Imaginative programming, unusual location, exceptional music-making: Nonclassical's The Greenhouse Effect at the Barbican Conservatory

The Greenhouse Effect - Nonclassical at the Barbican Conservatory (Photo: Mark Allan / Barbican)

The Greenhouse Effect: Gabriel Prokofiev: Tracing Contours, Lines & Planes; Marcus Vergette: Tintinnabulation; Quinta Meltemia; Dasos & Chloris; Andy Akiho: Pillar: No 4; Claudia Molitor: Polymer Hauntings; Steve Reich: Music for pieces of wood; Carola Bauckholt: Doppelbelichtung; David Lang: So Called Laws of Nature ; Nonclassical at the Barbican Conservatory
Reviewed by Florence Anna Maunders; 12 March 2023

Gripping & immersive soundscapes & percussive grooves in a typically unconventional setting

Since their founding in 2004 by composer and producer Gabriel Prokofiev, London-based Nonclassical has established a reputation for presenting unusual and exciting musical events, and this was no exception. Fantastically well-attended, both the afternoon and evening shows were sold out, a clear indicator not only of the strength of Nonclassical's loyal followers, but also the currently growing appetite for unconventional approaches to contemporary and experimental music.

Nonclassical's event on 12 March 2023 took place in the Barbican Conservatory and featured music by Gabriel Prokofiev, Marcus Vergette, Quinta Meltemia, Andy Akiho, Claudia Molitor, Steve Reich, Carola Bauckholt, and David Lang, performed by percussion ensemble Abstruckt, the London Triangle Orchestra and friends.

In the incredible setting of the Barbican Conservatory – a massive indoor jungle, with layers of brutalist concrete walkways intersecting a spectacular explosion of creepers, vines, palms, banana plants and tropical foliage of all kinds – the various musicians and their instruments were laid out in different locations, as if scattered throughout the rainforest in different clearings. During the performances, it was quite possible to stroll through the pathways and bridges, but the majority of the audience chose to stand or sit nearby the performers, so as to give the music their full attention. To direct these listeners along the paths to each performance, the performers of the London Triangle Orchestra acted as guides, forming an almost-ritualistic procession of people through the jungle from site to site. Made from reclaimed steel ReBar rods, twisted into triangular form, their instruments produced a wide range of timbres, from shimmering bell-like tones, to metallic scraping and grating, composer & organiser Gabriel Prokofiev among the performers of his own piece, Tracing Contours, Lines & Planes for ReBar Triangle. This piece was directly inspired by the architecture and materials of the Barbican Centre itself – something which vividly came across when it was performed in that space.

The Greenhouse Effect - Nonclassical at the Barbican Conservatory (Photo: Mark Allan / Barbican)

Imagination and belief in a hostile climate: new seasons from Welsh National Opera and Opera North

Golijov's Ainadamar at Scottish Opera, a production coming to Welsh National Opera
(Photo James Glossop)

New seasons from Welsh National Opera and Opera North. Both WNO and Opera North have released details of forthcoming 2023/24 seasons, and both companies seem determined to make the most of opportunities despite funding cuts and a generally hostile climate for the arts. New productions at WNO will be Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar, the company's first-ever production of Britten's Death in Venice, Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, and Puccini's Il Trittico. Opera North presents new productions of Verdi's Falstaff, Puccini's La Rondine, a new masque based on Purcell's music, and Rachmaninoff's Aleko, with the company's Autumn season being fully sustainable. 

WNO's Autumn season features Golijov's Ainadamar, in a production shared with Scottish Opera who gave the work's UK premiere last year. Ainadamar is directed by choreographer Deborah Colker and conducted by Matthew Kofi Waldren, with Argentinian soprano Jaquelina Livieri, Julieth Lozano, and Alfredo Tejada. There is a revival of David McVicar's production of Verdi's La Traviata conducted by Alexander Joel with Olga Pudova, David Junghoon Kim and Mark S Doss. The operas will tour to Cardiff, Llandudno, Bristol, Plymouth, Birmingham, Milton Keynes and Southampton.

Opera North's Autumn is devoted to its Green Season, its first fully sustainable season which will use shared scenic elements, designed by Leslie Travers, to create three interlinked yet distinctive designs, enabling Opera North to reduce its use of materials and its carbon footprint. All sets, props and costumes in the season are sourced from previous productions or purchased second-hand. A new production of Verdi's Falstaff is directed by Jo Davies, conducted by Garry Walker with Henry Waddington in the title role. Sir David Pountney has created the Masque of Might using Purcell's music reimagining the 17th-century form of the masque with modern technology to create a biting yet humorous contemporary satire, billed as an ‘eco-entertainment’. The conductor is Harry Bickett with Andri Björn Róbertsson, James Laing and Anna Dennis. Puccini's La Rondine is directed by James Hurley, conducted by Kerem Hasan, with Galina Averina, Claire Lees, Sébastien Guèze and Elgan Llŷr Thomas. The operas will tour to Leeds, Newcastle, Nottingham, and Salford.

WNO's Spring season features two new productions. Music director Tomáš Hanus conducts Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, directed by Max Hoehn, with Sophie Bevan, Kayleigh Decker, Egor Zhuravskii and James Atkinson. Olivia Fuchs directs Britten's Death in Venice, conducted by Leo Hussain, with Mark LeBrocq, making his role debut as Aschenbach, Roderick Williams and Alexander Chance. The Spring operas tour to Cardiff, Llandudno, Southampton, Oxford, Bristol and Plymouth.

Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana at Opera North in 2017
the production is revived in 2024 (Photo Robert Workman)

Opera North's Spring Season features a revival of Giles Havergal's production of Britten's Albert Herring, conducted by Garry Walker with Josephine Barstow as Lady Billows, plus Katie Bray, William Dazeley, Amy Freston, Richard Mosley-Evans, Claire Pascoe, Dominic Sedgwick, and Heather Shipp. Tim Albery's production of Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte is revived with Alexandra Lowe, Heather Lowe, Anthony Gregory and Henry Neill as the lovers, conducted by Clemens Schuldt and Chloe Rooke, each making their Opera North debuts. A double bill features a new production of Rachminoff's rarely-performed Aleko, directed by Karolina Sofulak with a revival of her production of Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, conducted by Antony Hermus. Many of the cast take roles in both works with Robert Hayward, Giselle Allen, Andrés Presno, Elin Pritchard and Anne-Marie Owens. The operas will tour to Leeds, Nottingham, Salford and Hull. 

WNO's Summer seaon features David McVicar's new production of Puccini's Il Trittico which debuts in Scotland this month. The conductor is Carlo Rizzi and the cast includes Justina Gringytė, Vuvu Mpofu, and Alexia Voulgaridou. The production will not tour and is only being performed in Cardiff.

Throughout the year, the WNO Orchestra will be giving a programme of concerts including St David's Hall, and two concert tours, whilst the Orchestra of Opera North will be appearing at the Kirklees Concert Season

More than just a rarity: Tchaikovsky's first surviving opera, Oprichnik, gets a vibrant performance from Chelsea Opera Group

Tchaikovsky, aged 33 in January 1874 
Photographed by Alfred Lorenz in Saint Petersburg
(Photo Tchaikovsky Research Project)

Tchaikovsky: Oprichnik; Seljan Nasibli, Brian Smith Walters, Yvonne Howard, Stephen Richardson, Nicholas Lester, conductor: James Ham; Chelsea Opera Group at Cadogan Hall
Saturday 12 March 2023

Tchaikovsky's first surviving opera in what was surprisingly its English premiere, proves full of colour and drama, with some strong individual performances

Tchaikovsky was fascinated by opera; he started writing around 20 of which nine survive as complete works. We know so very few of them well. His first opera to survive was Oprichnik which debuted in 1874, so comes at the time he was working on his first two symphonies. It was performed in concert by Scottish Opera at the Edinburgh Festival in 1992, which was the work's UK premiere. On Saturday night (11 March 2023) the ever-enterprising Chelsea Opera Group gave Tchaikovsky's Oprichnik its English premiere at Cadogan Hall. James Ham conducted with Seljan Nasibli as Natalya, Brian Smith Walters as Andrey, Yvonne Howard as Andrey's mother, Stephen Richardson as Natalya's father, Elinor Rolfe Johnson as Natalya's maid and Nicholas Lester as Prince Vyazminsky.

The title translates as The Guardsman and refers to Tsar Ivan IV's hated political police. The opera takes place during Ivan's reign under the weight of oppression from the Oprichniks. The libretto is by Tchaikovsky himself, based on an existing historical drama by Ivan Lazhechnikov. This had been written in 1843, but the play was not performed, due to censorship, until 1867 and then repeated during the 1869/1870 season. And by 1870, Tchaikovsky was talking about writing an opera based on the play, though for the first scene, with Natalya and her ladies in the garden, the entire libretto was lifted from Tchaikovsky's earlier, discarded opera, The Voyevoda and there are around seven numbers in Oprichnik which include reworked music from The Voyevoda (see the Tchaikovsky Research Project for details).

Late-Romantic atmosphere & emotional turmoil: Ethel Smyth's Der Wald gets a rare outing

Ethel Smyth: Der Wald; Becca Marriott, Jacob Bettinelli, Louis Hurst, Lizzie Ryder, Martins Smaukstelis, Francesca Lauri, Panaretos Kyriatzidis; The Opera Makers at Holy Sepulchre Church
Friday 10 March 2023

A rare outing indeed for Smyth's second opera, 70 minutes of late-Romantic atmosphere and emotional turmoil, well caught in this small-scale performance

When the guns began to roar and the armies march at the beginning of World War I, it marked a significant divide in Ethel Smyth's career. German-trained, she had remained something of a German composer, performances of her work across Europe being far more common than in England. In 1914, she had major European performances of her operas planned, the two being Der Wald and Strandrecht (the German version of The Wreckers). Never again would she write large-scale romantic drama and her final three operas are smaller scale and firmly English.

Smyth's second opera, Der Wald had a distinguished history, it was premiered at the Königliches Opernhaus in Berlin in 1902, going on to have performances in London, New York and Strasbourg. It was the first opera by a woman to be presented at the Metropolitan Opera in New York (and remained so until 2016, when Kaija Saariaho's opera L'Amour de loin was first performed there). Since then, nothing.

Ethel Smyth's Der Wald received what was perhaps its first London performance since its UK premiere on Friday 10 March 2023 in an enterprising concert performance from The Opera Makers at Holy Sepulchre Church. Panaretos Kyriatzidis conducted, with Becca Marriott as Iolanthe, Jacob Bettinelli as Rudolf, Louis Hurst as the Pedlar, Lizzie Ryder as Röschen, Martins Smaukstelis as Heinrich and Masimba Ushe as Peter, accompanied by Francesca Lauri at the piano, and there was a large, voluntary chorus made up largely of music students.

