Friday 19th May, Norwich Playhouse at 7.30pm
Annelien Van Wauwe clarinet
Amatis Piano Trio
Ravel Piano Trio in A minor
Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time
Some of the most beautiful music has been inspired by the most harrowing of circumstances, none more so than Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. Composed while Messiaen was interned in a prisoner of war camp in 1940, it received one of the most unique premieres in all music history when it was performed to an audience of fellow prisoners and German guards on a cold January night in a hut at the centre of war-torn Nazi Germany. Decades on, its heartfelt, expressive power is as vivid and as relevant as ever. Celebrated for their fiery and intelligent performances, the Amatis Trio with clarinettist Annelien Van Wauve bring their exceptional musicianship to this compelling apocalyptic musical vision of the future.
Friday 26th May, St Andrew’s Hall at 7.30pm
Britten Sinfonia
Thomas Adès conductor
Mark Stone baritone
Gerald Barry Beethoven
Beethoven Symphony No. 1
Beethoven Symphony No. 2
In this concert, which is centred on the work and influence of Beethoven, we hear his witty first symphony paired with the virtuosic second. These are complemented by Gerald Barry’s powerful setting of Beethoven’s famous love letter to his “immortal beloved”. Hearing how one of the most celebrated composer/conductors working today will interpret and illuminate these iconic works, is sure to be a major event in the classical music calendar.
‘Adès makes you hear things with which you thought you were familiar as if they were completely new’ The Guardian – click here to read the full article
Pre-concert talk 6.30pm Baritone Mark Stone discusses Gerald Barry’s Beethoven.
Sunday 23rd July, SS Great Britain, Bristol, 5.30pm
Handel’s Water Music 300th Anniversary celebrated at Bristol Harbour Festival
The Bristol Ensemble will take centre stage at this year’s Bristol Harbour Festival which will conclude with a 45-minute performance of Handel’s Water Music in the Floating Harbour at 5.30pm on Sunday 23 July. The Bristol Ensemble will perform on a flotilla of boats, with flares marking the finale beside Brunel’s SS Great Britain.
The dramatic performance will mark the 300th anniversary of the first legendary performance of the famous piece. In July 1717, the premiere was given in front of the King and his court aboard a flotilla of boats on the River Thames, so it is fitting that this recreation will take place on the water beside one of Bristol’s most exciting historic landmarks: Brunel’s SS Great Britain. Brunel was a great fan of Handel’s music, and requested that ‘See the Conqu’ring Hero Comes’ from Judas Maccabaeus was performed at an underwater party held inside his new Thames Tunnel during its construction in the 1820s; Brunel later had the same piece performed at an event marking the completion of the Royal Albert Bridge, Plymouth.
Bristol’s 300th anniversary performance of Handel’s Water Music is possible thanks to public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Earlier on Sunday 23 July, children from local primary schools involved with ‘Preludes’ music project will perform a new composition on the SS Great Britain and BBC Radio Bristol stage in Brunel Square. They will work with ‘Preludes’ teachers and musicians from the Bristol Ensemble, taking inspiration from Handel’s Water Music before premiering their Bristol Harbour Festival performance.
For more information on the performance including details of the flotilla route and timings follow the link
Monday 31st July, St Lawrence Jewry, Guildhall Yard, London, EC2V 5AA, 1.00pm
St Lawrence Jewry Summer Chamber Music Festival 2017
20 lunchtime concerts starting at 1.00pm
Tessa Uys returns to the summer festival to open it with one of the finest of J. S. Bach’s compositions for keyboard, the Goldberg Variations BWV 988. A magnificent beginning to this year’s chamber music offering!
More concerts the same week:
Tuesday 1st AUGUST – Helen Bailey, soprano Chad Kelly, piano
Helen and Chad have chosen to include Bach’s Mein Herze Schwimmt in Blut and Monteverdi’s Lamento della Ninfa in their recital. In addition, a Mozart concert aria is scheduled together with a world premier composition from her husband, Jim Clements.
Wednesday 2nd – The Leading Ladies in ‘Sacred and Secular’
Singers Catrin Lewis, Suzi Saperia, and Rosemary Clifford, with their pianist Louisa Lam offer us Bach’s Suscepit Israel from the Magnificat together with music by Mozart, Fauré and a group of British folksongs including My love is like a red, red rose. Gershwin might also put in a brief appearance!
Thursday 3rd – Matthew Huber, cello
The first of three concerts which will present all six of Bach’s Suites for unaccompanied cello, composed when the master served as Kapellmeister in Köthen. Matthew will begin by performing No’s 1 and 6 BWV 1007-1012.
Friday 4th – Emmanuel Bach, violin
Our first opportunity to listen to the unaccompanied violin in this festival. Emmanuel has chosen two works of approximately equal length and unquestionable genius: Bach’s Partita No 3 in E major BWV 1006 and the Sonata No 3 in C major BWV 1005.
