New opera and a new Ring in Houston

Houston Grand Opera's 2013-14 season includes the first instalment of their new Ring Cycle, using the production by the Catalan company La Fura del Baus first seen in Valencia, Spain. Also included in the season will be a new opera by Ricky Ian Gordon and the American premiere of Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s Holocaust opera The Passenger.

The first instalment of the new Ring will see Patrick Summers conducting Das Rheingold with Iain Patterson making his Houston debut as Wotan and BBC Cardiff Singer of the World winner Jamie Barton as Fricka.  The Passenger will be performed in David Pountney's production first seen in Bregenz, which came to ENO in London in 2011 (see my review). Michelle Breedt will repriese her performance in the role of Liese.

Ricky Ian Gordon's new opera was commissioned by Houston Grand Opera and is their 52nd world premiere since 1973. Gordon's new piece A Coffin in Egypt is a monodrama, written for Frederica von Stade, and based on the play of the same name by Leonard Foglia, about a 90-year-old grand dame who has outlived her husband, her daughters and virtually everyone else in Egypt, Texas.

Further information from the Houston Grand Opera website.

London International Players

The London International Players are a newly formed chamber ensemble of young musicians who got to know each other at the Menhuin School and at IMS Prussia Cove. They made their Wigmore Hall debut on Thursday 19 September at a lunchtime concert, presenting a varied programme of music by Mozart, Mahler, Bax and Mendelssohn. Founded by flautist Ana de la Vega, the group consists of de la Vega, violinist Daniel Roth, violist Ruth Gibson, cellist Ashok Klouda, pianist Irina Botan and harpist Martino Panizza.

The opened with Mozart's Flute Quartet no. 1 in D major D 285, one of a pair written for a wealthy Dutch amateur flautist. Played by Rohn, Gibson, Klouda and de la Vega, with a full bodied sound and a lively tone in the strings. The opening Allegro set the tone, with de la Vega's flute set off in quasi-concerto manner. De la Vega displayed some nice even passage-work, brought out the piece's civilised charm. The Adagio brought some limpid beauty from the flute, accompanied by pizzicato strings. The final Rondeau was a lively piece played with a nice degree of dash. Though the flute was spotlit, the other players seized their moment and you sensed a collegiality.

Fluent Charm: I'll Sing Thee Songs

The English song of the late 18th and 19th centuries is still a somewhat neglected genre. This new disc from Greg Tassell and Gary Branch has one or two songs that will be familiar, but many that are not and deserve to be heard more often. The composers Arthur Sullivan, Arthur Somervell, Charles Dibdin, Thomas Moore, Henry Bishop, Frederick Clay, Michael Balfe, Charles V. Stanford and Edward Elgar are not all great names but their songs, mostly within the ballad tradition, have a charm and immediacy. Their character is enhanced on this disc by the use of a selection of 19th century pianos from Finchcocks, the keyboard museum in Kent.

It is Finchcocks which is a linking presence throughout the recording. Tassell originally worked at Finchcocks getting to know the tenor John Kerr who performed English songs for visitors to the museum and Tassell won the inaugural John Kerr Award for Early English Song in 2006. Gary Branch works at Finchcocks as Educational Co-ordinator and the two are now both trustees of the John Kerr Award for Early English Song.

Premiere of David Goode's Blitz Requiem

St Paul’s Survives, Herbert Mason,
29 December 1940

A new choral work, Blitz Requiem by David Goode, celebrates the personal stories of those who survived the blitz notably the London bombings of 1940-41. To be premiered by the Bach Choir and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under David Hill on 26 September 2013 at St Paul's Cathedral, the work is written by David Goode who combines a career as an organist with being Organist and Head of Keyboard at Eton College. The work uses the structure of a Latin mass but with poems by the Second World War poet Frances Warner to evoke images of this momentous period.

The concert also includes Arvo Pärt's Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten,  Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Toward the Unknown Regioni plus music by Tallis, with soloists Emma Tring, Susanna Spicer, Matt Long and Robert Davies. Further information and advance booking from the Barbican Centre website.

Season preview - ETO's Venetian Baroque operas

English Touring Opera's Autumn season opens on 28 September at the Britten Theatre in the Royal College of Music, on 28 September 2013 with three Venetian Baroque operas, Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea, Cavalli's Jason and Handel's Agrippina. As a taster for this we attended a private recital previewing some of the music as a fund raiser for ETO's Young Artists Programme.

We heard Paula Sides, Helen Sherman and Clint van der Linde, who are all performing in ETO's Venetian Baroque season, and they were joined by Tai Oney and Nick Pritchard.  Both Oney and Pritchard are still at the Royal College of Music and are part of the Young Artists Programme, understudying roles in the operas and performing in ETO's concert programme, Handel's Music for Vespers.  James Conway's production of The Coronation of Poppea was first seen at the Royal College of Music, when Pritchard sang the role of Lucanio.

English Poetry and Song Society celebrates 30th birthday

The English Poetry and Song Society is celebrating its 30th birthday this year with a concert at St. James's Church, Piccadilly on 4 October 2013. Soprano Sarah Leonard and baritone Stephen Varcoe, with pianist Nigel Foster, will be performing a programme which includes song cycles by Britten and Ivor Gurney alongside songs by contemporary composers Sulyen Caradon, Janet Oates, Clive Pollard, Betty Rowe, Raymond Warren and myself, Robert Hugill.

The concert will include Benjamin Britten's Tit for Tat, his settings of Walter de La Mare which he originally wrote between the ages of 15 and 18 and which he revised for publication in 1968, plus Britten's 1936 Auden settings On this Island. Two Ivor Gurney song cycles are also included; his Seven Sappho Songs written in 1919 which set William Bliss Carmen's imaginative reconstructions of surviving fragments of Sappho's poetry, and Gurney's Lights Out setting poems by Edward Thomas

Tickets are available in advance from the WeGotTickets website.

