Yorkshire Calling: Ben Crick & the Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra open Bradford Live for Yorkshire Day as part of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture

The ballroom at Bradford Live

A restored 1930s Art Deco building in Bradford will be reopening in August after being saved from demolition and restored as a cultural hub for the city. As part of events for Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, Bradford Live will host the Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra, conductor Ben Crick on Yorkshire Day, 1 August 2025.

For the event, called Yorkshire Calling, Crick and the orchestra will be joined by poet Ian McMillan, the BBC’s Bantam of the Opera Choir and Leeds-based pianist Yuanfan Yang.

Crick will conduct his own music in A Northern Score featuring featuring poems written and narrated by Ian McMillan, celebrating influential northerners through the ages. The Bantam of the Opera choir features fans of Bradford City AFC, known as ‘the Bantams’ who have been taught to sing opera to celebrate Bradford’s UK City of Culture year, as part of a BBC Radio Leeds programme. Pianist Yuanfan Yang is an alumnus of the 2015 and 2018 Leeds International Piano competition (known as The Leeds). He is the Piano Ambassador for the Wharfedale Festival of Piano which includes the annual Waterman Piano Recital Series in memory of The Leeds co-founder Dame Fanny Waterman. 

Established in 1975 by the Yorkshire Ridings Society, Yorkshire Day commemorates Yorkshire’s historic contributions; for the last 40 years, Yorkshire Day, has been managed by the Yorkshire Society.  This year the Yorkshire Society is working in partnership with Bradford 2025.  

Further information about Yorkshire Calling from the Trafalgar Tickets website.

Compelling and magisterial: Sunwook Kim directs Chamber Orchestra of Europe from the piano in Beethoven's third and fourth piano concertos

Sunwook Kim & Chamber Orchestra of Europe - Barbican Centre (Photo: Ed Maitland-Smith/Barbican Centre)

Anna Clyne: Stride, Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3, Rondino in E flat, Piano Concerto  N. 4; Sunwook Kim, Chamber Orchestra of Europe; the Barbican Hall
Reviewed 12 April 2025

Orchestra and soloist both on terrific form in a pair of concerto performances remarkably unified in intention and surmounted by the responsive yet definite piano playing of Sunwook Kim

Pianist Sunwook Kim won the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2006, aged just 18, the competition's youngest winner for 40 years and its first Asian winner. This means that he is still remarkably youthful despite his 20 year career in the spotlight. As part of a tour of Europe and South Korea, Sunwook Kim joined the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, directing Beethoven piano concertos from the keyboard. Kim and the orchestra's tour concluded with two UK performances, at Saffron Hall and the Barbican, the orchestra's first UK appearances since they performed at the 2017 BBC Proms.

On Saturday 12 April 2025, at the Barbican Hall, Sunwook Kim directed the Chamber Orchestra of Europe from the piano in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 and Piano Concerto No. 4, the strings of the orchestra played Anna Clyne's Beethoven-inspired Stride, and eight wind players performed Beethoven's  early Rondino in E flat major.

Sunwook Kim & Chamber Orchestra of Europe - Barbican Centre (Photo: Ed Maitland-Smith/Barbican Centre)

We began with Anna Clyne's Stride, written as part of the Beethoven 250th anniversary celebrations in 2020. Premiered by the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Clyne drew inspiration for the work from Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 'Pathétique' with the name Stride arising because Clyne felt the left-hand octaves in the sonata were reminiscent of stride piano.

Letter from Florida: Sarasota Opera's Winter Festival

Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro - Sarasota Opera, 2025 - (Photo: Robert Millington for Sarasota Opera)

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, Verdi: Stiffelio, Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia, Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana, Leoncavallo: Pagliacci: Sarasota Opera; Sarasota Opera House, Sarasota, Florida
Reviewed by Robert J Carreras, 25-29 March 2025

In our latest Letter from Florida, Robert J Carreras enjoys Sarasota Opera's 2025 Winter Festival and considers what next for this enterprising company and its quirkily diminutive performance space

What’s next for Sarasota Opera? In recent years, this company seems to have covered all the proverbial operatic bases, advancing from a specialized regional outfit to something like a full-throated and fully invested international opera theatre. Sarasota Opera defies the typical classification of regional company as it has come to be known in the United States, existing more like a top-tier company homed in a quirkily diminutive performance space.

Of late, Sarasota's performers are more well-rounded, with exciting voices the rule. The stage direction is more concentrated, more diffusely assumed across even supers, and more topically informed. The music-making has kept pace, with visiting conductors adding spicy stylistic touches to already stellar orchestra playing. What’s next?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is the answer to that question for many opera companies. Three of Mozart’s operas take up spots in the top ten most performed operas in the world since the millennium according to OPERABASE. Le nozze di Figaro, sixth on that count, is in repertory for Sarasota’s 2025 Winter Festival.

