UK-based arts writer, Tony Cooper, offers a preview of Northern Opera Group’s 8th Annual Leeds Opera Festival which includes a brand-new opera on Sherlock Holmes.

Running from 17 August to 8 September 2024, the 8th Annual Leeds Opera Festival, programmed by Northern Opera Group, offers audiences a blend of world premières alongside exciting collaborations designed for the whole community. The festival’s renowned for combining new productions of rare operas peppered by  a wide programme of talks, panel discussions, workshops and other events across the late August Bank Holiday weekend.  

For instance, the 2023 festival featured the UK première of Robert Rodriguez’ opera Frida alongside a collaboration with the Northern School of Contemporary Dance on Piazzolla’s Maria de Buenos Aires in a healthy and inspiring four-week programme of opera and music inspired by Latin America. Other recent productions include Charles Villiers Stanford’s Much Ado About Nothing (2019) and Handel’s Silla (2022).  

And reaching out to communities in Leeds and Bradford, Northern Opera Group is committed in enabling people of all ages and abilities to take part in opera with an annual community opera engaging participants and family audiences in both these important and culturally fired-up northern towns. Recent productions have included César Cui’s Little Red Riding Hood (2022) and David Parry’s Pied Piper of Hamelin (2024). 

Piazzolla: Maria de Buenos Aires - Leeds Opera Festival 2023 (Photo: Rhian Hughes)

And a major new commission this year sees the world’s first-ever opera adaptation surrounding the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes. Entitled Sherlock Holmes and The Sign of Four, the opera’s directed by David Ward, written by award-winning composer Lliam Paterson (also responsible for the libretto) and conducted by Ellie Slorach with stage design by Caitlin Mawhinney and lighting by Charly Dunford. Audiences can, therefore, well expect a musical journey through the iconic tale bringing a fresh perspective to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic work. 

The outstanding bass Edward Hawkins leads a strong cast in the title-role working alongside tenor David Horton as Watson while soprano Ellen Mawhinney is cast in the role of Mary and bass Trevor Eliot Bowes as Jonathan Small. The cast is further strengthened by Katy Thomson (Mrs Hudson), Dominic Mattos (Thaddeus Sholto) and Zahid Siddiqui (Athelney Jones). 

Complementing the mysteries and intrigue of Mr Holmes’ shenanigans an interactive mystery show will tour West Yorkshire libraries targeted for children from 8 to12 years old. Entitled The Book of Eternity the show will call at over 20 libraries across Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield and Kirklees offering an immersive experience which promises to bring the magic of opera to diverse communities across the region which will include creative workshops with primary school pupils in Leeds. The story is written by leading children’s mystery author, Clare Povey. 

The festival will also feature a Musical Escape Room which combines the thrill of opera with the immersive challenges of an escape room experience. This collaboration with a local Escape Room company promises a unique and entertaining fusion of music and mystery that would, I’m sure, impress the famous deerstalker detective. 

A new direction this year is the introduction of the festival’s first guest artistic director, a move designed to diversify artistic leadership and support the next generation of opera leaders. And as part of its wider commitment to fostering a more equitable and sustainable opera community, Northern Opera Group has also become one of the only companies to establish a house agreement with Equity. This agreement solidifies the company’s long-standing commitment to appropriate levels of pay and positive working conditions for artists. 

The festival is supported by Arts Council England, International Music and Art Foundation, Postlethwaite Music Foundation, RVW Trust, Marchus Trust, Leeds Community Foundation, Sir Keith Howard Foundation and Leeds City Council. 

For more information check out www.northernoperagroup.co.uk 

Let the dialogue flow: Benjamin Bernheim leads a wonderfully memorable account of Massenet's Werther in Zurich

Massenet: Werther - Benjamin Bernheim, Valeriy Murga - Zurich Opera (Photo: Toni Suter)

Massenet: Werther; Benjamin Bernheim, Rihab Chaieb, Sandra Hamaoui, Audun Iversen, Valeriy Murga, director: Tatjana Gürbaca/Nina Russi, conductor: Giedrė Šlekytė; Zurich Opera
Reviewed 19 January 2024

One of those performances created by people who understood what is needed in Massenet's opera with one of the most finely sung accounts of the title role that I have ever heard. Pure magic

Zurich Opera debuted its production of Massenet's Werther at Zurich Opera House in 2017, directed by Tatjana Gürbaca with Juan Diego Florez in the title role. On Friday 19 January 2024, the production received its first revival (revival director Nina Russi), conducted by Giedrė Šlekytė with Benjamin Bernheim in the title role, Rihab Chaieb making her house debut as Charlotte, Sandra Hamaoui as Sophie, Audun Iversen as Albert and Valeriy Murga as Le Bailli.

Werther has an important Swiss history. Written in 1885, it was rejected by the Opéra Comique in Paris as being too serious. Eventually the work would be premiered in Vienna at the Hofoper in German in 1892. The first performance in the original French was later in 1892 in Geneva, with the first performance in France not happening until 1893 when it was given by the Théâtre Lyrique and it was not until 1903 that the Opéra Comique took the work on.

In Zurich, Klaus Grünberg's set consisted of a single wood panelled box with compartments/cupboards that opened to reveal the necessaries for the plot - dinner things, bread, Albert's pistol, an organ for Act Two, an urn with Charlotte's mother's ashes and so on. Costumes (by Silke Willrett) were roughly modern, however no mobile phones and Le Bailli uses a small portable typewriter.