Snakebite! composer Stephen Montague at 80

Stephen Montague

If you ask composer Stephen Montague about the style of his music, his response is likely to echo the maverick American composer Henry Cowell (1897-1965) who wanted to live in the whole world of music, not just one corner. Stephen is 80 this year and remains just as much a free musical spirit as before. I recently met up with him to chat about his forthcoming birthday concert at St John's Smith Square, where Southbank Sinfonia will be joined by an array of conductors and other performers to celebrate Stephen with a programme of his music ranging from the 1990s to recent works.

When it comes to music, Stephen admits that he is interested in too many things, which is unfashionable at the moment; composers such as Philip Glass and Steve Reich have made names for themselves by cultivating a particular corner of the musical landscape. But Stephen likes writing everything, something that he feels he takes unconsciously on board, so his style can be experimental or tonal and use functional harmony, esoteric or full Hollywood-style film score. This has been unfashionable during Stephen's lifetime and has applied to the visual arts too.

But every piece has Stephen's hallmark on it in some way, he feels that he tends toward recognisable harmonies and any dirty dissonances often resolve. He now does exactly what he wants to do and can take the consequences, and like Mozart, he knows for whom he is writing and the sort of music needed. Stephen recently wrote a large-scale ballet for Birmingham Royal Ballet; being a ballet dance piece, he clearly understood that this was not the time for experimentalism and that dancers have to be able to count so it wasn't time for irregularity.

Daylight Music is back with two Piano Days

Daylight Music

East London's favourite and most dynamic music series, Daylight Music is back on Saturday 11 March with the first of two days devoted entirely to the piano. Saturday's Piano Day at St John's Leytonstone features Jenny Moore, songwriter and lead mystic of the choral-punk ensemble Jenny Moore’s Mystic Business, duo Tori Freestone on tenor saxophone and Alcyona Mick on piano, and performer and composer Maya-Leigh Rosenwasser, whose performance will include a curated journey through composers who connect with themes of playfulness, queerness, intimacy, gender as well as engaging with perceptions of societal and artistic notions of success and failure.  

The second Piano Day, on 1/4/2023 (and repeated in Faversham on 2/4/23) features musician Matthew Bourne, who presents Iconoclast, which is Glen Leach on piano, Matthew Bourne on synthesizer and Emil Karlsen on drums and percussion, a solo set from Ruth Goller, and Nika Ticciati's Cataclysm Ensemble, a spiritual jazz-punk band.

Other events to come include the return of the London Accordion Orchestra with Guildhall Saxophone Ensemble.

Full details from the Daylight Music website.

Britten Sinfonia's Play On appeal

Britten Sinfonia at Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden (Photo: Tom Lovatt)

Britten Sinfonia has launched a £1 million appeal to help secure its future in the wake of the cut to its Arts Council Funding. The orchestra was an Arts Council Portfolio Organisation from April 2020 to April 2023 but has been removed from the list for the following period. It has secured transition funding until October 2023, but then has a significant short-fall in budget.

The orchestra has always used a mixed funding model with 50% of its income coming from ticket sales and engagements, with the remainder (approximately 25% each) from Arts Council funding and the orchestra's independent fundraising efforts.  The orchestra’s annual turnover is typically in the region of £1.5 million.

Whilst the orchestra has a strong presence in London, it is an associate ensemble at the Barbican, it also has an important presence in East Anglia and Essex. It is resident at Saffron Hall and gives regular seasons in Cambridge and in Norwich, as well as performing at the Aldeburgh Festival and the Norwich and Norfolk Festival.

Outside the concert hall, Britten Sinfonia musicians work on creative and therapeutic projects with pre-school children, teenagers, young carers, people living with dementia, life-time prisoners and older people at risk of isolation. The orchestra also has two talent development schemes for composers: Opus 1 and Magnum Opus.

Those lending support to the Play On appeal include a range of musical figures close to Britten Sinfonia, including composers Steve Reich, Master of the King’s Music, Judith Weir, Sir James MacMillan, Thomas Adès and Nico Muhly,  singers Dame Sarah Connolly and Roderick Williams, trumpeter Alison Balsom, harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani and pianist Benjamin Grosvenor. 

Read our recent coverage of Britten Sinfonia events, including The Golden Road to Samarkand and Holst's Savitri.

Do donate at https://playon.brittensinfonia.com/

Sending everyone away with a smile: Academy of Ancient Music in Purcell and Locke

Matthew Locke

Locke, Humfrey, Banister, Reggio: The Tempest, Purcell: Hail! Bright Cecilia; Academy of Ancient Music, Laurence Cummings; Milton Court Concert Hall
Reviewed 9 March 2023

An imaginative programme paired one of Purcell's large-scale masterworks with a theatrical sequence from a joint-effort Shakespeare adaptation, all lifted by engaging, rhythmically alert and colourful performances

Last night (9 March 2023) at Milton Court Concert Hall, Laurence Cummings and the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) gave us a feast of last 17th-century English music. The focus of the programme was Purcell's largest and grandest ode, Hail! Bright Cecilia, which was imaginatively paired with a sequence of the surviving music from the 1674 production of Shakespeare's The Tempest with music by Matthew Locke, Pelham Humfrey, John Banister and Pietro Reggio. The soloists, eight in all, were all members of the choir.

In France and Italy, in their various ways, the court ceremonial musical entertainments (masque, ballet du court and such) developed into large-scale, fully sung opera. The English, perhaps with an innate love-hate relationship with Continental influences, did something different. There were fully sung theatrical pieces during the mid-17th century, such as The Siege of Rhodes (1656) but these seem to have been as much about getting around Puritan laws against spoken drama as an innate desire for full-sung opera. With the Restoration, the preferred musical entertainment was the spectacular, an evening combining spoken word, instrumental music, song, and dance with spectacular stagings, variously called dramatick opera or semi-opera. But there was a certain flexibility, so plays with a bit of incidental music might shade into full dramatick opera spectaculars. One of these was Thomas Shadwell's 1674 production of The Tempest.