Memorial for the Columbia Astronauts wins Gramophone's 'Recording of the Year'

The world premiere recording of Peter Eötvös’s violin concerto Seven, subtitled Memorial for the Columbia Astronauts, has won the Recording of the Year at the 2013 Gramophone Classical Music Awards. The disc of concertos by Eötvös,  Ligeti and Bartok played by Moldovan virtuoso violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja with Eötvös himself conducting the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and Ensemble Modern, released on the Naive label, was announced as the Recording of the Year at the Gramophone Classical Music Awards ceremony last night (17 September) at LSO St Luke's.

Covent Garden launches 2013/14 live cinema season

Lise Lindstrom as Turandot
photo Tristram Kenton 2013

Last night the first of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden's cinema transmissions was relayed to cinemas all over the world, launching the 2013/14 cinema season with a live performance of Puccini's Turandot with Lise Lindstrom, Marco Berti and Eri Nakamura conducted by Henrik Nanasi (see my review of last week's first night). The Royal Opera House's cinema transmission has grown from three titles broadcast to 200 sites, to ten titles in 1000 cinemas in 40 countries. Talking at the press launch at the Mayfair Hotel, Antonio Pappano, the Royal Opera's music director, spoke about how he felt that it was right that the Royal Opera share performances to as wide an audience as possible and that there was real appetite and interest for the Royal Opera House's work.

The figures are quite impressive. On 13 December 2012, over 32,000 people watched The Nutcracker broadcast live in the UK, it was the UK's second highest grossing film that night, sitting between The Hobbit and Skyfall in the UK Box Office chart. Almost 40,000 people in the UK watched the single screening of Christopher Wheeldon's ballet Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Over 33,000 watched La Boheme on 13/1/2013 making the film the second highest grossing film that night (between Les Miserables and Gangster Squad).

For Left-Hand Alone

Pianist Nicholas McCarthy is giving a recital on 27 September 2013 at 7.30pm at St James's Church Piccadilly, performing music by Bach, Chopin, Gershwin, Liszt, Scriabin and Richard Strauss. What makes McCarthy different is that he was born without a right hand, and has become something of a trail-blazer both for left-handed performers and for other musicians who are differently abled.

Born in 1989, McCarthy is currently the youngest left-handed soloist world-wide. He first studied at the Junior Department of the Guildhall School fo Music and Drama where he was awarded the annual Piano Prize in 2008. In 2012, he graduated from the Royal College of Music as the only left-handed pianist in the College's history.

Celso Albelo at Rosenblatt Recitals

Celso Albelo
© Joan Tomas / FidelioArtist.

Rosenblatt Recitals opened their new season at the Wigmore Hall with a recital by the Celso Albelo on Monday 17 September 2013. Accompanied by pianist Juan Francisco Parra, the young Spanish tenor's recital mixed songs by Spanish and South American composers with operatic arias. The first half consisted of a fascinating selection of songs by Joaquin Turina, Carols Guastavino, Alberto Ginastera and Augusto Brandt. Then after a pair of zarzuela arias by Manuel Penella and Amadeo Vives, we had operatic arias by Donizetti and Verdi.

Albelo's repertoire in the opera house is firmly centred on 19th century opera, from Rossini's Guillaume Tell, through Donizetti's Edgardo (Lucia di Lammermoor) to the Duke in Verdi's Rigoletto. (We have seen him in La Sonnambula at Covent Garden, and La Favorite at the Theatre des Champs Elysees) He has an interesting lyric tenor voice, very characterful with strong spinto hints. He has a nice firm middle and lower register, with an enviable consistency throughout the range. It is rather a high tension voice and his upper notes, when sung full chest, were spectacular in their power, but he also had an enviable way of shading into head voice. One of the delights of the recital was the fact that we weren't shouted at all evening, and that his capacity for real power which only became apparent as the evening developed.

Clarity and Strength: Britten - War Requiem

This new recording of Britten's War Requiem is the latest of Paul McCreesh's recordings of large-scale oratorios on the Winged Lion label. Here McCreesh conducts the Gabrieli Consort, Wroclaw Philharmonic Choir, Gabrieli Young Singers Scheme (Chethams Chamber Choir, North East Youth Chorale, Taplow Youth Choir, Ulster Youth Chamber Choir), trebles of the Choir of New College Oxford, Gabrieli Players, with soloists Susan Gritton, John Mark Ainsley and Christopher Maltman.

Like his previous recordings (Berlioz's Grande Messe de Morts and Mendelssohn's Elijah), the two central planks of the choral forces are the Gabrieli Young Singers Scheme and Wrocslaw Philharmonic Choir. The Gabrieli Young Singers Scheme involves singers from four youth choirs,  Chethams Chamber Choir, North East Youth Chorale, Taplow Youth Choir, Ulster Youth Chamber Choir, with which Gabrieli collaborates. Gabrieli's relationship with the Wroclaw Philharmonic Choir developed as a result of McCreesh's being director of the festival Wroclaw Cantans from 2006 to 2012.

Any recording of Britten's huge work is inevitably something of a labour of love, certainly you get the impression that the recording was a special and remarkable enterprise. Whilst McCreesh's reputation in the UK is mainly as a period performance specialist, his range is far wider than this. As we have a tendency to pigeonhole performers, it is good to have testimony to McCreesh's talents in 20th century music.

