She wants to make recordings that have something to do with the world now: violinist Clarissa Bevilacqua on recording the music of Augusta Reid Thomas

Clarissa Bevilacqua

As part of Nimbus Records' ongoing series devoted to the American composer Augusta Reid Thomas, Dreamcatcher features the young violinist Clarissa Bevilacqua in Reid Thomas' complete works for solo violin plus the Violin Concerto No. 3 'Juggler in Paradise' with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conductor Vimbayi Kaziboni. The disc also forms Clarissa's debut disc.

Born in Italy and raised in the USA, Clarissa is currently based in Berlin where she is studying, and from where she spoke to me via Zoom. She was familiar with Reid Thomas' music well before making the recording, as Clarissa knew the composer's work from the period when Clarissa was studying in Chicago (Reid Thomas is a professor at the University of Chicago). Clarissa programmed some of Reid Thomas' music at a recital (Clarissa was around 16 at the time) and the composer came along, liked the performance and the two got talking. The recording project developed during the pandemic; the works for solo violin were recorded in Chicago in September 2021, with the concerto recorded in Cardiff in April 2022.

Recording session for August Read Thomas' Violin Concerto No 3 - Clarissa Bevilacqua, Vimbayi Kaziboni, BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Imagining the unimaginable: Noah Max's opera A Child in Striped Pyjamas

Max: A Child In Striped Pyjamas - Susanna MacRae, Rachel Roper - (Photo: Bonnie Britain)

Noah Max: A Child in Striped Pyjamas; Susanna MacRae, Rachel Roper, Jeremy Huw Williams, Xavier Hetherington, Echo Ensemble, dir: Guido Martin Brandis, conductor: Noah Max; The Cockpit Theatre
Reviewed 11 January 2023

An impressive first opera on a profoundly challenging subject, an intensely serious and thoughtful evening that did not quite take wing

Composer Noah Max has chosen a challenging subject indeed for his first opera. Max's A Child in Striped Pyjamas, which premiered on Wednesday 11 January 2023 at the Cockpit with Max conducting his own Echo Ensemble, has a libretto based on John Boyne's 2006 Holocaust novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.

Max, who was his own librettist, has boiled Boyne's novel down to half a dozen scenes, with just four characters the Jewish Child (Rachel Roper), the German Child (Susanna MacRae), the Father (Jeremy Huw Williams) and Lieutenant Kobler (Xavier Hetherington) accompanied by an instrumental ensemble of string quartet, clarinet and trumpet. Boyne's novel is deliberately set as a fable and has been criticised for its historical accuracy. Whilst an element of child's-eye-view remains in Max's opera, the work is definitely an adult piece written for adult audiences, and the stylised realism of the opera includes references to the more disturbing aspects of the history behind the story.

ORA Singers' 2023 Young Composers Programme

ORA Singers, artistic director Suzi Digby, has opened applications for its 2023 Young Composers Programme. The programme, the fourth such run by the choir, will see 10 Young Composers each receive 10 hours of one-to-one mentoring from industry-leading composers, who will help them write a brand new choral piece to be performed and recorded by ORA Singers in concert. Halfway through the scheme, Young Composers also get to join ORA Singers for a Workshop, where they'll be able to hear their ideas and sketches sung by professionals, who will offer specialist tips and advice along with a Guest Composer. 

The programme culminates in a final concert at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester where the new pieces will be performed, and Young Composers receive a video recording of the performance to kick-start their portfolios.

As well as the 10 Young Composers, the scheme also includes an additional 40 Apprentices. These will gain first-class coaching in composition through eight online Workshops, free of charge. Apprentices will fast-track their compositional development, and will also gain invaluable insight into the world of professional composition by hearing from experts in the industry. 

The deadline to apply is 6 February 2023, full details at the ORA Singers' website.

