Music knows no borders: countertenor Reginald Mobley on the music of Ignatius Sancho, spirituals as Early Music and the importance of diversity

Christine Plubeau, Violaine Cochard & Reginald Mobley at the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival in September 2023 (Photo Bayreuth.Media)

We caught American countertenor Reginald Mobley in recital at the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival in September [see my review], when he performed a programme of music by Purcell, Handel and Ignatius Sancho, a former slave who in the 18th century became the first known British African to have voted in Britain. Reginald will be returning to Sancho's music in 2024 as part of his project Sons of England with the Academy of Ancient Music. Reginald became the first-ever programming consultant for the Handel & Haydn Society following several years of leading its community engagement Every Voice concerts. He also holds the position of Visiting Artist for Diversity Outreach with the Baroque ensemble Apollo’s Fire and is also leading a research project supported by the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council to uncover music by composers from diverse backgrounds (of which his Sons of England is a part). I caught up with Reginald last month when we chatted about Ignatius Sancho and the wider subject of the importance of diversity in music, as well as spirituals and how there is still a conversation to be had around the performance of them.

Reginald Mobley

Whilst the music of Ignatius Sancho is of great interest to Reginald, unfortunately, there isn't a great deal of it. There are two published volumes, most of which are dances and instrumental works with only seven or eight songs in total. At the recital in Bayreuth, we heard virtually all the songs from volume one. As a result, Reginald has been commissioning contemporary composers to create larger-scale works based on Sancho's music, and next year the Academy of Ancient Music will be premiering a new Sancho-inspired commission from Roderick Williams.

Reginald has been working with the Boston (USA) based Handel & Haydn Society (founded in 1815 and the longest-serving such performing arts organization in the USA) as programming consultant, helping to expand and diversify the repertoire. With Harry Christophers, the Handel & Haydn Society's artistic director until 2022, Reginald commissioned Jonathan Woody’s Suite for Orchestra, a suite of dances based on Sancho's music, which the orchestra recorded during the Pandemic. Reginald did a similar project in September 2022 at The Juilliard School when violinist Rachel Podger directed a Suite of Dances and Songs, arranged by Nicola Canzano. Reginald loves the idea of capping a programme with some music by Ignatius Sancho, as it gives audiences a way to understand the diversity of places like 18th-century London.

Monteverdi's Vorrei baciarti duet from Infinite Refrain with Randall Scotting & Jorge Navarro Colorado

Infinite Refrain: Music of Love's Refuge, the new disc from countertenor Randall Scotting, tenor Jorge Navarro Colorado, the Academy of Ancient Music and Laurence Cummings is released on Signum Classics today [link tree]. 

I encourage you to explore the album for a number of reasons. The two singers are both artists whom I admire and their repertoire on the disc, arias and duets from 17th century Venetian opera, is made even more enticing because the disc makes explicit something that is too often simply implicit in classical music. 

It explores a relationship between two men using music from a 17th century Venice which was one of the few places in Europe where such things could be even mentioned openly. A few years ago, I wrote an article about the depictions of gay relationships on the operatic stage and it became apparent that before the 20th century, you had to go to 17th-century Venice for anything like being open. 

There is another reason why I am mentioning the disc. We supported their GoFundMe, which is still open. So do give the disc a try.

Fairy Tales: Elisabeth Turmo and Elena Toponogova explore lesser-known Norwegian and Russian repertoire

Norwegian violinist Elisabeth Turmo and her duo-partner Elena Toponogova are releasing a new disc on the Quartz label, Fairy Tales, featuring a range of rarely performed fairy-tale-inspired pieces by Norwegian and Russian composers. The two are launching the disc at the 1910 Arts Club on 16 November 2023 [further details] when they will be performing music from the album. The Norwegian and Russian repertoire represents the interests of the two performers and means that Turmo will not just be playing the violin but also the Hardanger fiddle, Norway's national instrument.

The disc features Norwegian music by Ole Bull (1810-1880), Johan Halvorsen (1864-1965), Trygve Madsen (born 1940), and Anders Viken (1898-1977) mixing classical repertoire with that of folk fiddlers. The interest of the Russian strand must inevitably centre two pieces by Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962) based on Rimsky Korsakov's Scheherazade, but there is also the Fantasy on themes from Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Golden Cockerel by Efrem Zimbalist (1889-1985), a Russian composer who fled the country and made a big career in the USA and whose son, Efrem Zimbalist Jr, was a well-known actor in the TV series, 77 Sunset Strip! There is also music by Nikolai Medtner (1880-1951) and Igor Frolov (1937-2013).

An evening of wit, delight and magic: Silent Slapsticks at The Ritzy with Brixton Chamber Orchestra

Matthew O'Keeffe and the Brixton Chamber Orchestra at The Ritzy, Brixton

Film Orchestrated: Silent Slapsticks, Misha Mullov-Abbado, Matthew O'Keeffe; Brixton Chamber Orchestra, Matthew O'Keefe; Ritzy Cinema, Brixton
Reviewed 2 November 2023

Classic silent films from the 19th century through to the 1920s, provided with vividly engaging live soundtracks including some improvisation in an evening of wit, delight and sheer magic.