Kings Place Festival: a final helping

Kings Place during the festival

For our final visit to the Kings Place Festival on Sunday 16 September, we experienced an eclectic selection of activities from the lively programme. There were recitals by the Brodsky String Quartet, and by soprano Ruby Hughes and guitarist Christoph Denoth in the concert hall, on the free stages there were the Tempest Flute Trio and the Buzztones, the morris dancers the Belles of London were unfortunately forced indoors by the weather and we only managed to catch the Romany Diamonds warming up, we also explored some of the other goodies on offer taking in a chocolate tasting and a talk by Artemis Cooper.

We started with a terrific set from The Buzztones, an eight-man a-cappella group who sang lively modern arrangements of a variety of material. Then the Tempest Flute Trio, three young flautists who played a variety of remarkable repertoire ranging from Debussy and Bach to Duke Ellington.

The Brodsky String Quartet (Daniel Rowland, Ian Bolton, Paul Cassidy and Jacqueline Thomas) performed in Hall One, presenting a programme simply entitled America, which encompassed music by Copland, Barber and Dvorak. They started with Copland's Two Pieces for string quartet. The first movement opened with the fascinating texture of just two violins and viola, in slow, evocative material. Joined by the cello, the result was rather bitter-sweet, but with definitely a feel of Copland and the wide open spaces in the intervals used. Most of the movement seemed to be based round a single four note motif, and Copland developed it from the singing bitter-sweetness of the opening into something rather complex and dissonant. Powerful stuff indeed. The second movement was lively and well wrought, rather quirky but the polyphonic textures and bitonal feel ensured that the work was not just a crowd pleaser.

Kings Place Festival: experimental, intimate, and fusion

Oddarang’s Olavi Louhivuori credit Tero Ahonen

This year’s King’s Place Festival is shaping up to be a marvellous weekend of diverse delights. All events are under a fiver, and many are free, so it is a perfect opportunity to try something new or revisit old favourites.

An early start for experimental Finnish group Oddarrang brought in the after work crowd. Hot foot from Manchester they arrived with stories of lost (and found) instruments and promoting their new album ‘In Cinema’. An interesting mix of sound, they incorporated lead and bass guitar, drums, cello and trombone, with formless vocals and some sound looping. Composer and drummer, Olavi Louhivuori, doubled on piano, and there was the occasional pitched percussion thrown in for good measure.

Oddarrang’s set began aptly enough with Introducing, a wash of sound where the melody first on cello is transformed and passed around the performers, and is enhanced with recorded/looped elements. After building up to a break where the cello and trombone reverberate into white noise, the cello and bass are first to climb out and continue the mood exploration.

Kings Place Festival: a second helping

The Songmen

I dipped into the Kings Place Festival on Saturday 14 September, taking in concerts by the Dante Quartet and the Songmen as well as eavesdropping on a variety of the free music taking place in the foyers. The festival utilises the whole space, so that there are concerts in both halls, plus stages set up in the main atrium and in the foyer by the two concert halls, as well as activities elsewhere; I spotted children busily painting just outside the Kings Place gallery. When I arrived at 11.30am, the whole place was buzzing. The Songmen, a 6-man a cappella group, performed a selection of numbers from their disc, Midnight. In complete contrast, the Dante Quartet performed string quartets by Schubert and Kodaly.

On the free stages I caught great jazz from the Maciek Pysz Trio, some amazing beat-box from Lyrix Organix: Remixed and heard both the Borealis Saxophone Quartet and Akademi Indian Dance setting up.

UK's Most Welcoming Theatre

My Theatre Matters! in association with Classic FM are looking for the UK's Most Welcoming Theatre. The winner will be announced at the UK Theatre Awards on Sunday 20 October at the Guildhall. Anyone can vote and voting is on-line now, until 30 September. Both London opera houses are in the list, the ENO at the London Coliseum and the Royal Opera, but also there is Opera Holland Park. 

Opera Holland Park has a strong form in welcoming theatre-goers of all types. As part of their Inspire programme, they encourage a wide variety of people to experience opera and classical music; Inspire seats are open to everyone and are priced at just £12. They also run free ticket schemes for our older patrons and young people as well as taking opera, in the form of recitals, to audiences who otherwise would not be able to attend a performance at the theatre.

Vote for your favourite theatre on-line now.

Aurora Orchestra open the Kings Place Festival

John Reid, Thomas Gould, Timothy Orpen and Nicolas Fleury

The sixth Kings Place Festival is taking place at the moment, from 13 to 15 September, with a wide array of events many of which are free. The Aurora Orchestra opened proceedings on 13 September with Contrasts, a concert showcasing the ensemble's individual players in chamber music by Berg, Bartok and Brahms. We heard pianist John Reid and clarinettist Timothy Orpen in Berg's Four Pieces (Vier Stücke) Op. 5, violinist Thomas Gould joined Reid and Orpen for Bartok's Contrasts and then Reid and Gould were joined by horn player Nicolas Fleury for Brahms Horn Trio.

News: CD sales and distribution awards

The Sixteen's recent performances of their Choral Pilgrimmage Queen of Heaven at Llandaff, Truro and Exeter Cathedrals were all sold out. As the group pre-records the programme for the Choral Pilgrimmages and sells the Cd's at concerts, this means that the enthusiasm of the audience has enhanced sales of the Queen of Heaven Cd and put it back into the No. 1 spot in the specialist classical charts. Also the group's new Palestrina disc, volume 4 of their Palestrina edition has popped straight into the chart at no. 4.

In another welcome piece of news,distributor harmonia mundi has been given the title of Best Distribution Company for 2012-13 in the annual ICS Awards. The ICS is a UK-wide association of Independent Classical CD retailers, so the award is recognition of the distributor's standing with retailers in the rather beleaguered CD retailing market.