Evocative and imaginative: Trio Anima's debut disc, Between Earth and Sea, showcases new and recent works for flute, viola and harp trio

Between Earth and Sea: Bax, Ashley John Long, Eloise Glynn, Hilary Tann, Sally Beamish; Trio Anima; Tŷ Cerdd Records 
Reviewed 11 January 2023 (★★★★)

A wonderfully imaginative disc combining a classic from the repertoire with new pieces and more recent ones all showcasing the trio's fine musicality

Between Earth and Sea on Tŷ Cerdd Records is the debut release of Trio Anima, Matthew Featherstone (flute), Rosalind Ventris (viola) and Anneke Hoddinott (harp). The disc features Arnold Bax's Elegiac Trio new pieces by Welsh composers Ashley John Long and Eloise Glynn, existing pieces by composers Hilary Tann and Sally Beamish, along with arrangements of Dowland and folksongs.

Trio Anima was formed at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. The core repertoire for the trio is of course based around Debussy's sonata, but alongside performing the classics in the flute, viola, and harp trio repertoire the trio has a strong interest in new music and developing the repertoire. It is this that is at the centre of this disc with four substantial contemporary works alongside modern arrangements of traditional tunes.

Congratulations to Joséphine Korda, Opera North's new Female Conductor Trainee

Joséphine Korda has been announced as Opera North's 2022-23 Female Conductor Trainee, and she takes up the intensive 9-week scheme with the company while studying for her masters at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Opera North's annual programme is aimed at addressing the gender imbalance in classical music and offers emerging conductors wide-ranging experience and support within the company.

She studied composition and conducting at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, and advanced contemporary repertoire conducting at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana. She founded the Paris Sinfonia, with whom she conducts concerts featuring classical and contemporary music, and during her studies at Oxford University she created the Occasional Orchestra, for which she commissioned new works from choreographer Charlotte Edmonds to enhance symphonic repertoire with performance art. 

Further information from Opera North website.

Company: the non-professional theatre production company, Artform, returns to Bob Hope Theatre with Sondheim's iconic musical

Sondheim: Company - Artform in rehearsal,
Daniel Lawrence (Bobby) & Aimee Collins (Kathy) - Photo Bethany Andrews

Artform is a non-professional theatre production company based in South-East London. Previous the resident company at the Broadway Theatre, Catford, they are returning to the Bob Hope Theatre, Eltham in February 2023 with a production of Sondheim's Company. 

It is relatively rare for non-professional companies to perform Sondheim's musicals, but Artform has history with the composer having done A Little Night Music in 2013. Company will be directed by Sheila Arden with David Bullen as musical director, and features Daniel Lawrence in the role of Bobby (i.e. the company will be using the original version of the score rather than having Bobby played by a woman as in the recent West End production).

Company runs from 8 to 11 February 2023, further details and tickets from the Artform website.

The Philharmonia Orchestra's residency at Cromwell Place continues

Members of the Philharmonia at Cromwell Place (Photo Cromwell Place)

Cromwell Place is a gallery and exhibition space based in five Grade II listed Victorian townhouses in South Kensington which includes the historic former studio of Sir John Lavery. This season, 2022/23, the Philharmonia Orchestra is in residence, presenting intimate chamber concerts in the gallery spaces. The second half of the residency begins later this month, and the orchestra is presenting four concerts at Cromwell Place between January and June 2023.

Emerging Art (28 January 2023) features Adrián Varela – violin, Jan Regulski – violin, Yukiko Ogura – viola, and Yaroslava Trofymchuk – cello in Dvorak's String Quartet No. 12 ‘American’ a work written whilst Dvorak was in the USA as director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York. The movements of the quartet will be interspersed with other pieces, an arrangement of the Spiritual Deep River by Harry T Burleigh, a student who introduced Dvorak to Spirituals, Mexican composer Diana Syrse's Pyramids in an Urban Landscape and Yshani Perinpanayagam's We Folk Disquieten, written for the concert.