The Ritzy cinema in Brixton was built in 1911, one of England's first purpose-built cinemas and as such, designed for films to be shown with live music. We are used to modern blockbuster films appearing in the concert hall with live orchestral scores but the era of Thames Silents, with Carl Davis conducting a huge score to accompany a major silent film, seems to be over. The Ritzy's Film Orchestrated series aims to reclaim that. 

For the latest instalment, Silent Slapsticks, the Brixton Chamber Orchestra, music director Matthew O'Keeffe, was on hand to provide accompaniment to a compilation of early shorts, Buster Keaton's The Goat, Charlie Chaplin's Behind the Screen, Douglas Fairbanks' The Mark of Zorro and a surprise addition that brought the programme into the present day. Misha Mullov-Abbado, who played double bass in the orchestra, provided the new soundtracks for the compilation of shorts and for the Chaplin, Matthew O'Keeffe provided the new soundtrack for the Buster Keaton, and the Fairbanks' film had an improvised accompaniment. The comedian Darran Griffiths was compere, providing a lively introduction and link passages, as well as giving an improvised mis-commentary for The Mark of Zorro. But his role was rather increased due to technical problems and he rose to the occasion.

St John's Smith Square's Christmas Festival is back

St John's Smith Square's Christmas Festival is back

Howard Blake's The Snowman, Salmone Rossi & A Baroque Hanukkah, Gabriel Jackson's The Christmas Story, Handel's Messiah, Bach's Christmas Oratorio and more: St John's Smith Square's Christmas Festival is back next month for the 38th festival, from 9 to 23 December 2023. 

As a prelude to the festival, London Concert Choir joins Southbank Sinfonia and conductor Mark Forkgen for a programme of Schubert and Mendelssohn ending with his unfinished oratorio Christus on 8 December 2023.

Gabriel Jackson's The Christmas Story is premiered by the Choir and Girl Choristers of Merton College, conducted by Benjamin Nicholas with an instrumental ensemble using a libretto devised by Simon Jones, Chaplain of Merton, and including Merton poets. (9/12/2023). There is a film screening of The Snowman with Howard Blake's score played live by Southbank Sinfonia (10/12/2023). Samuel Ali performs Messiaen's La Nativité du Seigneur (14/12/2023).

The Vache Baroque Singers and La Vaghezza will be celebrating the music of Salomone Rossi in A Baroque Hanukkah (13/12/2023). Other  wisitors include The Gesualdo Six (12/12/2023),  the choir of New College, Oxford (15/12/2023), the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge (18/12/2023),  National Youth Music Theatre Chorus & Orchestra (16/12/2023), choir of Westminster Abbey (20/12/2023) and the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford (20/12/2023).

The Tallis Scholars and Peter Philips celebrate their 50th anniversary with While Shepherd's Watched (21/12/2023). Polyphone and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment come together with conductor Stephen Layton to perform Bach's Christmas Oratorio, parts 1-3 (22/12/2023) and Handel's Messiah (23/12/2023).

Full details from the St John's Smith Square website.

All change at the BBC orchestras

Adam Szabo (Photo: Phil Sharp)

It is all change at the top of the BBC orchestras, as Bill Chandler has been appointed director of the BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus and Adam Szabo has been appointed director of the BBC Philharmonic.

Originally from the USA, Bill was a violinist in the Houston Symphony and then joined the Royal Scottish National Orchestra as associate leader. Since September 2021 he has been director of the BBC Concert Orchestra, where he increased the orchestra's presence for Nottingham and Great Yarmouth, plus regular appearances at Alexandra Palace and plus appearances on Radio 2’s Piano Room series and Radio 3’s Unclassified Live, a tour with CBeebies and concerts with Streetwise Opera, London Jazz Festival and Grange Park Opera. He appointed the orchestra’s Chief Conductor Anna-Maria Helsing earlier this year.

Adam Szabo comes to the BBC Philharmonic from being co-founder and artistic director of Manchester Collective [see my 2020 interview with Adam]. Adam and Rakhi Singh founded the Manchester Collective in 2016, and is renowned for their experimental programming, daring collaborations and engaging performances, as well as their espousal of non-traditional venues. Prior to working with the Collective, Adam was a freelance cellist working with orchestras including the BBC Philharmonic.

Adam Szabo said: "Nothing compares to the experience of hearing a symphony orchestra at full throttle, and at their best, the BBC Philharmonic is unmatched by any group in the country. Their skill and versatility are legend. Equally at home with fiendish contemporary work as they are with our beloved orchestral canon, they embody the best of British music making. My work at Manchester Collective has been about creating radical experiences for audiences through live music. I can’t wait to bring that spirit to the BBC Philharmonic – working with these world class players to tell unique and powerful musical stories."

