Bach Christmas Oratorio

A chance to hear the complete Bach Christmas Oratorio on Saturday 24 November with not a carol in sight. The English Baroque Choir and Brandenburg Soloists perform the work at St. John's Smith Square with soloists Nathalie Chalkley, Anna Harvey, Bradley Smith, Nicholas Scott and Johnny Herford. Further information from the English Baroque Choir website.

Sadler's Wells bounces into Spring and Summer

Sadler's Wells Spring/Summer 2013 brochure popped through my letter box the other day (I'm an old fashioned boy and still prefer print to e-newsletters). It is cram full of dance events from children's ballet and the National Youth Dance Company to Pina Bausch and Hip Hop with Sylvie Guillem, Akram Khan and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui on the way.

Midsummer Opera - Fidelio

On Friday 23 November and Saturday 24 November Midsummer Opera will be giving concert performances of Beethoven's Fidelio at St. John's Church, Waterloo. A church which opened in 1824 to celebrate the victory of Napoleon, so a very apt venue for Beethoven's only opera.

Orchestra Musica Romantica debut

One of the first violins of the London Symphony Orchestra, Jörg Hammann, has formed a new orchestra, the Orchestra Musica Romantica. The orchestra makes its debut at London's Cadogan Hall on Saturday 1 December in a concert in support of ACTION medical research. With Hammann conducting, the orchestra will play The Moldau from Smetana's Ma Vlast and Grieg's Peer Gynt Suites. They will be joined by Hammann's colleague, Tomo Keller, assistant leader of the London Symphony Orchestra. Keller will play Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Major.

Ignatz Waghalter and his re-discovery

Waghalter at 18

When the Nazi's published their Index of forbidden Jewish musicians in 1943 there were six Waghalters listed, the composer Ignatz, his father Abraham, his brothers Henryk (a renowned cellist) and Wladyslaw (the violinist for whom Ignatz wrote his violin concerto), his daughter Beatrice and his niece Yolanda. By this time Waghalter had fled Germany to New York. The composer had already spent a short period in New York as conductor of the State Symphony Orchestra but ever since his training, his career had been based in Berlin. Whilst in America he tried to launch an orchestra of African Americans, but this failed after one concert because people just weren't ready for it. He died suddenly in 1949 at the age of 68, leaving a trunk of papers which was stored in the attic of his daughter's house. His music remained alive in the memory of his family and in the piano playing of his daughter Beatrice, but that is all.

Boost for Sistema Scotland

Sistema Scotland's new project, Big Noise Govanhill, has been awarded £1.325m by the Scottish government. The funds will enable Sistema Scotland to run the new project for four years, establishing a Big Noise orchestra in Govanhill one of the most deprived areas in Glasgow. The award funds come after a government commissioned report into Sistema Scotland's project in Raploch, Stirling expressed its approval. The Raploch project was started five years ago, and the new project will create a Big Noise orchestra in Govanhill aiming to 'to use music making to foster confidence, teamwork, pride and aspiration in the children taking part – and across the wider community. It is based on the methods of Venezuela’s El Sistema movement.' Further information from the Sistema Scotland website.

The Dream, The Hope - a concert

South African baritone Njabuo Madlala (recently seen as Aeneas to Susan Bickley's Dido at the Wimbledon Music Festival) is singing in a concert on Friday 23 November at St James's Church, Piccadilly. The concert is in aid of the Amazwi Omzansi Africa National Opera Singing Competition 2013.

Performers also include guitarist Ahmed Dickinson Cardonas, pianists William Vann, Ben Schoeman and Neal Thornton and band. The programme includes a South African Songbook, American Spirituals, Schubert, Schumann and Duparc. And if we are lucky, Madlala will throw in one of his entrancing performances of songs from his native country.

Edington Organ Project

Edington Priory

It is that time of year, organisations are gearing up for the BIG GIVE, donations made on-line between 10am on Thursday December 6 and 5pm on Saturday December 8 will be doubled by sponsorship raised by the Big Give. Edington Organ Project is aiming to raise £3000 for their new organ at Edington Priory in Wiltshire.

Currently they have £398, 771 of the £437, 041 needed. The new organ at Edington Priory will not only serve the parish but will transform the abilities of the Edington Music Festival to incorporate the organ into the music making.

CD Review - Coro Allegro - In Paradisum

Coro Allegro is a Boston-based chorus for members and friends of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community, singing a repertoire of classical music. The choir has developed a strong relationship with the composer Patricia Van Ness. She spent a year with them as composer in residence and the two pieces on this disc (on the Navona Records label) were both commissioned from her by Coro Allegro. The choir premiered The Voice of the Tenth Muse in 1998, repeating it in 2001, with the Requiem following in 2004. The recordings on this disc come from these live performances in 2001 and 2004.

Spend Easter Monday with Bach

On Easter Monday (1 April 2013), John Eliot Gardiner with lead a 12 hour marathon of performances of Bach's music at the Royal Albert Hall. The event comes a few weeks before Gardiner's 70th birthday, and will be the culmination of a series of Bach related activities including documentaries, a book, CD's and of course the marathon.

Gossip and Rebellion - the premiere of Carmen

Galli-Marie as Carmen
by Felix Nadar

In 1873, shortly before the end of the first run of Bizet's opera Djamileh at the Opéra Comique, the theatre's directors, Camille du Locle and Adolphe de Leuven asked him for a new opera. They wanted a light-hearted, three-act opera to a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, suppliers of librettos to Offenbach. No subject was specified so Bizet suggested Carmen, based on Prosper Mérimée's novel. This might seem a rather strange subject matter for a popular, family opera but the 19th century operatic world is littered with the corpses of operas made from sanitised librettos. Bizet seems to have had a significant hand in shaping parts of the libretto, Halevy’s original verses for the habanera are far milder than Merimee. And his reaction to their softenings was, in their own words, ferocious.

