1-2-3 Engegård Quartet! Norwegian ensemble celebrates 20 years at its own festival in Oslo

The Engegård Quartet has been playing together for 20 years and this year its 1-2-3 Festival in Norway celebrates its 10th anniversary. For this double celebration, the quartet is presenting 1-2-3 Engegård Quartet! at Sentralen in Oslo from 14 to 16 November 2025. The festival features some of the most important works from the quartet's repertoire in the last 20 years along with important collaborators. I chatted to members of the quartet back in 2020, see my interview.

The festival begins with Grieg and Schumann's Piano Quintet with a new work by Nils Økland, and they will be joined by former members of the quartet for a performance of Mendelssohn's Octet, whilst actress Gjertrud Jynge joins them for an evening based on Jon Fosse's Septology combining powerful texts with music from Bach to Kurtag to Norwegian folk. And the weekend ends with a concert combining Ibsen with Beethoven's String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132. The quartet will also be celebrating the completion of their recordings of all of Mozart's 26 quartets on Lawo Classics. Full detail of the festival from the website.

In the UK, the quartet will be at the Roman River Festival in Essex in September [further details], opening the festival's 25th anniversary season with a concert of Grieg, Mozart and Norwegian folk music. And the quartet is also in Hereford the same month with Grieg, Boyce and Beethoven [    ]

Grimeborn 2025: The first staging of John Joubert's Jane Eyre alongside Tristan, Lucia, Don Giovanni & more

The Grimeborn Festival returns to Arcola Theatre from 16 July to 13 September 2025 for a season which includes fresh versions of classics such as Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and Mozart's Don Giovanni as well as a the first full staging of John Joubert's late masterwork, Jane Eyre.

Arcola Theatre and Green Opera are collaborating on the first complete staging of John Joubert's Jane Eyre. John Joubert (1927-2019) worked on Jane Eyre from 1987 to 1997 but the work never had a proper professional performance and remained one of those tantalising possibilities. Kenneth Woods and the English Symphony Orchestra gave the work its professional premiere in October 2016 in Birmingham, and the resulting live recording was released on the SOMM label in March 2017 [see my review] to coincide with Joubert’s 90th birthday. Now Eleanor Burke directs the work's first full staging, with Laura Mekhail as Jane and Hector Bloggs as Rochester.

Regents Opera, fresh from their triumphant Ring Cycle earlier this year, present an intimate take on Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in a new chamber arrangement of the score, created by musical director Michael Thrift. Guido Martin-Brandis directs with Brian Smith Walters as Tristan, Elizabeth Findon and Becca Marriott sharing Isolde. Brandis directed Regents Opera's predecessor, Fulham Opera's impressive staging of Strauss' Die ägyptische Helena in 2021 also with Brian Smith Walters, see my review. 

Ensemble OrQuesta and Marcio da Silva return to Mozart with a stripped down version of Don Giovanni with the orchestral accompaniment by the Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra Ensemble, plus Oshri Segev, Flávio Lauria, Helen May, Rosemary Carlton-Willis, Anna-Luise Wagner, and John Twitchen. See my review of their production of Le nozze di Figaro at last year's Grimeborn Festival

Another returning company is Barefoot Opera who bring Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in a production blending storytelling and physical theatre, directed by Rosie Kat with Beren Fidan as Lucia. Other productions include Green Opera in Testament, a journey through four centuries of vocal music explores humanity’s evolving relationship with nature. Baseless Fabric reinvent Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore for today's social media savvy world, whilst Prologue Opera present Becoming Tosca an evening that explores Puccini's opera and its background, setting the story in context, combining newly commissioned music with an abridged version of Puccini’s score. And Neal Hampton's musical version of Sense & Sensibility (with book and lyrics by Jeffrey Haddow) returns after last year's sold-out run.

Full details from Arcola Theatre's website.

Sundays at the London Sketch Club: concerts from students and alumni of the Royal College of Music in their historic studio

The London Sketch Club

The London Sketch Club was founded in the late 19th century as a club for professional artists and illustrators. Today the London Sketch Club is still going strong and open to both professional and amateur artists with members, and non-members, enjoying weekly life drawing and portraiture classes at the club’s historic studio in Chelsea. In 1957, the Club moved to its current home in Dilke Street , with its magnificent studio which was built for Victorian portrait painter John Collier. The studio walls are decorated with silhouettes, some brought from the two previous premises, of Club presidents dating back to the early years which demonstrate its rich and illustrious history.

They also run regular concerts in the studio space, and on the last Sunday of the month The Sketch Club hosts a performance by young musicians, including students and alumni of the Royal College of Music. 