Wednesday 2nd August, St Lawrence Jewry, Guildhall Yard, London, EC2V 5AA, 1.00pm
The Leading Ladies in ‘Sacred and Secular’
Singers Catrin Lewis, Suzi Saperia, and Rosemary Clifford, with their pianist Louisa Lam offer us Bach’s Suscepit Israel from the Magnificat together with music by Mozart, Fauré and a group of British folksongs including My love is like a red, red rose. Gershwin might also put in a brief appearance!
Monday 7th August, St Lawrence Jewry, Guildhall Yard, London, EC2V 5AA, 1.00pm
Sarah Campbell, trumpet Zeynep Özsuca-Rattle, piano
We warmly welcome the return of this talented musician and, making her first appearance with us, her equally accomplished pianist. The Vivaldi/Bach Trumpet Concerto in D major will feature, together with an arrangement of Bach’s Bist du Bei Mir.
Sarah Campbell was born in Wigan, Lancashire where she began learning cornet at the age of 8. In 2009, she received a scholarship to study at the Guildhall School of Music with Paul Beniston where she graduated with a First Class Honours Degree, before completing a Master of Arts at the Royal Academy of Music. Sarah is in demand as a versatile orchestral player throughout London and the rest of the UK. As Joint Principal T rumpet of the Southbank Sinfonia (2015) Sarah has performed Peter Maxwell Davies’ ‘The Lighthouse’ at the Royal Opera House, recorded with the BBC Concert Orchestra as well as touring to Hong Kong and Italy.
Wednesday 16th August, St Lawrence Jewry, Guildhall Yard, London, EC2V 5AA, 1.00pm
COFFEE CANTATA with Chad Vindin, piano Holly Brown, soprano Tom McDavid, tenor Adam Maxey, bass
Bach, apparently a coffee enthusiast, wrote this rare, secular work in 1735 in celebration of the beverage. In addition to this ‘operatic’ offering Chad will perform a keyboard work by Bach’s fifth child, his second son, the famed Carl Phillip Emanuel.
Thursday 17th August, BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London, 10.15pm
Bang on a Can late night Prom
Bang on a Can represents all that is most gleefully non-conformist and boundary-breaking in new music. Celebrating its 30th birthday this year, this pioneering American artistic collective and its three composer-directors, Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe, bring their signature energy to this Late Night Prom, together with their six-piece amplified ensemble.
The All-Stars perform classic works by Wolfe, Lang and Louis Andriessen alongside an 80th-birthday tribute to Philip Glass and a world premiere by Michael Gordon, performed by the Proms Youth Ensemble. Expect propulsive rhythms and plenty of big grooves.
Thursday 24th August, St Lawrence Jewry, Guildhall Yard, London, EC2V 5AA, 1.00pm
Ensemble Canon Japan
Toshiko Matsudaira, soprano Yoko Yokoyama, mezzo-soprano Yoshiko Toyonaga, piano
Ensemble Canon (Canon means Flower Sound in Japanese) is a vocal ensemble consisting of 2 singers: Toshiko (Soprano) and Yoko (mezzo-soprano) with Yosinko, their pianist.
The group’s performances showcase the beauty of Japanese song.
From Bach’s Präludium Cis-Dor BWV 848 via Mendelsohn duets to Japanese Art Song and folk songs with such intriguing titles as Gooey, Gooey, Soft and Sticky, Pass Along and Where are you all from!
16 September 2017 at 7.45pm Dirleton Kirk, Dirleton.
Performed by the renowned Scottish chamber ensemble, the Hebrides Ensemble, Schubert’s Octet is one of the best loved of all pieces of chamber music. Cast on a grand scale in six movements it is also a work of the most sublime genius – in turn profound and playful, virtuosic and lyrical. Howells’s Rhapsodic Quintet for clarinet and strings was composed just after the Great War and is one of his finest works, infused, like the music of Schubert, with songful melody.
This concert will be recorded by BBC Radio 3 for broadcast at a later date.
‘The ensemble beautifully articulated each and every phrase in this impeccable performance.’
Scotland on Sunday
‘One of the most innovative and thrilling ensembles in Europe.’ The Guardian
Also in the programme –
Howells: Rhapsodic Quintet
Tuesday 14th November 2017 at 7.30pm, The Studios MediaCityUK
Programme
David Horne Resonating Instruments
Tom Coult Two Games and a Nocturne
–
Psappha Ensemble
–
Laura Bowler 3811 Nautical Miles
Larry Goves New Work (world première)
Mario Duarte Metztli
Grace-Evangeline Mason Kintsukouroi
–
BBC Philharmonic
Mark Heron conductor
Overview
Resonating Instruments is rhapsodic and volatile, entwining the ensemble around a solo cimbalom. “An absorbing work” – The Times.
Two Games and a Nocturne alternates skittish piano solos with bluesy jamboree in a work that, in Coult’s own words, “does what it says on the tin” with its two playful games followed by a gently swaying night-time reverie.
In this joint concert with the BBC Philharmonic we give well-deserved second performances of two of Psappha 25th anniversary commissions.
Psappha has now allocated all tickets for this event. If you would still like to come to the performance you can apply for tickets through BBC Audiences. Applications for tickets opens on 30 October and close on 5 November. For more information please click HERE.