Mark Padmore at the Wimbledon Music Festival

photo by Marco Borggreve

This year's International Wimbledon Music Festival includes a number of celebrity recitals and on Thursday 15 November tenor Mark Padmore and pianist Simon Lepper gave a recital of Beethoven and Schubert songs at St John's Church, Spencer Hill, Wimbledon. It was a joy to be able to hear Padmore in the relatively intimate confines of the church, and its acoustic proved to be surprisingly welcoming for lieder. The main work in the first half was Beethoven's song cycle An die ferne Geliebte with Schubert's Schwanengesang in the second half. Padmore's own short spoken introductions indicated how the cycles were linked through the Romantic concept of Sehnsucht.

New year at St Johns Smith Square

The January to March concert season at St Johns Smith Square has an attractive mix of events, with the opportunity to hear some unusual repertoire and a variety of fine ensembles both professional, student and voluntary and even sung services. There is Messiaen, Khachaturian, a celebration of Stephen Montague's birthday and even a Stanford premiere. If you so desire, you even can start off the New Year with a New Year's Day Concert from the Chartwell Ensemble with soprano Elin Manahan Thomas.

Waghalter at the Cadogan Hall

Gregor Hartmann, Giacomo Puccini and
Ignatz Waghalter in Berlin, 1913

To say that composer Ignatz Waghalter was little known would be an understatement. There wasn't even an entry on him in Grove until the composer's grandson had contacted Stanley Sadie and demonstrated his grandfather's significance in Germany in the year's before 1933. Thanks to Polish violinist Irmina Trynkos and conductor Alexander Walker, Waghalter's two concertante works for violin and orchestra have been recorded and released on Naxos. On Wednesday 14 November, Irmina Trynkos played both Waghalter's Violin Concerto and his Rhapsody for Violin and Orchestra, with Alexander Walker conducting the English Chamber Orchestra at London's Cadogan Hall.

Hind brings the accordion into the spotlight

Rolf Hind

Rolf Hind's new work for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, The Tiniest House of Time is a concerto for accordion and orchestra. The work will be premiered on Saturday 24 November at the Barbican Centre, with Jakob Hursa conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra with James Crabb playing the accordion. A suite from Janacek's opera The Cunning Little Vixen and Rimsky Korsakov's Scheherezade complete the concert.

New artistic director for Garsington Opera

Garsington Opera have a appointed a new artistic director to replace Anthony Whitworth-Jones on his retirement. In an interesting move Garsington have appointed Douglas Boyd, currently chief conductor of the the Musikkollegium Winterthur in Switzerland; Boyd is also principal guest conductor of the City of London Sinfonia as well as having relationships with a number of American orchestras.  He was formerly head of the Manchester Camerata and as an oboist, was a founding member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He is by no means an opera specialist though, he has worked at Garsington (where he conducted Don Giovanni this year and returns for Fidelio in 2014) , Glyndebourne on Tour  and Zurich Opera (conducting Salieri) with Opera North to come (conducting La Clemenza di Tito). Perhaps to strengthen the operatic experience in the Garsington admin, Brian Dickie (former head of Chicago Lyric Opera) and Jonathan Freeman-Attwood (principal of the Royal Academy of Music) are joining Garsington's artistic committee. It will be interesting to see how his appointment affects the company's artistic direction and choice of repertoire.

Debussy's Vasnier Songbook

Sopranos Gillian Keith and Anna Devin, with Nigel Foster on piano, are performing Debussy's complete Vasnier Songbook at the London Song Festival tonight (14 November) at St Paul's Church, Covent Garden. The recital includes unpublished material from the Paris and Washington (so someone has clearly been busy!). Debussy wrote the songs for Marie-Blanche Vasnier, a married woman with whom he had an affair from 1880 to 1887. Looks like this might be the first time all the songs have been performed together. Sounds like a good reason for being there! Further information from the London Song Festival website.

L'Elisir d'Amore at Covent Garden (updated with full review)

Aleksandra Kursak as Adina in L'Elisir d'amore.
©ROH Catherine Ashmore 2007

I have to confess that, having heard Roberto Alagna singing at the recent Covent Garden Gala, I hadn't been much looking forward to hearing him as Nemorino in the latest revival of Laurent Pelly's production of L'Elisir d'Amore at Covent Garden. And when I arrived last night (13 November) my mood was not lightened by the fact that my press ticket was a seat in the Amphitheatre. As I was sitting next to a writer from another website, I could not help but get the impression that the web-hacks had been relegated to the cheap seats whilst those writing for papers were down stairs.

Coming up at the Barbican - Oz live, Berio/Verdi and Belshazzar

December at the Barbican Centre sees a clutch of rather interesting concerts. There is the opportunity to see the Judy Garland film The Wizard of Oz with a live orchestral accompaniment, there is also Berio's take on Verdi with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Handel's stunning dramatic oratorios Belshazzar with an outstanding cast.

LSO Chorus Director

Simon Halsey has been announced as the London Symphony Orchestra's new Choral Director. This role takes in the directorship of the London Symphony Chorus as well as having a role with the LSO as well, developing its choral activities including those involving the LSO Community Choir and the LSO's Singing Days. Halsey will be conducting the London Symphony Chorus at an inaugural concert at LSO St Lukes on Thursday 22 November in which they will be performing Jonathan Dove's The Passing of the Year (commissioned by the LSC in 2000), and Brahms's German Requiem, in the version with piano accompaniment (not an entirely satisfactory version despite having Brahms's apparent imprimatur, but it does enable smaller scale performances of the piece). Soloists are Sophie Klussmann and Konrad Jarnot, the pianists are Phillip Moll and Holger Groschopp.