan tabla player in support of Refugees

Composer Roxanna Panufnik and Signum Classics have released a new single in support of the Refugee Council. Sleep, Jesus, Sleep features gospel choir Soul Sanctuary, Ukrainian soprano Inna Husieva and Afghan tabla player Sulaiman Haqpana in Panufnik's arrangement of a traditional Ukrainian carol. 

As to why she has included an Afghan tabla in the mix, Panufnik explains "since Putin commenced his ‘special operation’ in Ukraine, the many thousands of Afghan refugees that we airlifted out of Kabul in August 2021 seem to have been all but forgotten. Thousands are still waiting to be housed (often with families to one hotel room). The Refugee Council will spend the money raised helping refugees of all nationalities to find their feet in the UK."

The single can be streamed [link tree] and every penny from both Panufnik and Signum's revenue from this will go to the Refugee Council.

Because the version on the disc is somewhat specialised, Panufnik has also created a conventional choral arrangement and there are over 40 live performances planned so far. [see her website for impressive details]. If you are interested in getting a copy, then contact Roxanna Panufnik via Twitter, or Facebook

You can also donate via her GoFundMe page.

Swirling, static energy: Ruthless Jabiru & Decibel New Music Ensemble at Brunel Museum

Cat Hope, Kelly Lovelady, Decibel and Ruthless Jabiru at Brunel Musem (photo: Billie Tün, courtesy of Ruthless Jabiru)

Kaija Saariaho: Neiges, Lindsay Vickery: Bascule (European premiere), Tansy Davies: Feather and Groove, Pedro Alvarez: Intersperso-Ultradiano (European premiere); Julius Eastman: The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc; Cat Hope: Never at Sea (World premiere); Decibel New Music Ensemble & Ruthless Jabiru at Brunel Museum
Reviewed by Florence Anna Maunders, 2 December 2022

Two exciting ensembles of Australian musicians unite under the Thames

The exotically-monikered Ruthless Jabiru are a chamber orchestra of Australian musicians who live and work in London, under the leadership of their artistic director – Kelly Lovelady. In this London concert, held in the unique ambience of Brunel's first tunnel under the Thames at the Brunel Museum (2 December 2022), they were joined by the Australian Decibel New Music Ensemble, in the UK as part of a European tour, to create a large, and intriguingly bass-heavy, musical group performing music by Kaija Saariaho, Lindsay Vickery, Tansy Davies, Pedro Alvarez, Julius Eastman and Cat Hope.

Bringing the Christmas spirit with classical, rap, gospel, grime, disco, Disney and more: Brixton Chamber Orchestra's 2022 Christmas Estates Tour

Brixton Chamber Orchestra (BCO), director Matthew O'Keeffe, really makes good on its aim to be a real community orchestra. Twice a year, BCO goes on tour of the various estates in an around Brixton. This year's Christmas Estates Tour runs from 9 to 18 December 2022, when O'Keeffe, a 25-piece orchestra and guest vocalists will be doing 12 shows at 12 different venues. All free!

As ever, the repertoire is eclectic, from Classical to Rap, Gospel to Grime, Disco, Disney, Christmas music and more.

As well as concert appearances across the borough, BCO is joining Brixton Seventh Day Adventist Church for a service on 17 December 2022, and at Stockwell Park Community Centre on 14 December 2022, BCO will be presenting an extended Grime Orchestrated set with an open mic for rappers of all ages.

You can find a handy map of the tour's locations on Google, with full details on the BCO website.

The Ligeti Quartet announces a new first violin and looks forward to György Ligeti's centenary

The Ligeti Quartet (Photo Ed Miles)

After nearly twelve years of quartet life, Ligeti Quartet founding member, violinist Mandhira de Saram, has made the decision to focus on the other creative parts of her career. Her musical friendship with the quartet will be continuing, however, and the Ligeti Quartet is premiering a new composition by her next year.

Freya Goldmark has been announced as the Ligeti Quartet's new first violin. Goldmark has been working with the quartet over the past year including on one of their UK tours and performed with the quartet during their first performance at Aldeburgh Festival last year.

After starting violin lessons aged four, by her mid teens Goldmark had performed across the UK, Europe and Asia and made her concerto debut aged just 13 at the Rachmaninov Institute in Russia. At 19, she founded Stamford International Music Festival, a chamber music festival which takes place each year in the town in which she grew up.