No ordinary concert: Scottish Ensemble reunites with MishMash productions for in Sync, a joyful, energetic event for all the family

Scottish Ensemble & Mish Mash Productions - in Sync

Founded in 2015, MishMash Productions is a Nottingham-based company creating musical experiences designed to in introduce young audiences to classical music in welcoming ways. Scottish Ensemble first started working with MishMash in 2022, beginning with development sessions to design a show for younger audiences. The result was in Sync. No ordinary concert, audiences get to know the musicians when they introduce themselves, interact with audiences, perform from memory, move while they play and share insights into the music being performed, all on a vibrant stage set with colourful atmosphere, thus making in Sync a joyful, energetic event for all the family. 

Scottish Ensemble reunites with MishMash for performances of in Sync in Aberdeen Concert Hall (4 November 2023) and Glasgow's RSNO New Auditorium (9 November 2023), along with a tour to schools in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee. Audiences will hear music from Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, genre-defying composer and Scottish Ensemble collaborator Anna Meredith, Indian-American composer Reena Esmail, and 17th-century theatre composer Henry Purcell, amongst many more. 

In Aberdeen, there will be two public performances, one at 7pm and an earlier performance at 2pm, which will be a relaxed performance. This version of the concert is built in order to make classical music performance more accessible to those who would benefit from a more relaxed performance environment, including (but not limited to) neurodivergent people, people with a learning disability and parents with very young children. The concert environment will be ‘relaxed’ - with reduced volume, house lights remaining on, and an open-door policy and more space in the audience set up to allow audience members to come and go from the performance space as they please. 

Full details from the Scottish Ensemble's website.

Haydn, Handel, Bizet, Smyth and early Verdi: after a successful 2023 festival, Buxton announces plans for 2024

Bellini: La Sonnambula - Simon Shibambu, Ziyi Dai - Buxton International Festival at Buxton Opera House (Photo: Genevieve Girling)

As Buxton International Festival looks back on a 2023 festival that exceeded all expectations, the festival has announced plans for next year's festival. Running from 4 to 21 July 2024, the festival will feature five opera productions of works by Verdi, Handel, Bizet, Smyth and Haydn, including renewed collaborations with the Early Opera Company and Norwich Theatre, along with an evening of dance from Carlos Acosta and friends.

The 2023 festival far exceeded expectations with 150 events presented and over 28,000 tickets sold, and 29% of the total audience attended a performance of the festival's production of Bellini's La Sonnambula.

For 2024, the festival is presenting a new production of Verdi's opera, Ernani at Buxton Opera House with the festival's artistic director, Adrian Kelly, conducting the orchestra of Opera North. Written in 1844,   as a follow up to Nabucco and I Lombardi the opera would be Verdi's most popular one in Italy until he wrote Il Trovatore. Performance of the opera in the UK have been somewhat patchy, the last major staging by a UK company seems to have been ENO in 2000, in a production reworking an earlier one from WNO. The present Royal Opera company has never performed the work.

Also in the opera house, The festival is joining forces with Christian Curnyn and the Early Opera Company to present a staging of Handel's early oratorio, Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno. Written in 1707, the work was Handel's first oratorio, premiered in Rome at a time when opera was banned so that aristocratic patrons turned to oratorio. Handel returned to it twice in London, once in 1737 for an expanded Italian version and again in 1757 when Handel, now blind, created an English language version with the help of his secretary John Christopher Smith Jr. 

The third presentation in Buxton Opera House is a production of Peter Brook's rather strange boiling down of Bizet's Carmen, La Tragedie de Carmen. This will be the festival's second collaboration with Norwich Theatre.

There will be two presentations in the Pavilion Arts Centre. There will be new productions of Ethel Smyth's delightful 1914 comedy, The Boatswain's Mate, and Haydn's La Canterina. Written in 1766, Haydn's short opera buffa La Canterina was the first opera that Haydn wrote for Prince Esterhazy, it was intended as a pair of intermezzos to be presented between the acts of an opera seria.

Dancer and choreographer Carlos Acosta will present On Before, pays homage to Acosta’s late mother and includes choreography by Russell Maliphant, Kim Brandstrup, and Will Tuckett. Acosta will perform as alongside Laura Rodríguez, a founding member of his Cuban dance company, Acosta Danza.

Full details from the festival website.

The level of polish & perfection is remarkable: Apollo5's Haven

Haven: Byrd, Paul Smith, de Monte, Taylor Scott Davis, Undine Smith Moore, Victora Vita Poleva, Michael McGlynn, Ola Gjeilo, Anna Kuzina-Rozhdestvenskaya, Sarah McLachlan, Marta Keen; Apollo5; VOCES8 Records
Reviewed 30 October 2023 by Florence Anna Maunders

Apollo5's new album features a glowing performance of Byrd's five-part mass alongside works  carefully selected to sustain the meditative mood including six works commissioned for the album

The five-voice a cappella ensemble Apollo5 has been with us for a dozen years now and continues to produce polished, glowing recordings with their new line up, including bass Augustus Perkins Ray (who blends perfectly with the remaining four members) for his first disc with the group, Haven on VOCES8 Records, which consists of the six movements of Byrd's masterful Mass for Five Voices intertwined with 11 other pieces from a remarkably wide range of other sources with music by Paul Smith, Philippe de Monte, Taylor Scott Davis, Undine Smith Moore, Victora Vita Poleva, Michael McGlynn, Ola Gjeilo, Anna Kuzina-Rozhdestvenskaya, Sarah McLachlan, and Marta Keen, including six tracks commissioned especially for this album.