On 15 June, they welcome emerging young American-Russian pianist, historical keyboardist and collaborative pianist/répétiteur Paul Mnatsakanov, an alumnus of the Royal College of Music, to perform Schumann's Carnaval. Further concerts include further alumni of the RCM including cellist Carys Underwood in Bach's Cello Suite No. 4 and music by Malcolm Arnold and Edmund Finnis, Italian pianist Antonio Morabito in Scarlatti, Respighi, Chopin and Liszt including Sonetto del Petrarca Op.104 and Hungarian Rhapsody No. 15, and baritone Peter Edge with pianist John Whittaker in music by Whittaker alongside poetry by Anthony Pinching, a retired clinical immunologist (and poet).

Full details from the Sketch Club's website.

To invigorate the artistic life of the area: High Barnet Chamber Music Festival celebrates its 5th anniversary

Dr Joshua Ballance, founder of the High Barnet Chamber Music Festival

The High Barnet Chamber Music Festival is celebrating its fifth anniversary with a series of concerts celebrating the world of song. Beginning on Saturday 7 June 2025 the festival runs until 5 July at various locations in High Barnet. Founder, Dr Joshua Ballance explains, "When we launched this festival, in the middle of Covid, we were attempting to bring really high quality performances to High Barnet, to offer work to young musicians at the start of their careers and to invigorate the artistic life of the area. Five years on I’m pleased we’ve achieved those aim."

Things being with a flute and piano recital from Hannah Gillingham and Luke Lally Maguire. Birdsong, a Playful Introduction for Families is a family friendly afternoon concert with an emphasis on introducing over-sevens to chamber music. At the opposite end of the spectrum, baritone Jonathan Eyers joins Ballance and his ensemble Mad Song for Peter Maxwell Davies' iconic Eight Songs for a Mad King plus music by Berio, Lolavar, Benjamin, and Palmer.

Baritone Hugo Herman-Wilson and pianist Richard Gowers, feature music by Vaughan William, Madeleine Dring,  Britten and Ives at their afternoon concert at Queen Elizabeth's School, and the festival ends with  Ensemble Pro Victoria and music by Monteverdi, Strozzi and le Jeune.

Full details from the festival website.

With Helena Dix in top form, bel canto fireworks illuminate La straniera, a Bellini rarity given a welcome outing by Chelsea Opera Group

Bellini: La straniera - Helena Dix
acknowledging applause at Chelsea Opera Group performance
Cadogan Hall (Photo: c/o Helena Dix)

Bellini: La straniera; Helena Dix, Thomas Elwin, Georgia Mae Bishop, Dan D'Souza, Chelsea Opera Group, Stephen Barlow; Cadogan Hall
Reviewed 1 June 2025

Bellini's second big hit; a rather strange story brought alive by the bel canto ardency of Helena Dix finely supported by a terrific line up of talent

La straniera was Bellini's fourth opera, coming after the success of Il Pirata at La Scala in Milan moved Bellini from a local celebrity in Naples to a national celebrity. For La Straniera, Bellini was working again with the librettist of Il Pirata, Felice Romani. Bellini and Romani would go on to collaborate on all of Bellini's subsequent operas except for his final one, I Puritani. Romani is regarded as the best Italian librettist between Metastasio and Boito, he wrote for everyone but was incredibly busy. The partnership with Bellini was not without problems, and following Il Pirata you sense Bellini taking time to hit his stride.

After La straniera, Bellini and Romani would revise Bellini's second opera as Bianca e Fernando to mixed results. Their next collaboration, Zaira was a failure and much of the music ended up in I Capuleti e i Montecchi which was an unqualified success. After this came La sonnambula and Norma and the rest, as they say, is history.

As for La straniera, it premiered in 1829 at La Scala, Milan going on to be performed all over Italy as well as in London, Vienna, Paris, New York and Lisbon. The last known performance seems to have been in 1875, and the opera was only revived at La Scala in 1935. 20th century performances remained rare, often linked to a particular soprano. Stagings seem to be even rarer and Christoph Loy's 2013 production for Zurich Opera has had a couple of revivals. In London, Opera Rara presented the work in concert in 2007 in association with their recording with David Parry conducting and Patrizia Ciofi in the title role.

On Sunday 1 June 2025, Chelsea Opera Group gave Bellini's La straniera a most welcome concert performance at London's Cadogan Hall. Stephen Barlow conducted, with Helena Dix as Alaide, known as la straniera, Thomas Elwin as Arturo, Dan D'Souza as Valdeburgo, Georgia Mae Bishop as Isoletta, Will Diggle as Osburgo, Thomas D Hopkinson as the Prior and Kevin Hollands as Count Montolino.

