Planet Hugill

Relishing the challenge: during rehearsals for their forthcoming production of The Marriage of Figaro I chat to Orlando Jopling about Wild Arts' ambitious touring plans

2026-05-30T09:25:39.306+01:00

Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro in rehearsal - Ellie Neate, Danielle de Niese, Jack Sandison - Wild Arts (Photo: Anastasia Tikhonova)

Wild Arts is a small but dynamic company that presents music and opera, touring from its base in Essex, under artistic director and founder Orlando Jopling. This year the company presenting a new production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro with Danielle de Niese making her directorial debut and Orlando Jopling conducting. The cast features Jack Sandison as Figaro, Ellie Neate as Susanna, Timothy Nelson as Count Almaviva, Elinor Rolfe Johnson as Countess Almaviva and Abbie Ward as Cherubino. The work will be sung in a new translation by Danielle de Niese and Orlando Jopling, and accompanied by a ten-piece instrumental ensemble.

I recently went to join the company at rehearsals in South London where Danielle de Niese was working on the end of Act Two with Timothy Nelson, Elinor Rolfe Johnson and Ellie Neate, and afterwards I was able to find out more from Orlando Jopling.

In rehearsal, it was fascinating quite how much stress Danielle de Niese placed on the words. Not only focusing on meaning and sense, but stress too and trying different readings, and it was illuminating to hear how different inflections affect the results. It was also clear that the translation itself was malleable with Danielle de Niese and Orlando Jopling working on alternative readings to achieve the right effect. For much of the scene (the moment from the Count's entry) the attention was on the recitative and focusing on it as dialogue, but when the trio started Danielle de Niese was also paying great attention to the staging logistics, the farce elements.

Afterwards, when I chatted to Orlando he commented that the singers were loving the rehearsal process and really believed in the work. Danielle de Niese has evidently come up with some interesting solutions to the challenges of staging various scenes, and Orlando describes the overall intention as being like good TV drama where details make so much difference. They are rehearsing the recitatives by speaking them so that the music comes in the natural rhythm of speech and pacing. Orlando's aim is that people will forget that the cast is singing and that this will draw the audience into the story. They have also been doing a lot of work on the music of the recitatives themselves, thinking about the placement of the chords, what they mean and whether the chord precipitates the next line or references what has just happened. Orlando adds that Mozart and Da Ponte are so amazingly brilliant that the music gives the right shape to the drama with so much satisfying detail.

Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro in rehearsal - Wild Arts (Photo: Anastasia Tikhonova)

As regards the musical side of things, Orlando is the least of controlling of conductors. He feels that if the drama is right then the music will be right. He wants the impulse for the music to come from the singers' minds rather than insisting that they watch him all the time. He thinks that too often in performance control by the conductor is put ahead of the natural organic drama, responding to what the singers are feeling and thinking.

When I spoke to Orlando some weeks before opening night the production was already surpassing his wildest dreams. Not only is The Marriage of Figaro an amazing piece, but he had nothing but praise for the working process with Danielle de Niese, and he also refers to the 'knockout cast'. He has always wanted to bring The Marriage of Figaro alive without all the conventions of a typical opera performance. After all it is a brilliant story made much better by the music, rather than being 'a piece of music'. Orlando also emphasised that for Danielle de Niese, the music was the found of all the dramatic ideas for the production.

For The Marriage of Figaro, Wild Arts is giving 26 performances in 20 venues. They open with their Summer Opera Festival at Layer Marney Tower in Essex (5-7 June) and then move around the country from Northern Aldborough Festival, Yorkshire and Doddington Hall, Lincolnshire to Forde Abbey, Somerset and Malvern Festival Theatre, Worcestershire, ending at The Rep in Birmingham on 27 September. The aim of the production is to be practical, they need a show that will work in an amazing variety of different spaces - barns, gardens, concert halls, proscenium arch theatres. Orlando is rather proud of the fact that no other company does that variety of location, and he admits that it is asking a lot of the singers. When I saw them perform Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore it was in Thaxted Church with an improvised stage and the audience end on [see my review], but for Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at Chartrhouse the audience was on three sides of the performance space [see my review].

Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro in rehearsal
Wild Arts (Photo: Anastasia Tikhonova)

One of the advantages of the long tour is that it means that Wild Arts, whilst not able to pay lavishly, can offer the singers a decent chunk of money. And the sheer number of performances gives the singers, especially the Young Artists, the opportunity to learn to move from simply thinking 'what next' and really developing their performances. Orlando points out that if you only do three or four performances of a production, it all passes by in a flash thanks to sheer adrenalin. But a longer run gives the singers time to react to the stage and be in the moment, to play around with timings, see what makes the audience laugh and respond to this.

Orlando is keen for the opera performances to be approachable, and so they try and take away any element of the staging that puts the opera in a box, making it seem to be 'over there'. English is very much the company's preferred language, but Orlando is not dogmatic and does what's right for that particular opera, though he admits that there is so much to be gained from performing in English as the audience is drawn into the story. Besides telling a story, Orlando wants his audiences to understand that opera is simply a brilliant night out at the theatre. The incredible story, with human characters who make mistakes and do ridiculously funny things (in the case of The Marriage of Figaro) allied to great music.

The show has to be flexible and respond to where it is, so any performance is about 'that' place and responds to 'that' audience. They are taking the best of theatre and thanks to having a long-running show are able to play with it and enjoy it.

For Wild Arts the summer is packed! From May to early September they are giving performances of An Evening of Opera, their 2026 incarnation of their regular opera programme. This year directed by Guido Martin-Brandis, it features four singers and a string quartet in arias and scenes from operas by Handel, Mozart, Puccini and Rossini, alongside songs from classic musicals by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Bernstein and Noel Coward. For these performances they intend to work in the same way as for the opera, concentrating on projecting the drama, with the intention of shedding new light on great music.

For The Marriage of Figaro they work with an ensemble of around ten players so every player is a soloist, and it becomes large-scale chamber music with a different dynamic between the players. The sound is more direct, less plush than with a full orchestra but Orlando feels that when they get it right it can be plangent. Orlando is also a cellist, and he comments that he loves playing in an orchestra, finding it wonderful how 80 or so players react. But experiencing chamber music making is intoxicating, considering what each player brings to the piece and the way it is brought to life by each player being a soloist.

Orlando points out that once an audience member is in the story, following the characters, the venue and stage matter less as the storytelling draws the audience in. As far as he is concerned it doesn't matter what is on stage, you don't need huge built sets as the stuff of the drama is in the interaction of the characters.

For The Marriage of Figaro they are working with a number of theatres, and several of these are ones that Glyndebourne Opera used to tour to. This means that their performances at these venues (including Norwich Theatre Royal, Malvern Festival Theatre, Cheltenham Everyman Theatre and Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford) are an important part of what they do. For these proscenium arch theatres, the orchestra is on stage and the performance is very much about the interplay between singers and instrumentalists to that the fourth wall is almost gone.

For the next few years, Orlando is very aware that Wild Arts needs to build these relationships. They have been thinking about performing Janáček's Jenůfa, but have decided that next year they will tour Mozart's Don Giovanni, so that theatres that have taken a chance on them can build their audiences. Then they will come to the challenges of Jenůfa in 2028.

Orlando regards Jenůfa as being essential for the company, showing that they have a range that encompasses serious opera and goes beyond entertaining comedy. The work presents the company with several challenges. For a start there is the issue of doing it in English. Janáček uses Czech speech rhythms in his music, but Orlando points out that whilst Janáček builds the orchestral texture from melodic fragment based on speech rhythms the vocal lines are freer. Also, between the first performances of the opera in Brno in 1904 and the later performances in Prague in 1916, Janáček changed a lot of the word setting so it is clear that even he was fiddling around with this. As long as the melodic shape is intact there is a way of doing it in English, so the language is intelligible whilst keeping the musical integrity. And Orlando is hoping to work with the same playwright who did the translation of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin for Wild Arts.

Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro in rehearsal - Wild Arts (Photo: Anastasia Tikhonova)

Though they will be using small forces, as usual, Jenůfa requires a bigger orchestra than their usual productions so in 2028 Wild Arts will be touring second production, Donizetti's Don Pasquale, so that they have something portable to offer the smaller festivals. With an opera like Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, the company is able to cast the singers so that they are age-appropriate which means you get the perfect performers, something Orlando finds exciting. With Jenůfa it will be a bit more of a challenge, as singers will need the appropriate dramatic weight. But I sensed that this was a challenge that Orlando would relish.

Wild Arts' production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, directed by Danielle de Niese & conducted by Orlando Jopling opens at Layer Marney Tower on 5 June 2026.

Full details of Wild Arts' performances from their website, with a full calendar of performances

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Elsewhere on this blog

What fun, what larks: musical quality & deft comic action in Opera Holland Park's 1960s package deal holiday Cosi fan tutte - opera review
A mix of melodrama & sentiment, yet unashamedly enjoyable: Opera Holland Park open the season in terrific form with Puccini's La fanciulla del West - opera review
Memorable concerts in this year’s Norfolk & Norwich Festival with Britten Sinfonia & Norwich Philharmonic Orchestra & Chorus - concert review
Capella Edina: how Luis Schmidt, a young conductor from Munich, came to found Edinburgh's first professional philharmonic orchestra in almost ninety years - interview
Each song a story to be told: James Newby & Malcolm Martineau's Shipping Forecast at SongEasel in Elephant & Castle - concert review
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Richness & imagination: the all-male ensemble De Profundis continues its exploration of Morales with two masses based on L’homme armé - CD review
Unashamedly romantic: the music of the remarkably youthful Christopher Churcher on Resonus Classics - record review
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What fun, what larks: musical quality & deft comic action in Opera Holland Park's 1960s package deal holiday Cosi fan tutte

2026-05-29T12:26:00.441+01:00

Mozart: Cosi fan tutte - Osian Wyn Bowen, Madeline Boreham, Paul Grant - Opera Holland Park (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Mozart: Cosi fan tutte: Madeline Boreham, Shakira Tsindos, Osian Wyn Bowen, Paul Grant, Elizabeth Karani, Paul Carey Jones, director: Cecilia Stinton, City of London Sinfonia, conductor: Charlotte Corderoy; Opera Holland Park
Reviewed 28 May 2026

Musical quality triumphs in Cecilia Stinton's over-active Italian package holiday-themed production with a young cast led by conductor Charlotte Corderoy really showing their Mozartian chops

When Mozart's Cosi fan tutte last appeared at Opera Holland Park (OHP) in 2018 [see my review] the young artists playing the lovers were Eleanor Dennis, Kitty Whately, Nick Pritchard and Nicholas Lester, all now well on their way to being distinguished names, and one wonders what a production featuring them would be like now. The sisters being somewhat more mature, perhaps having a holiday fling!

That 2018 production was also firmly and attractively set in the 18th century. For their new production at this year's Opera Holland Park, director Cecilia Stinton [who directed Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor here last year, see my revew] and designer Neil Irish have decided to take the opera's ideas of two women holidaying near Naples and give it a more contemporary gloss so that the sisters are on a distinctly modern package deal holiday.

We caught the opening night of the production (28 May 2026) when Charlotte Corderoy conducted the City of London Sinfonia with Madeline Boreham and Shakira Tsindos as Fiordiligi and Dorabella [the two were in the 2023 Young Artist performance of Humperdinck's Hansel & Gretel, also conducted by Corderoy, see my review]. Ferrando was Osian Wyn Bowen and Guglielmo was Paul Grant [who sang Figaro in Rossini's The Barber of Seville in 2024, also directed by Stinton, see my review]. Elizabeth Karani was Despina and Paul Carey Jones was Don Alfonso, both OHP regulars.

Mozaart: Cosi fan tutte - Elizabeth Karani - Opera Holland Park 2026 (Photo: Craig Fuller)

During the overture we watched passengers arriving for holidays against a backdrop of a huge Naples travel poster. The mood was deliberately upbeat and at the end of the overture Fiordiligi and Dorabella were left, unmet, at the airport. The setup seemed to be that Ferrando and Guglielmo were American servicemen stationed in Naples, and both Don Alfonso and Despina worked in the hotel where the sisters were staying. Act One unfolded against a series of imaginative (and very funny) scenes as the sisters did the usual tourist activities. The men's disguises were as ancient Romans and dressing up became a theme as, when the sisters finally took the plunge they dressed up too, as did Despina and Don Alfonso.

Throughout, Neil Irish's designs made the most of very little, creating a series of imaginative and effective settings yet allowing scenes to flow. A single ticket booth did multiple duty - airport arrivals, hotel reception, ticket desk at Pompeii - thus ensuring we knew where we were! The introduction of quasi-erotic Roman frescoes during Act Two only ensured that the opera's underlying theme was emphasised.

There are different ways of handling the problematic elements in Mozart and Da Ponte's opera and most directors have take on what does and doesn't work. By focusing on the holiday romance element, Stinton seemed to be saying that there were feelings here but keep them light. And by setting the piece in the 1950s/60s (costumes were somewhat varied) there was an element of historical perspective to the men's attitudes. This seemed to be a holiday fling gone wrong and once real feelings came into play in Act Two the tone became less frenetic, and the ending was distinctly ambiguous. Not a solution to the opera's perceived problem then, but certainly an interesting take.

The problem was that the action in Act One in particular was a little too riotous with continuous stage movement and comic business that threatened to pull focus from the soloists. It was funny, all the action deftly handled, and the audience clearly enjoyed it, but Mozart isn't Rossini and for much of the first act the four young principals struggled to establish strong characters. Even Madeline Boreham's superb account of 'Come scoglio' suffered from this over-egging. The drawback also was that when Mozart and Da Ponte did create deliberately over-active comic business at the end of Act One this hardly stood out. Another theme of the staging was disguise, not just everyone dressing up as Romans, but Elizabeth Karani's Despina played multiple roles including as tour guide. Again rather blunting the effect of her dressing up as the doctor in Act One and the notary in Act Two.

The opera does work as this sort of hyperactive comedy, Mozart's music is great enough that it can take almost anything. But Stinton seemed to be saying that the best way to solve the opera's problems was to skate over them and keep the audience distracted. Rarely, if ever, were the soloists alone on stage in Act One.

Once beyond the serenade in Act Two (which saw the chorus 'serenading' the lovers in an Ancient Roman themed restaurant) the action takes a darker turn and Stinton's staging responded. In Act One, though she did use the full extent of the OHP stage, there seemed the intention of using main stage and fore stage for dramatic separation with the sisters often on the main stage. It was only in Act Two that the nitty-gritty of music action moved to the fore-stage, and we got to appreciate the way the singers were invested in the music. It helped that the hyperactive fun rather stopped and Stinton did not shy away from having her singers alone.

Musically, however, this was a very strong performance. From the crisp opening moments of the overture it was clear that Charlotte Corderoy was in charge and her take in the music had an engaging zip to it, mirroring the general youth of the cast. Yet there was never a sense of pushing or over-fast tempos and the pace flowed admirably and engaging. Continuo was provided by Stuart Wild at a piano, thank goodness; sometimes a little over-active but always dramatic and supportive.

Mozaart: Cosi fan tutte - Madeline Boreham - Opera Holland Park 2026 (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Madeline Boreham is developing into a stylish Mozartist, her performance of consistently high technical quality allied to real poise. In Act Two, she made Fiordiligi's emotional arc into something engaging and, once the production allowed, drew us into the character. Shakira Tsindos's distinctly 'up for it' Dorabella was a real complement to Boreham. Tsindos's performance was consistently engaging, and the two really created a fine dynamic as the sisters let themselves go.

Whilst the performances by Osian Wyn Bowen and Paul Grant were musically distinguished, the production did rather less to distinguish the two characters. Were these two even in love, or was it all a bit of a game to them? When push came to shove later in Act Two, Grant's admirably lyrical Guglielmo finally got his moment, whilst Wyn Bowen's intriguingly nerdy Ferrando highlighted his characterful voice.

The engines of the performance were very much the characters of Despina and Don Alfonso. Both Elizabeth Karani and Paul Carey Jones are gifted comic performers and, more importantly, both had the knack of holding the stage no matter what else was going on. This could be distracting so that some of Don Alfonso's by-plays rather drew the eye, but Karani's feisty and admirably well sung Despina had no problems holding our attention in her Act One solo despite a chorus of scantily clad dancing men! Carey Jones, showing little sign of having been singing Wotan and Dutchman [including at OHP last year, see my review] proved to be a vivid Don Alfonso with great attention to text.

the chorus was far more active thatn their small musical role might have suggested and the chorus members eagerly and vividly filled the stage with tourists and more as a backdrop to the action.

For me, it was the musical quality of the performance that held me. If you closed your eyes it was very good indeed. At the centre of this was Charlotte Corderoy and City of London Sinfonia, consistently engaging, interesting and stylish, yet this was Mozart with plenty of pep. The soloists followed Corderoy's lead and there were plenty of moments where you felt that by laughing at the jokes the audience were perhaps missing something deeper.