Nextyear is set to be an exciting one for the Ligeti Quartet. 2023 is the 100th anniversary of György Ligeti’s birth and the quartet's celebrations include 14 new commissions supported by Britten Pears Arts, BBC Radio 3, and Montreal’s Bourgie Hall.  The quartet also looks forward to its first concert in the new formation at the BBC Radio 3 New Music Show, which will be performed and recorded live in Sunderland on 20 December 2022 and broadcast on 7 January 2023.

Full details from the quartet's website.

Barely registering on the historical record, Vincente Lusitano's music proves a richly rewarding experience

Vincente Lusitano: Motets; The Marian Consort, LINN Records
Reviewed 5 December 2022; (★★★★★)

This disc from The Marian Consort presents a little more than a third of the total surviving output of a composer who virtually disappeared from the historical record. A glimpse into a richly imaginative work, performed with luminous clarity

Like many Renaissance composers, we know frustratingly little about the life of Portuguese composer Vincente Lusitano. Even his name isn't a help, it simply means Portuguese. He appears in the historical record for around a decade, then disappears again. Later sources fill in some background, but a manuscript by João Franco Barreto written in the mid-seventeenth century provides one important key. João Franco Barreto describes Lusitano as ‘pardo’, a Portuguese term used to denote a mixed-race person of European and African parentage. Thanks to the significant slave trade in 16th century Portugal, there was a significant population of people of African descent. Lusitano was a priest, and whilst mixed-race men did become priests the salaried posts were all reserved for white men.

Thanks to the publication of his book of motets in Rome in 1551, Lusitano becomes the first published Black composer. During the 1550s, Lusitano was the music tutor to the son of the Portuguese ambassador to the Holy See, and the book of motets is dedicated to the ambassador, so it is presumably him that we can thank for the book's production. Unlike some composers, Lusitano's music does not seem to have been spread by word of mouth with manuscript copies circulating. His reputation during his lifetime was mainly as a theorist rather than as a composer, and some of his music was created to demonstrate these theories.

So, what do we have of Lusitano? Well, there is the published book from 1551, Liber primus epigramatum containing 23 motets, plus a published treatise and another manuscript treatise both of which are concerned with improvised counterpoint. The manuscript treatise includes one of Lusitano's motets as a demonstration. There is also one, intriguing survival, one of Lusitano's motets in a book from the ducal court in Stuttgart, dated 1562. The historical record for Lusitano stops at 1561 when he seems to have converted to Protestantism, married and was seeking a post in Germany.

This disc of Vincente Lusitano's motets from The Marian Consort, artistic director Rory McCleery, on Linn Records, provides us with something of an overview. The ensemble presents ten of Lusitano's motets, performed by a vocal ensemble of 15 singers.

Poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar celebrated at the London Song Festival including songs by Coleridge Taylor, Florence Price, William Grant Still & the premiere of one of my settings

Paul Laurence Dunbar

A celebration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Paul Laurence Dunbar - Samuel Coleridge Taylor, Adolphus Hailstork, John Rosamond Johnson, Florence Price, William Grant Still, Betty Jackson-King, John Carrington, Charles Lloyd, Robert Hugill; Gweneth Ann Rand, Ronald Samm, Nigel Foster, Michael Harper; London Song Festival at Hinde Street Methodist Church
2 December 2022

The friendship between Dunbar and Coleridge Taylor thrown into relief by the diverse settings of Dunbar's poetry alongside other poems in a wonderfully engaging programme

On Friday 2 December 2022, the London Song Festival, artistic director Nigel Foster, celebrated the 150th anniversary of the birth of the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar with a concert at Hinde Street Methodist Church where soprano Gweneth Ann Rand and tenor Ronald Samm, accompanied by Nigel Foster (piano), performed settings of Dunbar's poetry, with further poetry read by Michael Harper. The programme included Samuel Coleridge Taylor's African Romances, Op. 17, plus songs by Adolphus Hailstork, John Rosamond Johnson, Florence Price, William Grant Still, Betty Jackson King, John Carrington and Charles Lloyd, and the premiere of my own Dunbar setting We wear the mask.

From Super Nintendo to a dialogue with Debussy: Swedish composer, Martin Skafte's Preludes

Jonas Olsson and Martin Skafte at the recording session for Skafte's 24 Preludes for Piano

In December, Toccata Classics issues a recording of Swedish composer Martin Skafte's 24 Preludes for Piano, played by Jonas Olsson. This is music directly referencing Debussy's 24 Préludes. Martin, who trained at the Gotland School of Music Composition and the Academy of Music and Drama in Gothenburg, has also written piano solos based on Chopin's Mazurkas, and a group of pieces to be played with Beethoven's Bagatelles.