An incredible feeling when you get it right; horn-player Martin Owen on performing Mozart's complete horn concertos with Manchester Camerata

Martin Owen, Manchester Camerata, Gábor Takács-Nagy at the Stoller Hall (Photo; Rob Everett)

When horn player Martin Owen and I met to chat about his performances of Mozart's Horn Concertos with Manchester Camerata, our conversation began with the slightly unlikely topic of a health scare that Martin had a few years ago. The context being that he feels that to do full justice to Mozart's concertos you need life experience, nothing helps more than love and loss, pain and heartache in your life. In fact, Martin played and recorded the fourth concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra around 20 years ago but his current concerts with Manchester Camerata, and Gábor Takács-Nagy at The Stoller Hall in Manchester (Concertos Nos. 1 & 2, plus Concert Rondo on 2 April, Concertos Nos. 3 & 4 on 23 May) represent the first time he has performed all the concertos and after the second concert, they will be going into the studio to record them for Chandos, a logical extension to the orchestra's Mozart Made in Manchester series.

His approach to Mozart is very different now from what it was 20 years ago, you have different expectations and a different approach as you get older so the way a performer copes is inevitably different. When he was younger, he would have gone hell for leather at the concerto's opening, aiming for excitement and adrenalin, but his approach is now more considered. Martin is performing on a modern instrument but whilst he feels that modern values in Mozart veer towards the ideal of smooth tone, he is interested in getting a real variety of dynamics in the performance. He comments that he no longer thinks that aiming for perfection is the only idea. He points out that when Mozart wrote his concertos, the invention of the valve was 35 years away; Mozart's friend, Joseph Leutgeb for whom the concertos were written, played a natural horn. That is a horn with no valves, whereas Martin's modern instrument features valves of titanium and it also has a larger bore than older historical instruments.

Martin Owen (Photo: Davide Cerati)

Yet Martin's performances also include nods to historical information, not just the notes as Mozaart's scores for Joseph Leutgeb are littered with jokes and swear words. In some concertos, Mozart used different coloured pens, and Martin feels that the scores demonstrate quite how much fun Mozart and Leutgeb were having, and this personal link seems to separate the horn concertos from Mozart's other major concertos. In the slow movements of the horn concertos, Mozart has written some of his most beautiful music, music which is so difficult to bring off. You need to be able to turn a phrase so beautifully and so perfectly, and Martin finds it an incredible feeling when you get it right.

A somewhat eclectic yet satisfying journey: Swiss baritone Äneas Humm explores ideas of freedom in songs by Beethoven, Schubert, Amy Beach, and Joseph Marx

Libertas: Beethoven, Schubert, Beach, Marx; Äneas Humm, Doriana Tchakarova; Rondeau Production
Reviewed 19 April 2025

The young Swiss baritone explores ideas of personal freedom in an intriguing recital that moves from Beethoven and Schubert to Amy Beach (in German) and Joseph Marx

On their new disc, Libertas on the Rondeau Production label, baritone Äneas Humm and pianist Doriana Tchakarova use the idea of the search for inner freedom to go on a musical journey encountering composers who, in different ways, strove to attain individual independence. The result is a somewhat eclectic yet satisfying journey beginning with Beethoven, then moving to Schubert, then four of Amy Beach's German language songs and finally a selection from Joseph Marx.

We begin, of course with Beethoven, and whilst Mephistopheles' 'Song of the Flea' from Goethe's Faust resonates from all sorts of other musical contexts, we must remember that the song is met in the play with the words 'Long live freedom'. Here Humm's finely characterful, focused baritone is complemented by Tchakarova's delightfully perky almost sarcastic piano.

A lonely death leaves a legacy of courage and resolve: the Pavel Kushnir Scholarship Fund

Pavel Kushnir (1984-2024)

Pavel Kushnir (1984-2024) was a Russian pianist, author, and activist who became the first political prisoner in modern Russia to die during a hunger strike in 2024 [see the 25 August 2024 article on BBC News website, 'The lonely death of a jailed Russian pianist who opposed war'].

The Pavel Kushnir Scholarship Fund was founded in his memory to help students from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus pursue their studies at the world’s leading music institutions. In memory of the musician, benefit concerts are being held in Amsterdam, Bari, Belgrade, Berlin, London, Paris, and Tel Aviv [further details]. 

The London concert is on 10 May at Holy Sepulchre Church, Holborn Viaduct when Rachmaninoff’s Preludes will be performed by Maya Irgalina, Elena Toponogova, Mikhail Shilyaev and Sasha Grynyuk, alongside music by Nirvana, interspersed with excerpts from Pavel Kushnir’s book Russian Cut-up and fragments of his interviews. This eclectic format reflects one of Pavel Kushnir’s signature artistic methods — the fusion of seemingly incompatible elements. Further details of the concert from EventBrite.

Later this month, the Pavel Kushnir Scholarship Fund will be releasing a restored recording of Rachmaninoff’s Preludes performed by Pavel Kushnir, most likely made at the 29th Sergei Rachmaninoff International Festival. Fortunately, the video recording of Pavel Kushnir’s performance allowed for sound restoration, which was carried out by sound engineer Ilya Lukashev.

Pavel Kushnir leaves behind a legacy of courage and resolve, and the scholarship hopes to carry forward his vision by helping aspiring musicians achieve their dreams.

Pavel Kushnir can be seen and heard playing Rachmaninoff on YouTube.