If critics will probably continue talking about OHP's opening production of Puccini rarity La fanciulla del West [see my review], I would imagine that audiences will remember this production for its sheer fun. The production is in repertory until 13 June with the Young Artists Performance on 7 June.

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The blog is free, but I'd be delighted if you were to show your appreciation by buying me a coffee.

Elsewhere on this blog

A mix of melodrama & sentiment, yet unashamedly enjoyable: Opera Holland Park open the season in terrific form with Puccini's La fanciulla del West - opera review
Memorable concerts in this year’s Norfolk & Norwich Festival with Britten Sinfonia & Norwich Philharmonic Orchestra & Chorus - concert review
Capella Edina: how Luis Schmidt, a young conductor from Munich, came to found Edinburgh's first professional philharmonic orchestra in almost ninety years - interview
Each song a story to be told: James Newby & Malcolm Martineau's Shipping Forecast at SongEasel in Elephant & Castle - concert review
Every detail mattered: Basel Chamber Orchestra & Vilde Frang in Bach, Mendelssohn & Grieg at Wigmore Hall - concert review
Richness & imagination: the all-male ensemble De Profundis continues its exploration of Morales with two masses based on L’homme armé - CD review
Unashamedly romantic: the music of the remarkably youthful Christopher Churcher on Resonus Classics - record review
Rising to the challenge: Britten's The Rape of Lucretia from Royal Academy Opera directed by Paul Carr & conducted by Lada Valesova - opera review
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Late Romantic: Richard Strauss & Erich Korngold violin sonatas at Conway Hall with my pre-concert talk.

2026-05-28T07:53:16.362+01:00

Richard Strauss & his father, Franz
Photographed in 1901

On Sunday 31 May 2026, Italian-American violinist Francesca Dego and pianist Alessandro Taverna, who came to international prominence at the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2009, make their debut at Conway Hall in a concert that features the violin sonatas of Korngold and Richard Strauss, alongside Schoenberg's Phantasy, Op. 47.

Both sonatas are relatively early works, and both Korngold and Strauss were child prodigies, much influenced by dominant fathers. Both composers would eventually escape their father's influence with Richard Strauss taking on board the music of Wagner and Liszt, whilst Korngold escaped into the Golden Age of Viennese operetta.

I will be exploring this and much more in my pre-concert talk, Late Romantic which takes place at 5.30pm in advance of the concert at 6.30pm.

Further details from Conway Hall's website.

Dowland 400 celebrations in Norwich

2026-05-28T07:31:14.131+01:00

Performers at the Dowland 400 festival in Norwich

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the death of John Dowland. Numerous concerts, festivals and special projects are being held throughout the country to commemorate his legacy with Norwich at the forefront of the celebrations.

The famous English Renaissance composer, lutenist and singer, John Dowland, is being honoured and remembered in Norwich on the 400th anniversary of his death with a four-day festival in July featuring concerts, masterclasses, talks and workshops curated by two renowned Dowland experts - lutenist Daniel Murphy and lute-maker David Van Edwards. Therefore, Dowland’s melancholic and beautiful music - either for solo lute, singer or ensemble - will be laid bare in all its ravishing beauty at Norwich’s historic Octagon Chapel in Colegate with the festival running from Thursday 23 July to Sunday 26 July.

Not only does Dowland 400 salute John Dowland - considered one of the defining and most famous musicians of the Elizabethan era - it also brings to life the lasting impact this pioneering musician had on music of the Renaissance period (circa 1400-1600) defined by a transition from single-line chanting to complex intertwining melodies. Driven by a cultural rebirth, this era saw the rise of music printing, secular courtly songs and expanded instrument families particularly the lute and harpsichord.

James Sillett: The Octagon Chapel, Norwich (Norfolk Museums Collections)

Now widely recognised as one of the most pre-eminent and influential composers of this period, Dowland’s legacy has spread extensively through music of many styles over the last 400 years and he’s best known today for his melancholy songs such as ‘Come, heavy sleep’, ‘Come again’, ‘Flow my tears’, ‘I saw my Lady weepe’, ‘Now o now I needs must part’ and ‘In darkness let me dwell’ while his instrumental music has undergone a major revival and has been a continuing source of repertoire for lutenists and classical guitarists the world over.

However, his influence over the last four centuries is well illustrated by the many modern pop and rock artists who have taken on elements of his music either in straight versions of his songs or deconstructed pieces based on his melody and harmony.

For instance, Elvis Costello included a heartfelt recording of Dowland’s ‘Can she excuse my wrongs’ as a bonus track on the 2006 re-release of ‘The Juliet Letters’ while Patrick Doyle adapted Dowland’s ‘Weep You No More Sad Fountains’ featuring soprano Jane Eaglen in the 1995 film adaptation of Jane Austen’s much-loved novel, Sense and Sensibility.

Science-fiction writer, Philip K. Dick, greatly admired Dowland, too, referencing him in many of his works including the 1974 novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said and even used the pseudonym ‘Jack Dowland’ on one occasion.

Sting equally admired Dowland and got into the act by releasing an album entitled ‘Songs from the Labyrinth’ in collaboration with Edin Karamazov on lute and archlute for Deutsche Grammophon in 2006. Throughout the album Sting recites parts of a fascinating letter from Sir Robert Cecil, Queen Elizabeth I’s spymaster.

In fact, Dowland’s life was fascinating and one of considerable interest, too, therefore the letter to Sir Robert Cecil (written in 1595) can be seen as proof that he was acting as a spy on the growing Catholic plot in Italy and Germany to usurp the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I of England.

As a Roman Catholic, Dowland often came under suspicion of being a traitor. He knew only too well that his job and life depended on the grace and favour of royal patronage. As a greatly respected and admired musician, he was able to gain access to many of the most influential people of the time in Europe including monarchs and those in government. He learnt to conduct himself as a type of double agent becoming ensconced with high-profile Catholics whilst reporting back to his ‘spymaster’.

Born in 1563, little is known of his early life but come 1580 Dowland travelled to Paris where he was in service as a lutenist and composer to Sir Henry Cobham, the ambassador to the French court and subsequently his successor, Sir Edward Stafford. Becoming a Roman Catholic around 1584, he returned to England and married. The specific identity of his wife remains unknown. They had children including Robert Dowland (lutenist and a composer of 90 songs) but no surviving documents or records reveal her name.

It’s highly probable that he thought by ingratiating himself with the monarchy he would be in line for a prominent position at the English court. Unfortunately, this did not happen most probably due to his Catholicism. He remained an ‘outsider’ therefore spent much of his early career pursuing positions abroad. However, it didn’t prevent other important musicians such as fellow Catholic, William Byrd, enjoying a handsome career at court.

Snubbed at court, Dowland took off travelling the Continent from 1595 to 1597 which included a monumental journey from Germany to Italy over the Alps to reach Venice. One of the curators of the Dowland 400 (Daniel Murphy) is hoping to recreate this epic trek although walking with a lute and one’s belongings is not totally straightforward so rather than writing to his ‘spymaster’, Mr Murphy plans to give concerts and film some of the journey and the people he meets enroute.

By 1598, Dowland worked at the court of Christian IV of Denmark though he continued to publish his compositions in London. King Christian was very interested in music and paid Dowland a handsome fee (500 daler a year) making him one of the highest-paid servants of the Danish court.

Though Dowland was highly regarded by King Christian, he was not the ideal servant, often overstaying his leave when spending time in England on publishing business or for other reasons. Therefore, Dowland was dismissed around 1606 and returned to England to work as a freelance composer and lutenist. In 1612, he secured a long sought-after post as one of the lutenists of King James I.

Dowland’s music often display a melancholia rare in music of his time and his contemporaries were greatly influenced by this - some even mimicked his style. For instance, Johann Froberger composed a consort piece with the punning title ‘Semper Dowland, semper dolens’ (Always Dowland, always doleful) which could well be said sums up much of Dowland’s output.

After Dowland published his First Booke of Songes or Ayres in London in 1597 (a set of 21 lute songs) it turned out to be one of the most influential collections in the history of the lute and the music historian, Brian Robins, wrote: ‘Many of the songs were composed long before the publication date. However, far from being immature, the songs of Book I reveal Dowland as a fully-fledged master and one of the defining masters of the Renaissance.’ His last work ‘A Pilgrimes Solace’, published in 1612, was highly praised by the English musicologist and Church of England clergyman, Edmund Fellowes, who became well known for his work in promoting the revival of 16th- and 17th-century English music. He described ‘A Pilgrimes Solace’ as ‘the last masterpiece in the English school of lute songs’.

One of the first 20th-century musicians who successfully helped reclaim Dowland from the history books was the singer-songwriter, Frederick Keel, who included 15 pieces by Dowland in his two sets of Elizabethan love-songs published in 1909 and 1913 which achieved huge popularity in their day. These free arrangements for piano and low or high voice were intended to fit the tastes and musical practices associated with art-songs of the time.

In 1935, Australian-born composer, Percy Grainger, who had a deep interest in music of the Renaissance, arranged Dowland’s lovely song ‘Now, O now I needs must part’ for piano. Perhaps the greatest use of his work came from another song ‘Come Heavy Sleepe’ which inspired Britten’s ‘Nocturnal After John Dowland’ written in 1963 for guitarist, Julian Bream. The piece comprises eight variations all based on musical themes drawn from the song or its lute accompaniment finally resolving into a guitar setting of the song itself.

Dowland’s music became part of the repertoire of the Early Music Revival in the 1960s and 1970s with Julian Bream, Alfred Deller and Peter Pears and then later with musicians and groups such as David Munrow and the Early Music Consort, Emma Kirkby, Fretwork, Jacob Lindberg and Nigel North.

Amongst hundreds of recordings made of Dowland’s music since the 1980s some have influenced the jazz world. For instance, in 1999, ECM Records produced an innovative new recording entitled ‘In Darkness Let Me Dwell’ featuring new interpretations of Dowland’s songs performed by tenor John Potter, lutenist Stephen Stubbs and baroque violinist Maya Homburger in collaboration with English jazz musicians, John Surman (saxophone) and Barry Guy (double bass).

While the exact date of Dowland’s death is not known, his last payment from the English court was on 20 January 1626. He was buried at St Ann’s Church, Blackfriars, in the city of London, on 20 February 1626. Destroyed in the Great Fire of London of 1666, St Ann’s was never rebuilt therefore the exact location of Dowland’s grave has been lost.

However, the historic churchyard - now believed to be in or near the Ireland Yard/Ireland Lane area - still exists as a site where one can visit. Following the Great Fire, the parish of St Ann’s was absorbed by the neighbouring St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe on St Andrew’s Hill where a memorial to the pioneering lutenist and composer is maintained today. Such is history!

The Norwich Dowland 400 celebrations promise a host of interesting concerts, talks, etc. especially on the opening day of the festival (Thursday, 23 July, 7.00pm) which sees acclaimed British lutenist, Nigel North, perform his celebrated programme ‘John Dowland, Mirth and Melancholy’ focusing on the composer’s solo lute music with the programme exploring the two contrasting emotional poles of Dowland's compositions.

The closing concert (Sunday, 26 July, 7.00pm) falls to the renowned English viol consort, Fretwork, who’ll include in their programme Dowland’s most famous composition ‘Lachrimae’ published by John Windet in 1604. In this well-loved work, Dowland pours his heart and soul into an extended cycle of viol consorts built round its themes. Comprising a set of seven slow pieces which the composer calls ‘tears’ (‘teares’ in Early English spelling) ‘Lachrimae’ is one of the first great cycles in the history of instrumental music which Fretwork recorded for Richard Branson’s label, Virgin Classics, in 1993. For their Norwich concert they’ll be joined by the celebrated lutenist, Elizabeth Kenny, working alongside Emilia Benjamin, Emily Ashton, Jonathan Rees, Joanna Levine, Sam Stadlen and Richard Boothby who founded Fretwork in 1985 with Richard Campbell together with other early music specialists.

Full details from the Dowland 400 website.

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The blog is free, but I'd be delighted if you were to show your appreciation by buying me a coffee.

Elsewhere on this blog

A mix of melodrama & sentiment, yet unashamedly enjoyable: Opera Holland Park open the season in terrific form with Puccini's La fancuilla del West - opera review
Memorable concerts in this year’s Norfolk & Norwich Festival with Britten Sinfonia & Norwich Philharmonic Orchestra & Chorus - concert review
Capella Edina: how Luis Schmidt, a young conductor from Munich, came to found Edinburgh's first professional philharmonic orchestra in almost ninety years - interview
Each song a story to be told: James Newby & Malcolm Martineau's Shipping Forecast at SongEasel in Elephant & Castle - concert review
Every detail mattered: Basel Chamber Orchestra & Vilde Frang in Bach, Mendelssohn & Grieg at Wigmore Hall - concert review
Richness & imagination: the all-male ensemble De Profundis continues its exploration of Morales with two masses based on L’homme armé - CD review
Unashamedly romantic: the music of the remarkably youthful Christopher Churcher on Resonus Classics - record review
Rising to the challenge: Britten's The Rape of Lucretia from Royal Academy Opera directed by Paul Carr & conducted by Lada Valesova - opera review
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Fantasy & Fairytales, a return of the Opera Festival & The Rain Show: a busy year for Tête à Tête

2026-05-27T18:27:47.080+01:00

Launched in 2007, Tête à Tête will be 30 next year! But this year the company shows no sign of slacking. From 3 to 6 July the latest chapter in their longstanding partnership with the Royal College of Music features five new short operas. Fantasy & Fairytales features new work created for young audiences; each opera opens out a different fantastical world, drawing on folklore and storytelling to explore human experience. The creative team includes director Bill Bankes-Jones (artistic director of Tête à Tête), conductor Michael Rosewell and designer Sarah Jane Booth.

Fantasy & Fairytales includes Daniel Musashi’s Ogga Loggas, in which ancient forests and age-old curses teach us the importance of looking after our world, and Lasha Kharkhelauri’s Ramona, a Georgian tale of love and upheaval set inside a puppet theatre as well as Asher Joyce’s Three Lives, Deniz Dortok’s The Boy Who Went to Find Fear and Ruvin Meda’s The Nightingale and the Rose.

Further details from the RCM website.

And from 8 to 20 September, the company's flagship Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival returns to the Cockpit Theatre, Marylebone for new operas that include a quadruple bill of young composers. There are operas on the last eight days of Mary Queen of Scots, Frankenstein, and a Cornish-language setting of Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott. There is an international collaboration spanning Finland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Germany, opera from a Ukrainian composer, a Hong Kong artist, an opera exploring relationships between people and their languages, incorporating Cantonese

Further details from the Tête à Tête website.

And just to show that the company spreads its wings wider than London, last month (20 to 25 April) they presented The Rain Show in Tyneside and Cornwall. The Rain Show was a collaboration between British and Kenyan artists bringing workshops and performance into schools across North Tyneside and Cornwall. Delivered in partnership with Across Arts (led by producer Helene Mathiesen), and Baraka Opera Kenya, the project introduced young people to opera through cross-cultural exchange and culminated in a public performance on 25 April. The creative team featured librettist Nami Shah and composer Shaka Lwaki.

Further details from the Tête à Tête website.

Donnerstags-Abschied: 2026 East Neuk Festival plans tribute to the late John Wallace with a work he wanted to bring to the festival but never achieved

2026-05-27T11:40:51.851+01:00

John Wallace in rehearsals for ThunderPlump (East Neuk Festival Big Project 2022) with a young performer from StAMP (Photo: Neil Hanna)

The trumpeter John Wallace, who died in January this year, was born in Fife and his father played in the Tullis Russell Mills Band for 65 years with Wallace quickly joining the junior band. Wallace remained proud of his Fife roots and a vital participant in musical life in the Kingdom of Fife. He instigated multiple community orientated projects including StAMP, the University of St Andrews’ outreach programme.

StAMP has been a regular collaborator of the East Neuk Festival for many years, whilst Wallace took a leading role on three of the Festivals ‘Big Projects’ which brought together professional and community musicians as part of the main festival programme. These included the award-winning De Profundis which Wallace wrote with McEwan-Brown in 2017, to celebrate the lives of Fife’s miners and bring together massed brass bands, alongside Wallace’s own ensemble The Wallace Collection.

One project that Wallace discussed more than once (but never achieved) with Festival Artistic Director Svend McEwan-Brown was a performance of Stockhausen's five-trumpet Donnerstags-Abschied written for the end of Stockhausen's opera Donnerstag aus Licht.

This year's East Neuk Festival, which runs from 1 to 5 July 2026 will feature two performances of Stockhausen's Donnerstags-Abschied with Marco Blaauw leading an ensemble formed of John Wallace's friends and colleagues. Weather permitting it will be performed outdoors at sunset on Saturday 4 July, and indoors preceding the closing concert on Sunday 5 July.