This used a version of the text based on one rewritten by John Dryden in 1667, there was singing and dancing, and plenty of extra characters (an extra daughter for Prospero, love interest for her, a girl-friend for Ariel and a sister for Caliban). It was a great success. The music, as was common at this period, was the product of a number of hands and, as was also common, the theatrical scores do not survive. But in 1675, Matthew Locke published his contribution, a suite of dances and act tunes, whilst some songs by the other composers do survive. The AAM gave us a substantial sequence that interspersed Locke's dances with songs by John Banister (one-time master of the King's violin band), Pelham Humfrey (master of the Children of the Chapel Royal and French-trained), and two Italian emigres, Giovanni Draghi and Pietro Reggio.

Requiem: Journeys of the Soul - For LEEDS 2023, Opera North, Phoenix Dance Theatre & Jazzart Dance Theatre in a staged Mozart Requiem

Phoenix Dance Theatre dancers in rehearsal for Requiem (Photo: Point of View Photography)

As part of LEEDS 2023 Year of Culture, two Leeds-based companies Opera North and Phoenix Dance Theatre are joining forces with South African partners Jazzart Dance Theatre and Cape Town Opera to present a staged re-imagining of Mozart’s Requiem at the Grand Theatre, Leeds from 26 May to 4 June 2023. The collaboration follows on from Opera North and Phoenix Dance Theatre's collaborations on The Rite of Spring (2019) and West Side Story Symphonic Dances (2021).  

The performance will combine Mozart's music with that of South African composer Neo Muyanga. Muyuanga's new work for choir and orchestra, After Tears: After a Requiem was conceived as a response to Mozart’s Requiem. Both will be choreographed by Dane Hurst, guest choreographer and former artistic director of Phoenix Dance Theatre, for dancers from Phoenix and from Jazzart Dance Theatre. Garry Walker will conduct the chorus and orchestra of Opera North, with four guest soloists.

The production, conceived during the COVID-19 pandemic, takes Mozart’s music as an act of remembrance, honouring those we have lost – and examining what life means for those left behind in a reflective and hopeful expression of the beauty, brutality and brevity of life.

Full details from the Opera North website.

Shifting harmonies & tonal instability: Kitty Whately & Joseph Middleton are sympathetic & communicative in their programme of late-Romantic lieder on Befreit: A Soul Surrendered

Befreit: A Soul Surrendered  - songs by Johanna Müller-Hermann, Richard Strauss, Margarete Schweikert, Gustav Mahler; Kitty Whately, Joseph Middleton; Chandos

Early 20th-century Vienna is the focus for this disc of lieder focused around the intense subject of love and loss illuminated by gloriously sympathetic and communicative performances

The new disc from mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately and pianist Joseph Middleton on Chandos is entitled Befreit: A Soul Surrendered. The title track is Richard Strauss' Befreit, a strange but lovely song to a poem about someone dying. Around this, they have crafted a haunting programme of lieder by composers mainly from Vienna including Richard Strauss and ending with Gustav Mahler's Kindertotenlieder but also including two lesser-known names, Johanna Müller-Hermann and Margarete Schweikert, both of whom seem to have disappeared from view because of their sex rather than from any inherent quality of their music.

The music on the disc all circles around the late-Romantic, there are advanced harmonies yet moments of looking back. No-one approaches Schoenberg, quite, yet there is a sense of the instability of the harmonic world.

National Centre for Early Music celebrates International Women’s Day, now & throughout the year!

Ensemble Moliere

The National Centre for Early Music (NCEM) is celebrating International Women’s Day in style this year with a new composition Rossignolet by NCEM Composer Award winner Sarah Cattley, commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and presented by the all-female instrumentalists Ensemble Moliere (Radio 3 New Generation Baroque Ensemble) at a lunchtime concert to be broadcast at 1.30pm on Wednesday 8 March.  At the concert the ensemble will be joined by soprano Ruby Hughes for a programme that also includes music by three 18th century French composers, Mademoiselle Laurent, Mademoiselle Duval and Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre.

The concert will be available to listen to on catch up on BBC Sounds

Looking ahead, women composers are highlighted within this summer’s York Early Music Festival with a new work by Lithuanian composer and NCEM alumna Juta Pranulyte, commissioned jointly by NCEM, The Marian Consort and the Rose Consort; three miniature operas by the late 17th century French composer Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre telling the heartrending stories of three Biblical women and sung by three exception singers: Carolyn Sampson, Anna Dennis – winner of the RPS Vocal Award 2023 -  and Alys Mererid Roberts; and BBC New Generation Artist Helen Charlston presenting her award-winning Battle Cry! 

Sign the petition: BBC announces the disbanding of the BBC Singers

The BBC Singers

Please sign the petition to urge the BBC to stop this ridiculous and short-sighted decision. Full details at change.org.

The BBC has announced that as part of its New strategy for Classical Music it will be disbanding the BBC Singers - the only full-time professional choir in the UK. The BBC Singers’ roots can be traced back to 1924. Based at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios, the choir also gives free concerts at a number of venues across London and makes regular appearances at major festivals across the UK and beyond, with the vast majority of its performances broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

The number of people affected by the planned closure of the UK’s only full-time professional choir is significant. Firstly there are the 20 professional singers and additional administrative staff whose jobs and livelihoods will be taken away. The BBC Singers have a proud history of commissioning new works from contemporary composers - from the BBC Christmas Carol Competition to other commissions from established and promising composers. This important work would be lost. 