Martin's Preludes started as a group of twelve, based on Debussy's first book of Préludes, but then Martin realised that this was the most fun he'd had composing and so he went back for the second book after a couple of years. Each of Martin's preludes is based on a different idea, and for the first book, the preludes start quite close to Debussy and gradually move away. Martin sees his preludes as being in dialogue with Debussy. At the centre of the first book is The Girl with the Flaxen Hair, where we can hear Debussy quite clearly. Martin's idea in the preludes is that we hear the music trying to rebuild itself based on the memory of Debussy's music 100 years after it was written, allowing for the normal shortcomings of the human mind.

The preludes originally came about because Martin was not happy with what he was composing and decided that if he could learn from anyone, then Debussy was his first choice of composer. Martin sees his preludes as being somewhat in place of a dialogue with the composer, he wanted to get the essence of Debussy's works as a starting point for his own musical language.

Riveting showpieces: Benjamin Grosvenor, Philharmonia and Joana Carneiro in Anna Clyne, Chopin and Bartok

Bela Bartok in 1927

Anna Clyne, Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1, Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra; Benjamin Grosvenor, Philharmonia Orchestra, Joana Carneiro; Royal Festival Hall
Reviewed 1 December 2022 (★★★★½)

An evening of contrasting showpieces, held together by some superb music making and a striking sense of balance between control and freedom. 

It has been something of a Bartok week, here on Planet Hugill. On Sunday we heard the Barbican Quartet performing Bartok's String Quartet No. 4 at Conway Hall [see my review] and at the pre-concert talk, I spoke about Bartok's six mature string quartets. Then last night (Thursday 1 December 2022), Joana Carneiro and the Philharmonia performed Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall as part of a concert that included Anna Clyne's This Midnight Hour and Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 with soloist Benjamin Grosvenor.

Portuguese conductor Joana Carneiro, who was principal conductor of the Orquestra Sinfonica Portuguesa at Teatro Sao Carlos in Lisbon from 2014 until January 2022, has appeared with ENO and Scottish Opera, as well as guest conducting a number of UK orchestras. Her performance of this programme in Bedford was her debut with the Philharmonia.

My song 'We Wear the Mask' premieres tonight, as part of London Song Festival's celebration of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar

 

This year is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Paul Laurence Dunbar, the first African-American writer to achieve international recognition. To celebrate this, tonight (2 December 2022), Nigel Foster and the London Song Festival are exploring Dunbar's work through settings of his poetry, from his important friendship with Samuel Coleridge Taylor to other composers such as Florence Price. The concert will include the premiere of my setting of Dunbar's We Wear the Mask [read more about Dunbar and my song]. The performers are tenor Ronald Samm and soprano Gweneth Ann Rand, both of whom are currently appearing in Jake Heggie's It's A Wonderful Life at English National Opera.

Full details from London Song Festival website.

Russell Pascoe's Secular Requiem from Truro Cathedral

Russell Pascoe: Secular Requiem; Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Julien Van Mellaerts, Truro Cathedral Choir, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Christopher Gray; Regent Records
Reviewed 30 November 2022 (★★★★)

A wonderfully ambitious project from Truro recording Pascoe's fascinating contemporary requiem, determinedly secular yet powerfully expressive and very thoughtful

Many composers write sacred music for liturgical purposes even though the composers themselves may not be a believer, in a sense this simply reflects the composer's role as a provider of useful music. For some composers, their belief is a core part of their expression, and a setting of any sacred text has a sense of identification. But if a composer is an unbeliever and wishes to explore the themes implicit in some of the great liturgical texts, then they are presented with a problem or a challenge. Composer Russell Pascoe has risen to this challenge by creating Secular Requiem. 

In a hugely ambitious project, Christopher Gray (recently announced as the new director of music at St John's College, Cambridge) conducts Truro Cathedral Choir, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and soloists Catherine Wyn-Rogers and Julien Van Mellaerts in Russell Pascoe's Secular Requiem, plus his Threnody for Jowan and A Sequence for Remembrance on Regent Records. Recording for the project began in 2019, but was held up by COVID and the requiem was not recorded until 2022.

Pascoe wrote his Secular Requiem in 2012, discussing the project with the poet (and retired clinical academic) Anthony Pinching who helped assemble the texts. The libretto falls into five sections, The Proposition, The Recognition, The Reaction, The Transition, and The Accommodation which mirror the five stages of grief. The texts are varied, John Donne, Wilfred Owen, Thomas Hardy, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dylan Thomas, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, Thomas Moore, Stephen Anderton, Rabindranath Tagore, Walt Whitman and Anthony Pinching. It is a selection that is somewhat measured, there is contemplation, reflection and humour, and whilst there is some anger, Dylan Thomas' 'rage against the dying of the light', this is not an angry work. You feel that if Pascoe had been impelled to write a setting of the liturgical text, he would have omitted the Dies Irae, like Faure and Durufle.