Friday 15 – Sunday 17 December, 2017 at Snape maltings in Suffolk
A weekend of festive activities and concerts for both children and adults, including The Snowman and Paddington Bear’s First Concert with live orchestra and fun family activities around the site including workshops, storytelling sessions and a trail. Plus start the month with the Co-op Juniors’ Christmas Spectacular in the Land of Oz.
Friday 15th December, 2017 at 7.30pm at Snape Maltings Concert Hall
ALDEBURGH VOICES
Whether it has its roots in frost-covered English woods and fields, or the splendour of baroque Venice, all the music in this concert is animated by a shared sense of wonder, mystery and joy. Vaughan Williams’ and Finzi’s seasonal favourites draw deeply on the English folk tradition, and make an enchanting foil for Vivaldi’s great (and rightly popular) shout of celebration. Together they add up to a luminous Christmas concert from Snape Maltings’ own chorus, under its charismatic director Ben Parry.
Programme
Vaughan Williams Fantasia on Christmas Carols 11’
Finzi In terra pax (Christmas scene) 15’
Vivaldi Gloria 30’
Performers
Aldeburgh Voices
The Suffolk Ensemble
Ben Parry conductor
Saturday December 16th, 2017 at 7.00pm – Tewkesbury Abbey
Tewesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum
A performance of Handel’s Messiah with Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum, accompanied by the Bristol Ensemble, conducted by Simon Bell with soloists Kirsty Hopkins (soprano), Tom Lilburn (counter-tenor), Julian Stocker (tenor) and Julian Empett (bass).
22nd December 2017 at 7.30pm, St George’s Bristol, Great George Street, Bristol BS1 5RR
A feel-good festive evening of carols and Christmas music – come and sing all your festive favourites with members of City of Bristol Choir, accompanied by The Bristol Ensemble and led in entertaining style by David Ogden. Bring the family for a wonderful evening of singing.
Saturday 6th January 2018 at 7.30pm, Kings Place, London
Ádám Fischer conductor
Charlotte Beament soprano
James Way tenor
Dingle Yandell bass
Make Haydn’s Creation your first concert of 2018 with this intimate New Year performance at Kings Place.
Haydn’s oratorio The Creation is not only one of the composer’s most popular pieces, but is also one of the most vividly descriptive pieces of classical music there is. Each aspect of the story is brilliantly brought to life by Haydn’s expressive music.
Ádám Fischer conducts the Orchestra, with the Choir of the Age of Enlightenment and a trio of soloists from the Rising Stars programme. Kicking off Kings Place’s new Time Unwrapped series, it’s a wonderful way to start the new year.
Friday 26th January at 7.30pm, Colston Hall, Bristol
Bristol’s stand-out annual comedy celebration returns for a fourteenth edition at Colston Hall – a unique celebration of the best onscreen classic silent comedy, live music and guest appearances by living legends of British comedy.
The host for this year’s gala show is soon to be announced and the film programme is an incredible triple-bill of laugh-out-loud comedy classics all accompanied by world class live musical accompaniment.
Buster Keaton’s best loved and most innovative film Sherlock Jr (1924) joins Charlie Chaplin’s A Dog’s Life (1918) to headline the show with live music.
Sherlock Jr is accompanied by the world premiere of a new, semi-improvised score composed by Guenter A. Buchwald and performed by the renowned European Silent Screen Virtuosi and members of Bristol Ensemble. A Dog’s Life features Chaplin’s own composition for the film and will be performed by a 15-piece Bristol Ensemble conducted by maestro Guenter A. Buchwald.
Plus: Laurel & Hardy’s hilarious comedy short Angora Love (1929) and live performance from innovative, award-winning visual comedy performers The Kagools and with our exciting guest host this looks like being our finest and funniest Gala event to date!
£10.50 to £60.00 incl. booking fee
Gold Premium Ticket Package:
£60.00* (limited to 50)
Access to exclusive post-show VIP after show experience with complimentary drink
Gala merchandise souvenir
Commemorative VIP lanyard (for access to post-show drinks)
One premium ticket located in the stalls
Exclusive limited souvenir event poster (not for sale)
Souvenir mini-programme
*Including all booking fees
Thursday 15th March, St John’s, Waterloo at 6.00pm
Berlioz Cléopâtre
Schumann Symphony No.3 ‘Rhenish’
Jonathan Berman Conductor
This concert is free with no ticket required.
Schumann once wrote, admiringly, that Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique was ‘written with drops of blood’. Both composers were ardent Romantics, eager to transplant their very souls into music. Both were entranced by all Beethoven had achieved whilst eager to prove themselves and outstep his shadow. You sense this in these works.
One hears young Berlioz’s own longing for recognition in Cleopatra’s appeal to the Gods for exaltation. Meanwhile, Schumann embarks on his own pastoral symphony, all the while seeking to detour from the path first trodden by Beethoven.
Debussy (orch. Matthews) La cathédrale engloutie, 5′
Bach Organ solo, 10′
Messiaen O Sacrum Convivium, 5′
Messiaen Dieu parmi nous, 10′
Debussy Danse sacrée et danse profane, 9′
Debussy Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien, 35′
“What rules do you follow?”