Utopian ideals & cross-cultural dialogue: Jocelyn Freeman's SongEasel takes song to South-East London with a focus on Robert & Clara Schumann

Jocelyn Freeman and Francesca Chiejina at SongEasel's 2024 series A Vast Obscurity

Pianist Jocelyn Freeman's South-East London-based song series, SongEasel goes from strength to strength and their seventh concert series, DREAMS: A Place, runs from 10 May to 13 July 2025. The series explores embracing utopian ideals and cross-cultural dialogue, and celebrates the much-anticipated marital union of Clara and Robert Schumann 185 years ago. As ever with SongEasel, concert locations  are outside the usual and this year includes churches in Borough, Catford, and Elephant & Castle, Dulwich College, and fringe events in a coffee shop in Walworth and a pub in Catford.

Jocelyn Freeman 

Jocelyn describes the series as having an umbrella of themes. One of the inspirations was Goethe's West-Eastern Divan (West–östlicher Divan), his collection of poems written in response to the reading the Persian national poet, Hafez, and Jocelyn wanted to shine a light on such an open exchange between West and East. An openness to cultural exchange is important in this day and age and society is not as tolerant as it could be. It is important to dream, to use art to demonstrate how society can be.

SongEasel's schools project has just taken place. Under the theme of My Place, the project brought together four schools from Lewisham to explore Mary Stuart's life and poetry, her journeys between France and Scotland, focusing on Schumann's Maria Stuart Lieder. The children came up with their own songs about the places where they were comfortable, and they were fully on board with it, taking ownership with confidence. 

Under the title of Belonging the young Zambian baritone Themba Mvula will be giving a recital exploring his South African and Zambian heritage with songs touching on subjects such as the riots and students being shot, yet full of hope, bringing the full range of life to the music. Song duos who have been coached as part of SongEasel's Young Artist Programme will be presenting Lebendige Lieder (Living Song), examining lieder's place in society today. So there will be songs by Robert and Clara Schumann (including Goethe and Hafez settings), along with more fringe material including cabaret to create a programme relevant in today's age. Soprano Nadine Benjamin will be curating a programme My Journey highlighting her own journey, with song sung by a selection of her mentees from her Everybody Can!

The concert series will be highlighting the songs of Robert and Clara Schumann, focusing on the year 1840 when they finally were able to marry. This was the year that Robert produced a stupendous number of songs. SongEasel will be programming all of Clara Schumann's songs along with Robert's song cycles from 1840. The series opens with Myrthen, Robert's wedding give to Clara, performed by soprano Francesca Chiejina, Artist-in-Residence bass-baritone Stephan Loges, emerging baritone Isaac Tolley, with Jocelyn at the piano. They will also be including songs by Clara on themes related to Myrthen as well as Brahms' settings of Hafez in translation. There is also a Listening Club in Catford which will focus on Robert and Clara's music, with Stephan Loges joining former SongEasel Young Artist Catherine Hooper, and Jocelyn, to shed a light on some of the music in the series.

Jocelyn will be joined by tenor James Gilchrist in a programme that pairs Schumann's Dichterliebe with settings of Dylan Thomas by William Mathias, Rhian Samuel and a new commission from Isabella Gellis. Then, for the first time, SongEasel will be devoting an entire weekend to song. Mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston and pianist Sholto Kynoch will be performing Dichterliebe in the original version for mezzo-soprano, along with songs by Héloïse Werner and Fanny Hensel. Stephan Loges and Jocelyn will present Clara & Robert, a selection of Clara’s songs alongside Robert’s Liederkreis  Op 39 and selections from Kernerlieder Op 35. German soprano Juliane Banse partners Finnish pianist Pauliina Tukiainen for a programme centred on Frauenliebe und -leben. This recital will be at St Matthew’s Church, Meadow Row, Elephant & Castle, a church that has a significant Spanish population, and there is a Spanish thread through the concert too, with Spanish songs by Obradors, works by Viardot, and selections from Wolf’s Spanisches Liederbuch.

There are also a selection of fringe events, at a pub in Catford and a bar in Walworth, bringing a wide variety of repertoire including mezzo-soprano Nafissatou Batu Daramy in a programme ranging from English song to French mélodie and Korean folksongs, and including some of Nafissatou’s own compositions. 

Full details from the SongEasel website.

A choral equivalent of John Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine? Bernard Hughes' Hear My Heart Sing to be performed by the National Youth Choir

The National Youth Choir (15-18 years), conductor Neil Ferris, is presenting Heart and Soul, a programme exploring themes of life, friendship, courage and love through the voices of different composers from a mix of cultures, places and eras on Good Friday (18 April 2025) at Albert Hall Conference Centre in Nottingham. As part of a diverse programme that includes Laura Mvula, Brahms, Parry and Stevie Wonder, the choir will be performing Bernard Hughes' Hear My Heart Sing about the the biology and imagery of the heart.

For a new piece of unaccompanied choral music, Hughes' piece has something of a history. He wrote it in 2024 for the Bath choir Lucis who workshopped the piece and then premiered in July 2024 conducted by Francis Faux. In a nice piece of circularity the commission was supported by a grant from the Francis Routh Trust and Bernard Hughes studied composition with Francis Routh as a teenager.