Massenet: Werther - Benjamin Bernheim, Rihab Chaib - Zurich Opera (Photo: Toni Suter)

But there was also a surreal element to the staging in the way the children in Act One would emerge from odd cupboards whilst throughout the evening members of the cast emerged and disappeared through odd panels. For his first entrance, Benjamin Bernheim's Werther emerged along the fore-stage and walked into the dramatic space, whilst his hymn to nature took place whilst he wandered round the stationery members of Le Bailli's family, almost as if Werther had conjured them from his imagination.

From large-scale Liszt and Wagner to intimate Schumann and Schubert at Lucerne's Le Piano Symphonique

Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 2 - Yoav Levanon, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra - Le Piano Symphonique, Lucerne (Photo: Philipp Schmidli)

Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 2, Wagner, arr. Michael Sanderling: Götterdämmerung Suite, Schumann: Symphonic Etudes, Op 13, Schubert: Allegro in A minor, D947; Yoav Levanon, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, Michael Sanderling, Elisabeth Leonskaja, David Fray; Le Piano Symphonique at KKL, Lucerne
Reviewed 18 January 2024

From Lisztian bombast to Wagnerian sorcery with the Lucerne orchestra in fine fettle, then the contrast of mesmerising solo Schumann from Elisabeth Leonskaja and ending with pure friendship as she and David Fray duetted

The history of Liszt's piano concertos is somewhat complex. He began sketching ideas for what would become his first piano concerto in 1830, but it did not come to completion until 1849. In the mean time, he began work on what would become his second piano concerto in 1839/40 but did not complete the final revisions to the work until 1861. By this time his career as a virtuoso was over, so the two concertos have rather different aims. The first is a virtuoso vehicle, allowing space for the soloist who initiates ideas. The second is closer to Liszt's symphonic poems with the piano having a more accompanying role. As such, it was fascinating to hear the two played on successive evenings by the same soloist, orchestra and conductor, in the same hall.

David Fray, Elisabeth Leonskaja - Le Piano Symphonique, Lucerne (Photo: Philipp Schmidli)

An evening of bold & adventurous programming: wind & brass from Southbank Sinfonia & Britten Sinfonia combine under Nicholas Daniel at St John's Smith Square

Percy Grainger in the uniform of a US Army bandsman, 1917

Copland, Mozart, Lindberg, Stravinsky, Alberga, Grainger; Southbank Sinfonia, Britten Sinfonia, Nicholas Daniel; St John's Smith Square
Reviewed by Florence Anna Maunders, 18 January 2024

An enormously successful collaboration between two leading chamber orchestras

Combining the wind, brass and percussion players from two fantastic orchestras together into one ensemble, this was an evening of bold and adventurous programming featuring the combined forces from two different exciting and engaging ensembles. 

At St John's Smith Square on 18 January 2024, members of Southbank Sinfonia and Britten Sinfonia combined under conductor Nicholas Daniel to present a kaleidoscopic and vibrant selection of music originally written for, or specially arranged for, wind and brass (with a sprinkle of percussion too), with music by Copland, Mozart, Magnus Lindberg, Stravinsky, Eleanor Alberga and Percy Grainger.

Made in Switzerland: tenor Daniel Behle & pianist Oliver Schnyder combine musicality & intelligence in their recital for Lucerne's Le Piano Symphonique

View of Lucerne - watercolour by Felix Mendelssohn 1847 (Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Made in Switzerland - Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schubert/Liszt, Liszt, Wagner, R. Strauss; Daniel Behle, Oliver Schnyder; Le Piano Symphonique at Lukaskirche, Lucerne
Reviewed 18 January 2024

A wonderfully imaginative programme centred on music created in Switzerland in finely communicative and musical performances, combining bravura and technical skill with sheer musicality and intelligence

Le Piano Symphonique's lunchtime concerts in Lucerne largely take place in the Lukaskirche, a fine 1930s church not far from KKL, the festival's evening home. There, in front of the impressive stained glass window of the Last Judgement (by Louis Moilliet), Swiss pianist Oliver Schnyder and German tenor Daniel Behle presented Made in Switzerland on 18 January 2024, a programme exploring music by composers who lived and worked in Switzerland. Their programme centred on Liszt's Années de pèlerinage, Première année: Suisse, and ended with Richard Strauss, living in Switzerland after World War II and writing his Four Last Songs.

But the recital began with Mendelssohn who not only visited Lucerne but painted it in 1847 (see above). Some ten years before this, Mendelssohn was writing his Bach-inspired Six Preludes and Fugues, Op. 35 and Oliver Schnyder played the first of these, in E Major. The prelude was full of movement and drama with Schnyder making a wonderfully vivid sound. The fugue began in a concentrated fashion with a rather chromatic fugue subject, but Schnyder made the movement build in momentum and drama leading to a vibrant climax, which was followed by Mendelssohn's incorporation of a chorale into the structure.

From poetic Liszt and Grieg concertos to a little bit of magic from Martha Argerich and friends at Le Piano Symphonique in Lucerne

Grieg: Piano Concerto - Elisabeth Leonskaja, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, Michael Sanderling (Photo: Philipp Schmidli, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester)

Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 1, Grieg: Piano Concerto, Haydn, Mendelssohn; Yoav Levanon, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, Michael Sanderling, Martha Argerich, Mischa Maisky, Janine Jansen; Le Piano Symphonique at KKL (Kultur- und Kongresszentrum Luzern)
Reviewed 17 January 2024    

From the poetry of the young Yoav Levanon in Liszt's symphonic concerto and Elisabeth Leonskaya making Grieg her own to sheer magic from just three performers led by Martha Argerich in piano trios by Haydn and Mendelssohn

The Lucerne Symphony Orchestra's Le Piano Symphonique festival has returned to Lucerne for its fourth edition with a week of concerts focused on the piano and all things keyboard. The festival opened at Lucerne's KKL (Kultur- und Kongresszentrum Luzern) with a recital from pianists Michael Pletnev and Martha Argerich (recently named as the festival's Pianiste Associée) on Tuesday 16 January. We caught the second evening of the festival at KKL on 17 January 2024, Michael Sanderling conducted the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra in Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1 with soloist Yoav Levanon and Grieg's Piano Concerto with soloist Elisabeth Leonskaja. The festival continues its innovative exploration of concert programming, so the second half of the evening then moved to piano trios, with Martha Argerich joined by cellist Mischa Maisky and violinist Janine Jansen for Haydn's Piano Trio in G major, 'Gypsy Rondo' and Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor.

Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 1 - Yoav Levanon  (Photo: Philipp Schmidli, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester)

Yoav Levanon was the soloist last year in the festival's performance of the Paderewski Piano Concerto [see my review], and he has returned this year to perform both Liszt concertos as well as the Totentanz and then the performances will be recorded for Warner Classics next week. Levanon is something of a youthful wonder, still only nineteen and looking not unlike the young Liszt (and he is the age Liszt was when the composer started work on his concerto).

Les Noces – The Departure: a photo essay

New Movement Collective – Les Noces – The Departure © Photography by ASH

On 13 and 14 January 2024, the dance company New Movement Collective presented Stravinsky's Les Noces at Woolwich Works with new contemporary choreography and some of Britain's best contemporary dancers. The project's music director was Yshani Perinpanayagam and the performers included singers from the Opera Holland Park Chorus, musicians from the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music. 

New Movement Collective – Les Noces – The Departure © Photography by ASH

We weren't able to be there, but are presenting a selection of images to give a flavour of what was evidently an astonishing evening.

Northern Aldborough Festival marks 30 years with a celebratory 2024 festival

2024 sees the Northern Aldborough Festival marking its 30th year presenting music in the picturesque village of Aldborough near York. This year the festival runs from 13 June to 22 June 2024. The festival opens with a focus on young artists as 25-year-old Tom Fetherstonehaugh conducts Fantasia Orchestra, (made up of the UK’s most exciting young musicians), alongside pianist Alim Beisembayev, who at 23 won the last Leeds Piano Competition, performing Tchaikovsky and Chopin.

Other highlights include the Armonico Consort bringing its semi-staged production of Purcell's The Fairy Queen, the Julian Joseph Trio, violinist Viktoria Mullova with pianist Alasdair Beatson, and of course the festival's New Voices Singing Competition. Young artists performing include guitarist Jack Hancher, pianist Adriana Babin, saxophonist/accordionist Mikeleiz-Zucchi Duo and winner of the festival 2023 New Voices Singing Competition mezzo-soprano Lea Shaw with pianist Kristina Yorgova.

Aldborough’s late-night venue ‘The Shed’ also returns for concert goers who want to continue festivities in a relaxed environment with a variety of live entertainment and refreshments.

Full details from the festival website.

Continuing support: both the City Music Foundation and the Continuo Foundation announce plans for supporting artists in 2024

CMF Artists on the Hogarth Stair at St Bartholomew's Hospital in 2021

Two foundations that regularly support performers have announced plans for the coming year, with the City Music Foundation opening applications for 2024 artists, and the Continuo Foundation announcing its latest grant-making initiative (its seventh).

The City Music Foundation (CMF) has announced the opening of applications for 2024. Emerging solo performers and ensembles in classical, jazz and folk can apply for the CMF's programme of artist mentoring and support. During the very fragile early stages of a professional career, CMF helps artists to develop their unique creative vision, and gaining recognition and a network within the music industry, with the aim of guiding them towards a secure and sustainable future in the profession.

This year there had been a slight change of approach, responding to discussions with artists and to the changes in the financial climate. The CMF will now focus on particular projects, and it has been in project-based support that artists have found most impactful and inspirational. 

2024 applications will be for CMF funding to support for a particular project of either a large (up to £10,000) or small (<£500) sum. The chosen artists will also receive a generous programme of professional development alongside the funding; mentoring will remain integral to the programme, as well as CMF-promoted performances.

Full details from the CMF website, deadline is 25 March 2024.

The Continuo Foundation has announced its seventh grant-making initiative for UK period instrument ensembles. In this new round, £100,000 in grants will be made available for live early music concert tours and other exceptional artistic projects taking place across the UK between April and October 2024.

This will bring the total disbursed by the Continuo Foundation to £750,000. The foundation has awarded grants to 85 period-instrument ensembles, supporting 145 projects to date. These initiatives have benefited 970 freelance musicians and brought uplifting music to nearly 100,000 audience members across 150 UK locations and online. 

Project proposals will be accepted from both established and emerging ensembles, and 40% of the funds allocated in Grant Round Six were dedicated to the recently formed ensemble category. Grants for the current round will range from £2000 to £8000, and the application submission deadline is 9 February 2024.Full details from the Continuo Foundation website.

Continuo Foundation Performances

Eavesdropping on their dramas: Opera North's 'in the round' production Britten's Albert Herring

Britten: Albert Herring - Claire Pascoe, Dafydd Jones - Opera North (Photo: Tom Arber) 

Britten: Albert Herring; Judith Howarth, Heather Shipp, Amy Freston, William Dazeley, Paul Nilon, Richard Mosley-Evans, Dominic Sedgwick, Dafydd Jones, Katie Bray, Claire Pascoe, Rosa Sparks Willow Bell, Oliver Mason, director: Giles Havergal/Elaine Tyler-Hall, conductor: Garry Walker; Opera North at the Howard Assembly Room

A wonderfully involving revival of Giles Havergal's intimate, in the round production of Britten's comedy brings out the work's humanity

Britten's Albert Herring was written as a relatively portable chamber opera for the English Opera Group. Famously premiered at Glyndebourne in 1947, when John Christie evidently told people he didn't like it, the work has generally been performed in medium to large size theatres. When Giles Havergal directed the work for Opera North in 2013, it was performed not in the Grand Theatre, Leeds, but in the smaller Howard Assembly Room.