Fernando Germani at Selby Abbey

Selby Abbey's 1909 Hill Organ was rebuilt by Hill, Norman and Beard in the 1950's and came to prominence in the recordings by the Italian organ virtuoso Fernando Germani (1906 - 1998) whose recordings are re-issued in this disc. This CD has be produced in aid of the Selby Abbey organ appeal, the distinguished instrument is now over 100 years old and in need of a rebuild. So, on this CD we hear Germani playing music by Fescobaldi, Franck, Liszt, Reger and Widor all recorded on the instrument.

Germani came to prominence via a series of recordings made for HMV in the late 1940's and early 1950's In 1961 he came to Yorkshire to record a recital programme of bit romantic piece by Liszt, Franck, Widor and Reger; the disc was issued in 1962 and attracted great interest. It was the first organ disc to feature on EMI's official list of best sellers, remaining there for 18 months. Germani followed this up with two further discs from Selby, one devoted to Franck and one to Frescobaldi. The present CD selects music from all three.

Passion in Brighton - BREMF

The theme of this year's Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) is passion in all its forms, whether erotic lust, sin or sacred. There is the opportunity to hear a wide range of groups from young artists in the ensembles which BREMF supports to established ones like Joglaresa, Red Priest, Emma Kirkby and Rachel Podger. A central feature of the festival is BREMF's ownensembles the BREMF Consort of Voices, BREMF Singers and BREMF Players. 

These are challenging times for financing the arts, and BREMF is no different. Last year the festival, its supporters and friends made heroic efforts to make good a significant funding gap. This year, the festival's Art Council funding leaves something of a short fall so that they are appealing for people to support their 2013 BREMF Passion Appeal.

The festival proper opens on 25 October with Joglaresa's Song of Sinne and Subversion, in which Joglaresa explore links between songs from the Crusades to the present day with more than a passing nod to Iron Maiden. You have been warned! Still in irreverent mood, the lively ensemble Red Priest will be giving us a whirlwind tour of Handel's best. (1/11). And L'Avventura will present passionate love songs from Portugal and Brazil, in a romantic candle-lit cabaret setting. (9/11)

Beethoven Marathon no. 2 - in Manchester, in aid of Musicians' Benevolent Fund

Martin Roscoe
© Eric Richmond.

Hot on the heels of news of Julian Jacobson's 10 hour marathon playing all the Beethoven piano sonatas in London, comes the news that over in Manchester, Martin Roscoe will be performing all of Beethoven's piano concertos in one evening at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester on Saturday 5 October 2013 in aid of the Musicians' Benevolent Fund. Accompanied by members (past and present) of the orchestra of the Royal Northern College of Music conducted by Daniel Parkinson, with John Suchet as guest presenter. Roscoe plays the concertos in numerical order, nos. 1 and 2 at 5pm, nos. 2 and 3 at 7pm and number 5 at 9pm. 

Vivid comedy - Cimarosa's The Secret Marriage

Rosalind Coad (Elisetta), Matthew Durkan (Servant),
Bradley Travis (Count Robinson),  Frazer B Scott (Geronimo),
Nick Dwyer (Servant),  Heather Lowe (Fidalma) , Alice Rose Privett (Carolina)
in BYO's The Secret Marriage [Credit: Clive Barda / ArenaPAL]

Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto (The Secret Marriage) could not be more different than British Youth Opera's first opera in their 2013 season, Britten's Paul Bunyan. But both operas span the range of talents required of young opera singers. British Youth Opera's production of Cimarosa's 1792 opera buffa premiered at the Peacock Theatre on 11 September 2013, directed by Martin Lloyd-Evans, designed by Ellan Parry with Nick Pritchard, Alice Rose Privett, Frazer B Scott, Rosalind Coad, Heather Love and Bradley Travis with Roy Laughlin conducting the Southbank Sinfonia. The opera was sung in Donald Pippin's English translation.

With just a cast of six, and full of arias, duets and ensembles, Cimarosa's lively opera requires a different degree of communicativeness to Britten's early operetta.  Arias are long and sometimes complex for a start and there is also the issue of recitative, which in opera buffa requires a particularly vivid projection.

Royal Opera House on Digital Theatre Collections

The Royal Opera House has its own DVD arm, Opus Arte, and is developing quite a global following with its cinema broadcasts. Now a new initiative seems set to make their productions available on a wider basis. Yesterday (11 September), it was announced that six Royal Opera House productions (four operas and two ballets) will be available on-line as part of Digital Theatre Collections. Digital Theatre is an on-line platform which offers good quality theatrical performances in a variety of digital formats, on-line streaming, download, iPhone apps, a dedicated channel on the YouView TalkTalk player and on desktop.

Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival

The second Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival starts next week. Running from 20-22 September 2013 it is a chance to hear some fine musicians in the stunning surroundings of the Old Palace and the Marble Hall of Hatfield House. Artistic director is cellist Guy Johnston and the festival features his group, the Aronowitz Ensemble, as artists in residence along with Alistair Beatson (piano), Kristian Bezuidenhout (fortepiano) Ben Griffiths (double bass), Esther Hoppe (violin), Ruby Hughes (soprano) Anthony Marwood (violin), the Navarra Quartet and Lawrence Power (viola). The festival opens on Friday 20 September with Mendelssohn's Octet plus Brahms String Quintet No. 2 Op. 111 and Britten's Lachrymae.