From Mozart, Made in Manchester to a new theorbo concerto and the National Youth Jazz Orchestra: 2023 at Stoller Hall

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Gábor Takács-Nagy, and Manchester Camerata

The Stoller Hall in Manchester has launched the first three months of its 2023 season with an eclectic mix of concerts and music genres. Highlights include an intriguing concert from the Sacconi String Quartet and lutenist Matthew Wadsworth which moves from Purcell to Stephen Goss' Theorbo Concerto to Eleanor Alberga's String Quartet No. 2 and Beethoven's String Quartet No.16 in F Major, Op.135. Other chamber music includes Ensemble 360 (resident ensemble at the Sheffield Chamber Music Festival) in Vaughan Williams and Schumann, and pianist John Lenahan and violinist Cristian Grajner de Sa in Brahms, Prokofiev and Amy Beach, whilst Ensemble 360 will be joining Polly Ives for their family-friendly Izzy Gizmo. 

The next instalment of the Manchester Camerata's Mozart, Made in Manchester series returns with Gábor Takács-Nagy conducting the Camerata in three of Mozart's earlier piano concertos with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, plus the Overture to The Abduction from the Seraglio K.384. Guest conductor Karin Hendrickson and the young musicians from Chetham’s Symphony Orchestra will be exploring Brahms' Symphony No. 4, plus Sibelius’ Violin Concerto and Breaking Waves by Swedish composer Helena Munktell (1852-1919) performed by Chetham’s soloist Kassia Ren. 

Jazz includes Tommy Blaize and the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, and other visitors include jazz trumpeter come singer-songwriter Philip Lassiter and Dave Bristow and his quintet.

Full details from the Stoller Hall website.

Not so much a history of opera: Simon Banks uses 400 years of opera to hold up a mirror to the attitudes and views of those who watched and commissioned the works

Simon Banks: Opera: The Autobiography of the Western World; Matador Books
Book Review, 29 November 2022

Most histories of opera begin with Renaissance Italy, make their way through the various incarnations of the Baroque, move to Classical Vienna and then explore Romanticism in all its guises before attempting to define what opera is in the 20th and 21st centuries. But Simon Banks takes a different view in his book Opera: The Autobiography of the Western World (Matador Books). He explores the way the operas of a particular age have reflected the age's obsessions, politics and world views.

He points out that over its 400-year history, opera was one of the dominant entertainment forms of its ruling elites, often making opera in the listeners' own images (after all, they were usually paying for it). As Banks puts it in his introduction, 'the operatic repertoire lives on as an astonishingly eloquent record of how the modern West changed its mind on key political, religious and social issues over four centuries', and he sees the operatic repertoire as a living record of the Western world. So, this isn't a book on the history of opera, it is a book about the history of the Western world or more specifically the cultural and political attitudes of the Western world as reflected in one of its favourite art forms.

The topic is possibly one that might be completely indigestible, so Banks' solution is to create 36 chapters grouped into three parts, New answers to timeless questions, The Modern West breaks free from the Middle Ages, and From despotism to pluralism. Each chapter takes a specific historical era or idea, 'How did it all start', or 'Religious Fanaticism' or 'Philip II and Elizabeth I (1550-1600)' and then lists operas from different eras that treat the same, or similar, subject matter and see how they shed light on changing attitudes.

Finalists announced for the Voice of Black Opera Competition

Monday 5 December 2022 sees the final of the Voice of Black Opera Competition at Birmingham Town Hall. The five finalists are:

• Rachel Duckett - soprano (British Jamaican)
• Chantelle Grant - mezzo-soprano (Canadian)
• Thando Mjandana - tenor (South African)
• Yolisa Ngwexana - soprano (South African)
• Isabelle Peters - soprano (British)  

They will be accompanied by the Welsh National Opera (WNO) Orchestra, conducted by Matthew Kofi Waldren. Each singer’s repertoire at the concert will include a performance of at least one contemporary song or aria by a Black or South Asian composer and finalists will also perform a duet with other professional singers.

The finalists were selected from the semi-final rounds featuring artists from throughout the Commonwealth held in Birmingham on 24 and 25 November. At the final, the judging panel will include Tom Randle (tenor), Aiden Lang (general director of Welsh National Opera), Simon Meier (artistic director of BCMG), Jean Ronald La Fond (tenor and vocal coach), Philip Herbert (composer), Rupert Christiansen (writer and critic), and Odaline de la Martinez (conductor and composer).