During March, Cromwell Place focuses on women in art for Women’s History Month and to complement this on 11 March, four cellists, Richard Birchall, Alex Rolton, Ella Rundle and Karen Stephenson present a programme that mixes music by women composers with music associated with memorable female characters. So we have music by the 17th century Barbara Strozzi and two contemporary women, Roxanna Panufnik and Rosie Trentham, plus arrangements of the finale trio from Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier (which features the opera's three leading female characters), Henry Mancini's Moon River (memorably associated with Audrey Hepburn in the film Breakfast at Tiffany's) and music from Puccini's Madama Butterfly.

Art in Conflict (1 April 2023) features music by Ukrainian Borys Lyatoshynsky (1895-1968) and Russian Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), composed during the Second World War, Both won the Stalin Prize, but also had their music denounced by the regime. The concert includes Lyatoshynsky's String Quartet No. 4 and Shostakovich's Piano Quintet. Then the final concert of the season on 1 June 2023, features Samuel Coles – flute, Yukiko Ogura – viola and Heidi Krutzen – harp in trios by Debussy, Bax and David Heath whose new trio was commissioned by flautist Samuel Coles with support from the Philharmonia, to complement the other pieces in the programme.

Full details from the Philharmonia's website.

Out of the Shadows: an evening of music by Robert Hugill for LGBT History Month

I have recorded a little video introduction to Out of the Shadows, explaining some of the background to our concert at Hinde Street Methodist Church on 3 February 2023, particularly two cantatas which are receiving their first performances, Out of the Shadows and Et expecto resurrectionem. Do please enjoy.   

Out of the Shadows: an evening of Robert Hugill's songs for LGBT History Month

Ben Vonberg-Clark (tenor), James Atkinson (baritone), Nigel Foster (piano)

Friday 3 February 2022, 7pm
Hinde Street Methodist Church, 19 Thayer Street, London W1U 2QJ

Tickets from EventBrite.

Maxim Shalygin: Six Bagatelles & Suite-Homage to Alfred Schnittke

Maxim Shalygin: Six Bagatelles & Suite-Homage to Alfred Schnittke; Ihor Zavhorodnii, Andrii Pavlov, Irina Kozlova, Sergey Kozakov and Igor Patsovsky
Reviewed 10 January 2023

Two striking instrumental works by the Netherlands-based Ukrainian composer Maxim Shalygin, recorded by musicians still living in Kyiv

The digital album Six Bagatelles & Suite-Homage to Alfred Schnittke features two works by the Ukrainian composer Maxim Shalygin. Six Bagatelles for two violins is performed by Ihor Zavhorodnii and Andrii Pavlov, Suite-Homage to Alfred Schnittke for three celli is performed by Irina Kozlova, Sergey Kozakov and Igor Patsovsky. All the performers are Ukrainian musicians, still resident in Kyiv.

Born in Kamianske (formerly Dniprodzerzhynsk) in Ukraine, Maxim Shalygin initially studied in his native city, before going to study with Boris Tishchenko at the N. Rimsky-Korsakov St. Petersburg State Conservatory. Shalygin only spent a year studying in Russia, before returning to Ukraine, and subsequently studied at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague with Cornelis de Bondt and Diderik Wagenaar. Shalygin currently lives and works in the Netherlands.

Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre's only opera Céphale et Procris to receive its UK premiere

The 17th century French composer Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre wrote in a wide range of forms, but only published one opera, Céphale et Procris The work was poorly received at its premiere in 1694 at the Académie Royale de Musique (the first time an opera by a woman had been performed there). The lack of success probably says as much about the atmosphere in late 17th century Paris (just ten years after the death of Lully) as it does about the quality of the work. Under the influence of his religiously conservative second wife Madame de Maintenon, King Louis XIV had lost interest in opera and Catholic religious authorities were attacking opera as a 'sensuous' form of entertainment.

The libretto is based on the story of  Cephalus and Procris as told in Ovid's Metamorphoses. It tells the tragic love story of Céphale and Procris. Procris has been promised to Borrée, but is in love with Céphale. Aurore, also in love with Céphale, tries to plot against the couple.