Last week, Hear My Heart Sing had its London premiere at a concert given by the choir Londinium, conductor Andrew Griffiths. The good news is that Hughes has made a recording of the piece with the Epiphoni Consort and you can hear the recording on YouTube, and there are plans for a sampler of Hughes' music.

Hear My Heart Sing sets words by writer Helen Eastman with whom Bernard Hughes has collaborated a lot. The piece combines ideas of the joy of singing with the rhythms and imagery of the human heart. It is part of Hughes project to write more fast music! Hughes' fast music includes Birdchant which was written for the BBC Singers at the BBC Proms in 2021 [see YouTube]

He explains, "I think there is a dearth of really good fast choral music these days, amid all the Whitacre and Lauridsen meditative stuff - which I like, which has its place, but I think dominates a bit." These thoughts were generated by a passing comment by the conductor Robert Hollingworth on the excellent podcast Choral Chihuahua, in an episode about fast choral music, when he asked rhetorically why there had never been a choral equivalent of John Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine.

The result was Hear My Heart Sing, a piece that is fast, punchy, rhythmic, a bravura showpiece that could begin or end concerts. The work is available from Wild Woods Music, full details of the National Youth Choir's concert from their website.

Violin fireworks and orchestral premieres: Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra

Niccolò Paganini by Ingres (1818)

The Oxford Philharmonic's Bach Mendelssohn Festival might be over [see my review] but the orchestra's season in Oxford continues apace.

There is a focus on 19th century violin virtuosi during the orchestra's April and May concerts as violinist Bomsori Kim, making her UK debut with the orchestra, joins the orchestra for the Fantaisie brilliante on themes from Gounod's 'Faust' by Polish composer and violin virtuoso Henryk Wieniawski (1835-1880) [fun fact, his daughter, Regine, wrote songs under the name Poldowski], and the Carmen Fantasy by German composer Franz Waxman (1906-1967) [best known for his film scores including Sunset Boulevard]. 

The orchestra's leader takes centre stage as the soloist in Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 6 by violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840), a work premiered in Naples in 1819 (the year after Ingres' portrait of the composer). Though commonly performed in D major, Paganini wrote the orchestral parts in E flat major but wrote the solo part in D major, intending the violinist to tune the violin up a semitone, thus not only making the solo line brighter but enabling violin writing that would be difficult in the tricky key of E flat!

Marcello Palazzo, an alumnus of the orchestra's Composers' Workshop will be conducting the world premiere of his tone-poem Sisyphus and in the same concert, Marios Papadopoulos conducts the Piano Concerto No. 1 by the orchestra's composer in residence, Ukrainian-born, USA-based composer Alexey Shor with soloist Behzod Abduraimov.

Other treats include John Rutter conducting Mozart's Mass in C minor, and symphonies by Beethoven, Dvorak and Mahler. Full details from the orchestra's website.

Fathers & daughters, a lovers' tiff, lieder in translation and a portrait of A.E. Housman: Ludlow English Song Weekend

Ludlow English Song Weekend has been guided by its artistic director Iain Burnside since he founded it in 2002. They return for three days of song in the historic market town in Shropshire from 11 to 14 April 2025. 

The weekend opens with Heart's Haven from baritone Andrew Hamilton and pianist Iain Burnside, an intriguing programme that pairs Vaughan Williams with Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn on the theme of Venice in Jeremy Sams' English translations , and the Venice theme continues with song from Reynaldo Hahn and Michael Head. Later on the Friday evening, soprano Mhairi Lawson and lutenist Paula Chateauneuf present Songs of Auld Lang Syne, exploring the musical repertoire of the courts of King James VI & I, including Italian song brought to England by Nicholas Lanier and Scottish courtly songs.

Saturday morning sees real life couple, baritone Dan D'Souza and mezzo-soprano Bethany Horak-Hallett, with Ian Tindale piano, exploring relationships in A Lover's Tiff with songs from Wolf to Weill depicting a couple falling in and out of love. Saturday afternoon there will be a chance to see John Bridcut's acclaimed 2019 film portrait of Janet Baker and then hear him live in conversation with her. The Saturday evening recital sees mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean join her father, composer and viola player Brett Dean, and Iain Burnside for a programme that includes Frank Bridge' wonderful songs for voice, viola and piano, music by Sally Beamish, Britten's Lachrymae and a work written by Dean for his daughter. 

There is a chance to hear more from Brett Dean as he is in conversation with Katy Hamilton on Sunday morning, and Sunday also features a Young Artists Masterclass with Ann Murray. The festival ends with a focus on A.E. Housman. His collection A Shropshire Lad inspired generations of composers and though the poems were written in the context of the Boer War their popularity reached its zenith during the First World War. Housman himself was a complex and difficult man, and in One that kept his word, Iain Burnside has devised a programme interweaving settings of Housman's poems with his letters, performed by tenor Liam Bonthorne, baritone Jolyon Loy and actor Alex Jennings.

Full details from the festival website.

