CD Review - The Last Musician of Ur

In 2003 the Gold Lyre of Ur was damages by looters at the Iraq Museum in Baghdad. The Lyre is the earliest stringed instrument ever found. In 2004 harpist Andrew Lowings began a project to build an authentic playable reproduction of the lyre. He asked composer Michael Mauldin if he could use some of Mauldin's harp music to help promote the project. This collaboration was to grow, in 2009, into a commission for an orchestral piece with prominent harp part, telling the story of the Last Musician of Ur.

Delights at the Handel House museum

The January to April season at the Handel House museum has some wonderful events lined up, alongside their new exhibition about Charles Jennens, the librettist to Handel's oratorios. Concerts include Italian opera in England, new work from Kerry Andrews their previous composer-in-residence and the opportunity to sing in Handel's Saul.

Charles Jennens provided Handel with the librettos of two of his finest dramatic oratorios, Saul and Belshazzar as well as compiling the text of Messiah. He was curious and rather difficult person, with rather definite ideas about Handel's music and how his words should be set. His slightly dyspeptic marginalia in Mainwaring's biography of Handel are characteristic, but also very useful to historians.

London Symphony Orchestra explorations

The London Symphony Orchestra's Winter Season now on, includes some rather interesting concentrations on individual artists and composers. They are having a mini Szymanowski festival with Valery Gergiev conducting Szymanowski's 3rd and 4th symphonies, plus the 2nd violin concerto, and groups of concerts devoted violinist Leonidas Kavakos and composers Mark Antony Turnage and John Adams.

Passion and Discipline - the Russian Virtuosi of Europe

Russian Virtuosi of Europe

The Russian Virtuosi of Europe were formed in 2004 by the London-based Russian violinist Yuri Zhislin, bringing together young players from the Russian School of string playing. The ensemble's appearance at Cadogan Hall on Friday 23 November, was the first chance to hear them in London this season. The concert also gave us the opportunity to hear the work of Rachael Young, a young New Zealand born cellist turned conductor who has been working with Leonard Grin. Their programme included three contrasting works by Russian composers, Schnittke, Shostakovitch and Tchaikovsky.

Call for young singers - Genesis Sixteen

Genesis Sixteen
(photo credit Benjamin Harte)

Harry Christophers and the Sixteen are looking for young singers to take part in the next Genesis Sixteen, their free choral training programme for 18 to 23 year olds. Founded in 2011 by the Sixteen in partnership with the Genesis Foundation, Genesis Sixteen is a training programme for singers keen on ensemble singing; the first such programme in the UK. It aims to bridge the gap from student to professional practitioner.  The 22 singers chosen will take part in four week-long and weekend courses, receive group tuition, individual mentoring from members of The Sixteen and master-classes from vocal experts.

Well meaning confusion - why Carmen sounds like it does

Galli-Marie
as Carmen

When the Peter Moores Foundation sponsored recording of Bizet's Carmen in English was recorded for Chandos, one of the first jobs was to prepare an edition of the opera for the performers to use. Richard Langham Smith's new edition is published by Peters and forms a new Urtext edition. The strange thing is not that it should need doing, after all most 19th century operas are getting new Urtext editions to help remove the inaccuracies that have crept in. But the oddity about Bizet's Carmen is that there has never been a coherent edition which reflects what was first performed and that for much of Carmen's popularity, the edition used bore striking differences from what was first performed. So what was the problem?

Tony Hall - envoi

So he is going. It was inevitable that Tony Hall would leave the Royal Opera House at some time and we must think ourselves lucky that he has devoted 11 years to Covent Garden and managed a quiet transformation. Whoever is chosen in his place, it will mean that Coven Garden will start next year with both a new Director of Opera (Kasper Holten) and a new Chief Executive, so we have interesting times ahead.

40 already - Brodsky Quartet celebrates at Kings Place

From the 6 to 8 December, the Brodsky Quartet are celebrating their 40th anniversary with a series of events at Kings Place, in London. The quartet have never been ones to simply follow the well trod route, and unpredictable as ever their concerts at Kings Place include Schubert and George Crumb, a celebration of jazz, blues and rock, and the opportunity for the audience to choose the programme.

Christine Brewer at the Wimbledon Music Festival

Christine Brewer's appearances in the UK are not that frequent, so it was an especial pleasure to encounter her in recital accompanied by at the Wimbledon Music Festival at St John's Church, SW19 on Thursday 22 November. The first half of her programme consisted of Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs and Richard Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder with the second half being taken up with 20th century songs, all written as encore type pieces for sopranos such as Kirsten Flagstad, Eileen Farrell and Helen Traubel.

Creating socially responsible individuals as well as musicians

Stockwell Children's Orchestra
in rehearsal

Four times a week after school, children from In Harmony Lambeth meet for their after school orchestra. The children receive up to 5 hours of music tuition during school hours, but membership of the orchestra is essential to the In Harmony Lambeth project. In fact, as soon as a child gets his or her instrument, they can join the most junior orchestra. I went along on Thursday to attend a rehearsal of the Holst Ensemble, In Harmony Lambeth's senior orchestra.

Creeping capitalism - branding the Coli

If you are one of those people who gets annoyed (as I do) by the names of places being used as extended advertising (e.g. the O2 Arena) then the news from the London Coliseum will not please. ENO are re-evaluating their sponsorship and the naming rights to the London Coliseum are potentially available. This is a practice common in football stadiums, but frankly I would be sad if we had to extend it to theatres and the like, even though it could bring in potential revenue. What's in a name, is it worth having the London Coliseum branded if the money brought us, say, a new Ring Cycle?