Classical Opera's ambitious new plans

Classical Opera will be releasing a recording Mozart's first large-scale drama Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots on the Signum label this month. This represents the first step in an ambitious plan to release a new Mozart opera every year until the complete opera cycle is on disc. Additionally, Signum will release a further disc each year with Classical Opera.  The record of Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots is available from 30 September, with Ian Page conducting the Orchestra of Classica Opera with soloists Allan Clayton, Andrew Kennedy, Sophie Bevan, Sarah Fox and Cora Burggraaf. 

The release is being celebrated with a concert performance of the work at Wigmore Hall on 24 September with  cast including Sarah Fox, Andrew Kennedy, Allan Clayton, Ailish Tynan and Mery Bevan. Further ahead the group is giving an all Mozart programme for the New Year's Eve concert at the Wigmore Hall.  Then they are joined by bass Matthew Rose for a concert of Haydn and Mozart at the Wigmore Hall on 30 January 2014. March 2014 sees them performing Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito at Cadogan Hall with Andrew Kennedy as Tito and Sara Jane Brandon as Vitellia.

Further information from the Wigmore Hall website and Signum Records website.

Britten's Paul Bunyan - British Youth Opera

Prologue to Paul Bunyan, British Youth Opera
[Credit: Clive Barda / ArenaPAL]

Britten and Auden's choral operetta Paul Bunyan was written for student performance at Columbia University and its large number of roles means that it is idea for performance by a company like British Youth Opera and their production at the Peacock Theatre forms an ideal contribution to the Britten Centenary year. We caught the second performance (10 September 2013) of William Kerley's production, designed by Jason Southgate. Peter Robinson, artistic director of British Youth Opera, conducted a huge cast including Christopher Jacklin, Will Edelstein, Timothy Connor, Alex Aldren Oskar Palmblad, Samuel Smith, Emily Vine, Grace Durham, Ayaka Tanimoto, Peter Kirk and Louise Kemeny.

I had never seen Paul Bunyan on stage before, and it is certainly a curious and fascinating piece. Britten and Auden's longest collaboration, it is a highly eclectic piece with both words and music referencing popular culture. But Auden's text is often high-falutin' (especially Paul Bunyan's pronouncements) and the final Litany with its lists of the evils of modern living, takes the piece to a different place both musically and dramatically. Britten revised the work in 1974-75 for its performance at Aldeburgh in 1976, but what we hear is substantially what he wrote in 1941.

Beethoven Marathon in for WaterAid and The Connection at St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Pianist Julian Jacobson will be performing all of Beethoven's piano sonatas in a marathon lasting from 9.15am to 10pm. The event takes place at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square and is to raise money for WaterAid and The Connection at St Martin-in-the-Fields. Jacobson will be playing the 32 sonatas from memory, in chronological order except for a lunch-time concert at 1pm on the day which will consist of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata and the Sonata in E minor op.90. The evening of the marathon will be structured as a special all-Beethoven concert starting at 7pm. This isn't the first time that Jacobson has done the feat, he performed a similar marathon 10 years ago. Julian is also keeping a marathon blog.

 Admission is free during the day with donations to charity welcome, the evening event Total Beethoven (7pm) is ticketed / Box Office: 020 7766 1100.

Typewriters and more - contemporary music Wolf Pack style

The Wolf Pack contemporary music collective is back with another concert on 26 and 27 September 2013 at the the Sewing Room at The Rag Factory, 16-18 Heneage Street, E1 5LJ. The concert includes the world premiere of a conceptual piece by Rachel Forsyth, Slow Day Deadline for typewriter and small ensemble, Breaking News for music box and speaker which is described as a topical new collaboration by Dave Collins and Sam Goodway. There is also the premiere of a solo piano piece by Gareth Churchil, See Hear and music by Dave Smith, John White, Radiohead and Frank Zappa. Intrigued? Further information from their Facebook page.

Lise Lindstrom as Turandot at Covent Garden

The Royal Opera's production of Puccini's Turandot is nearly 30 years old. Created for the 1984 Olympics, Andrei Serban's production has been revived 15 times. This latest revival opened on September 9 2013 (the 259th performance of the opera at Covent Garden) It featured the Covent Garden debuts of soprano Lise Lindstrom in the title role and conductor Henrik Nanasi, with Marco Berti singing his first Calaf at Covent Garden, and Eri Nakamura singing her first Liu there. The masks were played by Dionysios Sourbis, David Butt Philip and Doug Jones. The production is in good health and the revival, directed by Andrew Sinclair, was as crisp and involving as ever.

When I attended Covent Garden in the 1970's and early 1980's quite a number of the productions were elderly, dating back 20 or 30 years and it showed. They were old fashioned and unsatisfactory in revival. Whereas Serban's production has aged well and does not seem in the least bit dated.

Audience vote at heart of Bath Philharmonia composition competition

The centrepiece of Bath Philharmonia's Young Apollo Festival will be a concert on October 12 at Bath Abbey at which the orchestra, conducted by Jason Thornton, will play the three finalists in the orchestra's composition competition. Selected from over seventy international applicants of all ages by Oliver Knussen, Colin Matthews and Joe Duddell, works by Alberto Schiavo (Italy), Nicola Strafellini (Italy) and Bertie Baigent (UK) will be performed, but the results will be judged by audience vote. The winning composition, voted for in a secret ballot, will be published by Schott Music Ltd as part of the prize. 

Daniel Bjarnason - Over Light Earth

This fascinating new disc does not sound like conventional orchestra music, though the composer Daniel Bjarnason has a classical background and it was recorded by the Reykjavik Sinfonia. But the disc is very much a collaboration with  Valgeir Sigurdsson and Ben Frost, and recording engineer Paul Evans. The recording was made using multi-tracking and close miking, and the final piece on the disc Solitudes is reworked with electronics by Sigurdsson and Frost.