Engaging & involving: Christophe Rousset & Les Talens Lyriques release Thésée as their 12th Lully opera album

Lully: Thésée; Mathias Vidal, Karine Deshayes, Deborah Cachet, Philippe Estephe, Benedicte Tauran, Les Talens Lyriques, Christophe Rousset; Aparté 

One of Quinault's finest librettos and some of Lully's most varied and imaginative music in a performance that is wonderfully responsive and stylish, with a natural flow and elegance to the drama

Lully and Quinault's Thésée was the third of their tragédie en musique, and it has particular significance in that it was the first such to be supported by King Louis XIV. Thésée was presented as part of the Carnival celebrations at court in 1675, its premiere delayed so that it could also be a celebration of the French victory at Turckheim in the war with the Dutch Republic. Following the premiere, at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, it went on to have 18 more performances before being given in Paris in April 1675 and there were regular performances during the later 1670s with revivals continuing throughout the 18th century, though for the later revivals the score and libretto were adjusted for modern taste. Quinault's libretto, one of his finest, was used as the basis for Handel's Italian opera, Teseo premiered in London in 1713.

As part of their continuing exploration of Lully's operas, Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques have recorded Lully's Thésée (their 12th Lully opera album)on the Aparté label with Mathias Vidal as Thésée, Karine Deshayes as Médée, Deborah Cachet as Églé, Philippe Estephe as Égée and Benedicte Tauran as Minerve.

Masque of Vengeance: a sleazy new opera in London & Manchester

The Music Troupe is giving the first performances of Edward Lambert's opera Masque of Vengeance, adapted from The Revenger's Tragedy (Thomas Middleton 1606) which depicts the violent lust for sex and power in a dystopian, criminal regime but does so with a witty and sardonic irony. The 80-minute chamber opera for nine singers accompanied by piano duet was specially written to give the impression of a 'grand' opera in a small theatre.

Masque of Vengeance is an attempt to emulate Italian opera in which the voices are pre-eminent. In a throwback to an old tradition, Vindicio, the revenger, is a young man played by a female mezzo-soprano. There are set pieces of arias and ensembles and the work has the feel of a fast-moving noir as the plots and sub-plots play out. 

Political manoeuvres in Jacobean times were tumultuous (e.g. the Gunpowder Plot of 1605) and Thomas Middleton's play casts a cynical eye over the amorality of powerful dynasties coupled with the politics of gender. David Edwards, directing, has updated the setting to the modern-day. 

This is The Music Troupe's latest offering to bring the art of ‘beautiful singing’ to new musical dramas which are tailored, rather than trimmed, to an intimate experience. Large institutions take an enormous risk in producing new operas, so they're as rare as hen's teeth. The standard repertory has shrunk to the dozen or two works that can attract an audience. How can this state of affairs be sustained? What other art form comprises such a small number of 'classic' favourites? Opera is clearly capable of infinite variation and renewal so surely new opera should be 'out there'? At the very least, small-scale works can be accessible, economical and suited to all kinds of venues.

Masque of Vengeance is at The Cockpit in London from 7 to 9 November 2023 [further details] and at The Stoller Hall, Manchester on 12 November 2023 [further details]

Quartet: How Four Women Changed the Musical World - violinist Fenella Humphreys introduces her programme of important but neglected figures of 20th century music

Leah Broad & Fenella Humphreys (Photo: Alejandro Tamagno)

On Sunday 5 November 2023, violinist Fenella Humphreys joins forces with author Leah Broad and pianist Nicola Eimer at Milton Court Concert Hall to explore some of the most important but neglected figures of 20th century music. Quartet: How Four Women Changed the Musical World features music by Doreen Carwithen, one of Britain’s first women film composers, Rebecca Clarke, acclaimed for her musical experimentation, Dorothy Howell, a prodigy who shot to fame at the Proms, and Ethel Smyth, a highly versatile composer of exceptional quality.

Here, Fenella Humphreys explores her introduction to the composers and their music.

When I was about eight or nine years old I was given Lili Boulanger’s Nocturne to learn. It was a genuine life-changer - I hadn’t realised until then just how music could make you feel, and it definitely made me want to become a musician.

It was only years later that it occurred to me how unusual it was that it was written by a woman. I look back at the music I played and sang as a child, and I barely remember any that wasn’t written by a fairly narrow group of men.