A terrific sense of collaboration: composer Colin Matthews and writer William Boyd on their first opera, A Visit to Friends

William Boyd and Colin Mathews (Photo: Mark Allan)

During his long career the composer Colin Matthews has been associated with several other composers, he assisted both Benjamin Britten and Imogen Holst at the Aldeburgh Festival, he and his brother David assisted Deryck Cooke on the completion of Mahler's Symphony No. 10, whilst more recent projects have seen Colin orchestrating Debussy. And since his orchestral Fourth Sonata (written 1974–75) won the Scottish National Orchestra's Ian Whyte Award, Colin's work has unfolded in a variety of genres, but until now never opera.

On 13 June 2025, Colin's first opera, A Visit to Friends will premiere at the Aldeburgh Festival. The new opera is a collaboration with novelist and playwright William Boyd (whose first opera libretto it is), and intriguingly whilst Boyd's libretto has its origins in the Chekhov short story of the same name, written in 1898 almost as a study for The Cherry Orchard, Colin's music is partly inspired by that of Scriabin. I recently went to chat with Colin and William about the new opera and their collaboration.

The new opera takes the form of a group of contemporary singers rehearsing a hitherto unknown opera by a Russian composer from the early years of the 20th century, with William's libretto for the 'rediscovered' opera channelling Chekhov and Colin's music channelling Scriabin, but around these scenes are scenes of the contemporary singers rehearsing and gradually, for them, life starts to imitate art.

The work just grew through Colin and William's collaboration, but from the outset, Colin was clear that he wanted to write an opera about opera. The two men first met in 2019 and agreed to collaborate, but initially with no clear idea of the direction the collaboration would take. 

Something memorable: Jacqueline Stucker, David Bates & La Nuova Musica in Handel's Alcina & Rodelinda, plus Telemann at Wigmore Hall

Jacqueline Stucker

History's Lovers: Telemann: Overture-Suite: Burlesque de Quixotte, Handel: arias from Alcina, & Rodelinda, Concerto Grosso in F op. 6 No. 9, Telemann: aria from Orpheus; Jacqueline Stucker, La Nuova Musica, David Bates; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 28 May 2025

Love, from the comic to the obsessive to the devoted to real vengeance. Handel and Telemann brought vividly alive in an evening that rose far above a greatest hits concert and gave us something memorable

Under the title History's Lovers, David Bates and La Nuova Musica were joined by soprano Jacqueline Stucker at Wigmore Hall on 28 May 2025 for an evening of music by Handel and Telemann, friends as well as contemporaries, which moved from the comic in Telemann's Don Quixote to the obsessive with Handel's Alcina and then the devotedly marital with Handel's Rodelinda with an aria from Telemann's Orpheus bringing things to a virtuoso close.

We began with Telemann's late Overture-Suite: Burlesque de Quixotte which was probably written around 1761 when the composer was 80. In eight French-style movements, the suite began with an overture that really did channel Lully, with Bates and his ensemble giving us vivid rhythms and exciting passagework. The story then unfolded with Quixote's restless, fevered sleep, his fast and furious attack on the windmills, a gentle flute (Leo Duarte who was doubling flute and oboe) over sighing strings for Quixote mooning after Dulcinea, tossing Sancho Panza in a blanket with some great scene painting, and then the two trying to gallop away in what was a pure romp before finally a vividly urgent finish.

Impressive debuts: Opera Holland Park's first Wagner opera, Der fliegende Holländer is something of a triumph

Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer - Eleanor Dennis, Paul Carey Jones - Opera Holland Park (Photo: Ali Wright)

Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer; Paul Carey Jones, Eleanor Dennis, Robert Winslade Anderson, Neal Cooper, Angharad Lyddon, Colin Judson, director: Julia Burbach, City of London Sinfonia, conductor: Peter Selwyn; Opera Holland Park
Reviewed 29 May 2025

The company's first venture into Wagner is a triumph, combining the mythic with the personal in a production that filled the auditorium with vivid drama yet had a quiet intensity in the more intimate moments.

Opera Holland Park opened its 2025 season with a new production of Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer, the most compact of his mature music dramas, though this still represented a significant increase in scale for the company with a large chorus with larger than usual orchestral forces. Not only was this Opera Holland Park's first staging of Wagner, but there were two debuts in the cast with Paul Carey Jones (an experienced Wotan most recently at Longborough) making his debut as the Dutchman and Eleanor Dennis singing her first Senta (building on previous experience at Longborough, and as Eva in Die Meistersinger with Saffron Opera Group).

To stage the work, Opera Holland Park turned to the team of director Julia Burbach and conductor Peter Selwyn, who were responsible for Grimeborn Opera Festival's fine Ring Cycle [see my review], with the City of London Sinfonia in the pit. We caught the second performance on 29 May 2025, with Paul Carey Jones as the Dutchman, Eleanor Dennis as Senta, Robert Winslade Anderson as Daland, Neal Cooper as Erik, Angharad Lyddon as Mary and Colin Judson as the Steersman.

Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer - Paul Carey Jones - Opera Holland Park (Photo: Ali Wright)

Naomi Dawson's fixed set depicted a world gone awry with nothing quite true and a vast ramp presenting Senta's room at an alarming angle. There was nothing sea-going about it, yet, Dawson and Burbach managed to vividly suggest the sea and the ships where necessary, making full use of the whole Opera Holland Park stage, the chorus scenes in Acts 1 and 3 really have the whole stage erupting into action. Sussie Juhlin-Wallen's costumes were modern without making too much point, whilst the Dutchman wore an outfit that merged the trendy with a suggestion of the East, creating a definite otherness to the character.

Hull Urban Opera gets up close & personal, Emma Wheeler & Anna Appleby bring together two musical worlds: Tête à Tête takes the opera festival to Newcastle

This year Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival not only returns for its 18th edition, but is expanding and there with performances in Newcastle and London. Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival is at Alphabetti Theatre in Newcastle on 27 and 28 June, and then moves to the Cockpit in London from 22 September to 5 October.

The Newcastle performances build on Tête à Tête's collaborations with North East artists and the Royal Northern Sinfonia developed over several years. Tête à Tête is partnering with North Tyneside Music Education Hub to deliver QUEST 2025—a fantasy-inspired opera project running over Summer & Autumn 2025 co-created with young people in North Shields, rooted in community storytelling and bold new music-making, culminating in performances on Sunday 19 October at The Exchange 1856 2025. QUEST brings together school pupils, community chorus members, professional singers, and Royal Northern Sinfonia.

At Alphabetti Theatre in Newcastle, Hull Urban Opera will be bringing their show It must have been Tuesday. Created by the company's artistic director, Russell Plows as a preparation for performers in an up-close, immersive style of performance, the aim of the show is to remove all potential barriers to communica7on (no set, costume, character or libretto - the words are the singers’ own) resulting in a warm, direct delivery of often sensitive ideas conveyed through both speech and singing. The stories were first presented in Hull in 2021, and in Newcastle the true stories at this performance are written and performed by Neil Balfour and Joanna Gamble accompanied by Ellie Gaynard Evans on violin with music by Russell Plows.

Ghost is built on Emma Wheeler and Anna Appleby’s life experience as queer, neurodivergent women – stories that have not historically been told in opera, tinged with comedy, trauma, and love. This opera is the coming-together of two musical worlds, from Appleby’s Glyndebourne and BBC Philharmonic opera composition history and Emma Wheeler’s rich mezzo vocals, to Norrisette and Rosé Gold’s grungy underground electronica and DIY drag fashion extravagance. Prepare for a ghost story like no other!

Other works include the intriguing Rossini and the Overture, based around the premise of a man impersonating Rossini and failing to finish the opera! This is a work-in-progress sharing as the team test out their new approach to opera. And there are also four festival shorts, operatic extracts and experiments, from Newcastle and the surrounding area.

Full details from the festival website.

William Morris: Chants for Socialists

Until a friend gave me a leaflet for Strawberry Thieves Socialist Choir's event, William Morris: Chants for Socialists, I had been completely unaware that William Morris, along with designing, writing and political activism, wrote music as well. The music was an extension of the political activism as Morris wrote 'chants' to go with the political songs that he wrote. 

On 31 May 2025 at 2.30pm, Strawberry Thieves Socialist Choir will be joined by singer/songwriter Darren Hayman and Florence Boos, editor of the Morris Archive at the University of Iowa for an event devoted to Morris' songs.  

Strawberry Thieves will be performing six of Morris' songs which will be introduced by Florence Boos, who is an expert on William Morris. They will also be joined by Darren Hayman who will perform his versions of Voice of Toil and No Master.

The songs performed include A Death Song for Alfred Linnell. This was created for a pamphlet containing an account of the death of Alfred Linnell, who was killed at Trafalgar Square on 20 November 1887 during a protest, when he was trampled by a police horse. The protest became known as the first ‘Bloody Sunday’. Many of the socialists realised that their hopes of a revolution were unrealistic in the face of establishment opposition and force. Many started to look for a reformist, parliamentary way of making change for the nation’s poor and workers. The pamphlet included a death song composed by William Morris and memorial design by Walter Crane, and the proceeds of the pamphlet were given to Linnell’s family. 

What cometh here from west to east awending?

And who are these, the marchers stern and slow?

We bear the message that the rich are sending

Aback to those who bade them wake and know.

Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay,

But one and all if they would dusk the day.

You can read more about the protest and Morris' pamphlet at the Cheltenham Museum's website.

Full details of the Strawberry Thieves event from Facebook.