Another proud son of Fife is celebrated in Looking for Oswald, exploring the life and music of James Oswald, the 18th century composer who was born in Crail. The event mixes words from Tom Davison (who has written a book about Oswald) with music from Karen Marshalsay, harps, Kathryn Nicholl, fiddle, Chris Miles, voice.

The festival opens with an intriguing concert when Scotland’s finest jazz pianist Fergus McCreadie will play Brahms' Four Ballades, Op. 10 before taking these as inspiration for his own improvisations plus duos and trios with Su-a Lee (cello) and Donald Grant (violin).

There are three quartets at the festival, Opus13, Cuarteto Quiroga, Calidore Quartet and the three will share out Beethoven's Razumovsky Quartets and spread performances across the Saturday. Alongside thise, Cuarteto Quiroga is joined by Christian Zacharias for Schubert's Trout Quintet, Opus 13 quartet play Images from the Floating World, a piece by Swedish composer Britta Byström inspired by Njál’s Saga, and Calidore Quartet perform Arietta, a work by Mark-Anthony Turnage inspired by Beethoven's late piano sonatas.

Other music includes Llŷr Williams performing Schumann’s Kreisleriana, the Tallis Scholars in all three Byrd masses, and the festival ends with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Maxim Emelyanchev in Mozart, Haydn and Stravinsky including ‘No word from Tom’ (from The Rake’s Progress) with soprano Anna Dennis.

Other visitors to the festival include Kolektif Istanbul, a traditional Turkish wedding band, oud player Rihab Azar who is joined by Scottish fiddle player Donald Grant, Scottish/Egyptian music from the Ayoub sisters, and English Concert Winds in Mozart serenades.

Full details from the festival's website.

A mix of melodrama & sentiment, yet unashamedly enjoyable: Opera Holland Park open the season in terrific form with Puccini's La fanciulla del West

2026-05-27T10:34:35.812+01:00

Puccini: La fanciulla de West - José de Eça, Robert Hayward - Opera Holland Park, 2026 (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Puccini: La fanciulla del West; Amanda Echalaz, José de Eça, Robert Hayward, Zwakele Tshabalala, Alaric Green, Aidan Edwards, Blaise Malaba, director: Martin Lloyd Duncan, City of London Sinfonia, conductor: Matthew Kofi Waldren; Opera Holland Park
Reviewed 26 May 2026

With two leads who soar and vivid sense of ensemble, Opera Holland Park launches its 30th season with a production that should win plenty of hearts and minds for Puccini's surprisingly sophisticated Wild West opera

Puccini's 1910 opera La fanciulla del West premiered at the Met in New York to great acclaim but failed to make a regular place for itself in the opera house. When the Met mounted a new production in 1961 it was the first time the company had performed the work in 30 years. Covent Garden's 1977 production, originally intended for the 1976 American Centennial celebrations, featured Carol Neblett and Placido Domingo and the production's subsequent filming made its very influential. This production was a regular at Covent Garden until 2008. Since then both Opera North and English National Opera have produced the work (both in 2014). Opera North revived their production in 2021, but the work has never returned to the London Coliseum alas.

Opera Holland Park had productions in 2004 and 2014, with Grange Park Opera producing it in 2008 and 2016 [see my review]. When I attended Opera Holland Park's 2014 performance I commented on how many people had not seen the opera before, and the situation has hardly changed.

It remains a challenging work to produce because the basic premise is so specific, yet somewhat resistant to naturalism. When Richard Jones directed it for English National Opera in 2014 [see my review] he talked about not tinkering with the opera's complex mechanism. It is not a piece that responds well to creative dissonance, so the 1950s Las Vegas casino setting for Stephen Barlow's production at Opera Holland Park 2014 was less successful [see my review].

Puccini: La fanciulla de West - Amanda Echalaz, José de Eça - Opera Holland Park, 2026 (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Yet the opera has oddities which mitigate against complete naturalism. The work opens with the men rushing into the Polka saloon, the language is Italian, yet there are odd awkward English phrases and the card game that the men are playing is Faro! It requires you to surrender to this world. For all their rough exterior, these characters have a strong vein of sentimentality and early on in Act One, Jake Wallace's aria keys into this as well as providing the source material and connective tissue for a lot of the opera.

Watching Opera Holland Park's new production where director Martin Lloyd-Evans and designer Anna Reid have chosen to set the work in 1849 as intended, I was struck by how much Puccini and his librettists, Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini, prefigure that combination of the projection of robust manhood with melodrama and sentimentality that characterises many of the mid-20th Westerns from Hollywood. And the ending with Minnie and Dick walking off into the distance is pure Hollywood too. Except, of course, Puccini and his librettists took this from Belasco's original play where the stage pictures conjured much. [Incidentally there is a 1938 film based on Belasco's play with songs by Sigmund Romberg!]

Opera Holland Park opened its 2026 season with Puccini's La fanciulla del West on Tuesday 26 May 2026 directed by Martin Lloyd-Evans and conducted by Matthew Kofi Waldren with City of London Sinfonia in the pit. Designs were by Anna Reid, lighting by Jamie Platt, choreography by Roisin Whelan. Amanda Echalaz was Minnie, Robert Hayward was Jack Rance, José de Eça was Dick Johnson, Zwakele Tshabalala was Nick, Alaric Green was Ashby, Aidan Edwards was Sonora. Freddie Tong and Kezia Bienek were Billy Jackrabbit and Wowkle, Blaise Malaba was Jake Wallace, Ronald Nairne was Jose Castro.

Puccini: La fanciulla de West - Opera Holland Park, 2026 (Photo: Craig Fuller)

The seven other named miners were played by members of the Opera Holland Park Chorus - Jamie Formoy, Joe Ashmore, Michael Temporal Darell, Dominick Felix, Hugh Beckwith, Matthew Duncan, Samuel Snowden - whilst another chorus member, Robert Jenkins play the Pony Express rider.

The production made admirable use of the whole Opera Holland Park stage whilst Anna Reid's sets had an admirable stripped back quality to them. The backdrop was simple wood, hung with adverts in Act One, and the bar inhabited the fore-stage (so that the 24-strong chorus were crammed in). Minnie' cabin was exactly that, sitting at the centre of the main stage. Then for the scene change to Act Three, a white sheet was thrown over the cabin and the action moved to the fore-stage until the hanging when the outer wall of Minnie's cabin was recycled for the hanging. A rather imaginative move.

The staging leaned into the work's theatricality. Yes, the miners all looked shabby and careworn with slightly theatrical 'dirt' on their faces but José de Eça's dapper Dick Johnson was band-box trim and fresh, clearly wherever he had been hiding had good bathing facilities. And the group scenes in Act One had moments where the action froze giving one person the focus.

Amanda Echalaz made a captivating and commanding Minnie, creating a believable yet charismatic character. This was a woman who was definitely capable of wielding a gun, yet had an innate belief in the Bible too. There was a touching unworldliness allied to the way she managed the unruly miners. Echalaz gave her a slightly edgy quality, you sensed that underneath the striking exterior something worked away. And there were times when she reminded me more of Eileen Atkins than the gun-toting heroine of a Western. Yet Echalaz has the spinto edge to make the role work. It is a big, tiring role yet her duet with de Eça at the very end as the two walk off into the sunset was glorious. The voice does have something of an edge to it, and impassioned climaxes could be somewhat strident but this rarely felt out of character and Echalaz made Minnie's more intimate moments rather touching.

It helped that in José de Eça you had a leading man who had the right combination of swagger and charm. De Eça made a youthful Dick Johnson, still believably passionate. Yet there was a thrilling edge to his voice, so that he captured the sound quality of this character. Neither Minnie nor Dick Johnson have excerptable arias as such, instead they need to be able to soar over Puccini's richly inventive, busy and often loud score. De Eça did this magnificently, and captured our attention without ever seeming to scream 'famous tenor'. Dick Johnson is the least active of heroes, we see him charming Minnie at the end of Act One and in Act Two, but all his heroics take place off-stage. Here de Eça and Echalaz created a believable intimacy on the Opera Holland Park stage so that the swift progress of their relationship was believable and captivating.

Puccini: La fanciulla de West - Amanda Echalaz, Robert Hayward, José de Eça - Opera Holland Park, 2026 (Photo: Craig Fuller)

By contrast Robert Hayward's Jack Rance was older and world-weary, you felt his approach to Minnie was very much the last throw of the dice. Hayward brought a slightly raddled quality to the character, wary and weary. He was the first on stage at the very beginning but by Act Three he was deep in a bottle. Yet when roused, Hayward made this Jack Rance a thing of fury. You believed his rough wooing of Minnie in Act One and understood that in the absence of Dick Johnson, Minnie might have settled for him. Their card game in Act Two was a thing of wonder with both Hayward and Echalaz bringing out the characters' fury and desperation, and Minnie's cheating was a gloriously hammy moment.

The challenge of the opera, and perhaps one of the reasons for its absence from regular performance, is the reliance on a raft of smaller roles, some effectively cameos. There are 18 named roles and all are important.

Zwakele Tschabalala made a sparky Nick. This is a role I very much associate with Francis Egerton who was Nick in Piero Faggioni's production at Covent Garden in 1977 and still behind the same bar in 2005! Tschabalala did not perhaps make Nick quite as central to the opera as he can be, but Tschabalala brought an engagingly youthful element to the role. Aidan Edwards made an imposing Sonora. He was very much the linchpin of the miners, and essential to the manoeuvres in Act Three. Edwards had the physical presence and swagger for the role yet also made Sonora one of the boys. Alaric Green's Ashby the Wells Fargo agent had a rather rubicund quality to him, making the character less forbidding than some. Jake Wallace is a tiny role, a minstrel who sings then disappears. Yet Wallace's aria of longing 'Che faranno i vecchi miei' is one of the opera's most excerptable moments and provides material for much of the rest of the piece's connective tissue. The remaining miners, seven named roles, were all well taken, each making the most of their moment yet remaining part of the whole.

Kezia Bienek and Freddie Tong made strong cameos as Minnie's servants. These are presumed Native Americans, but wisely the production played this down. Both came over as fierce and angry. Ronald Nairne was the captured bandit and Robert Jenkins the Pony Express Rider.

The chorus plays a big role in Acts One and Three, creating a character in its own right. The Opera Holland Park Chorus (chorus master Dominic Ellis-Peckham) was on terrific form. You sensed the amount of detailed work that had gone into the staging, this is the chorus as a group of characters rather than a monolithic block. The moment in Act One, when the chorus takes up Jake Wallace's aria was moving indeed as was their Act Three reprise of this material bidding farewell to Minnie. Such moments have to be embraced, they are part of the vein of sentimentality running through the piece. There as no irony here, just gorgeous choral tone.

Puccini writes for a substantial orchestra (triple woodwind and plenty of brass). Here City of London Sinfonia played a reduced orchestration which used double woodwind and brass with four percussion and timpani, harp, guitar and celeste. In Matthew Kofi Waldren's hands the results were vivid and impassioned. He brought out the rich detail of Puccini's score allied to a lovely flexibility of phrasing. As in much of Puccini, the use of thematic material told us what to think and in many places the orchestral playing created mini-tone poems. Never once did you feel the lack of the full orchestration and whilst Waldren ensured that the orchestra was a dominant partner in proceedings they never overwhelmed.

Puccini: La fanciulla de West - José de Eça, Amanda Echalaz - Opera Holland Park, 2026 (Photo: Craig Fuller)

This was one of those performances that drew you in and had you hooked. Martin Lloyd Duncan, Matthew Kofi Waldren and their cast all believed in the opera and gave it to us, with its mix of melodrama and sentiment in a way that was unashamedly spellbinding yet also paid homage to the way Puccini was deliberately setting out on pastures new in the opera.

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Elsewhere on this blog

Memorable concerts in this year’s Norfolk & Norwich Festival with Britten Sinfonia & Norwich Philharmonic Orchestra & Chorus - concert review
Capella Edina: how Luis Schmidt, a young conductor from Munich, came to found Edinburgh's first professional philharmonic orchestra in almost ninety years - interview
Each song a story to be told: James Newby & Malcolm Martineau's Shipping Forecast at SongEasel in Elephant & Castle - concert review
Every detail mattered: Basel Chamber Orchestra & Vilde Frang in Bach, Mendelssohn & Grieg at Wigmore Hall - concert review
Richness & imagination: the all-male ensemble De Profundis continues its exploration of Morales with two masses based on L’homme armé - CD review
Unashamedly romantic: the music of the remarkably youthful Christopher Churcher on Resonus Classics - record review
Rising to the challenge: Britten's The Rape of Lucretia from Royal Academy Opera directed by Paul Carr & conducted by Lada Valesova - opera review
A mix of everything: The Celtic Tenors' eclectic repertoire with harmony-driven music sung by classically trained voices - interview
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Thomas Adès as Principal Guest Conductor, Sir James MacMillan as Featured Composer: The Hallé Orchestra & Kahchun Wong's 2026/27 season

2026-05-26T11:47:37.230+01:00

The Hallé Orchestra's 2026/27 season has a striking focus on contemporary music as well as celebrating both Kahchun Wong's third season as Principal Conductor & Artistic Advisor and Conductor Emeritus Sir Mark Elder's 80th birthday.

Composer and conductor Thomas Adès has had a relationship with the Orchestra for some thirty years. From 1993-1999, he was the orchestra’s Composer-in-Association then in 1996, his piece These Premises Are Alarmed was commissioned and premiered by the Hallé for the opening of The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester’s concert hall and home of the orchestra. In July 2025 the Hallé’s own label released an acclaimed recording of Adès conducting his Aquifer and Dawn, alongside works by Oliver Leith and William Marsey. Building on this he has been announced as Principal Guest Conductor. He will three concerts, which he has curated including his own works including Asyla, ...but all shall be well, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (with Kirill Gerstein) alongside premieres by Gabriella Smith and Francisco Coll and music by Stravinsky, Elgar, Berg, Chabrier and Gerald Barry.

Sir James MacMillan becomes the Hallé’s Featured Composer with the world premiere of his Symphony No.6 opening the Orchestra's season conducted by Kahchun Wong alongside Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 with Sir Stephen Hough. Other MacMillan works include ;Timotheus, Bacchus & Cecilia, his Christmas Oratorio will be conducted by Sir Mark Elder, and his Seven Last Words from the Cross with the BBC Singers will feature at a new Easter Festival alongside Bach’s St John Passion with the Hallé Choir conducted by Laurence Cummings. Larghetto for Orchestra is performed by the Hallé Youth Orchestra playing Side-by-side with the Orchestra.

Featured Artist violinist Leila Josefowicz will perform Thomas Adès’ Violin Concerto ‘Concentric Paths' and Ligeti’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. Jonny Greenwood, another Featured Artist, presents his immersive work, 606 Years of Reverb at Manchester Cathedral and a film screening of There Will Be Blood with the Hallé Orchestra in which he will perform the Ondes Martenot.

Other new music in the season includes works by Ravel orchestrated by Composer Emeritus Colin Matthews, Steve Reich orchestrated by Anna Clyne, John Casken, Priaulx Rainier and Joan Tower.

One novelty will be a rare performance of Offenbach's operetta Barkouf conducted by Paul Daniel and being presented in association with Opera Rara who are recording the work.

The winner of the 2026 Siemens Hallé International Conductors Competition, Aku Sorensen, begins his role as the Hallé’s Assistant Conductor and Music Director of the Hallé Youth Orchestra. The 2026 winner of the Terence Judd-Hallé Award, Lukas Sternath, performs Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.3 with the Hallé and as part of the chamber series at Hallé St Peter’s.

Full details from the Orchestra's website.

A shared encounter between contemporary music & art: Alex Mills's debut album Look How Brightly has a physical manifestation as an exhibition

2026-05-26T10:27:03.925+01:00

Susan Rocklin: Realm - featured in Look How Brightly at Apsara Studio

Composer Alex Mills's Look How Brightly is his debut album on Delphian, presenting a body of work shaped over a decade, bringing together ten of his most personal and uncompromising pieces performed by CHROMA and contralto Jess Dandy. But it isn't just an album.

From 4 to 20 June, Alex Mills has co-curated a linking exhibition Look How Brightly. Described as 'shared encounter between contemporary music and art' the exhibition is co-curated by Jenn Ellis and is being presented by Aspara Studio in London.

Look How Brightly reimagines the album launch as a site of encounter, contemplation, and intimate exchange between contemporary music and art. The exhibition brings together work by 22 international artists that unpack the emotional and conceptual world of Mills’ album.