…asked Claude Debussy’s music teacher. “Pleasure,” he replied. But pleasure can unlock whole worlds. 100 years after his death, join Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and the CBSO as they set out in search of the wonder, the power and the sheer beauty of music’s quietest revolutionary.
We’ll journey through sensual pleasures and sacred ecstasies, children’s games and bold new sounds, culminating in a concert performance of Debussy’s fairytale opera Pelléas et Mélisande. It’s an adventure that’ll involve our entire musical family, plus musical groups from across the whole city.
Thursday 17 May 7.30pm, St Paul’s Church, St Paul’s Rd. Clifton Bristol BS8 1LP Concert 1: CONTEMPORARY ART SONG
Matthew Clark (baritone)
Jolyon Laycock (Tenor)
James D’Angelo & Philip Blandford (piano)
Matthew Heyse-Moore (clarinet)
SCA’s 2018 festival kicks off with a recital of contemporary art song featuring baritone Matthew Clark. James D’Angelo is accompanist in his own settings of the meditational poetry of Thomas Merton. Philip Blandford is the accompanist in Sulyen Caradon’s settings of translations of Russian poetry portraying an environment poisoned by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Clark and Blandford are joined by tenor Jolyon Laycock in songs that capture the ecstatic response of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins to the wild natural scenery of places such as Inversnaid Falls. On a lighter note songs by Peter Nickol (pictured) & Richard Pond are settings of James Turner, Veronica Gosling and W.H. Auden. Clarinettist Matthew Heyse-Moore is the accompanist in settings by Clement Jewitt of his own verses.
Friday 18 May 7.30pm, Royal West of England Academy, Queen’s Road Bristol BS8 1PX Concert 2: PICTURES IN SOUND
The Roaring Fork Wind Quintet
Estelle Greeley (Flute)
Jennifer Mears (Oboe)
Claire King (Clarinet)
Eleanor Whitfield (Bassoon)
Stephen Macallister (Horn)
Programme:
Julian Dale – Clifton Hill Chimes
Jonathan Palmer – Crystal Eyes
Laura Kane – Quintet No. 2
James D’Angelo – Angels dancing
Peter Nickol (pictured) – Ultramarine
Jaques Ibert – Trois pièces brève
Eric Ewazen – Roaring Fork (1st movement)
David Greenhorne – Full Circle
The second concert in SCA’s 2018 Festival is of music inspired by visual art performed by the West Country’s leading wind ensemble Roaring Fork wind quintet in the wonderful space of the RWA Winterstoke Gallery. The group takes its name from music by American composer Eric Ewazen inspired by a visit to the Roaring Fork Falls in North Carolina. It is a key work in the quintet’s repertoire and shares the same qualities that they display in their playing: freshness, dynamism and accessibility.
Sunday 20 May 2018 at 2.45pm, Under Ground Theatre, Eastbourne, East Sussex, BN21 4TL
Archaeus String Trio are Ann Hooley (violin), Elizabeth Turnbull (viola) and Martin Bradshaw (cello).
The Archaeus Trio perform the final recital in the Under Ground Theatre’s official 19th season of Chamber Recitals including the String Trio Op.21 by Leonard Salzedo.
No strangers to premiere performance venues across the globe, the quartet enjoys a broad repertoire and several composers have written works specifically for the group including Antonin Tucapsky, Jeffrey Joseph, Jenni Roditi and Leonard Salzedo.
CD recordings include the quartet by Minna Keal; quartets by York Bowen with the quintet for bass clarinet with Timothy Lines; quartets by Ethel Smyth, Amy Beach and Susan Spain-Dunk; Leonard Salzedo; and quartets by Cyril Scott.
All five of their CDs have been received with great critical acclaim. The recording of Salzedo quartets and the sonata for violin and viola (written for and performed by Ann Hooley and Elizabeth Turnbull) was selected as Editor’s Choice in the Gramophone Magazine.
Tuesday 12 June at 6.30pm, Bath Abbey, Bath
Bristol Ensemble
Jon Monie narrator
Shean Bowers conductor
Jools Scott and Sue Curtis When The War Came
Bath Abbey will be holding an enchanting evening of choral music sung by a massed children’s choir of 300 pupils drawn from different primary schools in Bath.
The children are all part of the Abbey’s Schools’ Singing Programme, which brings the joy of singing to thousands of school children in Bath and surrounding areas.
When the War Came tells the story of six young people from a small village whose lives are changed forever when the Great War comes to them. Words: Sue Curtis; Music: Jools Scott.
Sunday 1 July 2018, at 7.00pm, St Nicholas, North Walsham, Norfolk
Agnes (a pocket oratorio) by Sarah Rodgers receives its world premiere at St Nicholas, North Walsham, performed by Julia Doyle, the choirs of St Nicholas and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Commissioned by the Orchestra in partnership with Orchestras Live, Agnes uses the letters of Agnes Paston in helping to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the Paston family correspondence.
The concert, titled Reliving History, includes music by Purcell, Handel, Holborne, Warlock and Mozart.
Sunday 8 July at 7.30pm, Cheltenham Town Hall
Haydn Symphony No. 94, Surprise
Haydn Piano Concerto No. 11
Haydn Harmoniemesse
Sir András Schiff conductor/piano
Choir of the Age of Enlightenment
Charlotte Beament soprano
Helen Charlston alto
Nick Pritchard tenor
Dingle Yandell bass
Take a whirlwind tour of the music of Austrian master Joseph Haydn in the hands of one of the world’s greatest musicians, Sir András Schiff, as part of Cheltenham Music Festival.
This concert rounds off the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment Visions, Illusions & Delusions season with a varied programme of music by Haydn, who as much as any other composer redefined what orchestral music came to be during the Enlightenment period.
Haydn Symphony No. 26 Lamentatione
Mozart Violin Concerto No. 1
JC Bach Symphony in G minor
Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5
Rachel Podger director/ violin
There is more to Mozart than meets the eye.
His repertoire is full of surprises and deceptions.
Mozart was the ultimate musical genius – and the ultimate game player. He tore up the rulebook, and if you hear his music twice, you never have quite the same experience.
Join the OAE to explore the hidden secrets of Mozart’s familiar scores, led by the Orchestra’s longstanding collaborator, violinist Rachel Podger. She plays two of Mozart’s great violin concertos, which are both unique in their own ways.
Also enjoy an exhilarating but rarely performed symphony by Johann Christian Bach. The son of Johann Sebastian Bach, JC Bach was a celebrity in London in the 1770s. This Symphony in G Minor is his dramatic, standout work, full of twists and turns and dark passions.
Thursday, August 9, 2018 at 7.30pm, Usher Hall, Edinburgh
Musgrave: Turbulent Landscapes (Scottish premiere)
Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Martyn Brabbins Conductor
Edinburgh Festival Chorus
Christopher Bell Chorus Director
Elizabeth Watts Soprano
Christopher Maltman Baritone
BBC SSO: Turbulent Landscapes Scottish Premiere, celebrating the 90th birthday of one of Scotland’s most internationally renowned composers, Thea Musgrave, with her remarkable Turbulent Landscapes, a powerful musical journey through six vivid land and seascapes by J. M. W. Turner.
Friday 24th August at 2.00pm, St Andrews Church, Presteigne
Nordic masters, Matthews and Banting
Joseph Tong piano
Edvard Grieg Stemninger (Moods), Op 73 Nos 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6
David Matthews Variations for Piano, Op 72
Cydonie Banting The Gate of Dawn
World premiere of a Presteigne Festival commission
Jean Sibelius Sonatina in E, Op 67 No 2
Erkki-Sven Tüür Piano Sonata
After studying as a clarinettist on the Hampshire Specialist Music Course at Peter Symonds College, Cydonie Banting studied music at Oxford where she graduated with a first class honours degree. Cydonie is a composer whose pieces of music have been performed by groups including the BBC Singers, the Cavaleri Quartet, and Oxford’s Ensemble Isis.
Wednesday 19th September at 3.00pm, Lammermuir Festival – Pencaitland Parish Church
Debussy Danse sacrée et danse profane
Bax Harp Quintet
MacRae New Work (Lammermuir Festival Commission, World Premiere)
Debussy Sonata for flute, viola and harp
Britten Canticle V: The Death of St Narcissus
Ravel Introduction and Allegro
Joshua Ellicott Tenor
Emily Hoile Harp
This superb programme commemorates the 100th anniversary of Debussy’s death while we also premiere the festival’s second commission from Stuart MacRae in his Prometheus series, with leading British tenor Joshua Ellicott as soloist in this and in Britten’s late Canticle V. Former Lammermuir Festival artist in residence, Emily Hoile makes a welcome return in gorgeous masterpieces by Ravel and Debussy.
Saturday 15th December, at 7.30pm, Clifton Cathedral, Bristol
Bristol Choral Society
Bristol Ensemble
Hilary Campbell Conductor
Lucy De Butts Soprano
Anna Harvey Alto
Christopher Bowen Tenor
Handel composed his most famous piece in 1741, continuing to work on it after its initial performance, to arrive at the version we know today in 1754. It tells the story of Jesus’s birth, life, death, resurrection and victory over sin and death, through impressive solo arias interspersed with compelling choruses.
Since the 1740s Messiah has been sung annually by many choirs and remains one of the best-known and most frequently performed choral works in Western music.
Thursday 20th December at 6.45pm, St Paul’s Cathedral, London
The British Red Cross is proud to host its Festive Concert in the iconic St Paul’s Cathedral in London to help raise vital funds for people in crisis across the UK.
There will be performances by the Kingdom Choir (of Royal Wedding fame), Nadine Benjamin and Toby Spence, and readings from British Red Cross celebrity supporter Joanna Lumley.
The concert will also feature the world premiere of a specially composed work by Sir Karl Jenkins. The evening promises to be a special one!
This wonderful celebration will bring people together, regardless of religion, to make connections over the holidays and get people into the festive spirit.
Saturday 16 February, 7.30pm at Town Hall, Berkhamsted
Presenting international chanteuse Clara Sanabras singing her evocative and deeply moving Songs of Exile, and her version of Shakespeare’s Tempest with CHROMA and Vox Holloway Chamber Choir directed by Harvey Brough. Performed at the Barbican to great acclaim, this promises to be an evening of sublime magic.
TICKETS: £20/£18 Concs
CHROMA Going Steady/ Confetti Friends £19/£17 under 18s FREE subject to availability
24th February to 2nd March all at 7.30pm, The Warehouse, Theed Street, London SE1
Lontano’s Biennial Festival – created in 2006 – explores and celebrates the work of major American composers and reflects the variety of style that is so characteristic of contemporary American music today. The festival programme was put together by Lontano’s Music Director Odaline de la Martinez, one of Britain’s most dynamic and gifted musicians and the first woman to conduct a complete BBC Prom at the Royal Albert Hall. This year’s festival celebrates American Diversity featuring not only American Women Composers, but also American Composers of Colour. The Festival also celebrates Odaline de la Martinez’s 70th birthday with the World Premiere her opera Imoinda – A Story of Love and Slavery.
Saturday May 11, 2019 at 7:30 pm, Trinity-Henleaze URC, Waterford Road, Henleaze, Bristol BS9 4BT
Pre-concert talk with David Bednall at 6.45pm
Beethoven Piano Concerto No.3 (reduced orchestration)
Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No.2
Brahms Hungarian Dances
Bartók Romanian Folk Dances
Monti Csárdás
Viv McLean piano
Roger Huckle violin
Music inspired by passionate and romantic Hungarian folk melodies features in this programme, alongside Beethoven’s dark and brooding Piano Concerto No.3, in a reduced orchestration arrangement. We’re delighted to welcome back the pianist Viv McLean for a fifth year as soloist, completing the set of Beethoven piano concertos, and also performing Liszt’s dramatic Hungarian Rhapsody in an arrangement for piano quintet.
Sunday 16 June at 4.00pm, Snape Bridge, Snape, East of England, IP17 1SP, United Kingdom
Adrian Brendel cello
Joanna MacGregor piano
Marta Fontanals-Simmons mezzo-soprano
Britten Sonata 18’
Imogen Holst The Fall of The Leaf for solo cello 9’
Harvey Songs and Haiku (UK premiere) 10’
Curve with Plateaux 12′
Britten Folk Songs for mezzo and piano: The Last Rose of Summer; O Waly, Waly; The Salley Gardens 11′
Bridge Sonata 22’
MacGregor and Brendel offer intimate music for cello and piano by Britten, his teacher, his assistant and his younger colleague. Large-scale sonatas bookend the programme – Britten’s punchy, richly characterised work written for his new friend Rostropovich to premiere at the 1961 Aldeburgh Festival, and Frank Bridge’s achingly beautiful piece of late-Romantic wistfulness composed during WWI.
In between, Imogen Holst’s cello solo alternates between plangent beauty and pizzicato passages aimed at sounding ‘like the lute of our friend Julian Bream’. Mezzo Fontanals-Simmons sings Britten Folksongs and songs by Jonathan Harvey.
Sunday 7th July at 11.00am in the Pittville Pump Room, Cheltenham
Anastasia Kobekina cello
Lilit Grigoryan pianist
Quatuor Arod
Elisabeth Brauss piano
Tchaikovsky Pezzo Capriccioso
Konstantia Gourzi Call of the Bees (World Premiere)
Sergei Prokofiev Cello Sonata in C, Op. 119
Johannes Brahms Piano Quintet in F minor
Celebrating the 20th anniversary of BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists scheme, which brings the world’s most promising new talent to audiences across the UK, this is the first recital in a series of three at Pittville Pump Room. The programme includes a World Premiere by Greek composer Konstantia Gourzi, and concludes with Brahms’s dark and brooding Piano Quintet in F minor.
Tuesday 13th August at 7.00pm, Royal Albert Hall, London
Elgar’s ‘Enigma’ Variations is the inspiration for a new work commissioned from 14 living composers as a special birthday tribute to conductor Martyn Brabbins, who turns 60 today.
Elgar’s original set also features, as do Vaughan Williams’s exquisite Serenade to Music and Brahms’s ‘Little Requiem’, the Song of Destiny.
Programme
Pictured Within: Birthday Variations for M. C. B. c30’
New ‘Enigma’ variations by Kalevi Aho, Sally Beamish, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Richard Blackford, Gavin Bryars, Brett Dean, Dai Fujikura, Wim Henderickx, Colin Matthews, Anthony Payne, John Pickard, David Sawer, Iris ter Schiphorst and Judith Weir
BBC commission: world premiere
Vaughan Williams
Serenade to Music 13’
Henry Wood Novelties: world premiere, 1938
– interval –
Brahms
Song of Destiny 18’
Elgar
‘Enigma’ Variations 29’
Nadine Benjamin soprano
Idunnu Munch mezzo-soprano
William Morgan tenor
David Ireland bass-baritone
ENO Chorus
BBC Singers
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Martyn Brabbins conductor
Saturday 17th August at 3.00pm and 7.00pm, Pianodrome, Pitt Street Market, Edinburgh
Hebrides Ensemble are delighted to be performing two concerts at this amazing venue during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The Pianodrome is the world’s first 100-seater amphitheatre constructed entirely from up-cycled pianos!
The performances take place at 3pm and at 7pm.
Zoë Beyers Violin
William Conway Cello
Huw Watkins Piano
Janáček Dumka
Osborne The Piano Tuner
Dvořák Dumky Trio (Piano Trio No. 4 in E Minor)
Artistic innovation and musical discovery in the Welsh Marches
Held each August in an intimate setting nestling on the Powys/Herefordshire border, the Presteigne Festival has become a focal point for those seeking musical nourishment and artistic discovery in the beautiful surroundings of the Welsh Marches. With a truly forward looking commissioning policy, the organisation works closely with composers and artists to create and curate inspiring programmes and events for an ever-widening Festival audience and to bring experience broadening opportunities to its host community.
The Presteigne Festival’s six music-filled days span the August Bank Holiday period. Established over thirty years ago, the Festival has a long tradition of supporting young artists and for presenting a fresh and individually stylised mix of contemporary works carefully balanced with twentieth century classics and featuring a wide range of music from the standard repertoire.
Presteigne Festival 2019
Described by Musical Opinion Quarterly as ‘an indispensable mainstay of the cultural calendar’, the 2019 Presteigne Festival programme brings together a large number of diverse musical elements, but with an important American strand running throughout.
We welcome two exciting composers-in-residence – from the UK, Cheryl Frances-Hoad ‘A remarkable talent’ The Times, and from the United States, composer and virtuoso harpist Hannah Lash ‘striking and resourceful … handsomely brooding’ New York Times; we also include a mini-feature of works by the iconic Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Aaron Copland, among the most important and highly respected figures in all American music.
The Festival continues to actively promote the work of living composers with a collection of specially commissioned pieces from James Francis Brown (string trio), Cheryl Frances-Hoad (Clarinet Quintet), Harriet Grainger (a setting of the Missa brevis), Hannah Lash (Concertino for flute and string orchestra), Freya Waley-Cohen (a work for string quartet), Adrian Williams (Concerto for string orchestra, co-commissioned with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta) and 2018 Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize-winner, Liam Mattison (a work for percussion and piano).
A carefully balanced collection of supporting events extends the American theme further and includes Sarah Gabriel’s hugely entertaining one-woman show, Dorothy Parker takes a Trip, together with exhibitions, a trio of American movies, talks from Stephen Johnson, Ian Marchant and Nick Murray, poetry with Fiona Sampson, Welsh art with Peter Lord and more besides.
Artists appearing include the Albion Quartet, pianists Tom Poster and Siwan Rhys, virtuoso flautist Katherine Bryan, French clarinettist Rozenn le Trionnaire, string players Mathilde Milwidsky (violin), Alice Neary (cello), Sarah-Jane Bradley (viola) and Hannah Lash (harp), soprano Elizabeth Cragg and exciting young percussionist George Barton. A specially-formed Presteigne Festival Chamber Choir will be directed by Philip Sunderland and the ever-popular Festival Orchestra will appear three times under artistic director, George Vass.
Outreach continues to be a vital part of the Presteigne Festival’s work, enabling better engagement with communities both at home and away. In 2019, we’ll be working with senior members of the community in association with the Bleddfa Centre for the Creative Spirit, and our Autumn Tour is to be undertaken by exciting young piano and percussion duo George Barton and Siwan Rhys.
Monday 26th August at 8.30pm, New York Times Main Theatre, Book Festival Village, Edinburgh
We may remember the first line of a novel, but what about the last? In this celebration of great endings to close the 2019 Edinburgh International Book Festival, Hebrides Ensemble have challenged composers Linda Buckley, Matthew Grouse, James MacMillan, Pàdruig Morrison and Gareth Williams to respond musically to favourite last lines from novels, submitted by members of the public. Hear an exclusive live performance from the Ensemble as you learn which nine lines have been chosen.
Saturday 26 October 2019, 12.00pm at St Andrew’s Cathedral, Aberdeen, 28 King Street, AB24 5AX
Sergio Vega Dominguez (oboe) and Martin Storey (cello) from Red Note premiere five new works for oboe and cello developed by Scotland based composers Andrew Blair, Kevin Leomo, Gillian Walker, Ewan Mackay and Harry Gorski-Brown during a residential composers’ development weekend in Aberdeenshire.
Friday 23 – Sunday 25 October, Brecon Baroque Festival
Festival director and baroque violinist Rachel Podger performs the première of Chad Kelly’s arrangement of JS Bach’s Goldberg Variations for Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque.
The Goldberg Variations were filmed in the sun-drenched south transept of Brecon Cathedral. The transept dates from the 13th Century and its magnificent stone walls are adorned with 18th Century memorials, a fitting backdrop for Chad Kelly’s reimagining of JS Bach’s 1741 Goldberg Variations. The 32-movement work and the setting of Brecon Cathedral sit well together, with the wild and beguiling energy of the musicians and the mountains around them.