The work is receiving its UK premiere next month when Ensemble OrQuesta will be performing it at the Cockpit Theatre (7, 9, 10 & 11 February 2023), directed by Marcio da Silva, with Kieran White as Céphale, Poppy Shots as Procris, Helen May as Aurore and Jack Lawrence-Jones as Borée. The work will be given in a new edition created for these performances.

Full details from Ensemble OrQuesta's website.

Dame Sarah Connolly and the Royal Northern Sinfonia at Sage Gateshead and Wigmore Hall

Dame Sarah Connolly with the Royal Northern Sinfonia at Sage Gatesheada

Dame Sarah Connolly is one of the Royal Northern Sinfonia's (RNS) Artists in Focus this season (the other is Benjamin Grosvenor). Connolly, who is something of a local girl having been born in Middlesbrough and who grew up near Darlington, started the season with a concert celebrating the native return of the Lindisfarne Gospels [you can see the film made on the Sage Gateshead website].

This week Connolly rejoins the RNS for a pair of concerts, one in London and one at Sage Gateshead. On Thursday 12 January 2022, she will join Dinis Sousa (piano) and players from the RNS at Wigmore Hall in a programme that includes Jake Heggie's chamber arrangement of Debussy's Chansons de Bilitis, two works by Lili Boulanger and Franck Villard's chamber arrangement of Chausson's Poème de l’amour et de la mer [see Wigmore Hall website]. Then on Saturday (14/1/2023), there will be an expanded version of the programme at Sage Gateshead.

Further ahead, Connolly returns to Sage Gateshead and joins Dinis Sousa and the RNS in Mahler's Rückert-Lieder, plus Schubert's Symphony No. 7 (another symphony he never finished) and Brahms' Symphony No. 3. Full details from the Sage Gateshead website.

Love Restor'd: Songs from the English Restoration

Love Restor'd: Songs from the English Restoration; Ceruleo; RESONUS CLASSICS
Reviewed 9 January 2023 (★★★★)

Rhythmically alert performances and a sense of drama in this selection of songs and instrumental music from late 17th-century England

Like most British groups specialising in Baroque music, Ceruleo has a long engagement with the music of Henry Purcell. This deepened when the group premiered Clare Norburn's musical play about Purcell, Burying the Dead in 2018 [see my review]. Directed by Thomas Guthrie this combined dramatic narrative (with actor Niall Ashdown) with Purcell's music performed by Ceruleo, and the group toured the piece during 2018 to 2020.

On this new disc, Love Restor'd from Resonus Classics, Ceruleo (sopranos Emily Owen and Jenni Harper, Toby Carr theorbo & Baroque guitar, Kate Conway viola da gamba, Satoko Doi-Luck harpsichord) perform Purcell's music alongside that of his contemporaries. Described as Songs from the English Restoration, the disc features songs by Purcell, Blow and Eccles, but also instrumental music by Purcell, Blow and Corbetta.

The idea behind the programme was to create the sort of mixed selection of music that you might have heard in the Restoration theatre. The music moves between solos, duets and instrumental pieces, with works both in English and in Latin, and the styles range from the light-hearted to the more serious, including amorous dalliances, a work written in memory of Queen Mary and mad song. The result is engagingly varied and reflects the variety and diversity of Restoration stage music rather better than a concentration on works from a single genre.

There are very few composers who can capture the spectrum of the human condition so viscerally as Beethoven: I chat to the Calidore String Quartet

Calidore String Quartet
(Jeffrey Myers, Ryan Meehan, Jeremy Berry, Estelle Choi)

The Calidore String Quartet is a young American string quartet who were at Wigmore Hall in November 2022, and who will be releasing their disc of late Beethoven quartets on Signum Records in February 2023, the first volume of a planned complete Beethoven cycle.

The Calidore String Quartet (Jeffrey Myers, Ryan Meehan, Jeremy Berry, Estelle Choi) was founded at the Colburn School in Los Angeles in 2010, and within two years, they won prizes in virtually all the major US chamber music competitions as well as at the 2012 ARD International Music Competition in Munich and the International Chamber Music Competition, Hamburg. The quartet was the first and only North American ensemble to win a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, and they were BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists from 2016 to 2018.