Central to Mills’s body of work is a preoccupation with unison and fragmentation: musical lines that move together, unravel, fall apart, transform, and reintegrate. Drawing on influences as diverse as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, trauma studies, psychological theories, and grieving rituals, Mills likens these musical processes to the cyclical and bittersweet nature of human experience — how we continually break down, transform, and regather ourselves as we negotiate the many different parts of who we are.

In the exhibition, artworks form a “visual orchestra”, each artist contributing a distinct expression to a larger emotional whole. Throughout the space, a balance of paintings and sculpture explore themes ranging from embodiment, grief, and transformation to time, memory and the natural world, tracing the fragile balance between fragmentation and reintegration, control and surrender, presence and disappearance. These works are held together by the music from Mills’s album as it permeates the space — itself fragmented, reimagined, and further “worked through” in a special presentation created uniquely for the exhibition and heard with vivid clarity on equipment supplied by legendary hi-fi specialists, Audio Gold.

The exhibition is being held within Pink Floyd’s former Britannia Row recording studios and production warehouse in Islington.

Look How Brightly streaming details, on Delphian, exhibition at Apsara Studio.

A couple of memorable concerts in this year’s Norfolk & Norwich Festival were delivered by the Britten Sinfonia and Norwich Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus.

2026-05-26T08:47:26.570+01:00

Britten: Les Illuminations - Elizabeth Watts & Britten Sinfonia at Kings Place, London (Photo: Shoël Stadlen)

Britten: Young Apollo, Bowles: Six Piano Preludes, Copland: Clarinet Concerto, Britten: Les Illuminations, Copland: Appalachian Spring; Oleg Shebeta-Dragan (clarinet), Elizabeth Watts (soprano); Britten Sinfonia, led from the violin by Zoë Beyers; St Andrew’s Hall, Norwich.
Walton: Henry V: A Shakespeare’s Scenario, Belshazzar’s Feast; Norwich Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, cond: Matthew Andrews, Ashley Grote; Roderick Williams (baritone), Alex Jennings (voice); St Andrew’s Hall, Norwich
Kaija Saariaho: Terra Memoria, Vaughan Williams, Barber, Webern, Mahler; Kleio String Quartet, Berniya Hamie, Andrew Hamilton; Octagon Chapel
Reviewed by Tony Cooper (11, 12, 20 & 23 May 2026)

At this year's Norfolk & Norwich Festival, the Britten Sinfonia concert focused on Britten in America while the Norwich Philharmonic saluted William Walton in all his glory, whilst the young Kleio String Quartet made a big impression in their concerts

Feeling disillusioned with Europe, Benjamin Britten spent a formative and productive period in North America from 1939 to 1942 with Peter Pears where he composed such major works as the song-cycle Les Illuminations, his first opera Paul Bunyan and Sinfonia da Requiem.

Thankfully, Britten’s time in America proved personally and professionally worthwhile paving the way for such grand and exciting works as his Suffolk-based opera, Peter Grimes. And when Britten made the dangerous sea journey back to England in the spring of 1942, he was officially registered as a ‘conscientious objector’.

One of the first works he wrote on arriving in America was Young Apollo based on the final lines of John Keats’ poem Hyperion showing the image of Apollo as a ‘new, dazzling Sun-god, quivering with radiant vitality’. A delightful ten-minute piece and one of the few works Britten wrote for piano and orchestra, the commission came from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Receiving its first performance in August 1939 on CBC Radio with Britten as the solo pianist, the work’s characterized by a scintillating opening fanfare followed by a host of rapid and cascading glissando passages cutting through the sweeping, heroic textures of the strings comfortably played with flourish, flair and everything else by the renowned pianist, Huw Watkins, who often collaborates with the Britten Sinfonia.

Ashley Grote rehearsing the Norwich Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra in Walton's Belshazzar's Feast at St Andrew's Hall, Norwich for Norfolk & Norwich Festival

I felt it appropriate, too, that Copland shared the stage with Britten in this remarkable and well-curated programme as both men enjoyed a close personal and professional relationship. Copland acted as a mentor and friend to Britten assisting him in navigating the American musical scene while introducing him to influential people.

Therefore, if Young Apollo comes over as a radiant and inspiring piece of writing so does Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, a 17-minute piece commissioned by the legendary jazz clarinettist, Benny Goodman, completed in 1948.

The concerto’s renowned for blending lyrical and nostalgic melodies with a fast-paced jazz-influenced and Latin-tinged second movement featuring a daring and showy solo cadenza in which Ukrainian-born clarinettist and BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, Oleg Shebeta-Dragan, took all in his stride playing so magnificently.

Harbouring a tireless unyielding ability, Mr Shebeta-Dragan executed the highly demanding passages of the work with flawless precision not only punctuating the clarinet’s technical flexibility but also his technical ability, too, which is second to none. After a thrilling performance, he treated the audience to an encore, a solo piece, in which he employed the full range of the clarinet ending with a low raucous bluesy growl that gently vibrated round the cloistered surrounds of St Andrew’s Hall.

And in Britten’s song-cycle Les Illuminations, a vivid and intense piece of writing of ten surreal dream-like poems and prose passages penned by French-born Symbolist poet, Arthur Rimbaud, the work creates a dramatic, evocative scenario exploring passion, beauty and so much more.

Marked by a series of energetic and highly contrasting movements, Les Illuminations opens in grand fashion with ‘Fanfare’ acting as a bold structural prologue bursting with energy in a bright martial-type rhythm that weaves in and out of the entire work while the vocal line mimics a ceremonial bugle call summing up the brilliance and the ‘vaudeville’ side that characterizes so much of Rimbaud’s glorious writing.

Following such a wonderful opening with ‘Fanfare’, whose musical theme returns later in the work, divides the movements and appears three times throughout the work including the dramatic conclusion to the entire cycle. A rewarding performance all round especially in relation to the pizzicato cello and viola accompaniment found in ‘Villes’ and ‘Antique’, a couple of distinct prose poems showcasing Rimbaud’s radical approach to imagery and myth.

Originally written for Swiss soprano, Sophie Wyss - a favourite singer of Britten and the work’s dedicatee - Les Illuminations premièred on 30 January 1940 at London’s Aeolian Hall with the Boyd Neel Orchestra conducted by Boyd Neel. Ms Wyss was also the soloist in Our Hunting Fathers which received its world premiere on 25 September 1936 at St Andrew’s Hall as part of the 34th Norfolk & Norwich Triennial Festival, the commissioning body.

However, this performance for 2026 N&N Festival was graced and so well presented by Elizabeth Watts, a soprano whose clear articulate voice, heard over frantic and intense string playing, perfectly fitted this outstanding work.

Ms Watts became totally wrapped up in Britten’s deep and rich textural writing while the brilliant players of Britten Sinfonia were gathered round her in standing position which all added to an attractive stage presentation highlighting the intimacy of the work in which the large audience took to their hearts offering a resounding and elongated applause.

Graciously, Ms Watts, a Norwich-born girl and former chorister at Norwich Cathedral, offered a jewel of an encore with her brand-new arrangement of the lovely haunting ballad Scarborough Fair - Nellie Melba’s Home Sweet Home could well be next on her ‘little list’ of encores!

Copland: Clarinet Concerto - Oleg Shebeta-Dragan & Britten Sinfonia at Kings Place, London (Photo: Shoël Stadlen)

This enlightened programme ended with a wonderful and fulfilling performance of the renowned ballet/orchestral suite Appalachian Spring written by Copland in 1944 for famed American choreographer, Martha Graham.

Celebrated for the American pioneering spirit of the 19th century, Appalachian Spring - conjuring up the Shaker ideals of humility, contentment and the beauty of a simple but rewarding life - depicts a spring celebration for a new farmstead of a young couple: a pioneering woman and a revivalist. Performed on this occasion by the strings of Britten Sinfonia featuring pianist Huw Watkins and Britten Sinfonia’s sub-principal flautist, Sarah O’Flynn (another excellent Norwich-born musician) who made such a big contribution to the work overall.

Sandwiched somewhere between this lot, Huw Watkins took to the stage to play Six Piano Preludes composed in 1938 by American composer Paul Bowles, a student of Aaron Copland, who became best known as a writer by his novel The Sheltering Sky. However, the preludes (six in all) blend classical forms with a hint of jazz and blues thus making this rather short atmospheric and rhythmic piece a nice inclusion in the programme.

For their sell-out concert in St Andrew’s Hall, the Norwich Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, jointly conducted by Matthew Andrews and Ashley Grote, pulled no punches offering a splendid Walton double-bill comprising Henry V: A Shakespeare Scenario and Belshazzar’s Feast.

Created by Christopher Palmer, Henry V adapts music from Walton’s richly textured score for Laurence Olivier’s patriotic 1944 film of the same name into a performance piece for narrator, full orchestra and chorus.

For some reason or other, my thoughts churned round the timescales of Henry V: Agincourt was 1415, Shakespeare’s play 1599 and Walton’s score having an outing in Norwich in 2026 thereby reflecting that culture really does span centuries thus reminding one of shared histories and experiences.

Laurence Olivier in Henry V

Divided into six distinct symphonic movements - At the Boar’s Head, Embarkation, Harfleur, The Night Watch, Agincourt, At the French Court - with a prologue and epilogue, the work traces the narrative of Henry V from his preparation for combat with the French to his miraculous victory at Agincourt.

For sure a showpiece of music and drama, the Norwich Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus under Matthew Andrews pulled out all stops delivering a thrilling account of Walton’s score while the distinguished English actor, Alex Jennings - highly acclaimed for his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre - delivered a clear and charismatic performance greatly enhancing the drama of the music particularly the pivotal scene when the British forces captures Harfleur culminating in one of the Bard’s most famous and rousing rallying calls ‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends’ heard against Walton’s tense and strongly propelled orchestration proved a proud (and patriotic) moment all round finding great favour with the audience on high alert!

In stark contrast, the nostalgic, sombre interlude at the Boar’s Head found the Norwich Phil engaged in some fine and detailed playing of the ‘Passacaglia’ bubbling in nostalgia in a scene remembering the late and roguish Sir John Falstaff who, incidentally, was born in Norfolk at Caister Castle near Great Yarmouth, and King Henry V’s rowdy youth - in which Henry morphs from Prince Hal to being a responsible monarch.

Sir Thomas Erpingham was a Norfolk boy, too, born in the village of Erpingham near Aylsham (c.1357). His family held lands in the county going back to Norman times. He played an incredibly important role at Agincourt when approaching the age of 60 by being placed in command of Henry V’s archers who made up most of the English army. According to French chroniclers, when the armies were in position, Erpingham gave the order to advance by throwing his staff into the air shouting ‘Now strike!’

Erpingham features in Shakespeare’s play in the moving and quiet scene on the eve of the battle of Agincourt when Henry V asks Sir Thomas for the loan of his cloak and, therefore, in disguise walks the camp to mingle with his warriors, check their morale and secretly gauge their thoughts on the upcoming battle.

When Erpingham returned to Norfolk, he became a massive benefactor to the city of Norwich and in 1420 funded the construction of the beautiful ornate gatehouse that stands at the main entrance to Norwich Cathedral where a kneeling statue of him can still be seen above the arch.

However, the thrilling symphonic climax capturing the chaos of the famous 1415 battle witnessed the Phil’s seasoned and dedicated team of percussionists rolling up their sleeves getting stuck in and fully immersing themselves wholeheartedly into the show recreating the sound of clashing swords and the thunder of cavalry with driving, dissonant rhythms adding to the overall effect and excitement of the work highlighting that Walton’s Henry V is a ‘showstopper’ per se and a fit-and-proper work for a special festival event such as the N&N Festival which has choral music running through its veins since the founding of the old Norfolk & Norwich Triennial Festival in 1824.

Members of the audience were simply buzzing at the interval with sheer excitement while gearing themselves up for Walton’s dramatic and grand choral cantata Belshazzar’s Feast which, incidentally, received its world première on 8 October 1931 at Leeds Town Hall as part of the Leeds Triennial Festival featuring the London Symphony Orchestra, the Leeds Festival Chorus and baritone soloist Dennis Noble conducted by Malcolm Sargent.

From an historical perspective, Norwich Triennial shared their festival on a rotating basis with the cities of Leeds and Birmingham just as the Three Choirs Festival (the oldest choral/classical music festival of its kind) does to this very day rotating between the English cathedral cities of Hereford, Gloucester and Worcester.

For sure, a thrilling piece of writing, Belshazzar’s Feast features an extremely large chorus and orchestra together with a massive percussion section (Walton was a noisy bugger well known for his visceral rhythmic drive and explosive brassy climaxes) and for this N&N Festival concert they all came under the safe and disciplined control of the Master of Music of Norwich Cathedral, Ashley Grote, who presided over an exciting account of Walton’s marvellous and acclaimed work that hit the mark in more ways than one offering the Norwich Philharmonic Chorus - specially expanded for the occasion with guest singers from other local choirs - numbering a staggering 120 voices, a ‘Big Shout’ like no other. They did the work immensely proud.

The work’s theatricality and jazz-infused rhythms made their mark, too, so did Roderick Williams - who was artist-in-residence at the 2023 Aldeburgh Festival - in the pivotal role of Belshazzar, the doomed ruler whose reign was marked by self-indulgence, unteachable pride and a failure to recognize divine sovereignty. In the end he’s brought down by extreme arrogance and blasphemy. He should have gone to Specsavers to read more closely the writing on the wall!

Taking all things into account, the musical forces gathered tightly together on St Andrew’s Hall stage duly created a very big and exciting soundscape clearly balancing overwhelming vocal weight with instrumental grandeur to the delight of a packed and enthusiastic house witnessing the final choral concert of the 2026 N&N Festival which triggered off a wild round of rock-stadium applause.

The packed house was going barmy in appreciation by the rich and fulfilling music that they had just heard. And putting the icing on the cake, I overheard an old Norfolk boy making the comment that ‘the chorus sung their socks off’. They certainly did!

Under the artistic direction of Daniel Brine, who has been at the helm of the N&N Festival since 2018 steering it to grand and surprising adventures. I wonder what’s in store for next year? Hopefully, another great choral piece. Keep it going, I say!

Kleio String Quartet

Earlier in the festival, I came across BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists, Kleio String Quartet - Yume Fujise/Katherine Yoon (violins), Jaren Ziegler (viola), Gerard Flotats (cello) - for the first time at the Octagon Chapel. I was immediately taken by the accuracy and mastery of their playing especially in Helsinki-born composer Kaija Saariaho’s 2006 work Terra Memoria, one of her most frequently performed pieces commissioned by Carnegie Hall for the Emerson String Quartet, the subject-matter focusing on the souls of the departed.

Thereby a musical reflection on memory, loss and the changing ways we remember people, the Kleio Quartet well and truly captured the mood of Saariaho’s deep and intense writing offering a fine and detailed performance that moved between intimate, conversational textures and lush, unified, orchestral-like moments.

Strong and intense playing witnessed members of this fine quartet bowing on the same pitch one moment while the tender passages of the work, played so delicately and flute-like, on the other conjured up mixed emotions ranging from happiness to sadness thereby stamping the credentials of a fine and interesting work by Saariaho who, incidentally, resided in Paris and died there in June 2023 aged 70 years.

I first heard Saariaho a couple of years ago while in Germany attending a concert by Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester at the Philharmonie Berlin and heard Ciel d’hiver (Winter sky) - a work forming part of a Finnish-based programme under Finnish-born conductor, Tarmo Peltokoski, currently music director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. Her exciting piece made a big contribution to the programme and, on the other hand, made a big impression on me.

The Kleio Quartet made a big impression on me, too. They stayed over for a second concert at the Octagon. What joy! What pleasure! Opening with Webern’s Langsamer Satz, a piece he found inspiration for by his innermost feelings for his future wife, Wilhelmine Mörtl.

Although Webern had planned to compose a full-scale string quartet, he only managed to complete one movement which was lost but rediscovered in the early 1960s by Hans and Rosaleen Moldenhauer when they stumbled across the manuscript in an attic in Perchtoldsdorf, a town lying in the vicinity of Vienna.

A richly-textured, late-romantic, emotionally-charged work, Langsamer Satz, conveying themes of yearning, turmoil and tranquillity, was beautifully and ravishingly played by the Kleio Quartet who brought out the sensitiveness and tenderness of the score punctuating the composer’s early but masterful contrapuntal skills and his ability to convey a passionate love scenario tinged with a sense of melancholy in what I can only describe as an abstract musical landscape.

Joining the quartet for the second item of what was a superbly curated programme witnessed baritone Andrew Hamilton delivering a tender and exacting reading of Samuel Barber’s Dover Beach, a setting of the poignant 1867 Victorian poem written by a youthful Matthew Arnold composed by Barber in 1931 while a student at the Curtis Institute of Music.

The music reflects the poem’s melancholic reflection on a world without faith, shifting between peaceful imagery of the sea in contrast to the darker and tense harmonies representing human misery and lost security.