Once I started playing more new music I often played works by living women. With older repertoire though, led by my teachers on choices women simply weren’t included and it was so ingrained I didn’t even question it. 

After college, I started exploring music that wasn’t often played and gradually started finding more and more musically underrepresented groups (women, people of other ethnicities, people with the ‘wrong’ political ideologies etc.) who had simply disappeared or been written out of history. There was an attitude that if their music hadn’t survived it meant it simply wasn’t as ‘good’ as works that had, but the more of this music I played, the more really good music I was finding. The argument just didn’t hold water. But often getting hold of the sheet music was a real problem where works had fallen out of print and there was no estate fighting for the music.

I carry on searching out scores and composers - sometimes you’ll find things in charity shops, trawling through early proms programmes, finding old LPs - you never know what will pop up. And because I’ve recorded a few works that aren’t so well known, I now get sent music by families of composers which I always do my best to perform. Finding the funding to record can be more problematic but it feels so important where music is good, to make sure it doesn’t just disappear into the mists of time.

One place I knew I was always sure to find out about composers I didn’t know was Leah Broad’s social media. Eventually last year we met in real life at a festival celebrating the 100th anniversary of composer Doreen Carwithen. We decided it would be a great idea to collaborate. Looking through the lists of composers and repertoire that she’d researched I just couldn’t believe how much music and composers there still were out there I’d never come across.

We had a few ideas for programming and other ways we could collaborate outside the concert hall, but decided to start off with a words and music performance based around the four composers in Leah’s new book, Quartet - Ethel Smyth (1858-1940, Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979), Dorothy Howell (1898-1982) and Doreen Carwithen (1922-2003). Each of them had written a sonata for violin and piano, and some had written more.

I already knew Doreen Carwithen’s Sonata through the good luck of having been asked by the William Alwyn Foundation (Alwyn was Doreen Carwithen’s husband) to perform and record it a few years ago. It’s an extraordinary work: bold, imaginative, well crafted and full of colour.

I was properly shocked when I found Ethel Smyth had written a sonata - I felt sure I’d have heard of a major work by someone that well known. But I hadn’t and it was a revelation when I started to get to know it. It was written in 1887, fairly early in her career when she was in her late 20s. The music is definitely influenced by Brahms and the the music she was hearing around her in Leipzig but again full of personality and passion. Fortunately it was still in print so at least it was easy enough to get hold of.

With Rebecca Clarke I had learnt her viola sonata which absolutely is core repertoire but hadn’t been aware of the violin music until fairly recently. I’d been asked to include her Midsummer Moon in a programme, and kept programming it elsewhere because it’s such special music. It’s one of those pieces that people always single out in a programme when they come to talk to you after a concert. With the two sonatas though, written much earlier, when I first started looking for the music I was worried we were going to have some proper work to do to find them. But by incredible good luck, just then Sleepy Puppy Press announced publication of new editions of both works. 

Dorothy Howell was the one composer of the four I didn’t know at all as we started - and she’s now possibly the one I love most. As a very young woman, her career started illustriously with Proms commissions and premieres - she was the talk of the town. But as writing styles around her changed and hers didn’t, she became less and less performed. We’re indebted to her niece and nephew who saved all her scores when, late in her life she felt nobody was interested in her music and was intent on burning it all. One of her works is available on IMSLP, and Schott are about to republish a couple of others that were out of print. However The Moorings and her Sonata which we wanted to include in the programme were both very much out of print. Leah asked around and eventually we found that alongside the copy of the sonata in the British Library there was one in another library. But it had been out on loan for a very long time. After some increasingly desperate messages back and forth it was returned and our programme was nearly complete. Just The Moorings was missing. After a good amount of detective work, Leah managed to get her hands on a slightly wobbly photo of the score off the black market somewhere. I re-typeset it and we were good to go. 

It’s been a wonderful time getting to know these composers and their music - and their stories through Leah’s brilliant narration. The plan is to extend these programmes to bring more composers’ lives and stories to light. In the meantime we can’t wait to perform the current programme of extraordinary music and stories at Barbican on 5th November at 4pm.

Violinist Fenella Humphreys is joined by pianist Nicola Eimer and narrator Leah Broad for Quartet: How Four Women Changed the Musical World at Milton Court Concert Hall on Sunday 5 November 2023, featuring music by Ethel Smyth, Doreen Carwithen, Rebecca Clarke, Dorothy Howell.

full details from the Barbican website.

Bridging the gap: built with the largest single private donation to a state school & receiving no public funding, Saffron Hall celebrates ten years of artistic achievement & community engagement

Saffron Hall is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a weekend of celebratory events. The hall opened on 30 November 2013 with a season of just 12 concerts and from 1-3 December 2023 there is a whole range of celebratory events from jazz and soul, to Harry Bickett conducting the English Concert in Handel's Rodelinda, to Jess Gillam and the Britten Sinfonia, to sessions and workshops for children and families.