Whilst the Beethoven quartets have, of course, been recorded before the quartet feels that the works are special to them, and they have been performing them for the last 12 years. Beethoven very much set the standard and all 16 quartets are amazing; in fact, the recording project had been planned before the pandemic so the extra time enabled them to turbo-boost the project. All four players are excited to finally be able to get their recordings out there.

The quartet plays a significant amount of contemporary music with works by composers such as Kurtag, Jörg Widmann and Caroline Shaw. When I inquire whether this repertoire affects the way they look at Beethoven, their first response is 'everything affects everything', but then they point out that whilst their contemporary experience might affect how they look at Beethoven, music such as the Grosse Fuge still feels modern. And the mixture of old and new, certainly affects how they breathe and interact as a quartet. 

Other Love Songs: The songs of Stephen Hough at Wigmore Hall with James Newby, Nicky Spence, Jess Dandy, Ailish Tynan

Stephen Hough, Alisdair Hogarth, James Newby, Nicky Spence, Jess Dandy, Ailish Tynan at Wigmore Hall (taken from live stream)

As a composer, Stephen Hough's work has perhaps not gained the spotlight the way his work as a performer has, but I have long been aware of Hough's impressive parallel career. On Monday 2 January 2023, there was a chance to really explore Hough the composer as Wigmore Hall brought together five of Hough's song cycles, including the premiere of Songs of Love and Loss. A fine quartet of singers took part, Jess Dandy (standing in at short notice for Ema Nikolovska), Ailish Tynan, James Newby and Nicky Spence. Hough himself accompanied, and was joined at the piano by Alisdair Hogarth for Other Love Songs which was written as a pendant to Brahms Liebesliederwalzer.

The song cycles spanned a significant period of time from Herbeslieder of 2007 to Songs of Love and Loss and Lady Antonia's Songs from 2021. All displayed clear elements of Hough's style. Complex piano writing, for a start, with the piano as a highly expressive partner to the voice. Influences seemed to range widely, but 20th-century European composers loomed large, along with that of Britten (another British composer with Continental roots). But Hough has a way of putting on style as an expressive device; the voice was always his, but the manner changed, whether this was early 20th-century European writing for his Rilke settings in Herbstlieder, or evoking jazz or Noel Coward in other places. And Britten's example of bringing complexity to the cabaret style seemed to have been well-learned too.

The Story of Hassan of Baghdad and How He Came to Make the Golden Journey to Samarkand,

Joseph Tawadros (Photo Anthony Lycett)

Certain works seem to capture the zeitgeist, become enormously popular and then fade, with revivals never quite managing to recapture that original spirit. So Rutland Boughton's opera The Immortal Hour remains something of a rare novelty, never achieving the remarkable success of its first few years (the opera ran for 216 consecutive performances in London in 1922 with a further 160 the following year!)

Similarly, another escapist work was enormously successful in 1923, James Elroy Flecker's five-act verse drama, The Story of Hassan of Baghdad and How He Came to Make the Golden Journey to Samarkand, had a run of 281 performances at His Majesty's Theatre that year, directed by Basil Dean. Whilst Flecker's poetry has remained somewhat influential, with Hassan reflecting the promise that was snubbed with the poet's early death (in 1915), few would probably think of performing the verse drama today.

That 1923 performance had incidental music by Frederick Delius, quite a substantial score with preludes to each of the five acts, interludes, a serenade, fanfares, a four-movement ballet, melodramas and choruses, the most famous movement is The Serenade a work that has achieved an independent life.

100 years after the premiere of Delius' music for the play, the Britten Sinfonia is reviving it and giving a complete performance of Delius' incidental music for Flecker's Hassan with the individual movements linked by a narration taken from the play. Jamie Phillips conducts the Britten Sinfonia and Britten Sinfonia Voices in performances at Milton Court Concert Hall (10 February 2023) and Saffron Hall (11 February 2023). 