The production returned to the Howard Assembly Room on 12 January 2024 revived by Elaine Tyler-Hall, conducted by Garry Walker with Judith Howarth as Lady Billows, Heather Shipp as Florence Pike, Amy Freston as Miss Wordsworth, William Dazeley as Mr Gedge, Paul Nilon as Mr Upfold, Richard Mosley-Evans as Sid, Dominic Sedgwick as Sid, Dafydd Jones as Albert Herring, Katie Bray as Nancy, Claire Pascoe as Mrs Herring, Rosa Sparks as Emmie Spashett, Willow Bell and Oliver Mason as Cissie Woodger and Harold Wood (alternating with Lucy Eatock and Dougie Sadgrove). Designs were by Leslie Travers, lighting by John Bishop and movement by Tim Claydon.

The Howard Assembly Room is a rectangular space with a gallery on three sides. For this production, the orchestra was at the end of the space, the action in the centre of the room with the audience on three sides. There was no set, as such, everything was created out of boxes which were re-arranged and re-configured by the cast during scene changes. Instead of looking at the production through a proscenium, the audience surrounded it, creating a sense of intimacy. Yet Havergal did not simply make it seem as if we were eavesdropping, though largely naturalistic there were imaginative extra touches to the drama, such as the end of the first scene where the village worthies, including Lady Billows, launched into a dance to celebrate their solution to the conundrum of the Queen of the May.

Britten: Albert Herring - Judith Howarth, Heather Shipp - Opera North (Photo: Tom Arber) 

The effect on the music, of this sense of smaller scale, was to bring greater clarity and definition. For all it is a comedy, Albert Herring is a complex work, musically, and moments such as the nonet in Act Three, when the worthies think that Albert is dead, really benefited from this clarity.

A shelter where people can be sure of quality and find so much to discover: founder Michael Adda on his record label, La Dolce Volta

Michaël Adda (Photo: DR from L'Est Républicain)

Michael Adda founded the French record label La Dolce Volta in 2011 at a time when many labels were collapsing or changing, and since then the label has become known for its boutique approach.

Michael began working in the record industry in 1998 and was working for the French label Calliope in 2011 when it collapsed. This was a time when the industry was changing and creating his own label was a challenge. But working in the industry had taught him not just how to make a CD, but how to select musicians, get financial support and the importance of promotion. When Calliope collapsed it was a big mess and he was advised not to stay in to industry. He decided otherwise but wanted to try something without taking too many risks.

So he tried to imagine why people were not buying CDs and tried to imagine what would be, for him, the perfect CD. He decided he didn't like the jewel box, nor did he like slim booklets with articles talking about musicology. He wanted to see the musicians, and also if he wanted to market the discs worldwide then the text needed to not just be in French.

He decided to try three recording projects, creating something that didn't exist with luxury packaging, a digipack with a high number of pages and booklet articles based on interviews with the artists. He wanted to offer a blank sheet to the musicians to explain why they had recorded the music. Also, the discs would be recorded under the best conditions and the musicians would not have to contribute anything to recording costs. As a result, the musicians themselves become the best ambassadors for the label.

Byrd Compared: Phantasm & Anna Prohaska celebrate the consort song

Byrd Compared: Byrd and English Song; Anna Prohaska, Phantasm; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 10 January 2024

A programme celebrating the sheer diversity of William Byrd's consort songs, rendered with commitment and absolute identification by Anna Prohaska.

The consort song was a peculiarly English form from the late 16th and early 17th centuries for a solo voice accompanied by viols and the form continued alongside the Italian madrigal and the lute song. Viol consorts were a sociable, private thing, groups of friends would gather for such, which meant that the consort song was a similar sort of event, definitely more for the parlour than anything more public.

For their concert at Wigmore Hall on Wednesday 10 January 2023, Byrd Compared: Byrd and English Song, the viol consort Phantasm (Laurence Dreyfus, Jonathan Manson, Emilia Benjamin, Markku Luolajan-Mikkola) had clearly decided to mix things up somewhat and presented a programme of consort songs, not with a familiar specialist singer, but with the challenging intelligence of British-Austrian soprano Anna Prohaska.

Forging links: Natalia Ponomarchuk, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Elgar in the Ukraine

Natalia Ponomarchuk (Photo: Yuriy Balan)

On 19 January 2024, Ukrainian conductor Natalia Ponomarchuk is at the helm of the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Family Ties – The Schumanns and The Mendelssohns, a programme at the Royal Festival Hall that includes Clara Schumann's Piano Concerto and Robert Schumann's Introduction and Concert Allegro, both with pianist Alexander Melnikov along with Felix Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony and Fanny Mendelssohn's Overture in C major.

Natalia Ponomarchuk has been chief conductor of the Kyiv Chamber Orchestra since 2018. She escaped Kyiv in March 2022 after the Russian invasion and is now living in London and forging links with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO). The LPO Artistic Director Elena Dubinets made contact with her via Ukrainian composer Victoria Poleva; Dubinets wanted to help musicians affected by the war. Dubinets has helped her with her paperwork whilst LPO Principal Conductor Ed Gardner put her up in his house.