Located within the grounds of Saffron Walden County High School, the hall was built with the largest single private donation to a state school. Whilst the East of England region receives less arts funding compared to other parts of the UK, and Saffron Hall Trust receives no public funding, it has bridged the gap, offering performing arts and music to the local community and the entire region. Through broadening its programme, empowering and supporting amateur groups, establishing the region’s largest Saturday music school, reaching primary and secondary schools throughout the area and delivering flagship work for people living with dementia and their carers, Saffron Hall ensures that everyone has a chance to take part, engage, and experience arts and music that move, inspire, and connect.

From those initial 12 events, the hall now boasts a world-class music programme that includes two Resident Orchestras – London Philharmonic Orchestra and Britten Sinfonia – and presents around 125 events a year, spanning classical, fully staged opera, folk, big band, brass band, swing, jazz. As the only concert hall in Essex, it has seen exceptional audience growth and last year welcomed over 45,000 audience members, whilst over the past decade the hall has reached nearly 50,000 people through its education programmes.

Full details from the hall's website.

Celebrating their roots: Academy of St Martin in the Fields anniversary events for Sir Neville Marriner's centenary

Sir Neville Marriner in rehearsal with Academy of St Martin in the Fields & Los Romeros guitar quartet (Photo: Mike Evans)

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields (ASMF) will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of its founder Sir Neville Marriner (15 April 1924 – 2 October 2016) with a series of events during April 2024 as part of its 2023/24 season with new music by Errollyn Wallen and Vince Mendoza, contributions from ASMF music director, violinist Joshua Bell, conductor and former ASMF flautist Jaime Martin and jazz drummer Douglas Marriner, plus an exhibition commemorating and celebrating Sir Neville’s life and career in the St Martin-in-the-Fields crypt.

The orchestra returns to its spiritual home, St Martin-in-the-Fields, for a celebratory concert on 15 April 2024 when Joshua Bell, Jaime Martin and ASMF leader Tomo Keller share directing the orchestra in a programme that includes an Errollyn Wallen premiere plus music by Handel, Hadyn, Mozart, and Vaughan Williams. The following day, 16 April 2024, Joshua Bell joins the ASMF Chamber Ensemble for Mendelssohn’s Octet in E-Flat Major, Op.20 and Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op.4.

On 18 April 2024, there is a gala concert at the Royal Festival Hall featuring excerpts from the soundtrack to Academy Award winning film Amadeus, which celebrates 40 years since its release in September 2024. Alongside this there will be the European premiere of a work by Grammy Award-winning composer Vince Mendoza, for orchestra, violin and jazz drum kit, performed by ASMF, Joshua Bell and Douglas Marriner, Sir Neville’s grandson. The orchestra also travels to Lincoln for a concert on 24 April, celebrating that fact that Sir Neville was born in the city. 

Full details from the ASMF website.

Music of Innocence: Arvo Pärt, Mozart & Mahler from the Northern Chamber Orchestra

The Northern Chamber Orchestra's (NCO)Autumn season continues at The King's School, Macclesfield on Saturday 4 November 2023 with a concert that celebrates exceptional female musicianship. as the orchestra is joined by conductor Delyana Lazarova, violinist Chloë Hanslip and soprano Nadine Benjamin for a programme of Arvo Pärt, Mozart and Mahler.

Delyana Lazarova returns to NCO following her performance of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony with them last year. She is joined by soloist Chloë Hanslip, NCO's artist in association, for Mozart's Violin Concerto in D major, K 218, and the evening ends with a performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 4 with soloist Nadine Benjamin. Mahler's symphony is being performed in the chamber orchestration by Iain Farrington. The programme begins with Arvo Pärt's Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten.

Established in 1967, the Northern Chamber Orchestra comprising approximately twenty-five musicians, an ensemble of distinguished chamber players, many of whom frequently step into the limelight as soloists.  It currently presents an annual series of eight concerts at The King’s School and St Michael’s Church in Macclesfield, as well as  contributing to the Buxton Festival both in the main opera productions, and in orchestral performances at St John’s Church in Buxton. 

Full details from the orchestra's website.

Two Cities: Ned Rorem in Paris & New York - centenary celebrations at London Song Festival

Ned Rorem in 1953, photographed by Man Ray (image from http://www.nedrorem.net/)

Two Cities: Ned Rorem in Paris and New York; Jonathan Eyers, Christopher Killersby, Nigel Foster, James Crutcher; London Song Festival at the Hinde Street Methodist Church
Reviewed 27 October 2023

During Ned Rorem's centenary year, an imaginative overview of his songs alongside vivid extracts from his diaries

The American composer Ned Rorem would have been 100 last month, on 23 October 2023. He nearly made it to his 100th birthday, dying last year just after his 99th, and remained active as a composer until 2013. Rorem was such a vivid and vital character during his long life, publishing five volumes of diaries covering the years 1951 to 2005, that it is slightly surprising that for his centenary, his music has not been more widely performed. Perhaps there is something of what might be called 'The Ethel Smyth Effect', the lively character revealed in the printed diaries (notably in Rorem's case, his espousal of the bad boy in post-war Paris) seems somewhat at odds with the music. 