Whilst Delius' music rather eschews any element of exoticising the music, Flecker's text was influenced by his work in Britain’s Levant consulate service, and he travelled widely in the region and studied ancient Islamic literature and poetry.

As a counterpoint to Hassan, the Britten Sinfonia is pairing Delius' music with that of the Australian/Egyptian oud player and composer Joseph Tawadros who joins the orchestra for performances of his music including the premiere of his Britten Sinfonia commissioned new work, Three Stages of Hindsight.

Full details from the Britten Sinfonia website.

The Lambeth Orchestra celebrates its 50th anniversary with gala featuring Lambeth-born soprano Nadine Benjamin

Peter Selwyn conducting the Lambeth Orchestra at All Saints West Dulwich in April 2022
(Photo: Anna Shilonosova)

The Lambeth Orchestra, principal conductor Peter Selwyn [see my interview with Peter] is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a gala concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on 18 January 2023 when they will be joined by Lambeth-born soprano Nadine Benjamin for Strauss' Four Last Songs. The evening will feature both the orchestra's current principal conductor, Peter Selwyn and its previous one, Christopher Fifield as well as principal guest conductor Michael Cobb.

The evening opens with Humperdinck's overture to Hansel and Gretel conducted by Christopher Fifield, followed by Strauss' Four Last Songs with Nadine Benjamin conducted by Michael Cobb, and finally Mahler's Symphony No. 1, in the original version including the Blumine movement, conducted by Peter Selwyn.

One of London's foremost amateur orchestras, the Lambeth Orchestra was founded in 1972 and Christopher Fifield was principal conductor from 1982 with Peter Selwyn taking over in 2022.

Full details from the Southbank Centre's website.

The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Muzak - New Year in Salzburg

Großes Festspielhaus, Salzburg

New Year’s Eve concert (Silvesterkonzert); Eva Hinterreithner (mezzo-soprano), Markus Obereder (tenor/baritone saxophone), Daniel Strasser (tenor), Helmut Zeilner (tenor), Das Ballaststofforchester Salzburg conducted by Egon Achatz; SZENE, Salzburg
New Year’s Day concert (Neujahrskonzert); Rossini The Thieving Magpie, Paganini: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, No.2, in B minor; Mendelssohn: Symphony No.4 in A major (The Italian), Benjamin Schmid (violin), Symphonieorchester Vorarlberg conducted by Leo McFall; Großes Festspielhaus, Salzburg
Reviewed by Tony Cooper: 31 December 2022 / 1 January 2023 Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★)

Our correspondent Tony, sees the Old Year out in Salzburg with an evening of songs from the Golden Age of operetta, and rings in the New with some dazzling Paganini.

Two contrasting concerts from Salzburg, the Ballastofforchester Salzburg under Egon Achatz in a New Year's Eve concert of jazz-age songs and operetta at SZENE (31 December 2022), and then violinist Benjamin Schmid, Symphonieorchester Vorarlberg conducted by Leo McFall in Rossini, Paganini and Mendelssohn at the Großes Festspielhaus (1 January 2023).

The Ballaststofforchester Salzburg, under the direction of Egon Achatz, delighted a packed and excited house seemingly on fire in the SZENE concert hall (originally built to house Salzburg’s first Cinemascope theatre in 1950 but converted into a concert hall in 2002) for their New Year’s Eve jazz-orientated party (Silvesterkonzert). 

They performed a host of Big Band numbers to some unforgettable songs from the Golden Age of Austrian/German operetta to the rousing, roaring and freewheeling decades of the 1920s to the 1940s, a repertoire that they have revelled in successfully for the past quarter century.

Guildhall Studio Orchestra perform Turnage and Scofield's 'Scorched'

Guildhall Studio Orchestra (Photo Matthew Ferguson)

Inspired by a Francis Bacon painting, Mark-Anthony Turnage's Blood on the Floor was his first work to include a significant amount of improvisation alongside a contemporary orchestra, with the premiere featuring jazz guitarist John Scofield alongside Ensemble Modern. This led to a closer collaboration between Turnage and Scofield, whose music Turnage loves, resulting in a new work by the two of them.