Bonis, Dyson & Brahms: Madeleine Mitchell and friends at Leighton House

Madeleine Mitchell violin, Julian Milford piano, Kirsten Jenson cello at Leighton House

The trio of Madeleine Mitchell violin, Julian Milford piano, Kirsten Jenson cello are returning to Leighton House on Tuesday 24 June 2025 for a chamber concert that mixes a towering masterpiece with a selection of lesser known gems. They conclude the evening with Brahms' Piano Trio in B major, Op. 8, and precede this with works by Mel Bonis and George Dyson.

Mélanie Hélène Bonis studied at the Paris Conservatoire with César Franck, where Debussy was a fellow pupil but family pressure meant she did not initially pursue a career in music until her late 30s when she used the name Mel Bonis to disguise her gender. She would write over 300 pieces and Soir et Matin from 1907 is one of the best known. A pupil of Stanford and Parry, George Dyson is perhaps best known for his large-scale works such as the oratorio The Canterbury Pilgrims. Dyson said of himself as a composer, "My reputation is that of a good technician … not markedly original. I am familiar with modern idioms but they are outside the vocabulary of what I want to say" and the concert will include four of his salon pieces from the 1920s.

Brahms wrote his Piano Trio in B in 1854, not long after door-stepping Robert and Clara Schumann and impressing them with his talent. Brahms' however, was not satisfied and despite publishing the work continued to tinker. In 1889 he made such substantial revisions to the piece that he effectively created a new work. 

The evening offers the opportunity to explore Leighton House and afterwards to enjoy convivial drinks and snacks in the adjacent café and garden until 9.30pm. Full details from EventBrite.

The final concerts in this year’s Norfolk & Norwich Festival fell to the BBC Singers and the Britten Sinfonia - welcome visitors and, indeed, no strangers to the city.

Norwich Cathedral - Photo: JackPeasePhotography
CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia

Britten: Hymn to the Virgin, John Tavener: Hymn to the Mother of God, Judith Weir: Ave Regina Cælorum, James MacMillan: The Culham Motets, O Virgo Prudentissima, Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli; BBC Singers, cond. Sir James MacMillan, Roman Catholic Cathedral, Norwich.

Wagner: Siegfried Idyll; Hummel: Trumpet Concerto, Arvo Pärt: Fratres; Beethoven: Symphony No.1; Imogen Whitehead, trumpet; Britten Sinfonia, Clio Gould, violin/director, Norwich Cathedral
Reviewed by Tony Cooper: 23/24 May 2025  

The BBC Singers’ concert formed part of their centenary celebrations while the Britten Sinfonia saluted Estonian composer Arvo Pärt in his 90th year.

First mentioned in the Oxford Dictionary of Music in 1747, held on a triennial basis (originally with Birmingham and Leeds) from 1824 through to 1988 and then put on an annual footing thereafter, the Norfolk & Norwich Festival ended on a high with a couple of engaging and heartwarming concerts held across the city’s two cathedrals - the Roman Catholic Cathedral dedicated to St John the Baptist and Norwich Cathedral dedicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity, featuring the BBC Singers, conducted by Sir James MacMillan, and Britten Sinfonia, directed by Clio Gould.

It was heart-warming, too, having James MacMillan back in Norwich after a long absence conducting the BBC Singers, recently awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society’s prestigious Ensemble Award, proving a nice touch in their centenary year.

Norwich Roman Catholic Cathedral
Photo: Nigel Chadwick, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia

They opened with a lovely and tender reading of Britten’s Hymn to the Virgin, an early example of Britten’s mastery of word setting which received its first performance on 5 January 1931 at St John’s Church, Lowestoft. He was 16 at the time, unwell and approaching his last days at Gresham’s School in north Norfolk confined to the school infirmary where he passed has time reading John Buchan (Prester John) and swotting Chaucer for his up-coming exams.

A fine bunch, the BBC Singers must have sung Hymn to the Virgin dozens of times but, nonetheless, their timing and freshness of the piece remains constant and was joyously heard in the expansive Gothic-style surroundings of Norwich’s Roman Catholic Cathedral grandly designed by the eldest son of George Gilbert Scott.

The text Britten used was by an anonymous poet, probably dating from about 1300, written in a macaronic verse where one language is introduced into the context of another. Therefore, the main body of the choir sings in Middle English while the semi-chorus supplies a refrain in Latin.

The Atonement: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's major choral work returns to Hereford as part of 2025 Three Choirs Festival

The Three Choirs Festival is at Hereford this year, running from 26 July to 2 August 2025 with its familiar mix of large-scale choral concerts, chamber recitals, late-night events and family friendly programmes. The programme draws on not only the three cathedral choirs (Hereford, Worcester and Gloucester), but The Three Choirs Festival Chorus, drawn from auditioned amateur singers in and around Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester, the Three Choirs Festival Youth Choir for singers aged 14-25 and the Three Choirs Festival Voices which is open to everyone, with no audition required.