Icelandic born Daniel Bjarnason studied piano, composition and conducting in Reykjavik, going on to study conducting at Freiburg University of Music, Germany. He has been commissioned to write a new orchestral work for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and Gustavo Dudamel, to be premiered in December 2013. He has also worked in the new Sigur Ros album, Kreikur, and wrote the score to the feature film The Deep. His work Over Light Earth which opens this disc, written for chamber orchestra, was premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by John Adams.

South London Concert Series

A new concert series starts at the 1901 Arts Club in Waterloo in November. Brainchild of harpsichordist, pianist and piano teacher Lorraine Liyanage and pianist, and piano teacher and music blogger Frances Wilson, the South London Concert Series exists to promote the careers of young and emerging musicians living or studying in the UK by providing a central London venue and audience for classical and contemporary music concerts. 

The series developed out of the London Piano Meetup Group, co-hosted and organised by Lorraine and Frances, which offers regular performance platforms, masterclasses and other events to amateur pianists and piano enthusiasts in and around London.

Fun and Imagination - Co-Opera Co's The Mikado

Llio Evans, Georgina Stalbow and Susanne Holmes

Co-Opera Co's second opera in their season at the Hackney Empire continued the Japanese theme with Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado (played in tandem with Madama Butterfly), though James Bonas's production emphasised the work's fundamentally English qualities rather than any notional ideas of Japonaiserie. Designed by Carl Davies with choreography by Ewan Jones, the production was set in an Opium Den in East London and formed a drug induced fantasy of three of the denizens. The concept was not pushed too far, instead Bonas used it to freely mix Japanese and English references, recognising that the opera makes fun of English habits. We caught the second performance on Saturday 7 September, with a cast including Martin Nelson, David Jones, Llio Evans, Tristan Stocks Georgina Stalbow, Thomas Asher, Owain Browne, Sandra Porter and Susanne Holmes, conducted by John Andrews.

A bold experiment - Sinfonia Cymru Unbuttoned

The Chapter Arts Centre is a lively venue to the west of central Cardiff, it has a programme of film and theatre, a bar serving a wide range of beer and a great cafe, both of which were very busy when I visited on Friday 6 September 2013. What the centre does not have was a regular classical music programme. Until now. The centre is the venue for Unbuttoned presented by Sinfonia Cymru.

The idea of attracting new audiences to classical music is one that appeals to many different classical groups and there are numerous attempts to re-invent the classical concert such as Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's Late Shift and City of London Sinfonia's CLoSer. For their new venture, Unbuttoned, Sinfonia Cymru has taken a very serious approach to the problem, effectively taking the concerts their target audience. Unbuttoned at the Chapter Arts Centre is not aimed at convinced classical music lovers like myself (Sinfonia Cymru performs for this target audience at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama), but for the people congregating in the buzzy bar at Chapter Arts Centre, who would not normally thing about going to a classical concert.

Autumn at Kings Place

Autumn at Kings Place means that their Bach Unwrapped series is reaching its conclusion, the Sixteeen drop in on their Choral Pilgrimage and the Brodsky Quartet has a residency. Wayne McGregor and Random Dance present an evening of new short dances and Lucy Parham looks at the relationship between Schumann, his wife and Brahms.

Bach Unwrapped continues apace. Rachel Podger returns for further violin sonatas and partitas (25/9), Carolyn Sampson joins the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields for more concertos and cantatas (27/9), Fretwork perform the Goldberg Variations (16/10), Oxford Philomusica and New College Choir join forces under Edward Higginbottom for Bach's Magnificat (18/10), harpsichordist Robert Levin performs the English Suites (21/11) whilst David Greilsammer and Geneva Camerata give us music by J.S.Bach and his family (22/11). There is a study day on Bach's Sound World & Instruments  (28/9), and one on Father, Sons and Holy Ghost (23/11). There is also a come and sing Bach event on the Mass in B Minor (29/9)

BBC Radio 3 new generation artists

BBC Radio 3 has announced the new batch of New Generation Artists, six young musicians selected as being promising. This year's selection includes a quartet from Denmark, British and Ukrainian mezzo-sopranos, a French violist and Swiss and Chinese pianists: the Danish String Quartet (winners of the 11th London International String Quartet Competition),  Kitty Whately (mezzo-soprano, winner of the 2011 Kathleen Ferrier Award Competition),  Olena Tokar (Ukranian mezzo-soprano who was a finalist in the 2013 Cardiff Singer of the World), Lise Berthaud (French viola player who won the Hindemith Prize at the Geneva International Competition in 2005), Louis Schwitzgebel (Swiss pianist, second prize winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition) and Zhang Zuo, the Chinese pianist who won first prize in the third Shanghai International Piano Competition and the 7th International Franz Liszt Piano Competition.

The six will receive support via broadcasts on Radio 3 (over a two year period), including lunchtime recitals, live broadcasts with BBC orchestras and regular studio recordings. The scheme has been running for 15 years and previous artists have included Benjamin Grosvenor, Alison Balsom, the Belcea Quartet, Christine Rice and Gwilym Simcock. Last year’s selection of New Generation Artists, who remain on the scheme for another year are:  Robin Tritschler (tenor, Ireland), Sean Shibe (classical guitarist, UK),  Trish Clowes (jazz saxophonist, UK),  Leonard Elschenbroich (cellist, Germany), Mark Simpson (clarinettist, UK), Apollon Musagate Quartet (Poland) and Elena Urioste (violinist, USA).

In case you missed it - August on Planet Hugill: Awards, Opera alfresco and new opera

August on Planet Hugill started with three 20th century British greats. There an enterprising production of William Walton's The Bear along with two specially commissioned one act operas. We saw thrilling revival of Britten's Billy Budd at Glyndebourne, and Tippett's Midsummer Marriage at the Proms.