As well as operas and symphonies, Rorem wrote over 500 songs, many of them grouped in cycles. Rorem wrote 30 or so song cycles of which the culmination was perhaps Rorem's 1997 work Evidence of Things Not Seen, an evening-length sequence of thirty-six songs for soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, and piano.

As part of the Autumn, City and Country season at the London Song Festival, artistic director and pianist Nigel Foster chose to focus on Ned Rorem on Friday 27 October 2023. At Hinde Street Methodist Church, Foster was joined by baritone Jonathan Eyers, tenor Christopher Killerby and actor James Crutcher for an evening of Rorem's songs, Two Cities: Ned Rorem in Paris and New York, giving us the chance to hear 23 of Rorem's songs interspersed with readings from his diaries. Tenor Christopher Killerby stood in at remarkably short notice (around a week) and we must be grateful to him for managing to learn around a dozen unfamiliar songs, a remarkable achievement.

Exploring his musical roots: conductor Duncan Ward chats about his jazz-inspired, Eastern European & French music coming up with the London Symphony Orchestra

Duncan Ward and Philharmonie Zuidnederland 

The conductor Duncan Ward has two concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) coming up, one featuring music by Gary Carpenter, Barber and Abel Selaocoe as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival [16 November 2023, further details], and the other featuring music by Bartok, Janacek, Chausson and Debussy with soloist Isabelle Faust [23 November 2023, further details]. Duncan is chief conductor of Philharmonie Zuidnederland (South Netherlands Philharmonic) and music director of the Mediterranean Youth Orchestra, a new position created by the Festival d'Aix. 

 Duncan Ward (Photo: Hugo Thomassen)

Both of Duncan's programmes with the LSO are typically eclectic. The works in his first concert seem, at first sight, to only have a tangential relationship to jazz, but he assures me that this is not the case. He describes Gary Carpenter's music as funky, with a distinct jazz influence and his piece Dadaville includes raucous saxophone and trombone solos, uses an expanded drum kit and builds into what Duncan describes as quite a riot. Barber's Medea's Dance of Vengeance is a work that Duncan describes as building up into a groovy frenzy. It is a work that he heard as a teenager and was hooked from the opening, the mysterious strings, the build-up into a frenzy. He heard it in the car, his mother was running him to a rehearsal and he insisted they could not get out of the car until the end was reached. Strangely, it is a piece that is rarely programmed. He has tried to persuade orchestras to perform it, but often the answer is no. 

The third work in the programme is Abel Selaocoe's Cello Concerto: Four Spirits with Selaocoe as soloist. Duncan describes Selaocoe as a man of many influences, his music is eclectic, with jazz, folk and other influences making it tricky to label. In his solo performances, Selaocoe often plays and sings, he does that in the concerto and will be expecting the orchestra musicians to do the same. Selaocoe will be joined by a percussionist playing a world music drum kit. The concerto has reflective and hypnotic moments alongside the more rhythmic sections. 

Piatti Quartet launches its Rush Hour Lates at Kings Place with Dvorak and Schubert

Piatti Quartet at Kings Place (Photo: Piatti Quartet)

The Piatti Quartet (Michael Trainor, Emily Holland, Miguel Sobrinho, Jessie Ann Richardson) is the new quartet in residence at Kings Place and they launched their series of Rush House Late concerts on Wednesday 25 October 2023 with a programme of Schubert's Quartetsatz and Dvorak's String Quartet in F, Op. 96 'American' and future concerts in the series will explore further late Dvorak quartets.

Schubert wrote his Quartetsatz in 1820, it is effectively the sole example of his quartet writing between his early works, written before 1817, and his late masterpieces in the genre written a few years later. The quartet exists as a single movement, plus a few bars of an Andante. Like the Unfinished Symphony of 1822, and quite a lot of other works, Schubert seems to have simply broken off writing it. The single movement is a powerful, confident piece of writing though you notice that Schubert was still influenced by earlier quartet writing with its solo violin plus accompaniment style.

A bold statement of cultural synthesis: Vache Baroque's Jonathan Darbourne on celebrating the art of Salmone Rossi

Vache Baroque (Photo: The Photography Shed)

This Autumn, Vache Baroque is presenting a multi-event project to commemorate 400 years since the Jewish-Italian composer Salomone Rossi (ca. 1570 – 1630) published his ground-breaking collection The Songs of Solomon in 1623. Here, Vache Baroque's artistic director Jonathan Darbourne introduces their Rossi 400 project.