Ponomarchuk returns to the Ukraine every month for around 10 days to conduct her orchestra there, she has just returned from a longer trip where she had six concerts in Odessa and Kyiv. If the air raid siren goes off, the concert has to be paused and musicians and audience alike have to go into the shelter and wait for the alarm to stop. They cannot have full capacity audiences because not everyone would fit in the shelter. When the siren stops, they return to the stage and continue the concert. There is no difference between audience and performers, they are all having the same experience together during the performance; they all need music to get through the horrible circumstances.

During her next couple of trips she will be giving the Ukrainian premieres of Elgar’s two symphonies. The LPO performed them earlier this year and, at a rehearsal, just happened to speak to Andrew Neill about her dream to bring these Elgar symphonies to her home country. She did not know at the time that he was Chairman of the Elgar Society and could help make this dream a reality.

For Family Ties – The Schumanns and The Mendelssohns, see the LPO website, 

Thaxted Festival celebrates the 150th birthday of its founder, Gustav Holst

Thaxted Parish Church

The Thaxted Festival, based at the historic Thaxted Parish Church, has its origins in composer Gustav Holst's 1916 Whitsun Festival, so the 2024 Thaxted Festival will be celebrating the 150th anniversary of Holst's birth. 

Running from 21 June to 14 July 2024, the festival opens with Jonathan Bloxham conducting the London Mozart Players in Holst's A Fugal Concerto, with pianist Iyad Sughayer, and the world premiere of Noah Max's Symphony No. 1. There will also be a screening of Tony Palmer's 2011 film, In the Bleak Midwinter about Holst's life.

Echo Ensemble, directed by Noah Max, present COSMOS: A Celebration of The Planets, featuring words and music around Holst and his most well-known work, and the Armonico Consort perform Purcell's The Fairy Queen, a work given its first modern revival at the Old Vic in 1911 directed by Holst. The English Chamber Orchestra and choir of Kings College London will be performing Holst's First Choral Symphony.

Other performers include VOCES8, Wild Arts presenting Mozart's The Magic Flute, pianist Iyad Sughayer joining forces with oboist Armand Djikoloum, and baritone Neil Balfour and pianist Sholto Kynoch in works by Schumann, Holst, Puccini and Fauré.

Full details from the Festival website.

The African Concert Series at Wigmore Hall

Created by Nigerian/Romanian pianist Rebeca Omordia in 2019, the African Concert Series is returning for a sixth season in 2024. A highlight is a whole day of concerts at Wigmore Hall on 17 February 2024.

The day begins with a recital from the Seattle-based Ghanaian/American pianist William Chapman Nyaho. Piano music from Africa and the African Diaspora features music by Nigerian Joshua Uzoigwe (1946-2005), Ghanaians Fred Onovwerosuoke (born 1946) and Robert Kwami (1954-2004), Black British Samuel Coleridge Taylor (1875-1912), Jamaican Oswald Russell (1933-2012), and African Americans Hale Smith (1925-2009) and Margaret Bonds (1913-1972).

The afternoon features a programme of Spirituals performed by Leon Bosch (double bass) and Rebeca Omordia (piano) in arrangements by Leon Bosch. The evening performance features African chamber music by London-born Nigerian Tunde Jegede, performed by Tunde Jegede, kora and cello, Mohamed Gueye percussion and NOK Orchestra including Tunde Jegede's Mandé Suite, Kora Concerto, and Invocation along with his arrangements of traditional African songs.

In the early part of 2023 the African Concert Series launched a series of educational interactive events in Enfield in north London, and they will be featuring a Schools Concert on 8 February and a Family Concert on 15 February at Wigmore Hall.

The African Concert Series returns to Wigmore Hall on 20 July 2024. Full details from Wigmore Hall website.

Aldeburgh Festival at 75: festival regular, Tony Cooper reports

Britten: The Burning Fiery Furnace - Aldeburgh Festival, Orford Church, 1966 (Photo: John Richardson / Britten Pears Arts)

Flashing through life, this year’s Aldeburgh Festival notches up its 75th edition and features a stellar line-up of international performers offering a wealth of music across a wholesome 17 days. Festival regular, Tony Cooper, reports.

Founded by Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears and Eric Crozier in 1948, the Aldeburgh Festival, originally centred on the Borough’s cosy and intimate Jubilee Hall in Crabbe Street with a seating capacity of just 236. However, when Britten and Pears conceived the bright idea of turning the Victorian-built malt-house at Snape, situated about five miles inland from Aldeburgh, into an 832-seat venue, Snape Maltings Concert Hall was born. Officially opened by HM Queen Elizabeth II in 1967, the Snape Maltings Concert Hall suffered serious fire damage two years later, re-opening in time for the Aldeburgh Festival the following year. 

The larger venue, of course, opened the festival to a much wider audience while it could also attract much larger ensembles and orchestras, too, as opposed to the intimate (but much-loved) Jubilee Hall. Ambitious as ever, though, Britten and Pears never stood still and within five years they reclaimed more buildings on the site and established a centre for talented young musicians.  

Classical Vauxhall: Fiachra Garvey's festival is back with everything from Fairytales and Fantasy to Classical Soul.

Fiachra Garvey, co-founder and artistic director of Classical Vauxhall (Photo: Frances Marshall)

Classical Vauxhall is returning for the fifth year with a weekend of events in and around Vauxhall from 29 February to 3 March 2024. Artistic director, pianist Fiachra Garvey kicks things off with a recital entitled Fairytale and Fantasy with music by Ravel, Stravinsky, Debussy and Frank Bridge along with the Gaelic Fantasy by Irish composer Rhoda Coghill (1903-2000).