Each singer will be fitted with a bespoke fashion item to wear at the final, designed by students of Birmingham City University (BCU) School of Fashion & Textiles, Bespoke jewellery will also be made for the singers by students of the BCU Birmingham School of Jewellery.

The Voice of Black Opera Competition is organised by Black British Classical Foundation in collaboration with Welsh National Opera, to showcase the finest Black and South Asian singers as they launch international operatic careers.

Full details from the BMusic website.

One of the largest contemporary music events in North America: Montreal/New Musics 2023 - Music and Spirituality

 

Montreal/New Musics (MNM) international festival, presented by Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ), has developed into one of the largest contemporary music events in North America. The 11th edition takes place from 23 February to 5 March 2023 under the title Music and Spirituality, bringing together artists from different musical backgrounds. At the centre of 10 days of music making are five major concerts reflecting diverse musical influences. 

Ensemble Obiora and the Ensemble de la SMCQ, conducted by Cristian Gort, open the festival with a new work by Canadian composer Katia Makdissi-Warren who brings together two traditions, Inuit and Breton throat singing. Alongside this will be music by Arvo Pärt and French composer Alexis Savelief.

Andrew Balfour, a composer of Cree origin, presents Notinikew, an anti-war mini-opera that tells the story of indigenous soldiers who fought for Canada in the First World War and were denied the right to return home. Another featured composer is Canadian Walter Boudreau with a performance of Golgot(h)a, which uses poems by Boudreau's friend Raôul Duguay to create a Way of the Cross, based on a motet by Victoria. Other concerts include the French ensemble Court-circuit in different generations of French, Canadian and American composers, reflecting a spirit of freedom, and works for piano, ondes martenot and women's choir by Olivier Messiaen

Full details from the festival website.

Early Music Christmas online and in person in York at the National Centre for Early Music

 

As well as presenting the York Early Music Christmas Festival from 8 to 17 December 2022, the National Centre for Early Music (NCEM) in York is offering audiences the chance to experience selected concerts online with the York Early Music Festival Online Box Set. This features seven concerts which are available on demand from 19 December 2022 to 31 January 2023.

The online festival includes a special performance by The Orlando Consort in their final year together, EEEmerging rising stars La Palatine in Fiesta Galante, festival favourite Bojan Čičić in Bach's Partitas and Sonatas for solo violin, Baroque collective Solomon’s Knot giving the UK premieres of three of Christmas Cantatas by Johann Kuhnau (Bach's predecessor in Leipzig), and Spiritato joining forces with The Marian Consort to perform Inspiring Bach, featuring music and composers admired by Johann Sebastian Bach. 

And if you can be in York in person during December, then the York Early Music Christmas Festival features The Orlando Consort, La Palatine, Bojan Čičić, Solomon's Knot, Spiritato and The Marian Consort along with improvising violinist Nina Kumin, Ensemble Augelletti, the Yorkshire Bach Choir in Handel's Brockes Passion, and Ensemble Moliere celebrating Molière's 400th anniversary, 

Full details from the NCEM website.

Barbican Quartet in Haydn, Bartok and Schumann at Conway Hall

Barbican Quartet (Photo Andrej Grilc)

Haydn, Bartok, Schumann; Barbican Quartet; Conway Hall Sunday Concerts
Reviewed 27 November 2022

Folk-influenced modernism from Bartok in a compelling programme that began with Haydn's experimental classicism and ended with warmly imaginative Schumann

Sunday 27 November 2022 saw the Barbican Quartet (Amarins Wierdsma, Kate Maloney, Christoph Slenczka and Yoanna Prodanova) performing a programme of Haydn's Quartet in F 'The Dream' Op.50 No. 5, Bartok's Quartet No. 4 in C, and Schumann's Quartet in A Op. 41 no. 3 at Conway Hall's Sunday Concerts Series. Beforehand I gave a pre-concert talk on Bartok and the String Quartet, putting the composer's six mature quartets in context. These are works that have an important role in Conway Hall's history too, as the 1949/50 season of the Sunday Concerts saw the first UK performance of a complete cycle of Bartok's quartets, just four years after the composer's death.

The Barbican Quartet was formed in 2015 at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and this year welcomed a new second violinist Kate Maloney. Also this year, the quartet won first prize in the 71st ARD International String Quartet Competition (as well as being awarded price for Best Interpretation of the commissioned work by Dobrinka Tabakova) and third prize at the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition.