Oh, you, wretched singer, what are you hoping for? Musicians in support of Ukraine

Following the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, violinist Roman Mints was unable to play his violin for nearly a year. 

He says, "When the war started I left (Russia) within a week.  I had to take my family out of that place where everyone goes on 'business as usual;', while their soldiers are killing and torturing people in Ukraine.  The only way a musician can resist this kind of aggression is to celebrate the culture that is threatened, earn money and send it to the victims. And that is what my friends and I are doing at this concert."

Now Roman Mints along with Vadym Kholodenko (piano), Sasha Grynyuk (piano),  Alexandra Raikhilina (violin), Yuri Zhislin (viola) and Helena Švigej (cello) is presenting a programme of Ukrainian music in support of Ukraine at Duke’s Hall, Royal Academy of Music on Sunday 25 June. The proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to the Odesa Peace Fund, which provides food, medicine, clothing, and other necessary assistance to those affected by the war in Ukraine. 

The concert will feature the UK premiere of Artem Lyakhovich’s Postludes from War Notepad written in Uman during the early stage of the Russian invasion. Other music in the concert includes 25.10.1893 … in memoriam P.I.Tch by Valentin Silvestrov, one of the most prominent, living Ukrainian composers. After the war began Silvestrov became one of eight million refugees and now resides in Berlin. His three pieces are dedicated to the memory of Tchaikovsky. Also in the programme are preludes from Songs Of Bukovina by Leonid Desyatnikov. Deeply shaken by Russian aggression towards Ukraine in 2014, Desyatnikov wrote a cycle of preludes on Ukrainian themes titled Songs of Bukovina. The twenty third prelude of this cycle is based on the song Oh, Wretched Singer, What Are You Hoping For? which gave its name to this concert. After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, Desyatnikov left Russia. The final work in the programme is the Ukrainian Quintet by Boris Lyatoshinsky (1895-1968). Renowned as one of the founders of contemporary Ukrainian music, Lyatoshinsky taught all the famous Ukrainian composers of the late 20th century including Silvestrov, Stankovich and Grabovsky. His Ukrainian Quintet was composed during World War 2 and is based on Ukrainian folk themes.

Further details from EventBrite.

   

Grażyna Bacewicz's piano concertos and more on an exciting disc from Peter Jablonski & the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Grażyna Bacewicz: Piano Concerto, Concerto for Two Pianos, Music for Strings, Trumpets and Percussion; Peter Jablonski, Elisabeth Brauss, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Nicholas Collon; ONDINE

Three of the Polish composer's major symphonic works, including both piano concertos, in new recordings that bring out the power, range and brilliance of her music.

Grażyna Bacewicz wrote four symphonies and a Concerto for Symphony Orchestra, seven violin concertos, a viola concerto, two cello concertos, a piano concerto and a concerto for two pianos, along with five violin sonatas, seven string quartets, two piano quintets and much else besides. Yet, despite her music gaining currency in Western Europe, we rarely hear much of it. Before the war, she combined a career as a violinist (including playing with the Polish Radio Orchestra) with that of a composer but after the war, she concentrated on her compositional career. That she remained in her native Poland, behind the Iron Curtain, perhaps explains why her music never really percolated the West during her lifetime and rather disappeared afterwards.

The pianist Peter Jablonski, having given us a disc of Bacewicz's piano works on Ondine, returns to Ondine with pianist Elisabeth Brauss, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Nicholas Collon for a programme which features Bacewicz's Piano Concerto (with Jablonski as soloist), her Concerto for Two Pianos, Music for Strings, Trumpets and Percussion and Overture. The music spans 23 years of her composing career, and it is fascinating to hear how her sound and her style developed.

Choir and six acoustic guitars: Danish ensemble Cirklen's debut album, Genklang

Cirklen-Genklang-excerpt from WE GO on Vimeo.

On 26 May 2023, the Danish guitar sextet Cirklen releases its debut album, Genklang (Danish for 'resonance'), a collaboration between the sextet and the Danish choir ensemble MidtVest Girls' Choir, featuring music composed for the unusual constellation of six acoustic guitars and classical choir.  

Composed by Niels Bjerg and Anders Holst for their guitar ensemble Cirklen Genklang was originally commissioned in 2020 by Vestervig Church. After having been performed in several Danish churches, Genklang will now be released in a recorded version – recorded in Herning Valgmenighedskirke and in KoncertKirken at Blågaards Plads in Copenhagen. Despite having been active since 2009 with a variety of pieces, collaborations and concert formats (spanning techno, sound art and contemporary dance) Genklang is Cirklen’s first official release.

The album features music that enters into dialogue with the architecture of the church and the sounds and associations which are traditionally connected to its vast reverb. The album will be released digitally and on vinyl with hand-printed covers by Danish artist Pernille Gjørup Bruhn.

Full details from Cirklen's website.

The first opera in Sanskrit: Jataneel Banerjee's Gaṅgā at the Wandsworth Arts Fringe

Jataneel Banerjee's Gaṅgā at Tete-a-Tete Opera Festival in 2022 (Photo Claire Shovelton)

Composer Jataneel Banerjee's new chamber opera Gaṅgā is being premiered as part of the Wandsworth Arts Fringe with performances at the National Opera Studio, on 17 June 2023, and at Royal Academy of Dance, Battersea, on 25 June 2023. Gaṅgā is being billed as the first ever opera in Sanskrit, and it tells a story from the Indian epic, the Mahabharata. The performances will feature five singers, four musicians and a choir of (real) temple priests.

Composer, music producer and impresario, Jataneel Banerjee trained in both North Indian classical music and Western classical, he is a trained Indian classical vocalist and studied composition at the Royal College of Music. Gaṅgā was presented as a work-in-progress at the Tete-a-Tete Opera Festival 2022.

Full details from the composer's website.

High Barnet Chamber Music Festival

Joshua Ballance, artistic director of the High Barnet Chamber Music Festival

Conductor Joshua Ballance's High Barnet Chamber Music Festival returns for its third edition this Summer with a season of five concerts at St John the Baptist Church, High Barnet from 30 June to 16 July 2023. The festival opens with a concert from the New London Orchestra, performing music by Grace Williams, Joseph Suk and Lil Boulanger, alongside Carol J Jones' chrysalis in a newly commissioned version for string orchestra. The Jones is one of two new works at the festival, both of which came about through the festival's composition competition. The other new work is the festival's first commission, from emerging Australian composer Rob Hao. Hao's new work will be performed alongside Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and Helen Grime's Seven Pierrot Miniatures by Ballance's ensemble Mad Song with soprano Rebekah Jones.

Other concerts include pianist George Xiaoyuan Fu in Tailleferre, Beethoven, Ravel plus Cassandra Miller/Michael Finnissy's Sinner, Please Don't Let This Harvest Pass which consists of two pieces by Miller and Finnissy's two responses to them, and the Brompton Quartet in Haydn, Beethoven and Caroline Shaw. The festival ends with a charity concert by local musicians of all ages in memory of Jean Middlemiss, a music educator who lived locally.

Full details from the festival website.

A lovely immediacy to the performances: in Monologues, Anna Bonitatibus explores a century of dramatic scenes for solo voice

Monologues - Zingarelli, Donizetti, Rossini, Wagner, Viardot, Mel Bonis, Respighi; Anna Bonitatibus, Adele d'Aronzo; Prospero

A terrific disc in which the Italian mezzo casts her net wide for a series of vivid solos, each from a different era, and each providing us with a different voice for a woman addressing us directly

On her new double-disc set, Monologues on Prospero, mezzo-soprano Anna Bonitatibus is joined by pianist Adele d'Aronzo for a programme of dramatic monologues from 1804 to around 1911 with music by Zingarelli, Donizetti, Rossini, Wagner, Viardot, Mel Bonis and Respighi.

The monologue, as a dramatic device, dates back to classical antiquity and here we hear how composers have transferred these ideas to a solo voice and keyboard, into a 'scena drammatica'. Unsurprisingly, many of the subjects and protagonists are classical in their origins - Hero (& Leander), Sappho, Hermione, Arethusa, plus Joan of Arc, Mary Stuart and Salome. But whatever the dramatic origins, there is no doubting the era that the music of each piece belongs to.

Steeping listeners in Indian classical music without them knowing it: sitar player Jasdeep Singh Degun

Jasdeep Singh Degun

Jasdeep Singh Degun's tour of Anomaly featuring music from his acclaimed Real World Records debut disc opens on 17 May 2023 at the Howard Assembly Room in Leeds and continues to Norwich, Nottingham, Southampton, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Manchester and Liverpool [see website for details]. We met up earlier this month, whilst he was in London (the previous day he had been on BBC Radio 3's In Tune) to chat about Anomaly, and working with both Western classical and Indian classical musics.

Jasdeep is a sitar player and composer whose work in Indian classical music has crossed over into Western classical in such projects as Arya, his 2020 concerto for sitar written for Opera North, and for Opera North's Orpheus project which combined Monteverdi's opera with Indian classical music and for which Jasdeep was the co-musical director (with Lawrence Cummings).

Born in Leeds to Punjabi parents who came to the UK in the 1980s, in person, Jasdeep embodies this dual heritage, he wears a turban yet speaks with a distinct Leeds accent. At one point during our interview he comments that he is just a 'random guy from Leeds', he does not come from a musical family, his involvement in Indian classical music began at the local community centre and he only started concentrating on studying the sitar when he was in his teens, which is relatively late. He studied sitar with Ustad Dharambir Singh MBE, his teacher.

Jasdeep Singh Degun performing Arya: concerto for sitar and orchestra with Orchestra of Opera North (Photo Justin Slee)

Then I play'd upon the Harpsichord: Ensemble Hesperi's engaging look at the musical life of Queen Charlotte

The musical life of King George III and Queen Charlotte does not seem promising for an evening's entertainment at first, but the two were highly cultured with music playing a big role in their private and public lives. Ensemble Hesperi's 2022 project, Then I play'd upon the Harpsichord interwove music of the period with diary entries from the period. At a performance at Six Fitzroy Square, Ensemble Hesperi, Mary-Jannet Leith (recorders), Magdalena Loth-Hill (Baroque violin), Miriam Kazcor (Baroque flute), Florence Petit (Baroque cello), Elias Sibley (theorbo/guitar) and Thomas Allery (harpsichord), were joined by Rowan Pierce (soprano), Nathaniel Mander (fortepiano) and actor Miranda Keeling, when the evening was filmed, and the resulting film is available from Ensemble Hesperi's website.

A love of telling stories: Norwegian composer Bjørn Morten Christophersen on setting Charles Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species' to music

Bjørn Morten Christophersen (Photo Fartein Rudjord UIO)

Norwegian composer Bjørn Morten Christophersen's recent large-scale works have explored Darwin's On the Origin of Species, the journey of refugees through the life of the Norwegian-born first Duke of Normandy, and a Requiem for Norway's World War II sailors.  

His Charles Darwin-based oratorio The Lapse of Time came out on Simax Classics earlier this year [see my review]. A large-scale work for soloists, choir and orchestra, the piece sets Bjørn's own poetic libretto based on Charles Darwin's 1859 book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Premiered in 2013, in Kristiansund and Ålesund by Ensemble Dali, Kristiansund Sinfonietta and conductor Eirik Sørborg, eight years were to elapse before Bjørn was able to find the finance for further performance of the oratorio and after a year delay because of the pandemic, it was performed and recorded at Frogner Church, Oslo with Ensemble 96, Telemark Chamber Orchestra, Ditte Marie Bræin (soprano), Frank Havrøy (baritone), Inger-Lise Ulsrud (organ), Nina T. Karlsen and Per Kristian Skalstad (conductors).

Bjørn has PhD in musicology from the University of Oslo and an MA in Composing for Film and TV from Kingston University in London. Since 2003, he has taught arranging and composition at the University of Oslo.

Whilst Bjørn is not from a religious family, the fact that he has sung in choirs for many years and plays the organ meant that he was curious about church music and found himself drawn to it. He has also followed the debates between creationism and those who believe in evolution. It seemed that it was becoming impossible for the two sides to consider the two texts, the Bible and Darwin's On the Origin of Species, together. Bjørn grew up with the Natural Sciences, one parent was a doctor and the other a pharmacist. He wanted to make a piece that was meaningful for both sides, for those that believe in the Bible and in Natural Sciences.

Britten, Brandstrup, Bostridge in Bath, and much more besides in Deborah Warner's new season at the Theatre Royal's Ustinov Studio

Phaedra/Minotaur double bill at Ustinov Studio in 2022 (Photo Claire Egan)

Deborah Warner has announced her second season as artistic director of the Ustinov Studio at the Theatre Royal, Bath. As with her previous season, this new one mixes theatre, opera, and dance, along with a new recital strand.

Richard Jones will direct a new production of the play Machinal by American playwright Sophie Treadwell (1885-1970), an extraordinary epic masterpiece from the 1920s, based on the true story of the committal and execution of Ruth Snyder, who with her lover Judd Gray, had murdered her husband.

Isabelle Kettle will direct Benjamin Britten's opera The Turn of the Screw with Richard Heatherington as director of music and an accompaniment of piano and chamber ensemble. Complementing this tenor Ian Bostridge and pianist Julius Drake will be presenting a programme of songs by Britten.

Other recitals include mezzo-soprano Christine Rice and Julius Drake in Brahms, Haydn, Frank Bridge and Rebecca Clarke, and soprano Sophie Bevan in lieder by Schubert, Müller-Hermann and Mahler.

Warner's previous season at the Ustinov Studio featured a double bill of Britten's Phaedra and Kim Brandstrup's new dance piece, Minotaur, and the double bill will be featured at this year's Edinburgh Festival. In the new season at the Ustinov Studio, Kim Brandstup’s Minotaur returns in a dance double bill with a brand-new work by Brandstrup featuring ballet stars Matthew Ball, Alina Cojocaru, Kristen McNally and Tommy Franzen.

Alongside Warner's seasons, the Ustinov Studio continues to present programmes of world and UK premieres, alongside small-scale touring theatre, comedy, music and dance.

Full details from the Theatre Royal's website.

Thirteen North: Scotland's dynamic new string ensemble makes its debut with three new commissions plus film from Bircan Birol

Thirteen North

Formed by violinists and artistic directors Emily Davis and Catriona Price, Thirteen North is a new string ensemble made up of 13 of Scotland's best players with the aim of bringing classical music to a new and diverse audience. The ensemble's debut performance is Connected at St Luke's Glasgow on 29 June 2023. The ensemble will perform three new commissions by folk-influenced Scottish composers Pàdruig Morrison, Catriona Price, and Pippa Murphy, complemented by Bartók’s Divertimento for Strings. The event also features the work of Glasgow-based filmmaker Bircan Birol, who has collaborated with the three composers to create short films in response to the themes explored through their music – generations, culture, and tradition.

Connected aims to offers audiences an escape from the (oftentimes daunting) formal concert hall environment into a more relaxed and interactive space, stretching the boundaries of the traditional classical music experience and bringing it to the 21st century audiences it needs and deserves.

Further details about Connected from the St Luke's Glasgow website.

Finding his way: Opera Rara's revival of Donizetti's relatively early L'esule di Roma showed a composer finding his own voice

Donizetti: L'esule di Roma - Nicola Alaimo, Albina Shagimuratova, Carlo Rizzi, Britten Sinfonia - Opera Rara at Cadogan Hall (Photo Russell Duncan)

Donizetti: L'esule di Roma; Albina Shagimuratova, Sergey Romanovsky, Nicola Alaimo, Britten Sinfonia, Carlo Rizzi; Opera Rara at Cadogan Hall

With a mad scene for the baritone villain and an intense prison scene, this stylish performance showed Donizetti gradually moving away from the influence of Rossini

In 1822, Donizetti moved to Naples and began a relationship with the royal theatres there, in succession to Rossini who wrote nine operas for Naples between 1815 and 1822. In conventional chronology, Donizetti's serious operas for Naples are still journeyman works, very much dependent on the model of Rossini and it was only with Anna Bolena (written for Milan in 1830) that mature Donizetti begins. But Opera Rara wants to show us that Donizetti's operas from the 1820s do have something to say for themselves, so the company's latest project is a recording and performance of Donizetti's L'esule di Roma , ossia Il proscritto (The Exile from Rome, or the Proscribed Man) a melodramma eroico written for Naples in 1828 with a libretto by Domenico Gilardoni. This continues the theme of earlier Opera Rara projects, and in fact, Gilardoni would write the libretto of Donizetti's 1829 Neapolitan opera, Il paria which Opera Rara presented in 2021 [see my review] and his 1830 opera, Il diluvio universale which Opera Rara recorded in 2005.

Opera Rara presented Donizetti's L'esule di Roma at Cadogan Hall on Thursday 11 May 2023. Carlo Rizzi conducted the Britten Sinfonia with Albina Shagimuratova as Argelia, Nicola Alaimo as Murena, Sergey Romanovsky as Settimio, Lluis Calvet i Pey as Publio, Kezia Bienek as Leontina and Andre Henriques as Lucio and Fulvio.

Donizetti: L'esule di Roma - Sergey Romanovsky, Carlo Rizzi, Britten Sinfonia - Opera Rara at Cadogan Hall (Photo Russell Duncan)

Hertfordshire Festival of Music 2023

This year's Hertfordshire Festival of Music (HFOM) runs from 9 to 16 June 2023 with events in and around the county town of Hertford under the theme of The Art of Music & The Music of Art. The festival's principal artist this year is clarinettist Emma Johnson, and she will be heard in recital and at an in conversation event as well as giving a masterclass.

Genre-bending ensemble ZRI return to the festival with their mix of classical and traditional in their recreation atmosphere of the legendary Red Hedgehog bar in Vienna, at the McMullen Brewery courtyard in Hertford. Pianist Katya Apekisheva performs Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, violinist Litsa Tunnah will be exploring colour in music, guitarist Jack Hancher (winner of the 2022 Gold Medal of the Royal Overseas League Competition) gives a recital themed on art, whilst the Rossetti Ensemble performs music by David Matthews and the festival's artistic director, James Francis Brown.

To mark the Coronation, at Hertford Castle, the HFoM Community Concert Band musicians will perform arrangements of music associated with royalty in a fun, relaxed performance. The Hertford Chamber Choir and Manvinder Rattan take up the theme in a special performance at All Saints’ Church, including exquisite solo works for organ performed by William Whitehead.

There will also be 15 events/outreach projects in community venues, many free or with discounted tickets, and with the support of community sponsor, Network Homes and collaboration with Sing from the Heart, HFoM’s Music in Mind project offers a series of interactive sessions for people living with dementia, as well as their carers and families, in selected care homes across Hertfordshire.

Full details from the festival's website.

Giovanni Legrenzi: Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano explore motets by one of Venice's most prominent composers

Giovanni Legrenzi: motets; Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini; Naive

Concerto Italiano bring out the engaging madrigalian quality of the motets by one of Venice's most prominent and influential composers from the late 17th century

For this disc from Naive, Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano explore the published motets of Giovanni Legrenzi. Not that much of a name today, but in the late 17th century, one of Venice's most prominent and influential composers, eventually became maestro di cappella at San Marco in 1685.

Born and raised in Bergamo, his first post was in that city then he moved on to Ferrara and finally settled in Venice in 1670 where he took a variety of posts. In 1676 he was a finalist for appointment as maestro at San Marco in succession to Francesco Cavalli, losing by a single vote to Natale Monferrato, and he would succeed Monferrato in the post in 1685. His pupils would include Lotti, Gasparini and Albinoni.

In case you missed it: our newsletter April on Planet Hugill is out

Nicole Chevalier in Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs at ENO, photo Clive Barda.

April on Planet Hugill, the latest edition of our monthly newsletter is out, covering a wealth of reviews from last month, from Easter music to fin-de-siecle Korngold to the OAE's Nightshift in a bar in Brixton, The Fourth Choir at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the National Youth Orchestra at the Southbank and much else besides.

Interviews include Gábor Takács-Nagy on conducting Mozart, pianist Edna Stern on her approach to Bach, trumpeter Lucy Humphris on the ideas behind her debut disc, composer Neil T. Smith on the recent music that went into his new disc, and the founders of Vox Urbane on the importance of diversity.

Read the full newsletter at MadMimi, and if you don't already receive it, head over to the sign-up page.

Young Talent: news on schemes supporting young conductors, singers, performers and composers

Carys Davies, a previous member of WNO Youth Opera and current RWCMD student, in WNO’s main scale production of The Magic Flute.

The step between conservatoire and professional performer is quite a big one, and many organisations offer schemes that help this transition. There has been quite a bit of new in this area recently, there is a new Leverhulme Conducting Fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and Welsh National Opera are sharing a new multi-million pound legacy, the National Youth Orchestras of Scotland is starting a fund to support NYOS Camerata, a pre-professional chamber ensemble, and the current London Philharmonic Orchestra Young Composers scheme is reaching its concluding concert with five new works being directed by Brett Dean.

Following a selection process involving 150 global candidates, British-Canadian conductor Riley Court-Wood has been appointed as the new Leverhulme Conducting Fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS). The fellowship, in association with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra is for conductors on the cusp of their careers, offering a further step in the journey between study and the professional podium. Riley will work extensively with Martyn Brabbins – RCS’s Visiting Professor of Conducting and the Music Director of English National Opera – and will take up the role in September 2023, succeeding Emilie Godden. Further details from the RCS website.

Riley Court-Wood - new Leverhulme Conducting Fellow
at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

A multimillion pound legacy, shared between the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama (RWCMD) and Welsh National Opera (WNO), will support the training of singers and musicians and also create future opportunities for young artists to perform on a professional scale.  The late Philippa and David Seligman  were passionate supporters of the arts, and David has left legacies exceeding £3 million pounds to RWCMD and WNO. 

RWCMD’s David Seligman Opera School offers a fully integrated operatic training experience, with storytelling through music and drama at the heart of its intensive, personalised training. Part of the legacy will be directly invested into the productions, whilst crucially-needed new scholarships will also be created in the Seligman name for opera and other music disciplines. 

WNO Youth Opera was established in the mid-1990s as a way for the WNO company to share its love of opera with aspiring young singers. The impact of David’s legacy will ensure that WNO Youth Opera can present a showcase performance every year. The legacy also allows for a continuation of a talent development pathway that has historically linked both WNO and RWCMD. Numerous youth opera alumni have gone on to train at the College and then subsequently returned to WNO in a professional capacity. Further details from the RWCMD website.

The National Youth Orchestras of Scotland (NYOS) has announced the launch of a new fund to create opportunities for aspiring young musicians. The Richard Chester Creativity Fund honours the life and legacy of Richard Chester MBE, the visionary Director of NYOS from 1987 to 2007 who passed away in 2020. 

The fund aims to honour Richard by raising £20,000 for NYOS in his memory. One of the projects that will benefit from the fund is NYOS Camerata, a pre-professional chamber ensemble for musicians aged 18–25. Bridging the gap between youth orchestra and professional ensemble, NYOS Camerata provides opportunities for exceptional young musicians through a range of performances and collaborations, working alongside inspiring professional musicians. 

To celebrate the launch of the fund, NYOS Symphony Orchestra will perform alongside guest soloist, violinist Elena Urioste, in Perth Concert Hall on 15 July. Conducted by Martyn Brabbins, the current Music Director for English National Opera, the programme features music from Strauss, Elgar and Coleridge-Taylor. Full details from the NYOS website.

This year’s London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) Young Composers scheme culminates on Thursday 13 July at 7.30pm at the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall with its annual Debut Sounds concert, this year entitled Where to Begin? The 2022/23 cohort have created five new works inspired by other artforms, guided and conducted by LPO Composer-in-Residence Brett Dean.

The five new works take their leads from artforms including etching, animation, painting and circus. The composers and their pieces are:

• Jakob Bragg Through gates unseen inspired by the artist Robert Andrew
• Philip Dutton Etched inspired by the physical movement and experience of etching, and by artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi
• Zakiya Leeming Eagle in the Ropes inspired by aerial arts
• Matt London there must be more nature inspired by the artwork of Hundertwasser
• Tayla-Leigh Payne i inspired by short films by Norman McLaren and Stan Brakhage

Each work will be performed by a chamber orchestra of 30 musicians comprising LPO players and Foyle Future Firsts, the LPO’s programme that bridges the transition between education and the professional platform for outstanding early-career orchestral musicians.  Further details from the LPO website.

The Library of a Prussian Princess: Ensemble Augelletti at the Newbury Spring Festival

Ensemble Augelletti

The Library of a Prussian Princess; Ensemble Augelletti at the Newbury Spring Festival; Corn Exchange, Newbury
Reviewed by Florence Anna Maunders, 8 May 2023

Historically informed and charismatic virtuosity dazzle in the opening concert of Newbury Spring Festival's Young Artists' Recitals

One of the treasures of Berkshire's musical life, for years the Young Artists' Recital series has been part of the exciting programming of Newbury Spring Festival, giving a platform to exceptional chamber musicians and soloists at the start of their careers. A glance back at programmes from past years reads like a veritable who's-who of familiar names from across the UK and further afield, a clear reflection of the level of success enjoyed by festival director Mark Eynon's stated ambition to bring world-class music to Newbury.

Within the non-stop wall-to-wall concert programming of the two-week-long festival, this series of six recitals form a regular pattern, opening this year with the exciting UK-based period Ensemble Augelletti (Olwen Foulkes, recorders, Ellen Bundy, violin, Carina Drury, cello, Toby Carr, lute, Benedict Williams, harpsichord). With a string of prizes and awards already under their belts, and a very well-reviewed debut CD released last year [see Robert's review], it was unsurprising to see a large turnout at Newbury's magnificent Georgian Corn Exchange theatre for this lunchtime recital on 8 May 2023. 

Under the title, The Library of a Prussian Princess, the group presented a series of pieces collected from the personal library of Prussian princess Anna Amalia, perhaps best known as the musical sister of King Fredrich the Great and a life-long champion and patron of the Bach family, especially J.S. Bach, and his son C.P.E Bach, both of whom appeared on this programme, alongside works copied out in manuscript for the library for Amalia, and a selection of her own compositions as well.

Women of Note: Arch Sinfonia and Chloé Van Soeterstède in music by Lucy Armstrong, Ylva Skog and Emilie Mayer

Arch Sinfonia and Chloé Van Soeterstède

Arch Sinfonia and conductor Chloé Van Soeterstède's Women of Note concert, the programme of which was announced on International Women's Day earlier this year, features music by three notable women composers performed at Cecil Sharp House on 29 June 2023.

The concert features the world premiere of Lucy Armstrong's Saxophone Concerto with soloist Gillian Blair plus Symphony No. 1 by the 19th century German composer Emilie Mayer (1812-1883) who studied with Carl Loewe, and Swedish composer Ylva Skog's They Call Her Love.

In an intriguing development of audience involvement, members of the audience vote to help shape the programme of the next concert. 

Further details from the Arch Sinfonia website, and tickets from the Cecil Sharp House website.

Guildhall Young Artists: Guildhall School's network of centres that provides performing and production arts training for children and young people.

Students at GYA Norwich (Photo: Phil Barnes Photography)

The Guildhall School for Music and Drama has expanded its provision for training children and young people with the introduction of Guildhall Young Artists (GYA), a network of six centres that provides performing and production arts training for children and young people. Guildhall Young Artists is formed of six centres, Centre for Young Musicians based in Waterloo, London, Junior Guildhall based at Guildhall School’s Barbican site in London, Guildhall Young Artists King’s Cross, the newest GYA centre, Guildhall Young Artists Norwich, Guildhall Young Artists Taunton and Guildhall Young Artists Online for those who wish to join at GYA anywhere.

Each GYA centre is run and overseen by Guildhall School, in partnership with arts venues and local providers of education, including schools, local authorities and Music Hubs. Over 1500 students currently participate in GYA centre activities, including weekly Saturday courses and orchestras. Bursary support is offered to nearly 20% of participants across all GYA centres and almost 40% of participants are from the global majority. Students come from over 700 schools nationally, and from 23 counties, to attend each week. Taster sessions are offered at Guildhall Young Artists Norwich, Taunton and King’s Cross to give participants a better feel for the classes that they would like to take part in.

Regardless of their ultimate career direction, the professional artistic environment of Guildhall Young Artists provides students with valuable life skills and the means to develop their individual talents to the full. Many students go on to study their chosen discipline full-time at undergraduate level, with 132 students aged 16-18 from the network going on to study music or drama at higher education in the last three years. 

Full details from the Guildhall School website.

Summer at Snape

Britten Pears Arts' Summer at Snape returns this year with six weeks of events at venues across Snape Maltings and The Red House in Aldeburgh from 24 July to 2 September 2023, including music, dancing, walks & talks, art, food & drink, workshops, free outdoor music. Classical music visitors include Aurora Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Southbank Sinfonia, the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, pianists Benjamin Grosvenor, Christian Blackshaw, Sir Andras Schiff, soprano Danielle de Niese, violinist Hyeyoon Park, guitarist Sean Shibe, flautist Adam Walker, violist Timothy Ridout, Ensemble 360, the Jess Gillam Ensemble, The King’s Singers, Fretwork, Sphinx Virtuosi, Slide Action, and Connaught Brass.

The Aurora Orchestra will be bringing their latest challenging project, performing Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring from memory, whilst pianist Christian Blackshaw will be performing all of Mozart's piano sonatas and fantasias across four concerts. The Gavin Bryars Ensemble will be celebrating the composer's 80th birthday.

The BBC Concert Orchestra, conductor Barry Wordsworth, will give the world premiere of the orchestral version of Peter Dickinson’s Unicorns Suite alongside Lord Berners’ A Wedding Bouquet, Doreen Carwithen’s Men of Sherwood Forest and Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Keri-Lynn Wilson conducts the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra in a programme that combines Beethoven's Eroica Symphony with music by two Ukrainian composers, Yevhen Stankovych and Myroslav Skoryk. The National Youth String Orchestra will be performing music by Britten, Beethoven, Shostakovich arranged Rudolph Barshai and Anna Clyne.

Full details from the Britten Pears Arts website.