Be transported to the 1920s in a violin & piano recital by Katharine Gowers & Simon Crawford-Philips in aid of Central London Samaritans

Central London Samaritans have recently moved into new premises in Marylebone, and to celebrate they are hosting a special recital to introduce themselves to the local community, raise awareness of their work, and generate essential funds to sustain their services. The recital features violinist Katherine Gowers and pianist Simon Crawford Philips in a programme of music from the 1920s at St Marylebone Parish Church on Monday 28 April 2025. The evening will feature Prokfiev's Five Melodies, Enescu's Violin Sonata No. 3, Ravel's Violin Sonata No. 2 and Copland's Two Pieces.

Prokofiev's Five Melodies began life as five vocalises, written for the soprano Nina Koshetz who created the role of Fata Morgana in his opera The Love for Three Oranges but the vocalises proved impractical for regular performance and Prokofiev recast them for violin and piano. Dating from a few years after the Prokofiev, George Enescu's Violin Sonata No. 3 was written whilst he was working on his opera Oedipe. The work has the subtitle dans le caractère populaire roumain" (in Romanian Folk Style) though Enescu does not quote any actual folk tunes, instead he evokes them, and the work became one of his most popular works. Written around the same time, Ravel's Violin Sonata No. 2 was the only violin sonata published during Ravel's lifetime, his first sonata being published 38 years after his death. Violin Sonata No. 2 is notable for taking its inspiration from American jazz and blues with a slow movement that is marked 'Blues'. Copland's Two Pieces also date from Paris in the later 1920s, as Copland wrote them for an all-American programme planned by Nadia Boulanger (with whom he had studied earlier in the decade).

Central London Samaritans is the founding and largest branch of Samaritans, offering free, 24/7 emotional support to anyone struggling to cope. Beyond the helpline, they are active in the community—supporting those experiencing homelessness, people in police custody, ambulance call handlers, and individuals in London’s prisons.

Full details of the Samaritans' work from their website, tickets for the recital from TicketTailor.

Remarkable intensity: powerful new 1980s-set Peter Grimes from Melly Still at Welsh National Opera with Nicky Spence

Britten: Peter Grimes - Nicky Spence - Welsh National Opera, 2025 (Photo: Dafydd Owen)

Britten: Peter Grimes; Nicky Spence, Sally Matthews, David Kempster, director: Melly Still, conductor:Tomáš Hanus, Welsh National Opera; Wales Millennium Centre
Reviewed: 5 April 2025

Nicky Spence's powerful Peter Grimes at the centre of an intense yet theatrical 1980s-set production in a performance remarkable intensity and sheer communal power

Having caused a stir in 2024 with Olivia Fuchs' production of Britten's final opera, Death in Venice, combining opera with circus arts, Welsh National Opera returned to Britten for its major new production of Britten's first operatic success, Peter Grimes. The opera was something of a marvel when premiered in 1946, and this production had a touch of the miraculous too given the parlous state of WNO's finances, and the final curtain included chorus members in Save WNO t-shirts, as well as including orchestra and technical staff on stage. Whilst the company's new general directors, Sarah Crabtree and Adele Thomas, made a stirring speech [catch it WNO's Twitter feed] though one could net help thinking that with the enthusiastic first night audience they were preaching to the converted and that perhaps the performance should have taken place in the Senedd building next door.

Welsh National Opera's new production of Britten's Peter Grimes opened on Saturday 5 April 2025 at Wales Millennium Centre. Melly Still directed and the company's music director, Tomáš Hanus conducted. Nicky Spence was Peter Grimes with Sally Matthews as Ellen Orford, David Kempster as Balstrode, Dominic Sedgwick as Ned Keene, Oliver Johnston as Bob Boles, Sarah Connolly as Auntie, Fflur Wyn and Eiry Price as the Nieces, Catherine Wyn-Rogers as Mrs Sedley, Sion Goronwy as Swallow, Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts as Reverend Horace Adams, Callum Thorpe as Hobson and Maya Marsh as John. Joseph Alford was associate director, Chiara Stephenson was set designer, Ilona Karas was costume designer and lighting designer was Malcolm Rippeth.

Britten: Peter Grimes - Catherine Wyn-Rogers, David Kempster, Oliver Johnston, Dominic Sedgwick - Welsh National Opera, 2025 (Photo: Dafydd Owen)

Musically this was of a very high order. Tomáš Hanus drew a marvellous performance from the orchestra, full of vivid colours and with a sense of fierce drama that continued with the chorus too.

Telling a musical story: violinist James Ehnes on the challenges and rewards of his new recording of Bach's violin concertos with Canada's NAC Orchestra

James Ehnes & NAC Orchestra - National Arts Centre, Canada
(Photo: Curtis Perry courtesy of Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra )

Violinist James Ehnes has a long relationship with Canada's National Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra having made his debut with them in 1993, and he was artist in residence from 2021 to 2024. James also has a long relationship with the music of Bach, recording the complete Partitas and Sonatas in 2000 (re-recording them in 2020/21 on Onyx), and the Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord in 2006 on Analekta. Now these two strands have come together with the release last month of his recording of Bach's complete violin concertos with the NAC Orchestra on Analekta. The disc includes not only Bach's well-known concertos in A minor and E minor, the Double Concerto and the Concerto for Violin, Flute, and Harpsichord in A minor, but also four concertos reconstructed from Bach's harpsichord concertos.