The programme was further enriched by Brighton-born pianist, Berniya Hamie, joining members of the Kleio Quartet in a performance of Mahler’s Movement for Piano Quartet in A minor, the composer’s only surviving chamber work written around 1876 when he was a student at the Vienna Conservatoire. A passionate, single-movement work of 15 minutes featuring a host of dramatic, romantic themes, rich harmonic textures and a strong piano part was played with panache by Ms Hamie.

To round of this brilliant concert, the Kleio Quartet, pianist Berniya Hamie and baritone Andrew Hamilton came together delivering a lovely and inviting reading of Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs originally written for soloist, choir and orchestra but performed on this occasion in its chamber version.

A dramatic piece of storytelling of the highest order, the text explores Christian mystical themes particularly in relation to the Trinity and the Resurrection penned by the 17th-century Welsh poet and Anglican priest, George Herbert.

An exceptional work with an exceptional singer. What more can one say. Andrew Hamilton was immaculate, his diction paramount, his performance impeccable and so well-controlled thus making his interpretation of RVW’s Five Mystical Songs (premièred at the 1911 Three Choirs Festival in Worcester with the composer conducting) so enjoyable to hear in the intimate surroundings of the lovely 18th-century Octagon Chapel.

Although an atheist at the time of writing, Vaughan Williams was comfortable in setting verse of an overly religious nature and Five Mystical Songs moved from personal reflection in all the songs except the last ‘Let all the world in every corner sing’ which is so well known encouraging universal praise to God from both heaven and earth. The other settings comprise Easter (‘Rise heart; thy Lord is risen’), ‘I Got Me Flowers’, ‘Love Bade Me Welcome’ and The Call (‘Come, my way, my truth, my life).

And when you think it’s all over, it isn’t. I managed to take in a fantastic show by the National Youth Jazz Orchestra at Epic Studios as part of the Norwich Jazz Festival, curated by Norwich Arts Centre, in association with the N&N Festival.

Performing a South African-themed programme, NYJO highlighted the legacy of the legendary South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim and the sounds of South African township jazz in a project developed by long-time Ibrahim collaborator, Pete Letanka.

A brilliant show all round delivered by a brilliant bunch of ‘young bloods’ exploring the unique blend of traditional African rhythms, gospel harmonies and big-band energy that served as an anthem of resilience, unity and liberation during the anti-apartheid movement.

Playing to an admiring audience about 500 strong, NYJO ended their show with a tribute to New Orleans delivering a raw and earthy ‘marching’ number that had the audience on their feet stamping and shouting for more. And that’s what they got, another great number (but softer in tone) that sent them packing after enjoying a glorious and entertaining night of township jazz tinged with big-band swing.

There was such good stuff in this festival and if there was a ‘man-of-the-match’ in musical parlance, the concert by the Kleio Quartet, Berniya Hamie and Andrew Hamilton (all BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists) would get my vote. Bravo!

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Elsewhere on this blog

Capella Edina: how Luis Schmidt, a young conductor from Munich, came to found Edinburgh's first professional philharmonic orchestra in almost ninety years - interview
Each song a story to be told: James Newby & Malcolm Martineau's Shipping Forecast at SongEasel in Elephant & Castle - concert review
Every detail mattered: Basel Chamber Orchestra & Vilde Frang in Bach, Mendelssohn & Grieg at Wigmore Hall - concert review
Richness & imagination: the all-male ensemble De Profundis continues its exploration of Morales with two masses based on L’homme armé - CD review
Unashamedly romantic: the music of the remarkably youthful Christopher Churcher on Resonus Classics - record review
Rising to the challenge: Britten's The Rape of Lucretia from Royal Academy Opera directed by Paul Carr & conducted by Lada Valesova - opera review
A mix of everything: The Celtic Tenors' eclectic repertoire with harmony-driven music sung by classically trained voices - interview
Sheer joy & plenty of welly: the marimbas of The Wave Quartet join the Academy of Ancient Music for Bach concertos & more - concert review
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From the Caribbean to Brazil with a bit of New Orleans on the way... Brixton Chamber Orchestra's Streetband Parade 2026

2026-05-25T10:46:10.284+01:00

Brixton Chamber Orchestra took to the streets yesterday (Sunday 24 May 2026) for their Streetband Parade. The band consisted of brass (including, of course, a Sousaphone) and woodwind, along with electric guitar and drums. We all met on Rush Common at the foot of Brixton Hill then made our way by a circuitous route uphill to Holmewood Gardens where there was an impromptu picnic and concert.

Preparing to set off from Rush Common

The music was described as "From the Caribbean to Brazil with a bit of New Orleans on the way...". And of course, being Brixton there was rap too (a young man had the unenviable task of pedalling a cargo bike uphill bearing amp, power source and such).

And a steel band. They formed a separate 'parade' and spelled the streetband, with the two playing together at the end.

Holmewood Gardens

The weather was kind, the music fun. People watched from their houses, joined the parade and had a great time.

The whole thing was free, but Brixton Chamber Orchestra can only function with our support, so please be generous. And you can keep an eye on what's coming next via the website.

Leeds is alive with the Sound of Music

2026-05-24T10:00:18.569+01:00

Opera North is at it again, serenading unsuspecting Leeds shoppers with music from their shows. Last year it was Anna Dennis singing the Queen of the Night in Trinity Leeds shopping centre, and this year it is Katie Bird as Maria in The Sound of Music having her Julie Andrews moment not on a hill but on the balcony of the Queens Hotel. The clip above fades out before the end, so it looks as if you'll have to go along to Leeds Grand Theatre for the complete thing.

The performance also marked a special week too, celebrating the 65th anniversary of The Sound of Music first arriving on London's West End. On 18 May 1961, the musical premiered at the Palace Theatre and subsequently ran for 2,385 performances.

The original Broadway production had featured Mary Martin, but in the West End, Maria was played by British actress Jean Bayless (who would later feature in Crossroads on TV) with Constance Shacklock as the Mother Abbess. Shacklock had shared the title role in Britten's Gloriana with Joan Cross in 1953, and in 1949 when Joan Hammond travelled to Russia, singing Tatiana in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Shacklock played Olga.

Opera North presents Rogers & Hammerstein's The Sound of Music at Leeds Grand Theatre from 9 July to 1 August 2026. Oliver Rundell conducts, Nikolai Foster directs with a cast including Katie Bird, Edward Bennett and Katherine Broderick.

Full details from Opera North's website.

Capella Edina: how Luis Schmidt, a young conductor from Munich, came to found Edinburgh's first professional philharmonic orchestra in almost ninety years

2026-05-23T09:52:41.395+01:00

Luis Schmidt & Capella Edina (Photo: Euan Robertson)

Luis Schmidt, a conductor from Munich who has just turned 22, founded Capella Edina in Edinburgh in 2024, the city's first professional philharmonic orchestra in almost ninety years. For its second season in 2026, Capella Edina is presenting four concerts at venues from the Caird Hall in Dundee to the Usher Hall in Edinburgh. The second concert of their season, Spring is at the Usher Hall on 3 June when Luis Schmidt conducts Capella Edina in music by Vaughan Williams, Britten and Copland.

The orchestra and its location came about through a series of circumstances. Luis moved to Newcastle to study for his degree and was introduced to Edinburgh by a friend who was working there. On his first visit to the city, Luis fell in love with it. He also took on board his friend's comment that Edinburgh did not have its own professional orchestra. Also whilst studying in Newcastle Luis met the conductor Robert Ames through the Royal Northern Sinfonia. Amongst Ames's advice to a young conductor was the suggestion that he form his own orchestra, that way you learn who to do things. And Luis would also get the same advice from his teacher in Germany, Bruno Weil.

Luis felt that if he was going to found an orchestra he was going to do it properly and Edinburgh seemed the obvious choice. Not only did it not have a resident professional orchestra but Luis enjoyed the city a lot. There were discussions with the Musicians Union about pay and conditions, something that Luis thought important if the orchestra was to contribute to the local area. Also these conversations helped with the process of finding players.

The orchestra now has a core of players who do most of the concerts. And Luis enjoys the fact that he is meeing different people yet has something in common with them. All the players, he feels, take pleasure in sharing their joy with the audience. The orchestra is reliant on philanthropy and ticket sales for its income, with private support plus support from trusts and foundations. They do not receive anything from the council. Currently the orchestra is run by a small team, there are just three of them (with two of those part-time).

Luis comments that it would be nice to get to the stage where the orchestra was self-sufficient and that donations would elevate them. He would like to be able to afford to do semi-staged operas, and to do outreach work. But he feels that there is an advantage to being lean, and he points out that there is a lot of machinery behind many established orchestras. Orchestras are cost intensive and it is a challenge reducing costs without limiting the artists or artistic quality.

One of the focuses of the orchestra from Luis's point of view is the wish to make music more accessible.

Luis Schmidt & Capella Edina at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Luis is from a non-musical family from Munich. He learned the trumpet in secondary school partly because friends from primary school were musical and planned to join a wind band and he wanted to follow them. He admits that he didn't really practice but seeing the bands at the Trooping of Colour rather inspired him. Age fifteen he approached the British Army asking how he could join the band of the Household Division. Their response was that he would need to be over sixteen and to be British! But as a teenage trumpeter in the school orchestra he rather got bored and started watching the conductor.

One of his teachers was an oboe player who had played in the Mozarteum Orchestra. Luis confided in this man that he was interested in conducting and the man got in contact with the conductor Bruno Weil who was the former head of conducting at the Mozarteum. Weil responded and Luis went to meet him at his home in Augsburg. Luis found that first session an eye opening afternoon and he returned two weeks later. He continues going to see Weil, visiting him when Luis is in the area. Weil's teaching is very analysis focused and Luis thinks it is important to understand what you are working on. Luis comments that though Weil has so much experience, Luis feels that they are on the same wavelength and they agree on things. He adds that it is important to find a teacher that you agree with, that the most important thing is the music not showmanship.

Luis's school orchestra did a joint concert with the Munich Philharmonic and Luis also went to their young people's concerts. He found this a nice way of being introduced to classical music. Going to normal classical concerts makes him think that there should be a different way of engaging the audience. Having someone presenting, engaging with the audience is more interesting, with explanations of why the pieces are in the programme.

Whilst orchestras do not need to innovate overly, Luis thinks it important that they find a way of reflecting both the times and the needs of the audience. In some classical concerts there is too much the feeling of the orchestra playing at the audience ratehr than interacting. He points out that not many people actually read programme notes and he appreciates the way Aurora Orchestra interacts with the audience without ever feeling they are patronising them. For Capella Edina's concerts, Luis addresses the audience, explaining what makes the works special and why they are in the programme.

When he started the orchestra, his first question was how to found an orchestra? He admits to having Googled this, but received much useful advice from Robert Ames. He also decided that from the beinning the orchestra would be a charity which meant it needed three trustees. Through university in Newcastle he had met Chris Bruerton from the Kings Singers. They got on, and Luis liked the way the Kings Singers' programming mixed styles with everything themed. Works were presented as they are, but in surroundings that were different. Chris Bruerton became a trustee.

For the orchestra's first concert season (in 2025), each concert had a theme and Luis narrated. The programmes had a main classical work along with something more recent, and a mixture of repertore with the intention of catering to different tastes whilst at the same time helping to introduce people to something new. For their first concert in January 2025 at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh, the programme mixed Bruckner's Symphony No. 6 with John Williams's music from Star Wars and a commission from James Clay, a young Newcastle-based composer. Luis feels that Williams's music has influences from Bruckner. Also, the orchestra enjoyed the programme as did the audience which drew a mix of Bruckner lovers and young people interested in Star Wars. The success of the concert helped to kick-start the orchestra.

The Lord Provost of Edinburgh contacted the orchestra (rather aptly Edinburgh is twinned with Munich, Luis's home city) and they gave a concert in Jun 2025 celebrating 900 years of the City of Edinbugh. The concert had an audience of 1500 people in the Usher Hall with music on a Scottish theme including Bliss's Edinburgh Overture (written for the 1956 Edinburgh Festival), a lovely piece that is rarely performed. The tickets were free, and Luis enjoyed the way they got positive feedback from people who would not normally attend a classical concert.

He thinks that such events are important to bring people together, creating a nice moment when you sit in a concert hall, switch off from the outside world and be in the moment. For him, this is what music is for and he wants to share this with the audience. In September 2026 they are doing another free concert at the Usher Hall, again with a Scottish theme. A young Italian violinist, Andrea Cicalese is playing Bruch's Scottish Fantasia and there is music by Malcolm Arnold, James MacMillan, and Max Richter along with music from pipes and drums.

The orchestra has a mix of personnel with recent graduates from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, freelance players from other Scottish orchestras and teachers from the Guildhall School. Luis describes them as a lovely group of players, and meeting them at the orchestra's first concert helped him to crystallise what his vision is. He admits that in many ways it is a scratch band, but they work well together and are growing together. Also, the orchestra gives young people the same age him the chance to play in an orchestra.

When I chatted to Luis he was just back from Dundee where the orchestra had given a concert at Caird Hall jointly with the Band of His Majesty’s Royal Marines Scotland in support of the Royal Marines Charity. The Band does not normally do orchestral concerts and so wind and brass from the Band joined with strings from the Orchestra. Luis was accomodated at HMS Caledonia and held sectional rehearsals with the wind and brass from the Band. There were differences in playing style between the orchestral players and band members, with the latter getting to perform music they did not normally play. The feedback he got from both from band members and orchestral players was very positive and Luis points out that music is there for collaboration. He would be keen to do it again. There was a variety to the concert's programming as it included Beethoven's Wellington’s Victory along with a piece by French contemporary composer Camille Pépin.

Returning to the subject of free concerts, this is something that Luis had experience in Munich. He feels that they are a great idea, enabling them to make music accessible. But there is a need to maintain the highest artistic quality possible, something that is important to him and to the musicians. After all, they are all part of the same journey.

In November the orchestra is joining forces with indie artist Fink. Luis had come across the album that Fink recorded with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in 2014 and found the music well done and well crafted. Luis feels that with most pop artists, the music does not work particularly well with orchestra whereas Fink's style and music did. They approached Fink who was interested and the concert will include selections from his forthcoming 2026 album. Fink loved the idea of collaboration and there will be new arrangements with Luis making some. With Fink interested and engaged the idea is to create something musical out of the event. Alongside Fink there will be pieces by Camille Pépin and Michael Hoppé. Camille Pépin is a composer whose music Luis thinks remains accessible to the audience as she does not push things too far. Luis feels that with contemporary music if it is too 'out there' you close more doors than you open.

On 3 June 2026, the orchestra gives a concert on the theme of Spring which Luis says is a programme most special for him. The first half focuses on Vaughan Williams with the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Oboe Concerto, and in the second half there is Britten's Suite on English Folk Tunes, op. 90 (“A Time There Was…”) and Copland's Appalachian Spring. The oboe soloist is Ralf Ebner who is that former teacher of Luis's who recommended him to Bruno Weil. The selection of RVW's oboe concerto came about because Luis asked Ebner what he wanted to play. Without him, Luis feels that he would not be conducting which makes the event a very special occasion. Luis and the orchestra are working towards a tour in 2028, taking a Scottish programme mixing Bruch and Mendelssohn to Germany and Switzerland.

Listening to Luis talking about the orchestra I was struck that he has had an enormous amount of luck, support and help. Founding orchestras is no easy task, nor is keeping them running. But Luis clearly has the drive, focus, energy and imagination needed, as well as the necessary personal charm and interesting ideas. And you think that if he can do this in his early 20s, what will he get up to next.

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The blog is free, but I'd be delighted if you were to show your appreciation by buying me a coffee.

Elsewhere on this blog

Each song a story to be told: James Newby & Malcolm Martineau's Shipping Forecast at SongEasel in Elephant & Castle - concert review
Every detail mattered: Basel Chamber Orchestra & Vilde Frang in Bach, Mendelssohn & Grieg at Wigmore Hall - concert review
Richness & imagination: the all-male ensemble De Profundis continues its exploration of Morales with two masses based on L’homme armé - CD review
Unashamedly romantic: the music of the remarkably youthful Christopher Churcher on Resonus Classics - record review
Rising to the challenge: Britten's The Rape of Lucretia from Royal Academy Opera directed by Paul Carr & conducted by Lada Valesova - opera review
A mix of everything: The Celtic Tenors' eclectic repertoire with harmony-driven music sung by classically trained voices - interview
Sheer joy & plenty of welly: the marimbas of The Wave Quartet join the Academy of Ancient Music for Bach concertos & more - concert review
Richness & austerity: Morales, Vivanco, Kerensa Briggs's & James MacMillan's settings of John Henry Newman in The Sixteen's Choral Pilgrimage - review
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Each song a story to be told: James Newby & Malcolm Martineau's Shipping Forecast at SongEasel in Elephant & Castle

2026-05-22T14:21:59.541+01:00

SongEasel at St Matthew's Church, Elephant & Castle
Jocelyn Freeman

The Shipping Forecast - Elgar: Sea Pictures, Chabrier, Duparc, Medtner, Rachmaninov, Bantock, Ireland, Tippett, Eric Coates, Ives, Kurt Weill, Charles Trenet; James Newby, Malcolm Martineau; SongEasel at St Matthew's Church, Elephant and Castle
Reviewed 21 May 2026

A sea theme gives us a feast of story-telling in music from James Newby and Malcolm Martineau with Elgar's Sea Pictures alongside Loewe ballads and a wide-ranging selection of songs

The Shipping Forecast continues to provide a remarkable source of musical inspiration for recitalists. In 2024, Nigel Foster's London Song Festival celebrated the centenary of the first Shipping Forecast to be broadcast on British radio [see my review], and now baritone James Newby and pianist Malcolm Martineau are celebrating with their own take on the subject.