Greener concerts

I have already blogged about the performance of Maurice Greene's Amoretti at St George's Church, Hanover Square on December 7. One of the performers, harpsichordist Luke Green, has let me know that there are two other opportunities to hear the programme as they are performing it on Tuesday 4 December at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and on Wednesday 5 December at New College Oxford. The Oxford performance will be prefaced by a talk by H. Diack Johnstone. The performers are Benjamin Hulett (tenor), Giangiacomo Pinardi (theorbo) and Luke Green (harpsichord). They will be performing Maurice Green's complete 1748 song-cycle setting Spenser's Amoretti and will be celebrating the launch of their Naxos recording of the work.

The Cardinall's Musick at Wimbledon Music Festival

Andrew Carwood and his ensemble, the Cardinall's Musick, brought their programme Il Siglio D'Oro: Muisc of Spain's Golden Age to St Paul's Church, SW19 as part of the Wimbledon Music Festival on Wednesday 21 November. Directed by Carwood, who provided illuminating and entertaining spoken introductions to the programme, the eight singers performed music by Guerrero, Morales, Esquivel, Victoria, Esquivel and Lobo, all of it dedicated in some way to the Virgin Mary. In one of his introductions Carwood explained that the Western Church, unlike the Orthodox Church, had no female personification in its representation of God. So at a time when God was often a man of war, it was to the Virgin that people turned for the feminine virtues. And this is reflected in the amazing flowering of music dedicated to her at the period.

Total Permission

Total Permission underwater

As part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad there was a strand called Unlimited which encouraged deaf and disabled artists to take risks, to create work that is exceptional. To celebrate The Space, the Arts Council's digital download service, now has a new documentary, Total Permission, in which Charles Hazelwood encounters 12 of the artists commissioned by Unlimited.  In the film Hazelwood talks to the artists, reviews their work and talks to audience members at the Southbank Centre's Unlimited Festival. Hazelwood is himself the founder of the British Paraorchestra, the UK's first orchestra featuring world class musicians with disabilities.

Backstage at the opera

As a rule I prefer not to use acronyms, but the Wales Millennium Centre is such a cumbersome name that perhaps WMC is preferable. Still, it is an attractive building with far more to it than you realise. The weekend of 24/25 November is you can explore further, as they are having an open weekend, your chance to get to see what happens back stage and in other nooks and crannies of the building. There are performances in the Weston Studio including children's shows, a circus aerial workshop and a drama workshop, events in the BBC's Hoddinott Hall with a free performance from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and a 'try out an instrument' workshop. There is a youth opera workshop in the WNO's Orchestra Hall and throughout the day there are performances on the main stage. Further information from the Wales Milennium Centre website.

London Handel Festival

The first outlines of next year's London Handel Festival have come in, with some rather tempting offerings, including Handel's penultimate Italian opera, three of his oratorios with Italian names and opera by his contemporaries Telemann and Hasse. Both Handel's early Italian oratorios are being performed. Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno at St George's Hanover Square on 21 March, with is pair Il Resurrezione at the Wigmore Hall on 1 April. The festival concludes with a performance on 16 April at St George's of one of Handel's most quintessentially English oratorios, L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato with its text based on Milton's poems. And this year's opera will be Imeneo.

Theatre Royal Glasgow appeal

When I first visited the Theatre Royal Glasgow in 1976, the theatre was still a newly refurbished novelty. The auditorium was, and remains, a complete delight. But there was no disguising the fact that the foyer areas left something to be desired, despite being attractively designed.. Part of this stems from the fact that when the theatre was acquired originally by Scottish Opera, not all of the footprint of the original foyer space could be acquired. To a certain extent this has been remedied over the years, but the public spaces have remained rather resolutely cramped. Now this is seeking to be remedied.

Matthew Barley round Britten

Matthew Barley in workshop
(c) Marcus Tate

Matthew Barley's Around Britten 2013 tour kicks off on 15 January in Southampton. The tour sees cellist Barley performing in at least 100 venues in celebration of Britten's 100th anniversary. The tour will involve concerts plus workshops and special events, with Barley taking Britten's music to as wide an audience as possible using a variety of venues including cathedrals, concert halls and castles, a light house, a barn, a cave and a number of National Trust properties. On the day Britten died (4 December), Barley will perform at the Red House, and this will be webcast.

In Harmony news

In Harmony Lambeth's Winter concert takes place on Wednesday 12 December at 5pm at the Clore Ballroom on London's South Bank. The concert will feature the Stockwell Children's Orchestra with over 100 children from the Lansdowne Green estate in South London. And one of the new In Harmony projects, In Harmony Leeds, will be giving its inaugural concert on Friday 7 December at 11.15am . In Harmony Liverpool has its Christmas Concert on Friday 14 December at 5pm at St. Francis Xavier Church.

Buxton Festival dates

Janis Kelly in Intermezzo
Buxton Festival 2012

The dates for next year's Buxton Festival (the 34th) have come out. The double bill of Gounod's La Colombe and Saint-Saens' La Princesse Jaune opens the festival on 5 July 2013, with further performances on 8, 11, 14 (Matinee), 20 July. The other festival production is Mozart's La Finta Giardiniera which opens on 6 July, with further performances on 9, 12, 18 and 21 (Matinee). The two matinee performances mean that those wishing to travel up to Buxton for the day can see both festival productions.