The choir does an incredible amount of outreach work in schools and other educational institutions, providing singing days and masterclasses to young singers and conductors from all backgrounds. 

Please sign the petition to urge the BBC to stop this ridiculous and short-sighted decision. Full details at change.org.

Once you hear it, I guarantee you'll be seduced: Arne Nordheim's The Tempest, Suite from the Ballet in a new recording from Bergen

Arne Nordheim; The Tempest, Suite from the Ballet; Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner, Beate Mordal, Jeremy Carpenter; LAWO Classics
Reviewed 7 March 2023

Nordheim's 1979 Shakespeare-based ballet in a single-disc distillation is full of magical timbres and a mysterious, seductive sound world

Whilst  Shakespeare's The Tempest has constantly fascinated composers, few if any have managed to turn it into a coherent dramatic musical work. The drama itself is simply too elusive and changeable. I saw the Ballet Rambert's production of Glen Tetley's ballet, The Tempest in Edinburgh in 1979 or 1980. A full evening, two-act ballet that had no corps de ballet and was based on a distinctly modernist score, it was totally fascinating. 

Tetley was commissioned for a new ballet by the Schwetzinger Festival and the resulting work was premiered at the Rokoko Theater, Schweztingen by Ballet Rambert in 1979. The score was commissioned from Norwegian composer, Arne Nordheim. In 2021, Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra presented music from Nordheim's The Tempest in concert at the Bergen International Festival combining the music with, not dance, but with a visual retelling of the story.

On this new disc from Norwegian label, Lawo Classics, Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra present Nordheim's The Tempest: Suite from the Ballet with soprano Beate Mordal and baritone Jeremy Carpenter.

There are eight movements to the suite, 'Calm Sea', 'Storm with Lightning and Thunder', 'Awakening', 'Magic Circle', 'Lacrymae', 'A Mazed Trod', 'Four Legs and Two Voices' and 'Caliban's Warning', some 50 minutes from a two-hour score. Nordheim writes for orchestra with double woodwind (including piccolo, cor anglais, bass clarinet and contrabassoon), horn, timpani, strings, percussion (three players), harp and celesta, plus of course the two wordless soloists and the electronics.

Light Flowing: cellist Clare O'Connell's new project for an innovative disc of contemporary music for solo cello

Clare O'Connell

I chatted to cellist Clare O'Connell back in 2021 [see my interview] about her solo disc, The Isolated Cellist, and about her innovative Berkhamsted concert series, Behind the Mirror. Now Clare has now started a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for an innovative disc of music for solo cello and solo cello and electronics on the NMC label. This will be the first disc of music for solo cello that NMC has recorded, and it will feature new pieces by Emily Hall, Emilie Levienaise Farrouch and Natalie Klouda.

Clare describes the new album as 'something very close to my heart and deeply relevant given the challenges of the past few years', and she wants it to be as uplifting and as experimental as possible. She comments, 'I am passionate about creating and sharing beautiful and moving musical experiences with people, both live and recorded, and I'm committed to raising up and collaborating with new artistic voices.'

The disc will not only feature music by Emily Hall, Emilie Levienaise Farrouch and Natalie Klouda, but will include contemporary works by Edmund Finnis, Alex Mills and Nick Martin.

The money raised will not only support creating the disc, but will enable Clare to commission the three new pieces from Hall, Farrouch and Klouda, and Natalie Klouda's piece will receive its premiere on International Women's Day 2024 (8/3/2024) at Wigmore Hall.

Clare's campaign starts today, do please register your support at Kickstarter.

A journey through sound: 'looking up | looking out' from a cellar full of noise - a trumpet, a tuba & live electronics create a bit of magic

looking up | looking out - Alistair MacDonald, Diana Salazar, Oliver Iredale Searle, Timothy Cooper, Karlheinz Stockhausen; a cellar full of noise; TNW Music
Reviewed 6 March 2023

Contemporary music and contemporary improvisations on movements from Stockhausen's Tierkreis; never have trumpet, tuba and electronics sounded so imaginative and so magical

looking up | looking out is a disc from contemporary music group a cellar full of noise on TNW Music, Centred on Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Tierkreis, the disc mixed recently composed pieces by Alistair MacDonald, Diana Salazar, Oliver Iredale Searle and Timothy Cooper with improvisations on Stockhausen’s Tierkreis.

TNW Music is the label for The Night With..., a charity based in Glasgow presenting salon-style concerts of interesting music in intimate, informal venues across Scotland and further afield. Run by composer Matthew Whiteside, it provides development and commissioning opportunities for young and emerging composers.

a cellar full of noise was brought together by Matthew Whiteside for the 2017 The Night With… season, though the performers had been friends since studying at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS). The ensemble is made up of Tom Poulson (trumpet), Danielle Price (tuba), and Timothy Cooper (composer & live electronics).

THIS IS MY BODY: Figure’s Co-Artistic Director Philip Barrett introduces their latest project, an immersive performance of Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri

The Swiss Church, London

After recent successes with Handel's Serse at Opera Holland Park (June 2022) and requiems by Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Fauré at North London's Union Chapel (November 2022), innovative historical performance ensemble Figure offers an immersive, surround-sound performance of Dieterich Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri at the Swiss Church on 14-15 March 2023.