New Year! New Hope! New Commissions! On February 21, Bang on a Can presents an entire marathon of PREMIERES! 16 brand new works by 16 pioneering composers. Tune in to hear 4 hours of nonconformist, noncommercial, mind-blowing music. Alvin Lucier! Jennifer Walshe! Matthew Shipp! Ingrid Laubrock! Gabriel Kahane! and many many more.
This concert is FREE! But please do consider purchasing a ticket. That helps us pay more players, commission more composers, and make more music. The pandemic is still here. An entire ecosystem of composers and performers needs our attention, our love, and our financial support. All Marathon performers and composers are participating live and being paid by Bang on a Can. Please help us do that!
– Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe: co-founders and co-artistic directors
Are you missing singing with your choir? In partnership with the VOCES8 Digital Academy, you’re invited to join VOCES8 and Paul Smith for a concert packed full of participative music-making.
Repertoire will include music from the Renaissance to contemporary choral compositions, and sheet music and online coaching will be provided as part of your £5.00 contribution towards this event. Singers of all ages and abilities are welcome so please join us, Singing to London (and the world), as we gather together to share the joy of community and song.
Friday 11 June at 3.00pm and 7.00pm, Aldeburgh, Suffolk
One of opera’s most exciting singers, tenor Allan Clayton gives a recital featuring the world premiere of a new song cycle by Mark-Anthony Turnage, which sets texts by Rachael Hewer and Anna Ahkmatova as a way to reflect on the life of Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian dissident who was murdered in London in 2006.
The programme also features Schumann’s songs, which build on the extreme emotions of Heinrich Heine’s poetry, and three songs by Priaulx Rainier, who was championed by Peter Pears.
Friday 11 June, 7.30 at Pinner Parish Church, HA5 3AA
Beethoven in heaven
Bach / Busoni
Chaconne from JS Bach’s D minor Partita
Ludvig van Beethoven
Sonata in F major Op 10 #2
Schubert
Sonata in Bb, D960
The title of Colin Stone’s recital programme comes from a phrase that his teacher, Edith Vogel, used to describe Schubert.
Colin Stone’s career as a performer began in the late 1980s. He was encouraged by Sir Charles Groves at the finals of the 1985 Young Concert Artist’s Trust and went on to win the Royal Over-Seas League piano competition in 1986. A debut at the Wigmore Hall and numerous broadcasts on BBC Radio3 helped to establish his growing reputation and has led to performances around the world. A number of acclaimed recordings followed, both of solo repertoire and chamber music with the London Mozart Trio, which he founded in 1989. He made his debut as a soloist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Grant Llewelyn in 2001, and gave his first cycle of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas in 2005.
An inspiring mix of live and prerecorded performance and film: sit back and take in the sights, sounds and poetry of the Festival and Orkney from the comfort of your own home and tune in to invididual films or buy a Rover ticket to experience all of our online films. You’ll also find a range of free films on this website, many of them celebrating the 100th birthday of George Mackay Brown. If you’re in Orkney, then you can join us in person at our ‘live’ events. Drive-in movies, live music, newly composed music and inspiring, outdoor venues will make these rather special.
A multi-media music theatre piece based on the life story of opera singer Nadine Benjamin, using performance to highlight the many ways that trauma affects a life.
BEAM follows one woman’s journey from fragmentation to wholeness, exploring sexuality; race; gender; neurodiversity – dyspraxia, trauma-tourettes – domestic violence; bullying; addiction, and the role of music and creativity as healing forces in her life.
Team BEAM develops a new inclusive process of co-construction as a working practice and co-creation as an artistic practice.
Performance length: approx. 70 minutes, with no interval
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Serenade to Music(15 mins)
Francis Poulenc
Organ Concerto(22 mins)
Sir James MacMillan
When Soft Voices Die(8 mins)BBC co-commission with Help Musicians: world premiere
Jean Sibelius
Symphony No. 2 in D major(43 mins)
Dalia Stasevska leads a First Night featuring Vaughan Williams’s ravishing Serenade to Music – written to celebrate Proms founder-conductor Henry Wood’s 50 years on the podium and premiered by him at his jubilee concert in the Royal Albert Hall in 1938. Sir James MacMillan offers a new companion piece to the Serenade and Poulenc’s Organ Concerto is a piquant foil, showcasing the instrument in a vivid play of light and shade.
Tuesday 24 August at 7.30pm, Snape Maltings, Suffolk
Programme
Britten Sinfonietta (15’)
Britten Suite for Harp (9′)
Britten arr. Joseph Phibbs Our Hunting Fathers (world premiere, commissioned by Britten Pears Arts, 27’)
This performance will last approximately 60 minutes.
Lammermuir Festival returns with live audiences in September 2021 – and Hebrides Ensemble are delighted to be part of it performing Schoenberg’s chamber arrangement of this Mahler masterpiece, in the company of two exceptional singers: Joshua Ellicott and Roderick Williams.
The impetus for Mahler’s composition of The Song of the Earth came from a period of personal tragedy including the diagnosis of a potentially fatal heart defect. For him, said Bruno Walter, “The world and life now lay in the sinister shadow of [death’s] nearness”, and this moving allegory of transitory human existence merging into eternity proved to be his final testament.