This year's programme celebrates Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's 150th anniversary with a performance of his major choral work, The Atonement which was written for the 1903 festival in Hereford. A large-scale 90 minute choral and orchestral work, the premiere was conducted by the composer and featured a text by local writer Alice Parsons. This year, the work is conducted by Samuel Hudson with the Three Choirs Festival Chorus and Philharmonia Orchestra plus soloists Rebecca Hardwick, Aoife Miskelly, Amy Hoyland, Martha McLorinan, Mark Le Brocq, and David Stout. 

The work was unpublished and the score has been resurrected from the manuscript held by the Royal College of Music [and is now happily available on IMSLP]. For the libretto, Parsons crafted a unique libretto that features a combination of paraphrased biblical quotes from the Gospels along with her creative extra-liturgical narrative commentary, and the work features the dramatic characters of Christ (baritone), Pontius Pilate (tenor), Pilate's wife (soprano), Mary the Mother of Christ (soprano), Mary, the wife of Cleophas (mezzo-soprano) and Mary Magdalene (contralto).

Other major works at this year's festival include Mendelssohn's Elijah and Howells' Hymnus Paradisi, alongside the premiere of Richard Blackford's The Black Lake which is inspired by the 1961 Welsh novel, One Moonlit Night by Caradog Pritchard.

Other performers in Hereford include the King’s Singers, Roderick Williams, Sarah Connolly, Emma Johnson, the Carducci Quartet, and Stile Antico.  

Full details from the Three Choirs Festival website.

The Fall: Siglo de Oro give premiere of Ben Rowarth's new work on Cassandra & the Fall of Troy

Ajax and Cassandra
by Solomon J. Solomon, 1886.

The composer Ben Rowarth is a figure whose music I have enjoyed over the last few years with works for the Marian Consort, Helen Charlston, and the Fieri Consort crossing my path. On 3 July 2025, Patrick Allies and his ensemble Siglo de Oro will be premiering a major new work by Rowarth at Wigmore Hall.  

The Fall is a dramatic secular oratorio that tells the story of the Fall of Troy from the perspective of Cassandra, who predicted the city's ruin but was ignored. The Fall uses a new text by writer and film director Sophia Carr-Gomm and is written for choir, violin and electronics, with Siglo de Oro being joined by violinist Amy Tress.

The performers have completed the evening with a fascinating programme of works around this including Jonathan Harvey's Stabat Mater, written in 2004 for Royaumont Abbey in France and reworking Palestrina's Stabat Mater for choir and electronics, Palestrina's Lamentations for Maundy Thursday, Hildegard of Bingen's O spectabiles viri and a movement from Bach's Partita No. 2 in D minor for solo violin BWV1004.

Full details of the concert from Wigmore Hall's website.

Powerful stuff: Opera North concludes its concert staging of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra with an evening filling the Royal Festival Hall with drama

Verdi: Simon Boccanegra - Roland Wood, Antony Hermus, Vazgen Gazaryan, Opera North (Photo: James Glossop)

Verdi: Simon Boccanegra; Roland Wood, Sara Cortolezzis, Andrés Presno, Vazgen Gazaryan, Mandla Mndebele, Richard Mosley-Evans, director: PJ Harris, conductor: Anthony Hermus: Opera North at Royal Festival Hall
Reviewed 25 May 2025

A finely balanced cast create a very satisfying and compelling performance of one of Verdi's darkest yet most fascinating dramas, with Opera North's chorus and orchestra on thrilling form.

Verdi's Simon Boccanegra is a strange opera. Dark and foreboding, it features four male characters none of whom are entirely admirable, a title role without a conventional aria and a heroine who veers perilously close to the Victorian Virgin. Verdi regarded his unsuccessful first version of the opera (from 1857) as too gloomy and 24 years later would use the revision as a test of whether he and Arigo Boito could work together. They created an entirely new scene to conclude Act One (the Council Chamber scene) and tweaked the rest. Boito and Verdi were canny enough not to let the new scene overbalance the old. But you cannot help wishing that the two had started again from scratch. Yet for some people, Simon Boccanegra remains their favourite Verdi opera, its distinctive dark tinta being profoundly seductive.

Opera North chose the work for their 2025 concert staging, launching the production in Bradford on 24 April for the City of Culture celebrations and ending the tour on Saturday 24 May 2025 at the Royal Festival Hall, when we caught the performance.

PJ Harris' production put the Opera North Chorus and Orchestra (47 singers, 64 instrumentalists) at the centre, using the full space of the auditorium and providing an acting area for the soloists at the front of the stage. There was very little that was semi- about this staging. Stripped down, perhaps, full acted and compelling, definitely. The climactic Council Chamber scene might have lacked the claustrophobic sense of a conventional staging, but having the chorus surrounding the audience in the stalls was something again, particularly combined with Roland Wood's magisterial performance in the title role.