Joanthan Darbourne (Photo: Vache Baroque)

I’ll admit something from the outset: before this project, I can’t remember ever having sung a piece by Salomone Rossi. This has made discovering his music all the more exciting, as everything I played through or heard on recordings when planning the programmes was brand new. Parallel to this was researching those who have performed his music or have an interest in his life, which has led to connections being made with all sorts of wonderful people - novelists, academics, rabbis, cantors, instrumentalists, organ builders, broadcasters. Over the course of about eight months, we will have celebrated Rossi through film, dance, instruments, voices, interviews, and even a Jewish-Italian dining experience. And next year we will take one of the programmes to Italy, his homeland.

So why Rossi? 2023 marks 400 years since the publication of his ground-breaking vocal collection The Songs of Solomon. This highly novel work contains over thirty pieces with Hebrew texts - mostly psalms - set to music of a contemporary polyphonic style. Of course, composers across Reformation Europe had for quite some time set vernacular texts to a style of sacred music originally used for Latin, the lingua franca of the Church. Rossi’s task, however, was different: there was no precedent in the remembered or notated Jewish musical tradition for multi-voiced sacred music, and Hebrew, being read from right to left, presented an obvious problem when printing it with left-to-right musical notation. (This last issue was resolved in a rather democratic manner by printing the full word at the start of a phrase and letting the singers decide how to space the syllables.)

The long, multi-authored preface attests to the time and thought Rossi and his close circle had put into such an experimental project. It was absolutely a ‘grand plan,’ with the aim to rediscover (or reinvent) the music that would have been heard in the First Temple in Jerusalem thousand of years before. The Songs of Solomon was a bold statement of cultural synthesis, an attempt to breathe new life into Jewish ceremony and worship by utilising a Gentile art form.

We think this mixing together of seemingly clashing cultures deserves celebration and chimes so strongly with our mission at Vache Baroque and those of so many other arts organisations. Taking inspiration from this, our first offering was to mix old and new by making two music videos with madrigal backing tracks - one by Rossi, the other by a fan of his, Thomas Weelkes. We gave the texts modern storylines which were realised through the movement of two dancers from BirdGang Ltd and choreographed by the dancer-actor Ukweli Roach. [watch FAREWELLS on YouTube]

To place Rossi within his musical and cultural world, we are now in the middle of a series of performances being given in London synagogues [11 November 2023, further details] and in the hall of The Vache house [4 November 2023, further details]. These programmes place the sacred and secular vocal music by Rossi alongside pieces by contemporaries such as Monteverdi, Caccini, Byrd, Weelkes, Campion, and Kapsberger. Madrigals, solo songs, motets, metrical psalm settings, and a handful of settings from ‘The Songs of Solomon’ attest to a highly diverse and experimental musical climate - what we like to view now as a shift from Renaissance rules to Baroque rule breaking.

To finish the year, the acclaimed ensemble La Vaghezza will join eight singers and two instrumentalists from Vache Baroque at St John's Smith Square [13 December 2023, further details]. Here we will plot the story of Hanukkah through Rossi’s psalm settings and pieces on the same texts by composers including Schütz, Cavalli, Ravenscroft, and Purcell. It promises to be an evening of surprising contrasts and a chance for us to celebrate not just Rossi’s vocal music but his ravishing compositions in trio texture, in which he was the first composer to make publications. It has been a fantastic journey so far for so many of us and we are looking forward to the final 'gala' feel of this closing concert. 

Stories in music in Oxford: visual inspirations from the Mendelssohn siblings, William Blake in song & image, vivid story-telling from Wolf & Mörike

Mendelssohn, Looking at Blake, Hugo Wolf: Mörike Lieder; Harriet Burns, Alessandro Fisher, Eugene Asti, Robin Tritschler, Christopher Glynn, Thomas Oliemans, Hans Eijsackers; Oxford Lieder Festival

Music, visual arts and story-telling in a day at the Oxford International Song Festival, ranging widely over the Mendelssohn siblings' relationship, 20th century settings of Blake, and Hugo Wolf in devilishly good form

Tuesday 24 October 2023 was a day of stories at the Oxford International Song Festival. Things began with soprano Harriet Burns, tenor Alessandro Fisher and pianist Eugene Asti in songs by both Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, then at rush hour, tenor Robin Tritschler and pianist Christopher Glynn combined 20th-century settings of William Blake with the artist's own images, and in the evening we had the vivid story-telling of baritone Thomas Oliemans and pianist Hans Eijsackers in a selection of Wolf's Mörike-Lieder.

The day had begun with a Show and Tell at The Weston Library, looking at Mendelssohn-related manuscripts in the collection including the stunning Schilflied, a song manuscript intricately illustrated in watercolour by Mendelssohn himself. Confession time, I didn't manage to attend this. But the lunchtime concert followed on from this with The Mendelssohns at the Holywell Music Room with soprano Harriet Burns, tenor Alessandro Fisher and pianist Eugene Asti in a programme of songs by Felix and Fanny, from their very first surviving songs to their last, with seven of the songs having manuscripts housed in the Bodleian. The centre-piece of the programme was Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel's Five Songs, Op. 10 which included her last composition and Felix Mendelssohn's Six Songs, Op. 71, published after his death and including two songs written after Fanny's death.