Violinist Elena Urioste and pianist Tom Poster gave a recital at Classical Vauxhall's 2021 online festival, and for 2024 they are returning in person for a programme which moves from sonatas by Mendelssohn and French composer Mel Bonis (1858-1937) to their #UriPosteJuxebox will feature a smorgasbord of greatest hits from their hugely successful online YouTube channel, which was their brainchild during the days of Covid lockdowns. Expect everything from Bach to Elton John.

Saturday evening its the turn of singer/songwriter China Moses who will be joined by group of Classical musicians on the piano, violin, cello, and bass for Classical Soul. Things come to a conclusion on Sunday with a capella vocal ensemble Apollo 5, an ensemble that has previous given vocal workshops to schools in Vauxhall as part of Classical Vauxhall, performing everything from William Byrd to Hubert Parry to Ola Gjeilo and more.

There are also family concerts when Chineke! Wind Quintet is joined by actor Adjoa Andoh for Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, whilst historic dance expert Mary Collins will be giving an historic dance workshop with the Vauxhall Band, taking participants back in time to the Georgian and Victorian dance halls. 

As well as the festival weekend, Classical Vauxhall is holding an Overture Day in partnership with the London Philharmonic Orchestra offering orchestral skills activities for free to 60 young musicians from Vauxhall and Lambeth, where participants play alongside LPO musicians. And with London Festival Opera, Classical Vauxhall is offering Opera Magic workshops to schools.

Full details from the Classical Vauxhall website.

Slowly, through a process of osmosis, the piece and I are slowly becoming acquainted: horn player, Ben Goldscheider on Gavin Higgins' new Horn Concerto

Ben Goldscheider

Composer Gavin Higgins comes from a long lineage of working-class brass band musicians dating back to 1895 and his passion for this heritage has resulted in a number of vigorous, daring works for brass, including his Concerto Grosso for Brass Band and Orchestra, which won a 2023 RPS award and a South Bank Sky Arts award. 

Gavin Higgins' instrument is the French Horn and he has written a new Horn Concerto (his first solo work for the instrument) for horn player Ben Goldscheider. Gavin Higgins is composer-in-association with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Ben Goldscheider will join Jaime Martin and the orchestra to premiere Gavin Higgins' Horn Concerto on Saturday 13 January 2024 at Brangwyn Hall, Swansea, with a second performance on Sunday 14 January 2024 at St David's Hall in Cardiff [further details]. 

The London premiere of the work will be on 7 February at Cadogan Hall, when Ben Goldscheider joins the London Chamber Orchestra and conductor  Christopher Warren Green [further details]

In this article, Ben Goldscheider has taken a break from learning the new piece to write a few words of introduction.

It has long been an ambition of mine to enrich the Horn repertoire with new, high quality works. Not only are we in dire need of more pieces to play, but I also believe strongly that audiences can be won over with the extraordinary versatility of this Instrument. A lot has happened to the Horn since the glory days of Mozart and Strauss, whose Concertos rightly occupy a sacred place at the heart of our repertoire. Mechanically as well as in regards to player technique, the capabilities of the Horn have advanced significantly and with a work of the quality inherent in Gavin Higgins’ new Horn Concerto, these developments can be enjoyed and experienced in abundance. Indeed, Gavin has written a work that is simultaneously a true Horn Concerto to its core - it explores many tropes associated with the instrument; an Eb Horn Choral reminiscent of Wagner’s Ring, a programmatic connection to Nature, lively fanfares and a virtuosic, joyful Rondo reminiscent of, well, most Horn Concertos! With that in mind, however, the work very much looks forward and breaks new ground. In terms of sheer scope, it may be the most significant contribution for quite some time - it lasts just under thirty minutes. This in itself poses one of the greatest challenges for the soloist, how to balance the necessity to give everything to the powerful, soaring lines at the beginning, navigate the delicacies of the second movement and still have some suppleness left in the lips for the finale. By comparison, the longest Mozart Concerto (including a cadenza) barely breaks a quarter of an hour.

I find the use of orchestration particularly interesting. Having the four orchestral horns operate in a concertante style against the soloist evokes the Schumann Konzertstück or, perhaps more relevantly, Ligeti’s Hamburg Concerto. It allows the material to morph between a collective, as in the opening where chords are built up and layered between the five Horns, as well as the five bouncing off one another, the sound of the Horn dominating and piercing through an already rich tapestry of orchestral colour.

As I write this I am deep in the learning process. Despite having had a lot of experience premiering new works, this will actually be the first large scale work for Horn and Orchestra that I have the pleasure of bringing to life. This in itself is fascinating for you have a totally blank canvas, no reference point or recordings and, as Leonard Bernstein suggested as an essential ingredient of the creative process, not quite enough time.

It is so enjoyable to sit with the score and, using nothing but the dots in front of you, bear the responsibility to extrapolate the essence of the music. You are forced to sit and ponder, to ask questions of yourself and the music and create connections as the material reveals itself to you. Slowly, through a process of osmosis, the piece and I are slowly becoming acquainted, I just hope that we become, and remain, friends!

Gavin Higgins

At Kings Place this month, Turkish pianist Can Çakmur celebrates the Hamamatsu Competition which he won in 2018, not to mention embarking on his 12-disc Schubert with BIS

Can Çakmur (Photo: HIPIC)

He won the Hamamatsu Competition in 2018 and has embarked on a 12-disc Schubert+ set with BIS, as part of an exclusive recording contract, surveying of Schubert’s complete major works for piano alongside music by other composers. He cites regular listening to the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in Ankara as part of his parents' subscription as an early influence, retains an interest in Hungarian piano pedagogy but also cites Robert Fripp as one of his heroes. Yet my chat to Turkish pianist Can Çakmur also touched on the complex, political yet fascinating history of music in Turkey, as well as talking about the discipline of running.