They brought their Shipping Forecast programme to Jocelyn Freeman's Song Easel on Thursday 21 May at St Matthew's Church, Elephant and Castle. The programme featured three of Carl Loewe's ballads (this year is his 230th birthday) along with songs from Elgar's Sea Pictures, and songs by Chabrier, Duparc, Medtner, Rachmaninov, Bantock, Ireland, Eric Coates, Tippett, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Ives, Kurt Weill and Charles Trenet.

The programme was divided into four parts, each one beginning with one of Elgar's Sea Pictures - Mysteries of the Deep, Invitation to Voyage, Exotic Isles and Desert Island Discs.

Mysteries of the Deep began with Sea Slumber Song from Elgar's Sea Pictures. Whilst Elgar premiered the work with in its orchestral guise with soloist Clara Butt, the first London performance (also with Butt) featured Elgar on the piano, so the piano version does have some currency. Newby and Martineau made it entirely believable as a song with the calm beauty of the opening drawing you in and leading to some compelling moments. We then moved on to Carl Loewe with Der gefangene Admiral, dramatic ballad about an admiral imprisoned far from the sea. In the five verses Loewe really varies the mood, and Newby gave us some strong story telling using the words and colour in the voice along with more histrionic elements. He is a vivid storyteller, using his whole body, and throughout the evening I was struck by his ability to draw us into the world of the song. Each song a story to be told.

Medtner's Meerestille from 1907 sets text by Goethe (in German) about an eerie calm sea, with Medtner's gorgeous, complex harmonies creating a distinct atmosphere around Newby's hypnotic voice. Granville Bantock's Song to the Seals is one of his Songs of the Western Isles. This was folksong as art song, engagingly performed. Each verse ended with which seemed like melisma, or perhaps a rendering of the original Gaelic. Cheryl Frances-Hoad's Rita the Pirate was altogether more dramatic and vivid. The song is from Frances-Hoad's 2016 song cycle The Thought Machine setting words by Kate Wakeling and premiered at the Oxford International Song Festival (then the Oxford Lieder Festival). It began with vivid swagger from Newby and developed into a quasi-operatic narrative with a dramatic tour de force at the end.

James Newby

Invitation to Voyage began with In Haven from Elgar's Sea Pictures. Here, the sentimentality of the words (by Elgar's wife) remains a problem but with Newby's beautifully phrased delivery and Martineau's characterful piano the whole remained convincing. Duparc's L'Invitation au voyage (setting Baudelaire) took us to a far more sophisticated, exotic world. The seductive shimmer of Martineau's piano and Newby's concentrated, beautiful tone allied to some finely floated high notes successfully drew us into this alluring world before both opened up in the second verse. Carl Loewe's Die Uberfahrt (The Crossing) was an intriguing piece with Uhland's poem talking about a ferry crossing but drawing in hints of the Styx and ghosts. Aspects of the writing were quite Schubert-like and Newby's performance beguiled us with the story.

John Ireland's Sea Fever is rightly a classic and here Newby projected the words above all, the vivid performance carrying us along. This part finished with something far more taxing. Charles Ives's The Swimmers written just eight years after the Ireland and taking us into a more expressionist world. Martineau's restless vibrant piano supporting the intense declamatory vocal line leading to a terrific declaimed climax. This little piece took song far out of its traditional box.

Exotic Isles opened with the sentimentality of Browning's Sabbath Morning at Sea as set by Elgar from Sea Pictures. Newby took the words entirely seriously so that he and Martineau created a compelling story with a wonderfully expansive final verse. Chabrier's L'Ile heureuse was very different, but it was still about the (French) words with Newby delivering them with relish, yet his and Martineau's fluidity really shaping the phrases. Tippett's Songs for Ariel were originally from a performance of Shakespeare's The Tempest at the Old Vic in 1962. Did an actor really sing these? Martineau made the piano at the opening of Come unto these yellow sands really conjure the fantastic, with Newby singing with vivid relish. Full fathom five was concentrated, dark and serious, then Where the bee sucks featured Martineau's edgy piano alongside Newby's wonderful swagger.

Rachmaninov's Ostrovok (This Island) featured long lyrical expansive vocal lines supported by a relatively discreet piano. This group ended with the final Loewe ballad, this time a Goethe setting, Der Zauberlehrling which featured a sort of sorcerer's apprentice but this time with water involved. A terrific story, told with histrionic relish.

Desert Island Discs began with Where corals lie from Elgar's Sea Pictures. Arguably the most memorable of the songs, but here it was more than just a lovely melody as Newby made the story the thing. Eric Coates's Sleepy Lagoon began as an orchestral piece in 1930, and it is best known as the theme tune to Desert Island Discs on the radio. But American songwriter Jack Lawrence added words in 1940, though these did not really add to the piece's charm. The voice was the focus of the traditional song, Blow the wind southerly, sung unaccompanied. Kurt Weill's My Ship (from Lady in the Dark) was one of the surprises of the evening as transferring the song to baritone worked well, with Newby and Martineau giving us a fine combination of words and music. We ended with Charles Trenet's La mer, from 1943. This was sung, rather than crooned (thank goodness) but still the words were all.

We were treated to an encore, Cole Porter's The Tale of the Oyster, which was a cue for more vivid story telling!

Never miss out on future posts by following us

The blog is free, but I'd be delighted if you were to show your appreciation by buying me a coffee.

Elsewhere on this blog

Every detail mattered: Basel Chamber Orchestra & Vilde Frang in Bach, Mendelssohn & Grieg at Wigmore Hall - concert review
Richness & imagination: the all-male ensemble De Profundis continues its exploration of Morales with two masses based on L’homme armé - CD review
Unashamedly romantic: the music of the remarkably youthful Christopher Churcher on Resonus Classics - record review
Rising to the challenge: Britten's The Rape of Lucretia from Royal Academy Opera directed by Paul Carr & conducted by Lada Valesova - opera review
A mix of everything: The Celtic Tenors' eclectic repertoire with harmony-driven music sung by classically trained voices - interview
Sheer joy & plenty of welly: the marimbas of The Wave Quartet join the Academy of Ancient Music for Bach concertos & more - concert review
Richness & austerity: Morales, Vivanco, Kerensa Briggs's & James MacMillan's settings of John Henry Newman in The Sixteen's Choral Pilgrimage - review
The UK premiere of Du Yun's Angel's Bone - photo essay
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Every detail mattered: Basel Chamber Orchestra & Vilde Frang in Bach, Mendelssohn & Grieg at Wigmore Hall

2026-05-22T07:58:36.039+01:00

Kammerorchester Basel (Photo: Matthias Mueller)

Mendelssohn: String Symphonies Nos. 4 & 10, Bach; Violin concerto in A minor, Violin concerto in E major, Grieg: Holberg Suite; Basel Chamber Orchestra, Vilde Frang; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 20 May 2026

In a varied programme the Basel players brought real vitality the music, making Mendelssohn's early symphonies invigorating and Grieg's Holberg Suite anything but hackneyed. But the centrepiece was a pair of Bach concertos with Vilde Frang in elegant, expressive and plangent form

The name Basel Chamber Orchestra has resonance, it is associated with the patron and conductor Paul Sacher, who founded the Basler Kammerorchester in 1926 and commissioned works from Stravinsky, Bartók, Martinů, Frank Martin, Hindemith, Henze, Lutosławski, Birtwistle and more. The orchestra disbanded in 1987 and Sacher died in 1999 though The Paul Sacher Foundation continues.

The present Basel Chamber Orchestra (Kammerorchester Basel) began life in 1984 as Serenata Basel founded by graduates of Swiss music academies. Since 1999 it has operated without a chief conductor and also that year the name changed to the present one. And listening to the orchestra today, one can safely forget any Sacher resonances, the orchestra is simply one of the best chamber orchestras around.

On Wednesday 20 May 2026 they paid a visit to Wigmore Hall. Directed from the violin by Baptiste Lopez their programme centred on Bach's two violin concertos (in A minor and E major) with violinist Vilde Frang, alongside Mendelssohn's ;String Symphonies Nos. 4 & 10 and Grieg's Holberg Suite.

We began with Mendelssohn. The orchestra fielded quite a number of musicians fitting 19 strings (5.5.4.3.2) and harpsichord on the stage. Mendelssohn began writing his string symphonies at the age of 11 as composition exercises but the rapid rate at which he wrote them (12 in all over two years) allied to his grasp of music demonstrates the way he was growing as an artist. Symphony No. 4 dates from 1821 (when he was 12) and began with a very Handelian Grave, full of grand, strong gestures leading to a scurrying Allegro with the players combining a vibrant sound with concentrated focussed lines. The Andante featured a gentle violin melody of hazy undulations, then we ended with the vivid vigour of an Allegro vivace again with strong focused tone. The orchestra plays on modern instruments but in this music and particularly in the Bach their use of vibrato was sparing, creating an appealing plangency of line. Mendelssohn's string symphonies are remarkable for a 12-year-old, but the Orchestra's commitment and intent made this an invigorating start to the concert.

Bach's two surviving solo violin concertos are tantalising. We have manuscripts but these date from later in Bach's life, and we have no way of knowing for certain when they were written. Did he write them in 1729/30 when he took over the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig with its concerts at Zimmermann's Coffee House? This seems likely, but a lot of material for that ensemble had its origins in music Bach wrote earlier. His time in Köthen featured a lot of instrumental music (his employer, Prince Leopold did not require choral church music) which Bach would mine during his Leipzig years.

We began with Bach's Violin Concerto in A minor, BWV1042, and for this the ensemble slimmed down slightly (4.4.3.2.1) though it has to be said that for my taste the harpsichord (played by Sebastian Wienand) felt underpowered. The opening tutti featured intent, sprung rhythms and Vilde Frang's solo line was fast but alert with an engaging way with passagework and ornament. In the slow movement, Frang's solo line unfolded over the throb of strings. Playing with focus and elegance, her plangent tone with sparing use of vibrato fitted with the orchestra's approach and Frang's concentrated intent line held our attention. The final movement had the feeling of a vibrant dance, and whilst Frang's solo line had plenty of vivid notes in it, she kept that underlying dance feel.

The first half ended with Mendelssohn, his String Symphony No. 10 which was written when he was 14. This is in one movement, and may well have been intended as the start of something larger, but the single movement is remarkably large scale and mature. The opening was atmospheric with a sense of dark brooding and suppressed excitement that hinted at Sturm und Drang. The development was lively and varied, the resulting work surprisingly substantial. Mendelssohn would complete another symphony a year later in 1824, but this would become is first mature symphony.

After the interval came Bach's E minor concerto. The opening was crisp and brisk but out of this flowed Frang's lovely soloistic effulgences, and throughout the movement there was great sense of interplay between Frang and the ensemble violins. The slow movement featured the elegant thread of Frang's sound unfolding over the strong ground bass. There was a magical moment when the bass dropped out, leaving Frang and throbbing upper strings. The finale had an engaging energy and rhythm, with an underlying sway to it, and Frang contributing brilliant violin playing.

We were treated to an encore when Frang was joined by Baptiste Lopez for the slow movement of Bach's Concerto for two violins.

We ended with Grieg looking back at the Baroque era in his Holberg Suite. Remarkably, despite the work's ubiquitousness in its string form it started out as a piano suite. The Praeludium began with tight, compelling rhythms alongside insouciant violin melodies, leading to exuberant excitement in the middle section. The Sarabande was graceful yet intent, full of details in phrasing for all the instrumental lines. The Gavotte was notable for engaging and joyful rhythms, then there was a yearning plangency to the Air, particularly when the melody was in the cellos. We ended with a Rigaudon where both violin and viola soloists gave us vivid and amazingly fast (and light) passagework, imbuing the music with a feeling of their own enjoyment. Throughout the piece we sensed the players' enjoyment, making every detail matter and taking joy in the interactions between them.

Never miss out on future posts by following us

The blog is free, but I'd be delighted if you were to show your appreciation by buying me a coffee.

Elsewhere on this blog

Richness & imagination: the all-male ensemble De Profundis continues its exploration of Morales with two masses based on L’homme armé - CD review
Unashamedly romantic: the music of the remarkably youthful Christopher Churcher on Resonus Classics - record review
Rising to the challenge: Britten's The Rape of Lucretia from Royal Academy Opera directed by Paul Carr & conducted by Lada Valesova - opera review
A mix of everything: The Celtic Tenors' eclectic repertoire with harmony-driven music sung by classically trained voices - interview
Sheer joy & plenty of welly: the marimbas of The Wave Quartet join the Academy of Ancient Music for Bach concertos & more - concert review
Richness & austerity: Morales, Vivanco, Kerensa Briggs's & James MacMillan's settings of John Henry Newman in The Sixteen's Choral Pilgrimage - review
The UK premiere of Du Yun's Angel's Bone - photo essay
From a circle of friends to worrying anti-Semitism: the strange history of Schumann's Neue Zeitschrift für Musik - feature
Home

At just 17, pianist Jacky Zhang becomes the youngest ever winner of the Sheepdrove Piano Competition at Newbury Spring Festival

2026-05-20T09:45:15.474+01:00

Jacky Zhang at BBC Young Musician in 2024

In 2024 at just 16 years old, pianist Jacky Zhang reached the final stages of BBC Young Musician with a performance of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 described by judges as an "incredibly powerful, volcanic interpretation".

Now 17, Zhang has been named winner of the 2026 Sheepdrove Piano Competition at Newbury Spring Festival, becoming the youngest winner in the competition’s 17-year history.

Zhang was awarded the First Prize of £3,000, donated by the Sheepdrove Trust, following the final of the competition held as part of this year’s Festival programme. As part of the prize, Zhang also gave a recital at Newbury Corn Exchange on Monday 18 May as part of the Festival’s Young Artist Lunchtime Series.

The Second Prize was awarded to Nicole Wu from Canada, a student at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, while Third Prize went to Mayuko Narutani from Japan, a student at the Royal Academy of Music. Fourth Prize was awarded to Tomos Boyles from Wales, who also received the Audience Prize.

Established in 2009 by the Sheepdrove Trust, the Sheepdrove Piano Competition is open to pianists aged 26 and under from the UK’s leading conservatoires and forms part of Newbury Spring Festival’s longstanding commitment to supporting emerging artists and young performers.

Born in the UK in 2008, Zhang studied in the Royal College of Music Junior Department from the age of seven and now studies with renowned pianist Dmitri Alexeev. Alongside his piano work, he is also active as a composer, songwriter and producer, with interests spanning conducting, historical performance and music for screen.

Newbury Spring Festival continues until 2 May, full details from the festival website.

Richness & imagination: the all-male ensemble De Profundis continues its exploration of Morales with two masses based on L’homme armé

2026-05-20T09:22:04.834+01:00

Cristóbal de Morales: Missa L’homme armé a4, Magnificat secundi toni, Missa L’homme armé a5; De Profundis, Robert Hollingworth; CORO
Reviewed 20 May 2026

The Morales Project moves to CORO and demonstrates the richness to be found in the composer's less-known masses when performing at the original pitch.

In many ways, Cristóbal de Morales had a somewhat remarkable career, becoming the most influential Spanish composer before Victoria and probably the most famous composer in Europe between the death of Josquin in 1521 and the rise of Palestrina and Lassus in the 1550s. Yet we know so little about him and what we do know from surviving documents suggests a life that was restless, with its share of frustration and disappointment. He seems to have had a recurrent illness, which led to gaps in his employment, and whilst admired musically was a difficult character. He left some 22 masses (many from a pair of books published in Rome in 1544), along with magnificats and motets.

Mark Dourish founded the all male ensemble De Profundis in 2011 to perform Renaissance polyphony at the original lower pitch. One of the reasons why this is pertinent to Morales was that he came from the Spanish tradition of using high countertenors on the top line and in fact one of the reasons why Morales was able to travel to Italy was that Spanish singers were popular in the Papal choir with the falsettists reinforcing or supplementing the castratos.