Written in 1680, Buxtehude's cycle of seven cantatas has as its full title, Membra Jesu nostri patientis sanctissima (Limbs Most Holy of Our Suffering Jesus), and is described in the manuscript as a sung devotion. The stanzas of its main text are drawn from the medieval hymn Salve mundi salutare, also known as the Rhythmica oratio. Each cantata addresses a part of Jesus’ crucified body: feet, knees, hands, side, breast, heart and face; in each, Biblical words referring to the limb frame verses of the hymn’s text. 

Performed by solo voices (from memory), in the warm resonance of the elegant, white-washed Swiss Church (Covent Garden), Figure’s performance will both amplify Buxtehude’s original intentions and embody its subject matter, by placing a standing audience in the body of the sound – in the heart of the Passion scene – as the singers move freely throughout the space. Directed from the chamber organ by Figure’s Musical and Co-Artistic Director, Frederick Waxman, the performance will run uninterrupted before the evening gives way to drinks and further, more informal music-making.

Here, Figure’s other Co-Artistic Director, Philip Barrett introduces the work and the performance:

Season finale: Northern Chamber Orchestra's final three concerts in Macclesfield

The Northern Chamber Orchestra in 2022 (Photo: Sara Porter)

The Northern Chamber Orchestra's 2022-23 season in Macclesfield is concluding with a trio of concerts with music ranging from Bach and Handel, to Pergolesi and Mozart, to contemporary composers Lera Auerbach and Arvo Pärt. The orchestra's 2022-23 season in Macclesfield is its first to use the brand new, purpose-built, auditorium at The Kings’ School in Macclesfield.

On Saturday 11 March 2023, soprano Caroline Taylor and countertenor Ralph Thomas Williams join conductor Christopher Jones and the orchestra for Stabat Mater, a programme featuring Pergolesi's Stabat Mater and Sogno di Stabat Mater, a 2005 work by Lera Auerbach that reworks some of the themes from Pergolesi's piece.

On 1 April, the wind players from the orchestra will be directed by the principal oboe of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, John Roberts, in Mozart’s Serenade for 13 Winds ‘Gran Partita’  and music by Joachim Raff and Ruth Gipps. Then on 6 May, Spanish violinist Jorge Jimenez directs the orchestra in Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 2, 5 & 6, plus music by Alfred Schnittke and Arvo Pärt.

Full details from the Northern Chamber Orchestra website.

Scotland to Mesopotamia and beyond: Music at Oxford celebrates birthdays for Robert Saxton and Gregory Rose

Ancient Assyrian statue in the Louvre
thought to show Gilgamesh

Music at Oxford launches its Spring/Summer season on Friday 10 March 2023 with a concert from the English Symphony Orchestra with its recently appointed creative partner, violinist Esther Abrami in which they pair Scottish-themed works from Bruch and Mendelssohn with the premiere of Robert Saxton's Scenes from the Epic of Gilgamesh. Saxton, who was professor of composition at Oxford until 2021, celebrates his 70th birthday this year.

Another birthday celebration featured in the season is that of Gregory Rose, who celebrates his 75th birthday by conducting the premiere of his Oboe Concerto with soloist George Caird and the Jupiter Orchestra, in a concert that also includes music by Albinoni, Janacek and Tchaikovsky. And further celebrations take place at the final concert of the season, when Paris-based ensemble, Quatuor Modigliani, celebrates its 20th anniversary with a new piece by Jean Frederic Neuburger, plus Beethoven's String Quartet no. 13, Op. 130 with the Grosse Fuge as the finale.

Other visitors to Oxford for the season include Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, and the Marian Consort who perform music by Renaissance nun Raffaella Aleotti, Vincente Lusitano and William Byrd.

Full details from the Music at Oxford website.

An enjoyable romp: Rossini's 1825 coronation opera Il viaggio a Reims from English Touring Opera

Rossini: Il viaggio a Reims - end of Act II - English Touring Opera (Photo Richard Hubert Smith)

Rossini: Il viaggio a Reims; English Touring Opera, directed Valentina Ceschi, conducted Jonathan Peter Kenny; Hackney Empire

Rossini's 1825 coronation opera proves rather more than an occasional piece and a largely young cast have a great time and bring the work to life

Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims, ossia L'albergo del giglio d'oro (The Journey to Reims, or The Hotel of the Golden Fleur-de-lis) was his last opera in the Italian language. Written for Paris in 1825, it was an occasional work, commissioned to celebrate the coronation of King Charles X at Reims. With a cast of 14 major roles, Rossini never intended it to have a life beyond performances in 1825 and he reused much of the music for his final comedy, Le comte Ory.

That English Touring Opera is performing the work at the time we are planning the coronation of King Charles seems to be something delightfully serendipitous. But Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims was the third of ETO's main stage productions for the Spring tour. It opened on Saturday 4 March 2023 at Hackney Empire in a production directed by Valentina Ceschi, with Lucy Hall, Luci Briginshaw, Susanna Hurrell, Esme Bronwen-Smith, Julian Henao Gonzalez, Richard Dowling, Edward Hawkins, Grant Doyle, Jean-Kristof Bouton, Jerome Knox, Timothy Dawkins, Matthew McKinney, Llio Evans, Hollie-anne Bangham, Edward Jowle, Brenton Spiteri, Peter Edge and Eleanor Sanderson Nash. Designs were by Adam Wiltshire, with Cordelia Chisholm's gold box frame from Giulio Cesare, lighting was by Ric Mountjoy. Jonathan Peter Kenny conducted the Old Street Band.