August in London means opera festivals. We made two visits to Tete at Tete: The Opera Festival catching two different programmes. And Stephen McNeff's mono-drama Vivienne made a short visit to the Forge in Camden.

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Co-opera Co gala - A Grand Night for Singing

Last night (4 September 2013) Co-Opera Co took a break from their performances of The Mikado and Madama Butterfly at the Hackney Empire to present a gala A Grand Night for Singing, filling the theatre with a huge variety of singing in support of Co-Opera Co's Philip Langridge Bursary. Performers included Rosalind Plowright, Richard Suart, Martin Nelson, Harry Nicoll, Toby Stafford-Allen, Melinda Hughes, Llio Evans, Susanne Holmes, Li Li, Owain Brown and Adam Player, with the St John of Jerusalem Festival Chorus and Children's Choir, and dancers from the Lisa Gilbert Academy of Ballet, with the Co-OPera Co. Orchestra directed by Stephen Higgins and by John Andrews.

We started with a lively account of the overture to Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. Stephen Higgins conducted the orchestra for the whole of the first half, and acted as compere. The first guest was tenor Harry Nicoll who gave a stylish performance of Where e're you walk from Handel's Semele. This was followed by Toby Stafford Allen's highly vivid account Ford's dream from Verdi's Falstaff. All performers sang from memory which heightened the communicativeness and immediacy of all the performances in the evening.

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra season at the Cadogan Hall

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's new season at the Cadogan Hall starts in 18 September with a program of Dvorak and Schumann conducted by Paul Daniel, with Natasha Permski playing the Schumann Piano Concerto. There are opportunities to hear soloists such as Tamsin Little and Jamie Walton, and the music of Tchaikovsky runs as a theme through a number of concerts.

Heaven and Earth - Monteverdi from the King's Consort

Robert King and the King's Consort recorded Monteverdi's complete sacred music for Hyperion and on this disc, originally recorded in 2002, they return to Monteverdi for his secular music on the Vivat label. They perform selections from the opera Orfeo and from the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Books of Madrigals. The performers include Caroline Sampson, Rebecca Outram, Julie Cooper, Sarah Connolly, Diana Moore, Charles Daniels, John Bowen, James Gilchrist, Robert Evans and Michael George along with instrumental performers from the King's Consort directed by Robert King.

They open in arresting manner, with the opening toccata from Orfeo premiered in Mantua in 1607. This is followed by a firm but fluidly flexible performance of Dal mio permesso amato, La Musica's solo from the prologue to Orfeo, sung by Carolyn Sampson.

The Cd booklet includes contemporary descriptions of the way Monteverdi's madrigals were performed at the court in Mantua, and the article by Professor John Whenham makes a convincing link between the expressive and histrionic way the madrigals were performed and the performances of the early operas with many singers being involved in both.

Madama Butterfly - Co-Opera Co at the Hackney Empire

Co-Opera Co launched their London season at the Hackney Empire with a stylish updating of Puccini's Madama Butterfly. Jacopo Spirei's production debuted in July at Bury St. Edmunds, and featured Verunka Vlkova as Cio Cio San, David Woodward as Pinkerton and John Rawnsley as Sharpless with Susanne Holmes, David Menezes, Thomas Asher, Stephen Bowen, Espeth Marrow and David Linton-Ford, conducted by Martin Handley.

With a relatively bare set, just a series of white platforms to suggest the house against a plain backdrop, the production allowed full scope for Paul J Need's imaginative lighting. Working with a predominantly young cast, Spirei had rightly chosen to concentrate on the fascinating interactions between the characters. Co-Opera Co is a company which helps to provide experience and training for singers just starting their careers; training which is doing in collaboration with a number of distinguished senior members of the profession. For this production, the distinguished baritone John Rawnsley joined the cast as Sharpless.

Choral at Cadogan 2013-14

3 September saw the launch of the the sixth Choral at Cadogan series at the Cadogan Hall. This year there are eight concerts in the series, the biggest ever, under the artistic directorship of Peter Philips. At the preview event guests were treated to a performance by Philips and the Tallis Scholars, with Taverner's Leroy Kyrie, Tallis's early four-part Sancte Deus and Arvo Part's fascinating Tribute to Caesar written in 1997, which saw the singers performing divided into smaller groupes. Guest also heard an introduction to the whole series by Philips. 

Also present in the audience were members of Stile Antico, who will be performing on 19 November, and John Rutter who will be directing his Cambridge Singers on 14 March 2014. Other concerts in the series include performances from the Temple Choir (9 December), Vox Luminis (12 February 2014), the Sixteen (10 April 2014), the BBC Singers and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (16 April 2014) and of course the Tallis Scholars who open and close the series (15 October 2013, 14 May 2014).

England’s Finest: Sarah Connolly and Tenebrae in melancholic mood

Sarah Connolly (c) Peter Warren

Mansion House (the home of the Lord Mayor of the City of London), next door to Wren’s church - St Stephen Walbrook, was the stately venue on Monday 2 Septebmer 2013 for England’s Finest performed by Tenebrae and Sarah Connolly. The evening of melancholic English vocal music, spanning five centuries from Henry Purcell to Judith Bingham, was a sister of a concert in Gloucester cathedral held to raise funds for its new window, designed by Tom Denny, to celebrate the life of composer and war poet Ivor Gurney.