I recently chatted to James, whilst he was in Adelaide, about his new disc, styles of Bach performance and how getting older has given him perspective, reconstructing Bach's lost violin concertos, differences between live and studio recording and finding the ideal recording process, and much more.

James explains that he always hoped to have a chance to record Bach's violin concertos, but for him, most successful recordings are those where everything peaks at the right moment (and he points out that this is true of live performance also). He has had a long relationship with both the NAC and the NAC Orchestra, having been artist in residence and toured with them. The last decade has been particularly special, so this seemed like the perfect time to capture something of that relationship. James knows the players well and the concertmaster, Yosuke Kawasaki (who joins James for the Double Concerto) is a friend from school. With the orchestra, James feels that he has as close, open and transparent relationship as possible which allows all to be active participants in the music. And they are supported by a great team at the NAC too, whilst the recording's producer worked on James' first Bach recordings.

Regarding the style of playing Bach, James feels that getting older has given him perspective; the way you are told that something should be, changes over the years. He has found this liberating, he no longer feels that he has to play in a particular way but that he can concentrate on telling a musical story. This is even more complicated with Baroque music, and whilst historical performance practice is important, he also feels that musicians can learn from performances of all ages. He mentions that we tend to have a recency bias, feeling that what we have just been told is best. This has probably always been true, and Mendelssohn probably felt this about the way he performed Bach. We can imagine Mendelssohn's performances of Bach being different to those of Bach himself but no less compelling. This is timeless music that always speaks through a prism of our own time.

Living Voices: ten new choral works by Russell Hepplewhite setting contemporary poetic responses to our world today

 

I first came across Russell Hepplewhite's work in 2013 when English Touring Opera (ETO) performed the award-winning Laika the Spacedog. He went on to write more for ETO and for companies such as London Youth Opera, whilst Laika the Spacedog went on to have productions in Switzerland and at the Opera Comique in Paris. More recently, in February 2024 his first opera for adults, The Crash premiered in Oldenburg, Germany.

Now Hepplewhite has a new choral project, Living Voices; ten choral pieces each setting a contemporary poet commissioned to create poetic responses to our world today. The idea for Living Voices originated with Hepplewhite, who invited the poets to offer their diverse reflections on the nuances of modern life. The resulting poems explore a wide spectrum of human experience - birth and death, youth and age, sickness and health, landscape and memory. The emotional scope of the collection is equally varied, encompassing pieces that are light-hearted and comic alongside those that are profound and moving.

The choruses are being premiered around the country by selected choirs, beginning tomorrow in Devon when Exeter Festival Chorus performs Hepplewhite's setting of Wendy Cope's I Wake.

Full details of all performances from the Stainer & Bell website.

To the Beat: The National Youth Orchestra's Spring tour, featuring Jennifer Higdon's Percussion Concerto with Jordan Ashman

The National Youth Orchestra's Spring tour, To the Beat

The National Youth Orchestra's Spring tour, To the Beat, kicks off at Birmingham Town Hall on 14 April 1014. Taking in Birmingham, the Roundhouse in London (15 April), Sheffield City Hall (16 April) and Bridgewater Hall, Manchester (18 April), the orchestra will be conducted by Paolo Bortolameolli and Joana Carneiro.

The programme features the Percussion Concerto written by American composer Jennifer Higdon with soloist Jordan Ashman. Ashman is an alumnus of NYO Inspire and won the 2022 BBC Young Musician Grand Final with his performance of Higdon's Percussion Concerto.

Higdon's concerto was written in 2005 for percussionist Colin Currie and dedicated to him. The work features a large battery of instruments, from vibraphone and marimba (a favourite instrument of dedicatee Colin Currie), to non-pitched smaller instruments (brake drum, wood blocks, Peking Opera gong), and to the drums themselves.

Alongside this work the orchestra plays the 1947 version of Stravinsky's ballet, Petrushka, and Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein's 1960 suite from the 1957 musical. The original musical was orchestrated by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, and it was they who prepared the expanded orchestration of the suite, under Bernstein's supervision.

Tickets for all performances are free for teenages. Full details of To the Beat from the National Youth Orchestra's website.

Powerful stuff: Ukrainian composer Boris Lyatoshynsky's dramatic war-inspired symphony alongside marvellous music from Prokofiev's Ukraine-themed opera, Semyon Kotko

Prokofiev: Suite from Semyon Kotko - Vladimir Jurowski, London Philharmonic Orchestra - Royal Festival Hall (Photo: Marc Gascoigne)

Prokofiev, Mussorgsky/Denisov, Lyatoshynsky; Matthew Rose, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Jurowski; London Festival Hall
Reviewed 2 April 2025

Ukrainian composer Boris Lyatoshynsky's magnum opus, his war-inspired symphony at the centre of a powerful programme that also included Prokofiev's marvellous music from his neglected opera Semyon Kotko

As part of the London Philharmonic Orchestra's Moments Remembered series at the Royal Festival Hall, conductor emeritus Vladimir Jurowski conducted a programme centred on Ukrainian composer Boris Lyatoshynsky's Symphony No. 3, a work written in 1951 and coming directly out of the composer's experience of the Second World War. To begin the programme, the Ukrainian theme continued with Prokofiev's suite from his final opera, Semyon Kotko which depicts wartime struggle in a Ukrainian village. Not uncontroversially, between these two, Jurowski placed Mussorgsky's song cycle Songs and Dances of Death in the orchestration by Edison Denisov with bass Matthew Rose.