De Profundis, conducted by Eamonn Dougan and Robert Hollingworth recorded two discs of Morales for Hyperion and now the Morales Project is on Coro with the aim to record the complete Masses and Magnificats of Morales. The third disc in the project (the first on Coro) sees Robert Hollingworth conducting De Profundis in Morales two masses based on L’homme armé, the four part and the five part.

Morales's mass in five voices first appeared in an anthology of 1540, and the one in four in his Missarum liber secundus of 1544. The basing of masses on L’homme armé possibly dates back to the Chivalric Order of the Golden Fleece (created by the Dukes of Burgundy and then taken over by the Hapsburg Emperors). There is the hint of a connection in Morales's four part mass as the ornamental 'K' at the beginning of the alto part in the printed edition features a portrait of Emperor Charles V (whose grandmother was the daughter and heiress of the last Duke of Burgundy) as a warrior wearing the imperial crown, plus his motto, ‘Plus ultra’,

Missa L’homme armé a4 is very traditional. The tune is in the Phyrgian mode and presented on the tenor line, which is actually sung by modern baritones. Which brings us to the sound of the choir. This is a modern choir, using modern voices, and we are not talking about any sort of period reconstruction of sound. After all, Morales during his career would have written for choirs of men and boys, all men with falsettists on the top, and the Papal ensemble that used castrati. For this ensemble there is a basis of around 17 singers with different line-ups used depending on the scoring of the particular masses.

The result in the four-part mass is a sense of richness of imagination as Morales varies the textures all within the confines of a 'typical' Renaissance mass. Hollingworth keeps the music flowing, yet there is a clarity of texture at all times. Using falsettists on top provides a very particular sound quality, and they contribute to this with an admirably smooth line. The liveliness of some of the part writing is also admirably captured. As we move through the mass, there is an increase in intensity with the Benedictus and Agnus Dei being most notable, perhaps prefiguring in a way the music of Victoria.

Just to confuse us, Missa L’homme armé a5 is probably earlier than the four-part version but Morales's treatment of the cantus firmus is more varied, often it is presented at different speeds and pitches, scattered over different voices. Kenneth Kreitner in his booklet note suggests that Morales might have been influenced by memories of Peñalosa’s Missa L’homme armé which he would have sung in his youth as a chorister in Seville. With five parts the writing is quite dense and then in the final Agnus Dei, Morales adds a second bass part to create real richness.

The performance here reinforces the bass line with a bajon (an early bassoon) in the Spanish manner and adds organ support. Certainly the opening Kyrie launches us into a richer, darker, more intense world than the four-part mass. Lacking the obvious structure of a tenor cantus firmus, Morales gives us a real sense of poise and sophistication in the writing. The Credo is seriously expansive, lasting over nine minutes then the steady pace of the Sanctus brings out the richness of the writing. The Benedictus features some wonderful flourishes passed around the voices in contrast to the focus of the same movement in the four-part mass. The Agnus Dei is also expansive, each verse taking its time and letting us enjoy the refulgent textures and way the voices circle each other. When Morales introduces another voice the result is not virtuosity but intensification of the sheer richness and darkness.

In between these two, there is the Magnificat secundi toni, one of the settings Morales created when he was in Rome. This is in four parts, though one verse is in three and the final verse expands to six parts. Morales's Magnificat settings are relatively unusual in that he set all verses rather than having them performed alternim. Not that we lose sight of the chant entirely as each verse begins from a single, focused line. The overall effect, with the stopping and starting of verses, is to create a remarkable kaleidescope of textures within the confines set. Hollingworth keeps things moving, and we are able to admire Morales's imaginative manipulation of his material.

L’homme armé (Phyrgian mode)
Cristóbal de Morales (c. 1500 - 1553) - Missa L’homme armé a4
Cristóbal de Morales - Magnificat secundi toni
L’homme armé (Ionian mode)
Cristóbal de Morales - Missa L’homme armé a5
De Profundis
Robert Hollingworth (conductor)
Recorded St Jude-on-the-Hill, Hampstead Garden Suburb, 15-17 April 2024
CORO COR16221 1CD [65:07)

Never miss out on future posts by following us

The blog is free, but I'd be delighted if you were to show your appreciation by buying me a coffee.

Elsewhere on this blog

Unashamedly romantic: the music of the remarkably youthful Christopher Churcher on Resonus Classics - record review
Rising to the challenge: Britten's The Rape of Lucretia from Royal Academy Opera directed by Paul Carr & conducted by Lada Valesova - opera review
A mix of everything: The Celtic Tenors' eclectic repertoire with harmony-driven music sung by classically trained voices - interview
Sheer joy & plenty of welly: the marimbas of The Wave Quartet join the Academy of Ancient Music for Bach concertos & more - concert review
Richness & austerity: Morales, Vivanco, Kerensa Briggs's & James MacMillan's settings of John Henry Newman in The Sixteen's Choral Pilgrimage - review
The UK premiere of Du Yun's Angel's Bone - photo essay
From a circle of friends to worrying anti-Semitism: the strange history of Schumann's Neue Zeitschrift für Musik - feature
Siren songs & serenades: Ben Goldscheider, Laurence Kilsby & London Mozart Players in Anna Clyne premiere, Britten & Mendelssohn - review
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Curated By… Ben Nobuto: an intimate programme exploring the music, composers and sonic ideas that have influenced his artistic development.

2026-05-19T09:45:35.271+01:00

Ben Nobuto (Photo: Jennifer Hawthorn )

Kings Place’s new Curated By… series places audiences at the centre of a composer’s creative world. For the opening event on 23 May, Curated By… Ben Nobuto the British-Japanese composer presents an intimate programme exploring the music, composers and sonic ideas that have influenced his artistic development.

The event features Festival Voices with violinist Rakhi Singh in 21st-century hockets, Notre Dame polyphony, Renaissance madrigals, and voices with violin & electronics including music by Pérotin, Carlo Gesualdo, Caroline Shaw, Catherine Lamb, Wally Gunn, Tom Coult, Meara O’Reilly and Paul Clark, alongside two works by Ben Nobuto, Sol which was written for the National Youth Choir and featured on their 2023 disc Young Composers 4 [see my review] and Face Anthem.

Describing the programme, Nobuto writes: "I always felt I came to vocal music through a side door, discovering composers and styles by accident and making surprising connections across time periods, like listening to music on shuffle. This is a selection of that playlist."

Full details from the Kings Place website.

From Beethoven & Britten to Caroline Shaw & Gavin Higgins: Royal Liverpool Philharmonic's 2026/27 season will be chief conductor Domingo Hindoyan's sixth

2026-05-19T09:32:12.799+01:00

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Domingo Hindoyan (Photo: Gareth Jones)

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic's 2026/27 will be Domingo Hindoyan's sixth as chief conductor and his concerts with the orchestra feature a wide range of repertoire including a complete Beethoven symphony cycle over two weeks.

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is the UK’s oldest continuing professional symphony orchestra. The origins of the Orchestra’s concert series date back to the formation of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society by a group of Liverpool music lovers in 1840.

Hindoyan opens the season with Mahler's Symphony No. 2, with soloists Lucy Crowe and Natalie Lewis. Other highlights of his concerts include the premiere of a work by Dani Howard celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Orchestra’s partnership with Classic FM; Hindemith's Mathis der Mahler Symphony, Roussel’s Symphony No. 3 and Aleppo Songs by Syrian-American composer Kareem Roustom.

Hindoyan's Beethoven cycle features all nine symphonies across five concerts during January 2027, whilst Beethoven's chamber music is spread across the season and Liverpool Philharmonic’s 10:10 present Reinventing Beethoven celebrating composers who have been inspired by him including John Adams, Jay Capperauld, Samantha Fernando, Caroline Shaw, and George Stevenson.

Another anniversary is 50 years since Britten's death and the season includes the Violin Concerto with Simone Lamsma, the Cello Symphony with Guy Johnston, Suite on English Folk Tunes, Sinfonia da Requiem, Four Sea Interludes, A Charm of Lullabies and more.

The Orchestra's composer-in-focus is Caroline Shaw and works include the full orchestra in Observatory and a range of works with Liverpool Philharmonic’s 10:10, the Orchestra's contemporary music ensemble. The Orchestra has premiered and commissioned more than 300 new works over the past twenty years, and its Rushworth Composition Prize, which provides a range of opportunities for early-career composers. The winner of the Rushworth Composition Prize in 2018, Carmel Smickersgill has A Brick Thrown With Love premiered by the Orchestra at the BBC Proms. Gavin Higgins’ new clarinet concerto, written specially for artist in residence Mark Simpson receives its world premiere, marking the conclusion of Simpson’s residency.

Liverpool Philharmonic’s 10:10 showcase for new music from North West-based composers includes a world premiere from the 10th Rushworth Composition Prize winner Andrew Barney, alongside works by Mark Simpson, Grace-Evangeline Mason and Nneka Cummins, and a new work by 11th Rushworth Composition Prize winner Rob Hughes. The youngest ever finalist of the Leeds International Piano Competition, Kai-Min Chang, received the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society Award and gives the world premiere of Errollyn Wallen’s Acid Drop, commissioned especially for him as part of the prize.

Through its Made in Merseyside series, the Orchestra provides a platform for artists at every stage of their careers, from emerging voices to internationally recognised names, while supporting pathways from regional training to national and global stages, including through In Harmony and Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, which together reach over 2,280 young people in the city each week.

This season includes collaborations with Liverpool-born vocalist MT Jones, rising singer- songwriter Lucca Mae, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, and Bill Ryder-Jones, who reunites with the orchestra to mark the 15th anniversary of his debut solo album, plus contributions from North West artists such as Nneka Cummins and Timothy Jackson, and performances featuring Cumbrian mezzo-soprano Jess Dandy.

Principal Guest Conductor Andrew Manze opens the season and Conductor Laureate Vasily Petrenko returns. Guest conductors include Karel Deseure, Adam Hickox, Andris Poga, Kristiina Poska, Dinis Sousa and Joshua Weilerstein, alongside conducting debuts from Alena Hron, Kellen Grey and Bar Avni.

Full details from the Orchestra's website.

Unashamedly romantic with an expressive use of dissonance & sophisticated atmosphere: the music of the remarkably youthful Christopher Churcher on Resonus Classics

2026-05-19T07:56:46.113+01:00

Moonrise: music by Christopher Churcher; Somerville College Choir, Oxford, Will Dawes; Resonus Classics
Reviewed 12 May 2026

Music by the 22-year-old Christopher Churcher revealing a sophisticated handling of his choral forces allied to a distinctive romantic impulse that gives the music a particular quality with his Pride Motets at the centre of the recital

Moonrise on Resonus Classics features the music of 22-year-old composer Christopher Churcher recorded by the choir of Somerville College conducted by Will Dawes. The music brings together his earliest composition at age 17 to recent works written for the choir during his undergraduate studies at Oxford with his Pride Motets, commissioned for Somerville College’s LGBTQ+ Pride services at the centre of the disc. He is the recipient of the NCEM Young Composers Award (2023) and the winner of the Bach Choir Carol Competition (2022).

Wonder, setting Emily Dickinson, is one of his earliest pieces on the disc and was originally written for the Sir David Willcocks Carol Competition. Gentle at first, what is most notable is Churcher's expressive use of lush harmonies.

Wintersongs is a group of three settings of traditional carol texts. Churcher describes them as 'an exercise in restorative nostalgia', returning to familiar texts. There is no rose features clear harmonies with an expressive use of dissonance and the feel of an English part-song. Away in a manger displays Churcher's melodic gift, allied to lush harmonies whilst In the bleak mid winter is darker with more occluded harmonies yet a memorable melody.

Nesciens Mater, which uses divided lower voices, begins with the lower voices dark and intense with opaque harmonies, and developing in intensity when the upper voices enter creating striking textures with a finely expressive use of dissonance, creating something powerful and concentrated.

Everything is Going to be All Right, which sets a poem by Derek Mahon (1941-2020), was written during Churcher's residency at JAM on the Marsh in 2023. Using choir and piano (Mar Umbert Kimura), Churcher reflects the upbeat nature of Mahon's words with a big tune that with its piano support comes over rather as a sophisticated worship song, yet this is something I think many choirs would enjoy singing.

Churcher's Pride Motets were commissioned for Somerville College Choir's 2023 Pride Contemplation. my love sets a remarkable sonnet by 16th century poet Richard Barnfield with its explicit use of a male loved one. Churcher's use of the piano here gives is a distinctly contemporary character. The lyrical flow of the piece with its expressive use of dissonance creates a distinctive sense Churcher's romantic impulse, with a big baritone solo at the powerful climax. my beautiful uses text taken from Jesus at the gay bar by Jay Hulme (born 1996). Here the unaccompanied choir combines lyrical phrases with a mumbled choral accompaniment utilising a rich harmonic language. Finally, my heart sets e.e.cummings, where bell like motifs in the piano complement the gentle intimate choir supported by sustained not clusters. Again, the piece has an unashamedly romantic build up. From my perspective a gay man in his 70s, the music is nowhere near as edgy as I would have imagined. But what Churcher does is open up the queer experience and express it in unashamedly romantic terms.

Moonrise (setting Sara Teasdale) begins with some magical piano writing and a fine soprano solo that seems to hover between jazz and the influence of James MacMillan. With the addition of the full choir we get a big romantic flow and rich harmonies. The James MacMillan influence seems to grow in O nata lux with a very fine baritone solo and a use of tingling dissonances. The disc ends with Echo setting Christina Rossetti. A rather touching unaccompanied piece with a lyrical impulse combined with expressive dissonances.

The music on this disc, encompassing just five years in this young composer's life is nothing short of remarkable. His handling of his forces is masterly and in all the pieces there are some completely magical textures. Unashamedly romantic, the harmonies can be edgy, but the results veer on the side of grateful even though Churcher's range of texts is admirably challenging. The performances from Will Dawes and Somerville College Choir are admirable and highly sympathetic.

Somerville College Choir with Will Dawes and Christopher Churcher (Photo: Hugh Warwick)

Christopher Churcher (born 2004) - Wonder
Christopher Churcher - Wintersongs
Christopher Churcher - Nesciens Mater
Christopher Churcher - Everything is Going to be Alright
Christopher Churcher - Pride Motets
Christopher Churcher - Moonrise
Christopher Churcher - O Nata Lux
Christopher Churcher - Echo
Choir of Somerville College, Oxford
Mar Umbert Kimura (piano)
Will Dawes (conductor)
Recorded in Somerville College Chapel, 30 June - 2 July 2025
RESONUS CLASSICS RES10380 1CD [64.55]

Never miss out on future posts by following us

The blog is free, but I'd be delighted if you were to show your appreciation by buying me a coffee.

Elsewhere on this blog

Rising to the challenge: Britten's The Rape of Lucretia from Royal Academy Opera directed by Paul Carr & conducted by Lada Valesova - opera review
A mix of everything: The Celtic Tenors' eclectic repertoire with harmony-driven music sung by classically trained voices - interview
Sheer joy & plenty of welly: the marimbas of The Wave Quartet join the Academy of Ancient Music for Bach concertos & more - concert review
Richness & austerity: Morales, Vivanco, Kerensa Briggs's & James MacMillan's settings of John Henry Newman in The Sixteen's Choral Pilgrimage - review
The UK premiere of Du Yun's Angel's Bone - photo essay
From a circle of friends to worrying anti-Semitism: the strange history of Schumann's Neue Zeitschrift für Musik - feature
Siren songs & serenades: Ben Goldscheider, Laurence Kilsby & London Mozart Players in Anna Clyne premiere, Britten & Mendelssohn - review
Authenticity in song: I chat to pianist James Baillieu about his new role on the Britten Pears Arts Young Artist Programme, performing with soprano Lise Davidsen & the future of song - interview
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Brass to the fore: this year's Cumnock Tryst is a tribute to the late Scottish trumpeter John Wallace & a celebration of the tradition of brass band music in the Ayrshire coalfields

2026-05-18T09:02:47.889+01:00

The cooperation band

Sir James MacMillan's Cumnock Tryst returns with its twelfth festival, running from 1 to 4 October 2026, the festival brings together world-class international artists, leading Scottish ensembles, and young musicians from The Tryst’s growing community of local talent.

A strong brass thread runs through the weekend, reflecting a tribute to the late Scottish trumpeter John Wallace, a longstanding friend of The Tryst who died earlier this year, and celebrating both Wallace’s legacy and the deep tradition of brass band music in the Ayrshire coalfields. The festival closes with a performance by The Wallace Collection (the brass ensemble Wallace founded forty years ago) joining with the cooperation band at Cumnock Old Church for Giovanni Gabrieli’s Canzoni et Sonate in Wallace’s own arrangement, a project he had been passionate about bringing to Cumnock.