Verdi: Simon Boccanegra - Andrés Presno, Sara Cortolezzis - Opera North (Photo: James Glossop)

Anna Reid's costumes were contemporary with an elegant classical structure providing flexible locations. In a famously complex opera, clarity was all here with different coloured banners and rosettes for the Plebeans and the Patricians. Inevitably, this lacked the atmospheric chiaroscuro that the opera cries out for, but Harris and his team created and impressive two and three-quarter hours of sustained tension. 

Antony Hermus conducted with Roland Wood as Simon Boccanegra, Sara Cortolezzis as Amelia, Andrés Presno as Gabriele [we saw him as Cavaradossi in Puccini's Tosca with Opera North in 2023, see my review], Vazgen Gazaryan as Fiesco, Mandla Mndebele as Paolo and Richard Mosley-Evans as Pietro, plus Laura Kelly and Ivan Sharpe from the chorus as Amelia's maid and a captain.

Composer & producer Eímear Noone joins RPO for Worlds of Fantasy: Video Games in Concert at Royal Albert Hall

Eímear Noone (Photo: Andy Paradise)

Last year I chatted to composer Eímear Noone about writing for video games, films and TV in advance of her Video Games in Concert tour with the Heritage Orchestra [see my interview, 'What about blowing the box to pieces']. Now she returns to the Royal Albert Hall on 4 June 2025 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) for Worlds of Fantasy: Video Games in Concert, and they are joined by vocalist Aisling McGlynn and the Crouch End Festival Chorus.

This event continues the RPO’s pioneering work in this area from the PlayStation in Concert premiere in 2018 to the first ever video game concert at the BBC Proms. Alongside the concert, the RPO has released new research exploring the role of video game music in attracting younger audiences to orchestral music:

• 88% of under 25s are interested in video games
• One in six under 25s (15%) discovered orchestral music through gaming
• 22% say orchestral scores enhance their gaming experience
• 18% of gamers say they’d be more likely to attend a concert if it featured gaming music

The Royal Albert Hall programme features iconic scores from The Last of Us, Civilisation, Fortnite, Baldur's Gate, Halo, and other fan favourites.  

Full details from the RPO website.

Something juicy that you can get your teeth into: composer Libby Croad chats about The Brontë Suite which gets its UK premiere next month

Libby Croad (Photo: Alexander Barnes)

On Sunday 22 June 2025, Brighton Festival Chorus and City of London Sinfonia join forces at Cadogan Hall under the baton on James Morgan for a concert that features Duruflé’s Requiem, Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending (with violinist Alexandra Wood) and Fantasia on Greensleeves, plus the UK premiere of British composer Libby Croad's The Brontë Suite.

Libby wrote The Brontë Suite in January 2024, she was on sabbatical and as she loved the Brontë sisters' poems the idea of a piece based on them had been in the back of her head and the time seemed right. She effectively had free reign as there was no commission and she wrote it for choir and string quartet, figuring that was a nicely economic line-up. 

The piece uses three poems, Emily's Spellbound, Anne's A Reminiscence and Charlotte's Life. The three poems are not technically meant to be together but Libby feels that their themes of life, love and loss work well.

In fact, choirs asked her about a string orchestra version and it was this version which was used at the work's premiere by the Willoughby Symphony Choir in Sydney, Australia in March 2025 and will be used on 22 June. Ironically, the original version for choir and string quartet has yet to get an outing.

When I ask about her musical style, she comments that someone in another choir she was working with said that her music sounds very English. She admits that she likes a good melody, which is not wildly fashionable at the moment. She starts with the text, then melody and she loves scrunchy harmonies, using quite a lot of modes. She trained as a violinist and feels that you can tell this with her string writing, she likes something juicy that you can get your teeth into.

Her first study at the Royal Academy of Music was violin, with composition as second study. On leaving college, she focused on the violin but felt that something was missing. In 2016 she rekindled her writing and though she loves the violin and still plays, composition is the dream. But she feels that the two strands of her musical life help each. She comments that she has just finished playing the music for the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Hamlet whilst at the same time writing a new work of her own, and the influences feed into each other. She loves the way the two can interact, and says that she could not be a composer in an ivory tower.

She is pleased that her composing has really taken off and she now has a waiting list.

Unsurprisingly, her inspirations include RVW and Elgar, but also Rachmaninov whose Symphony No. 2 she has fond memories of playing in the youth orchestra. At college, her teacher was Gareth Wilson (who is now at Girton College). He was a great encouragement to her writing, he commissioned her first choral piece for his choir in Chelsea when she was still at college. She realised that she loved writing music and he helped her develop her writing.