Mussorgsky/Denisov: Songs & Dances of Death - Vladimir Jurowski, Matthew Rose, London Philharmonic Orchestra - Royal Festival Hall (Photo: Marc Gascoigne)

Semyon Kotko was the first of Prokofiev's two operas written on a Soviet subject and adhering to the tenets of Soviet realism. It was intended to have a first production directed by Prokofiev's friend, Vsevolod Meyerhold, who was at that time the director of the Stanislavsky Opera Theatre. But the whole project seemed in danger when Meyerhold was arrested on 20 June 1939 and disappeared (he was shot in 1940). The production did happen and was respectably received, but the opera was set in a Ukrainian village in 1918 with fighting between the Red Army and the Germans. Semyon Kotko got mired in the Soviet Union's complex relationship with Nazi Germany in 1939 and 1940, and after 1941 the opera was not produced. It only reappeared in 1958 in Brno, entering Russian opera theatres in the 1970s. It is still a rarity, and any UK performances have relied on visiting Russian opera companies.

London premiere of Hummel's oratorio The Crossing of the Red Sea, which lay undiscovered in the British Library until 2004

Johann Nepomuk Hummel is known as much for being a pupil of Mozart and Haydn as for his actual music. A virtuoso pianist himself, he wrote a significant amount of piano music but there is much else besides. 

His short oratorio, Der Durchzug durchs rote Meer (The Crossing of the Red Sea) is one of Hummel's unpublished works and was regarded as lost until 2004, when German conductor and musicologist Hermann Max discovered it in the British Library, where it had been lurking for over 100 years, and recorded it in German. 

There is now a chance to hear the work in what will be its first London performance when Medici Choir, conductor David Gostick perform Hummel's oratorio in a new English translation as The Crossing of the Red Sea on Saturday 5 April 2025 at at Holy Sepulchre London EC1. Medici Choir will be joined by Brandenburg Sinfonia and soloists Luci Briginshaw, Eve McGrath, Patrick Ashcroft and Edwin Kaye in a programme that also includes Mozart's Mass in C minor.

The work is clearly influenced by Handel and Haydn, though the manuscript for the work is undated. it seems likely that it dates from the years 1804 to 1816 when Hummel was leader of the orchestra in Esterházy, though he actually acted as kapellmeister though the post was officially held by Haydn.

Further information from the choir's website, tickets from TicketSource.

Imagination & sense of drama in John Weldon's 1701 prize-winning The Judgement of Paris in its first recording from Academy of Ancient Music & Cambridge Handel Opera Co.

John Weldon: The Judgement of Paris; Helen Charlston, Kitty Whately, Anna Dennis, Thomas Walker, Jonathan Brown, Academy of Ancient Music, Cambridge Handel Opera Company, Julian Perkins; AAM
Reviewed 1 April 2025

Stylishly engaging performances highlight the imagination and sense of drama in John Weldon's winning entry in that 1701 English opera competition, despite the fact that we know the competition had little effect on English opera and the composer went on to concentrate on sacred music

The Musick Prize offered in 1701 by a group of wealthy English aristocrats for a setting of William Congreve's libretto The Judgement of Paris excited considerable interest at the time. Four composers entered, John Eccles (Master of the King's Music), Gottfried Finger (a London-based, Moravian viol virtuoso), Daniel Purcell (younger brother of Henry Purcell) and John Weldon (organist of New College, Oxford). Weldon seems to have been the least experienced, dramatically. Eccles worked with Thomas Betterton's acting company at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, whilst Finger and Purcell were house composers at the rival Drury Lane Theatre.

In the event, Weldon's work won, to evident surprise in musical circles. The competition, however, would not kick start English opera. Eccles' 1706 full-length opera Semele (also with a libretto by Congreve) never reached the stage and Handel's entrance onto the English operatic stage with Rinaldo (in 1711) changed things completely.

Having recorded Eccles' Semele in 2021 [see my review], Julian Perkins, the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) and Cambridge Handel Opera have turned their attention to John Weldon's winning entry in the competition, The Judgement of Paris. This premiere recording (yes, really) is released on AAM's own label with Thomas Walker as Mercury, Jonathan Brown as Paris, Helen Charlston as Juno, Kitty Whately as Pallas Athene, Anna Dennis as Venus, plus Anna Cavaliero and Aksel Rykkvin as attendants on Pallas.