In advance of the 2024 Hamamatsu Competition (which runs from 8 to 25 November), Can Çakmur will be joined by Noriko Ogawa (the Competition's Chair of the Jury) for a showcase concert at Kings Place on 19 January 2024.

The Hamamatsu International Piano Competition was inaugurated in 1991 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the founding of Hamamatsu City in Japan and competitions are held every three years and are open to pianists up to the age of 30. Past winners have included Alessio Bax (1997). Can Çakmur won the 2018 competition and the 2021 competition was not held, because of COVID.

Can Çakmur

The showcase concert at Kings Place, to an extent, finishes the post-competition concert tour that Can was undertaking when COVID hit. He finished around 30 concerts in Japan, but the European leg of the tour had to be cancelled. The idea behind the Kings Place concert was to join forces with Noriko Ogawa, the chair of the jury, to show what the competition was about. So, Can and Noriko Ogawa to perform Beethoven's piano-four-hands arrangement of the Grosse Fugue, and Can will be joined by Benjamin Gilmore violin, Rosalind Ventris viola, Tim Posner cello to perform Mozart's Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor which has been part of the competition for a few years as the third stage involves the contestants playing chamber music. 

The Dartington International Summer School Foundation creates new Music Summer School & Festival at Gresham's School in Norfolk

The chapel at Gresham's School

With the collapse of the Summer School at Dartington, the Dartington International Summer School Foundation, a charity which was supported the Summer School since 1976, has created a new incarnation in Norfolk.

The Music Summer School and Festival will run at Gresham's School in Norfolk from 27 July to 10 August 2024 with a wide range of participatory courses along with a full programme of concerts, talks and events. Courses include choral singing and vocal music; orchestras and ensembles; individual instrumental and vocal classes and workshops; medieval, renaissance and baroque ensembles; jazz and improvisation; wind band and string ensemble; chamber music; and composition.

Conductor Andrew Griffiths will be working on Bach's St John Passion, and conductor Jane Glover works in Mozart's Requiem. There will be courses directed by ensembles Stile Antico and the Brook Street Band, harpsichordists Steven Devine and Skip Sempé, composers Rolf Hind and Stephen Montague, tenor James Gilchrist, pianist Anna Tilbrook, oboist Nicholas Daniel.

Gresham’s School (which counts Benjamin Britten, Lennox Berkeley and W H Auden amongst its alumni) will provide a magical setting for The Music Summer School and Festival with outstanding facilities across the site. Concerts will take place every day in a range of venues including the Chapel, the Fishmongers’ Hall in the Britten Music Building, the Auden Theatre and the Theatre in the Woods.

The Music Summer School and Festival 2024 is programmed by Richard Heason, chief executive of the Dartington International Summer School Foundation and former director of St John's Smith Square.

Full details from their website.

Norwich-based arts writer, Tony Cooper, offers a preview of the Norfolk & Norwich Festival which comes round in the merry month of May!

Aurora Orchestra & Nicholas Collon (Photo: Mark Allen)

One of the oldest-established festivals in the UK, the Norfolk & Norwich - running for an astonishing 17 days in the merry month of May from Friday 10 May 2024 to Sunday 26 May - offers a cultural package like no other taking in music, drama, literature, circus, outdoor and family events as well as the all-important visual arts. Artists from round the world and across the region will present a huge variety of work and events in Norwich and, indeed, across the county.  

Daniel Brine, Festival Director, enthused: "I’m delighted with the variety of this year’s festival. It’s an exciting spread ranging from circus to classical music as well as showcasing local musicians as well as showcasing one of the country’s most flourishing, entertaining and enterprising orchestras - the Aurora. There’s a nice representation of local and international performers coming our way which is something particularly important to our festival.  

"For instance, we feel proud to be bringing to Norwich a brand-new show entitled Corazón (‘heart’ in Spanish) from South American-based circus troupe, Circolombia, founded in 2006. An exciting and engaging show, it brings to the fore the talents of young Columbians offering audiences breathless acrobatic feats with a distinctive Latin feel complemented by a host of incredible pieces of infectious Latin-flavoured music reflecting the production overall. Specifically created for the Adnams Spiegeltent in Festival Gardens, the show has a lengthy residency running for 12 days from Wednesday 15 to Sunday 26 May." 

Circolombia - Corazón 

Elixir Festival: Celebrating arts, music and storytelling from the Middle East and Africa

 

Elixir Festival is a new mini-festival which is launching at Grand Junction in April 2024. Named for the Arabic al-‘iksīr (also known as the Elixir of Life), a symbol of healing, the festival celebrates and connects the diverse cultures of the Middle East and Africa, showcasing a line-up of international and local contemporary artists, featuring theatre, music, Eid celebrations, workshops, and food, celebrating contemporary arts from the Middle East, North Africa, and Anatolia.

Performers will include Palestinian singer Ruba Shamshoum, the Scottish/Egyptian duo, the Ayoub Sisters, Kurdish-Anatolian singer-songwriter Olcay Bayir and much else besides. 

Full details from Grand Junction website.

Les Noces re-imagined: New Movement Collective presents a new choreographic version of Stravinsky's ballet

Eryck Brahmania & Malgorzata Dzierzon (Photo: Jack Thomson)

Stravinsky conceived of the idea of Les Noces in 1913, when he planned a ballet score on the lines of The Rite of Spring, but by 1917 when he completed the work in short score, his ideas had changed. During the 1920s Stravinsky would move firmly towards neo-Classicism and smaller forces, but he seems to have had uncertainty about the Russian-inspired Les Noces, 

Six years after completing the short score, he produced the final version scored for four vocal soloists, chorus, percussion and four pianos, thus creating a unique sound-world, though during the last 50 years there have been various performances of completions of the various torsos left behind by Stravinsky, including a version for large orchestra and one for cimbaloms and pianola.