Other highlights include saxophonist Jess Gilham and euphonium player David Childs joining the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in James MacMillan’s Saxophone Concerto and the Scottish premiere of his Where the Lugar Meets the Glaisnock, a new euphonium work and the composer’s love-letter to the town where he grew up.

The Cumnock Tryst Festival Chorus joins the Wallace Collection for a programme of Vaughan Williams, Rutter, Ēriks Ešenvalds’ and premiere of a new commission by American composer AJ Harbison, with the chorus being joined by young singers from East, North and South Ayrshire.

Other events include recitals by pianist Ethan Loch (the Scottish pianist who won the BBC Young Musician Keyboard Category in 2022) playing his own music alongside Gluck, Chopin and Liszt's Piano Sonata in B minor, and there are recitals from euphonium player David Childs and from the Jess Gilham Trio. There are Promenade concerts at Dumfries House showcasing young talent, including Kilmarnock pianist Ethan Chan, the South Ayrshire Chamber Singers and a finalist from the 2026 Scottish Young Musician of the Year competition. Late-night Festival Club performances at the Dumfries Arms Hotel feature the Hannah Rarity Trio, the Seonaid Aitken Quintet, and Cumnock favourites CAMPS (Cumnock Arts Makes People Smile).

The Unbroken Thread is the annual free sharing of work created by service users at the Riverside Centre and pupils from Hillside School in collaboration with Drake Music Scotland and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. The Cumnock Hour with writer and broadcaster Stephen Johnson in partnership with the Boswell Book Festival, discussing his new book Music Lessons: Seven Composers and What They Taught Me.

Speaking about the 2026 festival, James MacMillan said: "This year's festival is, in large part, a tribute to my dear friend John Wallace, who did so much for Scottish music. Through our brass and choral focus, we celebrate the tradition of the Ayrshire coalfields -- the world my grandfather knew as a miner and euphonium player. Honouring this heritage and John's memory by placing young Ayrshire musicians at the heart of the weekend, alongside his own Wallace Collection — who will perform the world premiere of a new commission from American composer AJ Harbison — feels exactly right for our twelfth year."

Full details from the Festival website.

Meditations on life, death and Taoist wisdom: Phelim McDermott & Philip Glass's Tao of Glass, @sohoplace theatre

2026-05-18T08:35:03.385+01:00

Phelim McDermott & Philip Glass: Tao of Glass - @sohoplace theatre

Director Phelim McDermott and composer Philip Glass have collaborated at ENO and the Met on Glass's operas Satygraha [see Tony's review of the 2018 revival at ENO] and Akhnaten, but now they are presenting something on a rather smaller scale. Tao of Glass opens at @sohoplace theatre on 30 July and runs until 12 September, presented by Factory International, Improbable and Nica Burns.

It is a smaller, more personal collaboration featuring ten pieces by Glass presented with McDermott’s expansively philosophical storytelling on the vulnerable, improvisatory processes behind these large-scale operas, with an ensemble of musicians and puppeteers to support these pieces. It’s a hybrid theatrical experience: part-concert and part-memoir, marrying ten meditations on life, death and Taoist wisdom.

Philip Glass commented: "The show reminds us not to forget the wonder in the world, especially when the world makes us want to armour ourselves."

Tao of Glass was first presented in 2019 at Manchester International Festival. The show depends on silence, closeness and Glass’ delicate music, and so the acoustically sensitive space of @sohoplace will hold the audience more closely than ever before.

Full details from @sohoplace website.

A new interdisciplinary research programme for composers, performers, scholars and practitioners

2026-05-18T08:01:56.784+01:00

FACT FICTION, a new interdisciplinary research programme has been launched led by composer Alastair White. Aimed at composers, performers, scholars and practitioners seeking to develop original research through artistic practice within an international context, the programme consists of weekly online sessions which will culminate in live events at the annual contemporary music festival in Bled, Slovenia.

The programme has been developed in collaboration with Tempo: The Quarterly Review of New Music and the .abeceda Institute, and organised across three pathways: Introduction to Research, Young Researchers and the Advanced Research Group. Running weekly online throughout the year, these pathways support successive stages of development, from foundational methodologies to advanced interdisciplinary research and dissemination.

The programme culminates at Bled Contemporary Music Week in Slovenia, where participants test their work in a professional festival context. This provides a platform for laboratory experimentation and lecture presentations, ensuring research is shaped through real-world engagement. Selected outputs may be published in the Journal of New Music Research and Development, produced by infra.norma.meta Amsterdam, with further opportunities to engage with the wider discourse offered by Tempo: The Quarterly Review Of New Music.

Full details from the FACT FICTION website.

Rising to the challenge: Britten's The Rape of Lucretia from Royal Academy Opera directed by Paul Carr & conducted by Lada Valesova

2026-05-16T12:50:02.072+01:00

Britten: The Rape of Lucretia - Ellie Donald, Ella Orehek-Coddington, Pasel Basov, Viktoria Melkonian - Royal Academy Opera (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Britten: The Rape of Lucretia; Ella Orehek-Coddington, Oliver Heuzenreuder, Yihui Wang, MAdeleine Perring, Pavel Basov, director: Paul Carr, conductor: Lada Valesova, Royal Academy Opera; Susie Sainsbury Theatre, Royal Academy of Music

A stripped down production that focused on the singers with a performance in the title role from Ella Orehek-Coddington that transformed the drama in a production where everyone rose to the challenge.

Britten's The Rape of Lucretia seems to be cropping up rather a lot in theatres this anniversary year, which is something of a surprise given that the first thing any review says about the work is often a comment about Ronald Duncan's libretto. But then 2026 represents not only the 50th anniversary of Britten's death but the 80th anniversary of the opera being premiered at Glyndebourne. And as English Touring Opera showed last Autumn, in the right hands it is a powerful piece indeed [see my review], and more recently it was the turn of HGO [see Mark Berry's review for Seen and Heard].

Now the Royal Academy Opera presented two performances at the Royal Academy of Music's (RAM) Susie Sainsbury Theatre directed by Paul Carr and conducted by Lada Valesova, with costumes by Michelle Bradbury and lighting by Jake Wiltshire. We caught the second performance on Friday 15 May 2026. Ella Orehek-Coddington was Lucretia and Oliver Heuzenroeder was Tarquinius with Yihui Wang as Male Chorus, Madeleine Perring as Female Chorus, Pavel Basov as Collatinus, Harrison Robb as Junius, Viktoria Melkonian as Bianca and Ellie Donald as Lucia.

Britten: The Rape of Lucretia - Oliver Heuzenroeder, Harrison Robb (with Pavel Basov in the background) - Royal Academy Opera (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Opera performances at conservatoires always have an element of challenge to them, encouraging the young singers to expand their horizons. For this performance one of the challenge came in the form of Ronald Duncan's rather wordy and less than felicitous libretto especially as several singers were not native English speakers. All concerned, however, had to work hard to make those words work and, by and large, this was successful. Given the size of the theatre, I did wonder whether the production should have done without surtitles to give the singers that extra challenge of projecting the words and their meaning.

Another challenge was the production itself, which was clearly stripped back. Beyond Michelle Bradbury's costumes and Jake Wiltshire's lighting there was little in the way of set or props and what there was tended towards the evocative and abstract. There was also a refreshing lack of stage business: director Paul Carr seems to have decided that if the libretto described something then the audience did not need to see it, another challenge for the singers. The action was often abstract and Carr did not shy away from near static pictures where the focus was again on the singers.

The results were striking in the extreme and if the results did not quite lift the work into the stratosphere, the performance was a hell of a lot more than creditable.

Mezzo-soprano Ella Orehek-Coddington was recently sharing the title role in Handel's Rinaldo at the RAM [see my interview]. As a dramatic mezzo-soprano in waiting - hers is very much a voice I am keen to hear where it goes in the future - she made interesting casting for Lucretia. This Lucretia was certainly not fragile and Orehek-Coddington brought a strong physical presence to Lucretia's early scenes. The role, of course, transforms following the crucial rape scene and here Orehek-Coddington drew on the dramatic possibilities of her voice and projected Britten's work into other areas such as Berlioz's Dido. She lacked the inner nobility and pathos of someone like Janet Baker (who I heard in the role in the 1970s) but drew out the character's inner strength. And with the production's lack of business, the focus in these scenes was on Orehek-Coddington.

Britten: The Rape of Lucretia - Yihui Wang, Oliver Heuzenroeder, Ella Orehek-Coddington, Madeleine Perring - Royal Academy Opera (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Oliver Heuzenroeder understudied Tarquinius for HGO, and he impressed when we saw him as Ned Keene in Britten's Peter Grimes with British Youth Opera last year [see my review]. Here he projected a strong sense of the character's sense of I'm sexually attractive, and I know it. This Tarquinius in his semi-transparent top and leather jeans had a sexual swagger about him and a devil-may-care attitude along with entitlement. There were moments when I wished Heuzenroeder could have given us some more relaxed tone. When he did so, the results were lovely and I wanted more. This was a Tarquinius who captured the combination of magnetism and disgust that we feel.

Yihui Wang made an edgy, intense Male Chorus and you were conscious of the way he projected the words allied to the character's lack of distance. Whilst the Male Chorus might say he was a disinterested mirror, this Male Chorus was definitely involved and the vibrancy of Wang's performance made that clear. His is not a classic 'English' lyric tenor (why would it be, he is Chinese), but he brought an interesting new perspective on the role. He was ably partnered by Madeleine Perring as the Female Chorus. Whilst the two were intense and dramatic in the opening scene of Act Two, Perring was a far more poised, classical presence, ably balancing Wang yet evincing sympathy for the women simply via her expressive singing.

Pavel Basov's robust physique and dark, dark toned voice make him a shoe in for an operatic villain, so it was fascinating to find him cast apparently against type as Lucretia's husband, Collatinus. [He was also Eustazio in the RAM's recent Rinaldo.] In Act One, he was very much one of the boys, yet in Act Two Basov revealed a poetic, tender side which suggests he has an interesting career ahead. His scene with Orehek-Coddington after Lucretia has revealed what has happened was touching indeed, especially with two such vibrant voices.

Britten: The Rape of Lucretia - Yihui Wang (with Viktoria Melkonian in background) - Royal Academy Opera (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Harrison Robb made Junius someone who enjoyed manipulating people for the hell of it, and throughout Robb gave Junius a knowing smirk. You wanted to slap him and felt very down that the opera did not give the character his comeuppance!

Ellie Donald [who was impressive as Armida in the recent Rinaldo] was a strong Lucia, bringing a nicely youthful cast to her voice without seeming too naive. Viktoria Melkonian brought fine support as Bianca, giving the character a solidity without trying too hard to make her old. The women's scene at the opening of Act Two was a complete delight, a moment of sheer joy in the darkness.

In the pit, Lada Valesova and the thirteen players of the Royal Academy Sinfonia brought out the vivid colours of the score. They did not try to pretend this was music written on a symphonic scale and indeed the theatre did not need this. Instead, we got big chamber music with lots of individual yet strongly coloured voices.

Britten: The Rape of Lucretia - Madeline Perring, Ellie Donald - Royal Academy Opera (Photo: Craig Fuller)

This was one of those performances which seemed to come together in the closing scenes as Orehek-Coddington drew Lucretia into a different dramatic world.

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Elsewhere on this blog

A mix of everything: The Celtic Tenors' eclectic repertoire with harmony-driven music sung by classically trained voices - interview
Sheer joy & plenty of welly: the marimbas of The Wave Quartet join the Academy of Ancient Music for Bach concertos & more - concert review
Richness & austerity: Morales, Vivanco, Kerensa Briggs's & James MacMillan's settings of John Henry Newman in The Sixteen's Choral Pilgrimage - review
The UK premiere of Du Yun's Angel's Bone - photo essay
From a circle of friends to worrying anti-Semitism: the strange history of Schumann's Neue Zeitschrift für Musik - feature
Siren songs & serenades: Ben Goldscheider, Laurence Kilsby & London Mozart Players in Anna Clyne premiere, Britten & Mendelssohn - review
Authenticity in song: I chat to pianist James Baillieu about his new role on the Britten Pears Arts Young Artist Programme, performing with soprano Lise Davidsen & the future of song - interview
Tales of Love & Loss: virtuosity from the Royal Opera's Jette Parker Young Artists in a satisfying & unusual triple bill - opera review
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A mix of everything: The Celtic Tenors' eclectic repertoire with harmony-driven music sung by classically trained voices

2026-05-16T10:07:54.266+01:00

The Celtic Tenors
(George Hutton, Daryl Simpson, Matthew Gilsenan)

The Celtic Tenors is an Irish trio comprising singers Matthew Gilsenan, George Hutton, and Daryl Simpson. Known for their signature harmony-rich style, they blend opera, classical, Irish traditional, and pop influences. The group was founded in 1999 and Matthew Gilsenan is the sole surviving founder member. Their live album The Celtic Tenors: Live at The Empire Theatre is out now on all major streaming platforms. I recently chatted Daryl Simpson to find out more.

Daryl describes their repertoire as 'a mix of everything', though he adds that over the years this has evolved and that in the early days they were more strictly classical crossover with an Irish/Celtic slant. He feels that they are more about harmony-driven music sung by classically trained voices, though they lighten things off for the more pop-influenced numbers. They sing music that inspires and moves them; if it doesn't inspire them then the chances are it won't inspire their audience either.

Their audience largely consists of those aged forty and above, but there are also families with three generations. Daryl points out that this is sometimes off the back of the trio having been in the business 25 years so that they attracted the grandparents first! They were founded in 1999 and Daryl celebrates 20 years with the group in June.

They perform around 70 to 80 concerts per year. Currently, they are very busy in North America along with concert tours to Ireland and Europe. Pre-COVID they toured to Australia and New Zealand but the pandemic knock them off their cycle, and they are still reevaluating how to make such concert tours work.

The new album arose because they recorded a show at The Empire Theatre in Belleville, Ontario, Canada for PBS. This was a TV special and off the back of it they made the live album. The TV show was released two months ago in the USA and Canada, and they have recently released a streaming version of the album. [See their website for details]

The programme features a lot of well-known songs including some not necessarily associated with the group. Coldplay's Viva la vida is the sort of up-tempo pop number that they might not have performed in years gone by but for the album they're bringing an Irish flavour to it with strong harmonies. Ed Sheeran's Perfect Symphony receives what Daryl calls a classical crossover treatment. They sing it first in English and then in Italian which takes the song into a different zone, very much harmony driven. Guns and Roses' Sweet Child of Mine is turned on its head and slowed down so that it is half Crosby Stills & Nash and half folksong with three-part harmony.

All three are trained tenors, but all three have other interests. Matthew is known for singing traditional Irish songs. George also comes from a strong Irish tradition and as well as his classical training sang in the Irish vocal ensemble Anúna with its close-harmony Irish songs. Daryl was a young artist at Zurich Opera. He was also drawn to piano driven jazz and contemporary music, but was keen not to muddy the water of his classical training. One of their challenges is knowing how to balance the need for classical technique with when to back off. Daryl adds that you don't have to come at every song like Pavarotti.

The Celtic Tenors

When I chatted to Daryl the group was just back from a tour of the USA and Canada. Looking ahead, they are performing Ceili at the Castle, at Hillsborough Castle on 26 June. Hillsborough Castle, the official residence of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and the official residence in Northern Ireland of the British monarch, is also open as a working tourist attraction and they have recently allowed concerts. This year there is a three-night outdoor festival with the Celtic Tenors performing on the first night. Daryl comments that the surrounds are beautiful and that the group is looking forward to this new initiative, opening the venue to new things.

Never miss out on future posts by following us

The blog is free, but I'd be delighted if you were to show your appreciation by buying me a coffee.

Elsewhere on this blog

Sheer joy & plenty of welly: the marimbas of The Wave Quartet join the Academy of Ancient Music for Bach concertos & more - concert review
Richness & austerity: Morales, Vivanco, Kerensa Briggs's & James MacMillan's settings of John Henry Newman in The Sixteen's Choral Pilgrimage - review
The UK premiere of Du Yun's Angel's Bone - photo essay
From a circle of friends to worrying anti-Semitism: the strange history of Schumann's Neue Zeitschrift für Musik - feature
Siren songs & serenades: Ben Goldscheider, Laurence Kilsby & London Mozart Players in Anna Clyne premiere, Britten & Mendelssohn - review
Authenticity in song: I chat to pianist James Baillieu about his new role on the Britten Pears Arts Young Artist Programme, performing with soprano Lise Davidsen & the future of song - interview
Tales of Love & Loss: virtuosity from the Royal Opera's Jette Parker Young Artists in a satisfying & unusual triple bill - opera review
Classicism, humour, energy: Trio Bohémo and the first complete recording of Reicha’s trios - feature
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