Maxim Emelyanychev celebrates 7 seasons with Scottish Chamber Orchestra in a year that includes new music by Jay Capperauld, Helen Grime, Jörg Widmann and Magnus Lindberg

Maxim Emelyanychev and Scottish Chamber Orchestra

Amazingly, 2025/26 will be Maxim Emelyanychev's seventh season as principal conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and he will be presenting ten programme with the orchestra during the season, along with Andrew Manze as principal guest conductor. Emelyanychev's programmes include Strauss' Metamorphosen, Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, contrasting Glorias from Vivaldi and Poulenc, Berlioz' L'enfance du Christ , Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker and Mozart's final three symphonies. The orchestra's principal cellist, Philip Higham joins him for Schumann's Cello Concerto, and violinist Nicola Benedetti joins Emelyanychev and the orchestra for Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto.

Earlier this year, I had an enjoyable chat to the orchestra's associate composer Jay Capperauld [see my interview]  and the season will feature three of Capperauld's works. Andrew Manze conducts The Language of Eden, a choral work that reimagines the birth of language itself, and a second work will also feature the chorus, The Winter's Brightening, whilst Stylus Scarlatti reimagines Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas for the bright colours of the orchestra. Whilst Capperauld's The Great Grumpy Gaboon will be returning too.

Other new music includes the UK premiere of Scottish composer Helen Grime’s River, performed by the orchestra and director/percussionist Colin Currie, the UK premiere of Jörg Widmann’s affectionate homage to Schumann, Albumblätter, and Magnus Lindberg’s Viola Concerto, dedicated to its performer here, Lawrence Power. The SCO Chorus will be performing on of Roderick Williams' works, O Adonai, as part of their seasonal concerts, whilst the baritone himself will be performing Berlioz and Butterworth with the orchestra.

Violinist Alina Ibragimova will be the soloists in Hartmann’s Concerto funèbre, a work she has long championed. Andrew Manze and the orchestra's clarinettist Maximiliano Martín present three iconic works by John Adams, Shaker Loops, Gnarly Buttons, and Fearful Symmetries as part of the New Dimensions series which also includes Colin Currie in Steve Reich and Joe Duddell along with Helen Grime's River, and saxophonist Jess Gillam in Anna Clyne, George Walker and Caroline Shaw, as well as two works written especially for her, by John Harle and Dani Howard.

SCO Tea Dance Concerts

The orchestra’s Creative Learning activities reach over 10,000 people across Scotland every year, and this year the season includes multisensory family concerts, Immerse concerts for secondary schools, tea dance concerts and a continuation of their Craigmillar Residency. They will be celebrating five years of the Craigmillar Residency with Tapestry - a showcase featuring performances by the SCO Seen and Heard Ensemble and SCO Craigmillar Voices choir, including a 25-minute work curated by Jay Capperauld.  

Full details from the orchestra's website.

Up close and personal: David Butt Philip & Friends Gala at St Paul's Opera, Clapham

David Butt Philip & Friends Gala - David Butt Philip - St Paul's Opera, Clapham
'Falke, falke, du wiedergefundener' from Strauss' Die Frau ohne Schatten

David Butt Philip & Friends Gala: Bizet, Gounod, Leoncavallo, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Puccini, Strauss, Mozart, Rossini; Alison Langer, Clare Presland, David Butt Philip, William Thomas, Edward Batting, Nicholas Ansdell-Evans; St Paul's Church, Clapham

St Paul's Opera's annual gala saw David Butt Philip joined by three operatic friends for an evening that allowed us to get up close and personal to a range of opera from Carmen through to Strauss' Die Frau ohne Schatten.

David Butt Philip & Friends Gala
Clare Presland, David Butt Philip - St Paul's Opera
Seguidilla from Bizet's Carmen

 

Tenor David Butt Philip is the patron of St Paul's Opera, Clapham's local opera company. And this year is the third time he has presented a David Butt Philip & Friends Gala at St Paul's Church in Clapham. This year's gala was raising funds towards St Paul's Opera's Summer opera, Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore.

So, on 28 March 2025, David Butt Philip was joined by soprano Alison Langer, mezzo-soprano Clare Presland and bass William Thomas (hot foot from jumping in for the Verdi Requiem conducted by Riccardo Muti at the Royal Festival Hall the previous evening), with pianists Edward Batting and Nicholas Ansdell-Evans sharing piano duties.

The programme included items from Bizet's Carmen, Gounod's Faust, Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, Verdi's Ernani, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Puccini's La Boheme, Strauss' Die Frau ohne Schatten, Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier, Mozart's The Magic Flute, Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, and Rossini's Il Barbiere di Sivigla, plus songs by Mary Rodgers, and Rodgers & Hammerstein.

We began with Carmen, four numbers in all, the Habanera, Don Jose's Act Two aria 'La fleur que tu m'avais jetée', Micaela's Act Three aria and the Seguidilla, with Clare Presland as an elegant, stylish Carmen, the sort who you know has a stiletto concealed in her garter. She was joined by David Butt Philip's powerful Don Jose, and evidently his first performance of Carmen featured Presland in the title role. Micaela is a role that we have caught Alison Langer in a couple of times [at Opera Holland Park, see my review, and Opera North, see my review] and here she did not disappoint.