For the premiere in 1923, choreography was by Nijinsky's sister, Bronislava and like Stravinsky changing his sound-world, Nijinska's choreography embodied a very different world to her brother's ballets. Les Noces was her third Stravinsky ballet following Mavra and Renard. 

In 1928, Nijinska was the choreographer for Ida Rubenstein's company in Paris when a young English dancer, Frederick Ashton, joined the company, was mentored by Nijinska and danced some of her ballets. Cut to 1960s London and Ashton became director of the Royal Ballet in 1963, having previously been the company's resident choreographer. He invited Nijinska to stage her ballets at the Royal Ballet, the result was a pair of historically important stagings, Les Biches (to music by Poulenc) and Les Noces.

On 13 and 14 January 2024, the dance company New Movement Collective is presenting a reappraisal of Les Noces with new contemporary choreography and some of Britain's best contemporary dancers. The project's music director is Yshani Perinpanayagam and the performers include singers from the Opera Holland Park Chorus, musicians from the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music. 

As well as Stravinsky's ballet, New Movement Collective have additionally commissioned three contemporary composers to respond to Stravinsky’s score, Yshani Perinpanayagam, emerging RAM composer Andrea Balency-Béarn, and Beatbox Champion MC Zani. These new compositions will see choreographic explorations on the work’s themes performed by English National Ballet’s ENBYouthCo and Manchester-based Chameleon Youth.

The performances take place at Woolwich Works on 13 and 14 January 2024. Further information from the Woolwich Works website.

My monthly newsletter is out now - December on Planet Hugill

My monthly e-newsletter is out now.  

December on Planet Hugill looks back over some of the highlights of 2023, includes our regular monthly digest of events and discs reviewed and looks forward to highlights from 2024.

You can read December on Planet Hugill online at MadMimi, but the best thing is to sign up and receive it direct to your inbox. Sign up via MadMimi.
 

William Christie & Les Arts Florissants celebrate New Year's Eve at Wigmore Hall in fine style with Hugh Cutting & Carlo Vistoli

Antonio Caldara

Monteverdi, Steffani, Fontana, Caldara, Vivaldi, Bononcini, Handel; Hugh Cutting, Carlo Vistoli, Les Arts Florissants, William Christie; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 31 December 2023

One of those evenings where the performers sheer delight in the music carried you away; Les Arts Flo in a delightful sequence of Italian Baroque duets and solo cantatas

The Wigmore Hall ended the year in fine style with a concert of 17th and 18th century Italian duets from Les Arts Florissants. William Christie directed from harpsichord and organ with Emmanuel Resche-Caserta and Augusta McKay Lodge, violins, and Cyril Poulet, cello, with countertenors Hugh Cutting and Carlo Vistoli. The programme included duets by Monteverdi, Agostino Steffani, Giovanni Bononcini, Handel and Vivaldi, along with solo cantatas by Antonio Caldara and Vivaldi, and instrumental music by Giovanni Battista Fontana, Vivaldi and Caldara.

A time to look back

The late Keel Watson as Wotan in Wagner's Die Walküre with Regents Opera in 2023 (Photo: Steve Gregson

New Year is always a time to look back and remember. 2023 saw us publishing 627 articles, from our review of the Dunedin Consort's 2022 New Year's Eve concert at Wigmore Hall to our note about Adam Whitmore and Phoenix Consort's crowdfunding for their debut disc of music by Alex Campkin. A total of 70 opera reviews, over 80 concert reviews, and over 40 interviews. 

You can explore further in our recently updated archives of live reviews, record reviews, and interviews.

Overseas events that we covered included Le piano symphonique festival in Lucerne, Britten's Peter Grimes in Paris, Handel's Saul at the Komische Oper Berlin, Christoph Loy's production of Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Carmen at Oper im Steinbruch in Austria, the launch of the Dresden Music Festival's historically informed Ring cycle with Das Rheingold, and the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival. 

Also in Bayreuth at the Bayreuth Festival, our correspondent Tony caught Valentin Schwarz’ Ring cycle for a second time around, Klaus Florian Vogt as Tannhäuser, Jay Scheib's Augmented Reality production of Parsifal and Dmitri Tcherniakov’s production of Der fliegende Holländer. Tony was also highly impressed by the Ring Cycle presented by Sofia Opera in Bulgaria.

Still in Ring mode our correspondent Florence saw English National Opera's new production of Wagner's Das Rheingold, and Regents Opera's continuation of its Ring with Die Walküre featuring the late Keel Watson as Wotan.

In the UK, we were in Manchester to talk to the Manchester Camerata and conductor Gábor Takács-Nagy,  and the Stoller Hall, hear the orchestra in Mozart and catch up with the RNCM. And in Leeds we caught Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, Puccini's Tosca and La Rondine, and the Masque of Might at Opera North, and caught up with composer Jasdeep Singh Degun.

Interviews in 2023 included Cameron Menzies of Northern Ireland Opera, film composer Debbie Wiseman, composer Bushra El-Turk, conductor Francesco Cilluffo, and an 80th birthday interview with Stephen Montague. We chatted to two LGBT singers, Reginald Mobley and Elgan Llyr Thomas, had a bit of a Canadian theme with interviews with composer Margaret Maria, baritone Etienne Dupuis, and conductor Alexander Shelley.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year