The day before the London concert she has a premiere in Nottingham, The Nightingale for choir and strings, setting Walter de la Mare's poem King David. This is for the charity, Music for Everyone, with whom Libby has worked before and this new piece is about the healing power of music which will be performed by Nottingham Chamber Singers and Nottingham Chamber Players at a concert celebrating the choir's 40th birthday, further details.

She has just finished music for a play, the first time she has written for the theatre and it was an amazing experience. The play is Chronically Hopeful, a multi-disciplinary piece about unseen disability being developed by Musici Ireland. A workshop performance of the piece took place in Bray, Ireland a few days after I chatted to Libby with a big performance planned for the Autumn.

Next up, she is starting a new commission for the Dionysus Ensemble, for string quartet, clarinet and harp. The theme of the work is river safety and it will be part of a project the ensemble is doing with local children. 

Libby Croad: The Brontë Suite
Duruflé: Requiem
Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on Greensleeves
Alexandra Wood (violin)
Brighton Festival Chorus
City of London Sinfonia
James Morgan (conductor)
22 June 2025

Full details from the Cadogan Hall website.

 

The Lost Music of Auschwitz

The Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum has a collection of music manuscripts written, arranged and performed by the prisoners themselves. Damaged, complete and often overlooked, composer and conductor Leo Geyer has been working with the museum, survivors and historians to bring the music back to life. The results have been presented on a Sky Arts documentary [see YouTube] and BBC Radio 4 programme [available on the BBC website].

Now, Geyer's company Constella Music will be presenting a staging of the music in The Lost Music of Auschwitz with choreography by Claudia Schreier, designs by Finlay Jenner and featuring soprano Caroline Kennedy and baritone Ed Ballard. To commemorate 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, this new opera-ballet will tell the stories of the prisoner orchestras and feature forgotten and restored music from the camp, with music including include marching songs embedded with hidden messages for fellow inmates, a sorrowful piece arranged and performed by the women’s orchestra, and a lullaby that clings to the distant memory of home and children.

The production takes place at the Bloomsbury Theatre, 3 to 7 June 2025. Full details from the theatre's website.

Celebrating an icon: Argentinian bandoneonist Dino Saluzzi celebrates his 90th birthday with a new single on ECM Records

Yesterday (20 May 2025), Argentinian bandoneonist Dino Saluzzi celebrated his 90th birthday. A long time collaborator with ECM records [his discography is here], the label has released the first track from his upcoming album El Viejo Caminante (album release 11 July). 'El Viejo Caminante' translates as ‘The Old Wanderer’, and Dino Saluzzi is joined by his son José María Saluzzi (who first recorded with his father, at the age of thirteen, as drummer on Mojotoro) on classical guitar and Norwegian jazz guitarist Jacob Young,

The track is Quiet March, available via ECM's link tree. 

A key figure in contemporary South American music. Born in the small village of Campo Santo in northern Argentina in 1935, Dino Saluzzi began playing professionally while studying in Buenos Aires, where he met Astor Piazzolla, who was then in the process of shaping the Tango Nuevo idiom. In 1956, Saluzzi returned to the rural district of Salta to concentrate on his compositions, now consciously incorporating folk music elements.

He says of his background,  "My father worked on a sugar plantation, and, in his free time, he played the bandoneon and studied lead sheets of tango and folkloric music. There weren't books, or schools, or radio — nothing. Nevertheless, my father was able to transmit a musical education to me; music that, later, when I was studying, I realised that I already knew—not from the point of view of reason or rationality, but rather in a different way, a strange way, the way that is produced by oral transmission". 

That notion of centrality of the oral transmission of culture is one that has remained strong in Saluzzi’s musical identity ever since. His long collaboration with ECM Records, which began in 1982 with the solo album Kultrum - and was followed by a second album entitled Kultrum in 1988, a collaboration with the Rosamunde Quartet.

Colour & imagination: Rameau's Pigmalion plus music from Les Boréades, Early Opera Company at Temple Music

Rameau: Suite from Les Boréades, Pigmalion; Samuel Boden, Rachel Redmond, Jessica Cale, Lauren Lodge Campbell, Early Opera Company, Christian Curnyn; Temple Music at Middle Temple Hall
Reviewed 20 May 2025

An evening of Rameau in miniature; dances from his final opera and his best one-act opera in performances that brought out the sheer variety, colour and imagination in the music

Rameau's acte de ballet, Pigmalion, is one of the best of his one-act pieces and provides a nicely digestible sample of the composer's dramatic output without needing the full panoply of a five-act tragédie en musique. Rameau's operas are still frustratingly rare on the British operatic stage so it was a delight that Christian Curnyn and his Early Opera Company joined forces with Temple Music to present Rameau's Pigamalion and a suite of dances from Les Boréades at Middle Temple Hall. Pigmalion featured Samuel Boden as Pigmalion with Rachel Redmond as L'Amour, Jessica Cale as Céphise and Lauren Lodge Campbell as the statue.