The concert was held in the Egyptian room (in the style of Roman buildings in Egypt – not a cartouche in sight) which is a room to impress with its grand ceiling, statues, and stained glass windows. All this finery leads to some rather good acoustics. Directed by ex-King’s singer Nigel Short, Tenebrae used this responsive acoustic to produce a clear sound, exactly as needed by the intricate Magnificat for Double choir by Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924)

Children from In Harmony Liverpool make their Proms debut

Sunday afternoon's family Prom (1 September 2013) at the Royal Albert Hall featured the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, conductor by Matthew Coorey, the Liverpool Philharmonic Children's Choirs, storyteller Michael Rosen and illustrator Tony Ross for a musical performance of Rosen's book We're Going on a Bear Hunt, with music by Mussorgsky, Elgar and Stravinsky. Joining the orchestra on the platform were forty young players from the West Everton Children’s Orchestra part of In Harmony Liverpool.  

Double Gabrieli celebration

Paul McCreesh and his Gabrieli Consort and Players recorded their disc A New Venetian Coronation, 1595 in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Gabrieli's death and of the group's own 30th anniversary. The disc was a revisiting of one of the group's most famous CD's A Venetian Coronation which won them their first Gramophone Award more than 20 years ago. The new disc, released on the Winged Lion/Signum label, took advantage of developments in early instruments, performance techniques and musicological research as well as advances in recording techniques. The new disc has won its own Gramophone Award, winning the Early Music Category in this year's awards. To celebrate this, Winged Lion/Signum are issuing a limited edition of A New Venetian Coronation on vinyl;  a double LP (SIGLP287). 

Eclectic Collections at the Forge

The Metier Ensemble is presenting a season of early evening concerts at The Forge, Camden. Starting on 8 September 2013, the three concert series entitled Eclectic Collections celebrates a diverse selection of duos and trios for flute, cello and piano. Each concert has a geographical theme, with the first one Watercolours being of French music, the second Trapeze (on 1 December) of British music and the final one Fairy Tale on 9 February 2014 of music from Eastern Europe.

Fascinating synthesis - Rakasha

Edinburgh based guitarist Simon Thacker is classically trained but his performance interest lies in the edge between Western classical music and Indian classical music. On this new disc, Rakasha, he performs with his ensemble Simon Thacker's Svara Kanti, in which he collaborates with Japjit Kaur (a singer from North India), the violinist Jacqueline Shave (leader of the Britten Sinfonia) and tabla master Sarvar Sabri. The material on the disc is a similar mixture with pieces by Thacker himself, Nigel Osborne, Terry Riley and Shirish Korde

Dhumaketu is the Sanskrit word for 'great comet' or 'falling star'. Simon Thacker's Dhumaketu is written for classical guitar, violin and tabla. It opens with a guitar solo which fulfills the function of the atap in North Indian classical music by introducing and exploring the tonality. The piece is based on an eight-note Western scale (the white notes of the keyboard) which corresponds to Raag Bhairavi in Hindustani music.  The opening guitar improvisation to my ears has rather a Spanish sound, but when all three instruments join the results have a catchy rhythmic impetus and an interesting interaction develops between the three.

Autumn at St John's Smith Square

Autumn at St. John's Smith Square starts with a residency from the European Union Baroque Orchestra and continues with concert series from the Beyounes Quartet and the Songsmiths vocal ensemble. There are three opportunities to catch excerpts from Wagner's Ring Cycle. And the Young Musicians Symphony Orchestra makes two appearances. The season finishes with the St. Johns Christmas Festival with its usual strong line up of names.

The European Union Baroque Orchestra starts a residency with a programme of Handel Coronation Anthems and the Birthday Ode for Queen Anne (which has one of the most beautiful openings in Handel) with the choir of Clare College, Cambridge (3/9). Then Gottfried von der Goltz directs them from the violin in music by Zelenka, Telemann, Vivaldi & Pisendal (17/10). And Stefano Montanari also directs from the violin in by Scarlatti, Razetti, Montanari, Vivaldi & Corelli

Live by the Lake: Opera Alfresco

The opera evening presented on Saturday 31 August 2013 as part of this year's outdoor concerts at Kenwood, Live by the Lake, featured a strong line-up with soprano Ana Maria Martinez being joined by tenor  John Hudson and baritone David Kempster accompanied by the English National Opera Orchestra conducted by Paul Daniel. The tenor Wynne Evans acted as compere and also sang. The programme featured music from Rossini's William Tell and Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Verdi's Don Carlo, La forza del destino, Rigoletto and La traviata, Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, La boheme, Madama Butterfly and Turandot, Bizet's Carmen, Strauss Die Fledermaus, Massenet's Thais plus music by Delibes. We had never attended an open air event before, so went along to picnic and listen.

Those having picnics arrived early and were treated to a programme of light classics broadcast over the sound system. There were three huge screens to enable you to see close-ups of the performers. The evening kicked off with Paul Daniel conducting the orchestra in the overture to Rossini's William Tell. We don't see anything like as much of Daniel as we ought and it was great to hear him in action. The orchestra gave a brilliant account of the overture but the sound from the sound system was a little too hard-edged for my taste.

Benjamin Britten commemorative 50p coin

The Royal Mint has revealed designs for the 50 pence coin being issued to commemorate Benjamin Britten's centenary. It is the first time that a composer has appeared on a British coin. The design is by Tom Phillips CBE RA. As well as his work as an artist, Philips is known for his work in opera as composer, librettist and set designer. His design for the Britten 50 pence coin features a quotation from Tennyson, 'Blow bugle blow, set the wild echoes flying', set to music by Britten in the Serenade for tenor, horn and strings with the name of the composer is framed in a double stave. The coin will be in circulation later this year and will be available from 27 September in commemorative gold proof, silver proof and brilliant uncirculated versions. Further information from the Royal Mint website.