Rossini: Il viaggio a Reims - Julian Henao Gonzalez (Conte di Libenskof), Esme Bronwen-Smith (Marchesa Melibea) - English Touring Opera (Photo Richard Hubert Smith)

Style and youthful charm: English Touring Opera brings out the musical delights of Donizetti's murderous heroine, Lucrezia Borgia

Donizetti: Lucrezia Borgia - Paula Sides - English Touring Opera (Photo: Richard Hubert Smith)

Donizetti: Lucrezia Borgia; Paula Sides, Thomas Elwin, Aidan Edwards, Katie Coventry, directed: Eloise Lally, conducted Gerry Cornelius, the Old Street Band; English Touring Opera at the Hackney Empire

A welcome outing for Donizetti's rarely staged Lucrezia as ETO brings out the work's musical riches in an engaging performance from a largely youthful cast including a period instrument band

With the exception of his comedies and a bare handful of more serious operas, Donizetti's operas are only rarely seen in the opera house, so it was welcome indeed that English Touring Opera's second production of their 2023 Spring Season was Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia. Last seen in London in 2011 at ENO (in Mike Figgis' production with Claire Rutter), the work's previous major outing in the capital was at Covent Garden in 1980 with Joan Sutherland.

On Friday 3 March 2023, English Touring Opera (ETO) performed Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia at the Hackney Empire. Directed by Eloise Lally, the performance featured Paula Sides as Lucrezia, Thomas Elwin as Gennaro, Aidan Edwards as Alfonso and Katie Coventry as Orsini, plus Jerome Knox, Brenton Spiteri, Monwabisi Lindi, Peter Edge, Phil Wilcox, Matthew McKinney, Edward Jowle, Aaron O'Hare,  Masimba Ushe and Ben Knight. Designs were by Adam Wiltshire within the gold box frame designed by Cordelia Chisholm for Giulio Cesare, lighting was by Ric Mountjoy. Gerry Cornelius conducted the Old Street Band, ETO's period instrument ensemble.

Donizetti wrote Lucrezia Borgia in 1833 for La Scala, Milan, three years after his breakout success with Anna Bolena and a year before Maria Stuarda. Lucrezia Borgia returns to the same literary version of history, this time based on a play by Victor Hugo. It is a strange piece. With most operas of the period, you can summarise what the opera is really about, the emotional nub. With Lucrezia it is tricky, the plot is almost inconsequential and is really only the unfortunate confluence of public and private in the life of its murderous heroine. Often, Donizetti's music fails to convince of these murderous intentions, yet is unfailingly wonderful. I came out of the theatre charmed and delighted, without being put through any sort of emotional wringer.

Donizetti: Lucrezia Borgia - Thomas Elwin, Katie Coventry & the ragazzi - English Touring Opera (Photo: Richard Hubert Smith)

With 'Arctic' she wanted to provide positivity and hope, to show what is worth preserving: Norwegian violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing on her latest project

Eldbjørg Hemsing

The Norwegian violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing recently released her debut album, Arctic, on the Sony Classical label. Recorded with the Arctic Philharmonic, the disc is a musical portrait of the Arctic featuring music by Jacob Shea alongside works by Frode Fjellheim, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Ola Gjeilo, James Newton Howard, Henning Sommerro, Selim Palmgren (1878-1951), Ole Bull (1810-1880) and Edvard Grieg (1843-1907). Recorded in one of the Artic Philharmonic's home towns, Bodø which is the second largest town in North Norway and located just North of the Arctic Circle, the recording was made in the cultural centre, Stormen (the storm) which opened in 2014. Eldbjørg comes from a musical family, both her mother and sister are violinists and together the two sisters organise a chamber music festival, The Hemsing Festival in their home town of Aurdal.

One or two statistics are perhaps helpful here, to convey the sheer distances involved. Bodø, just inside the Arctic circle, is around 1,200 km from Oslo in the very South of Norway. Tromsø is a further 500 km North of Bodø (some 1,700 km from Oslo) and it is over 900 km from Bodø to Honningsvåg at the very tip of Northern Norway. Aurdal, where Eldbjørg comes from, is some 170 km from Oslo, between Oslo and Bergen. All these distances are by road, courtesy of Google Maps, and for comparison, London to John O'Groats is 1,100 km.

When I ask Eldbjørg, why make an album about the Artic, she comments 'Why not?'

The Forte Sessions

Founded by Royal College of Music Masters student Matthew Iddeson, the Forte Sessions is a newly established media platform which aims to 'increase accessibility' in classical music as well as taking performances out of traditional spaces.

For their first video, launched last month, guitarist Zoe Barnet performs the Sonata III, ‘Chanson’ by Mexican composer Manuel Ponce (1882-1948) in London's historic Denmark Street, the traditional home of British rock and roll.

The Forte Sessions are on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fortesessions/ and YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@fortesessions

Handel in Rome: soprano Nardus Williams makes solo debut with Dunedin Consort

Having made an impression with her performance as Belinda in Errollyn Wallen's opera Dido's Ghost with the Dunedin Consort [see my review], soprano Nardus Williams is returning to sing with the consort in her solo debut with them in an all-Handel concert, Handel in Rome, directed by Benjamin Bayl. This is the first of a series of projects that the consort is doing with Nardus Williams.

Handel in Rome features some of the dazzling music that Handel wrote for his Italian patrons whilst he was in Rome during 1707 and 1708. Opera was banned in the city at the time, so composers and patrons turned to other large-scale forms and the concert includes arias from two of Handel's Italian oratorios, Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno and La Resurrezione. But much of the time, Handel wrote for private events held by his patrons and we here two of his smaller scale cantatas, Ero e Leandro (telling the story of Hero and Leander) and Tra le fiamme, telling the story of Daedelus. There will also be instrumental music including one of his Opus 6 concerto grossos.