Scorched, for jazz-trio and orchestra, premiered in 2002 with Hugh Wolff conducting the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra (for whom it was commissioned) with John Scofield, John Patitucci and Peter Erskine. The work's title is a compression of Scofield Orchestrated, but the work is far more than an orchestration of Scofield's music and represents a synthesis of the two composers, Mark-Anthony Turnage and John Scofield.

On Wednesday 11 January 2023 at Milton Court Concert Hall, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama is presenting the Guildhall Studio Orchestra, conducted by Scott Stroman in John Scofield and Mark-Anthony Turnage's Scorched.

Full details from the Guildhall School website.

National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain launches Winter tour with orchestra featuring 50% members from state-education

The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain begins its Winter tour tomorrow (4 January 2023) at the Barbican Centre, the first of four concerts with appearances at Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham (6/1/2023), Warwick Arts Centre (7/1/2023) and Liverpool Philharmonic (8/1/2023). Alexandre Bloch conducts the 156 teenagers in Britten's Four Sea Interludes, Anna Clyne's Rift and Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra. There are free tickets for teenagers at every concert, and the Barbican concert will be live-streamed as part of the Live from the Barbican series.

This year's orchestra is admirably diverse, 50% of the orchestra are from state-education and a further 16% are members of the Department for Education's Music and Dance scheme, attending specialist music schools. Female and non-binary musicians take 61% of leadership positions across the orchestra, and 29% are Black, Asian or ethnically diverse - the teenagers come from every region in the UK. 

The way the orchestra's own efforts in achieving diversity have paid dividends is reflected in the fact that 42% of the 2023 orchestra have progressed from NYO Inspire. NYO Inspire is the orchestra's programme to provide ensemble opportunities exclusively for communities that are underrepresented in the world of orchestral music. In this way, the orchestra and its players seek to change the fabric of the orchestral sector from the ground up, investing in and engaging with those with limited access to musical experience. Following the tour, the young musicians will embark on Play the School projects in secondary schools in Oldham - performing and working with the pupils, showcasing their creative music-making.

Full details from the orchestra's website.

Ukraine will rise again! Margaret Fingerhut launches fundraising video for Ukraine

Pianist Margaret Fingerhut has made a fun-raising video for Ukraine with film-maker Viktoriia Levchenko. In the video, Fingerhut plays a stirring piano piece by the Ukrainian composer Sergei Bortkiewicz (1877-1952), Les Rochers d’Outche-Coche which he wrote in 1908, inspired by the mountain scenery in Crimea. Levchenko has matched it with a series of extraordinary images, including powerful footage of the devastation caused by the war.

Margaret Fingerhut's grandfather was born in Odesa and she has always felt a proud connection with the country. In 2019 she undertook a major recital tour, devising and performing a special programme of words and music called Far from the Home I Love across the UK to raise money for refugees and asylum seekers. She was presented with a ‘Champion of Sanctuary’ award by City of Sanctuary UK in recognition of her humanitarian work.

Sergei Bortkiewicz had a career that was buffeted by the various European conflicts of the 20th century. Born in what was then Kharokov in the Russian Empire (now Kharkiv in Ukraine) he was taught by Lyadov at the St Petersburg Conservatory and in Berlin by two pupils of Franz Liszt. He settled in Berlin and started to compose, but in 1914 was forced to flee back to Russia. The revolution saw him fleeing again, ending penniless in Constantinople where he ultimately ended in Vienna and took Austrian citizenship. He had to flee Germany again in 1933 because of the Nazis and spent the Second World War suffering extreme privation in Vienna.

Fingerghut has set up a JustGiving page to raise funds for British-Ukrainian Aid, a charity which sends over vital supplies such as ambulances, first aid kits and portable generators. It also provides assistance to the victims of the war: 

http://www.justgiving.com/Margaret-Fingerhut