Benjamin Bayl is a former student of the Dunedin Consort's music director, John Butt, and this will be the first time that Bayl has directed the consort.

There are performances at Glasgow University Chapel (28 March), Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh (29 March), Wigmore Hall, London (30 March), Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden (31 March). Full details from the Dunedin Consort's website.

The African Concert Series at Wigmore Hall

Omo Bello, Richard Olatunde Baker, Rebeca Omordia

The African Concert Series is returning with its fifth edition, but this time at the Wigmore Hall where on 13 May 2023 there will be a day of concerts with piano music, chamber music and art song.

Things begin with a late-morning recital from the concert series' artistic director, pianist Rebeca Omordia playing music by Nigerians Ayo Bankole (1935-1976) and Christian Onyeji (born 1967), Moroccan Nabil Benabdeljalil (born 1972), South African David Earl (born 1951) and Ghanaian Fred Onovwerosuoke (born 1960). 

In the afternoon, Journeys from Home features songs by composers of African backgrounds but whose careers took them elsewhere, performed by Omo Bello (soprano), Richard Olatunde Baker (percussion) and Rebeca Omordia. Composers featured include Ayo Bankole who studied in London, Cambridge and Los Angeles; Akin Euba (1935-2020) who worked in Germany, America and the UK, and the renowned 18th-century Paris-based violinist Joseph Bologne (1745-1799) famously known as the Chevalier de Saint-Georges. 

In the evening, there will be chamber music performed by the Ubuntu Ensemble, founded by double bass player Leon Bosch. The programme includes the world premiere of a song cycle by Grant McLachlan (born 1956) for the South African star, baritone Theo Magongoma accompanied by the pianist Tessa Uys, plus works by Peter Klatzow (1945-2021), Mokale Koapeng, Fodé Lassana Diabaté and Moussa Dembele. 

Full details from the Wigmore Hall website.

The Manchester Guitar Festival is back: three days of the world's finest guitar stars

Aquerelles Guitar Quartet

The Manchester Guitar Festival is back at Stoller Hall from 19 21 May 2023. The three-day festival features some of the world’s finest guitar stars from the world's of acoustic,  jazz, flamenco  and blues, plus workshops and master-classes, and there will be an opportunity for budding young guitarists to try out the world of Chetham’s as part of events with Chetham’s Guitar Choir and Chetham’s Guitar Academy.

The festival opens with Eric Bibb whom The Guardian described as 'one of the finest American exponents of acoustic Blues'. Bibb and his band will play a mix of classics and new material from his forthcoming album, Ridin'. Saturday moves towards Flamenco with Flamenco guitarist Miguel Pérez from Seville. He will be joined for the evening by Spanish Flamenco artists - dancer and choreographer Andrés Peña and cantaor (singer) Miguel Rosendo. Together they will present Espiritu Flamenco. The weekends ends with Manchester’s Aquarelle Guitar Quartet, one of the world’s leading guitar quartets, known for their extraordinary ensemble in performance and expansive repertoire.  

Running alongside the festival’s live performance schedule, are a series of talks and workshops led by musicians, Chetham’s School of Music guitar tutors and graduates. For little ones, the Stoller Hall’s monthly Stoller Story Sounds will run an interactive storytelling session for 3- 5 year olds, and their grown-ups. For older children, aged 8-16,there is the Guitar Choir, the place for young and budding guitar players to meet other young players and learn and play alongside them with hands on tuition and guidance led by professional guitarists and teachers. 

Full details from the Stoller Hall website.

Keenly dramatic: Puccini's Tosca at Opera North with a feisty Tosca, an unexpected Cavaradossi and a remarkable Scarpia

Puccini: Tosca - Robert Hayward - Opera North (Photo: James Glossop)

Puccini: Tosca; Giselle Allen, Andrés Presno, Robert Hayward, director: Edward Dick, conductor: Garry Walker; Opera North at the Grand Theatre, Leeds

A modern, film-noir take on Puccini's classic proves to be gripping theatre, with a trio of terrific performances from the leads

Edward Dick's production of Puccini's Tosca for Opera North debuted in 2018 with Giselle Allen (Tosca), Robert Hayward (Scarpia) and the late Rafael Rojas (Cavaradossi). The production returned to the Grand Theatre, Leeds in January 2023 with Giselle Allen and Robert Hayward returning to their roles and Mykhailo Malafii as Cavaradossi (in March, Magdalena Molendowska and Andrés Presno were due to take over as Tosca and Cavaradossi).

I caught the performance at the Grand Theatre on 28 February 2023; Malafii was ill and Cavaradossi was sung by Andrés Presno. Garry Walker conducted, with Callum Thorpe as Angelotti, Matthew Stiff as the Sacristan, Alex Banfield as Spoleta, and Richard Mosley-Evans as Sciarrone. Sets were by Tom Scutt, costumes by Fotini Dimou, and lighting was by Lee Curran.

Scutt's semi-permanent setting for the opera was somewhat abstract yet highly functional, effectively providing all the spaces needed for the mechanics of the plot. Act One featured a dome (with a hole at the centre) with one panel missing. This was what Cavaradossi was painting, the final panel of his Magdalene for the dome, her eyes. The missing panel in the ceiling suggested something off-kilter elsewhere. The stage was surrounded by columns of lights and a semi-circle of altars. The acting area was raised, but leaving a passageway around the altars so a young altar girl could walk around and light them, something that happened both in Acts One and Act Two. 

Puccini: Tosca - Robert Hayward - Opera North (Photo: James Glossop)