Composer, interdisciplinary artist and writer Zygmund de Somogyi (Zyggy) is one of eight composers on the 2025 Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) Composers programme. Each composer on the programme gets a paid commission and premiere with a noted ensemble, venue or festival, along with dedicated mentoring, and professional support.
Zyggy's time at on the programme culminates in a concert co-created with the trio, Temporal Harmonies Inc (Lydia Walquist, flute, Xiaowen Shang, piano, Mikolaj Piszczorowicz, cello) at Wigmore Hall on 19 April 2025. Music for the Quarter-Life Crisis feature's the premiere of Zyggy's music for the quarter-life crisis (synth étude), and IN THE EVENT THAT YOU STAY: Trio for flute, cello, and piano, no. 1 (RPS commission), along with music by Caroline Shaw, Kaija Saariaho, Lowell Liebermann, and London Sinfonietta 'Writing the Future' composer Ashkan Layegh.
They describe the programme thus, "We’re aiming to capture a musical distillation of 21st-Century repertoire reflective of today's cultural zeitgeist as experienced by many of our peers: a playful-sincere exploration of satire and resistance, and attempt to find groundedness in the precarious feeling that maybe, just maybe, there’s hope at the end of it all."
Nine days of masterclasses and performances by renowned pianists, the Oxford Piano Festival returns from 26 July to 3 August 2025. The festival aims to inspire, support and encourage music-making at the piano of the highest quality. The Festival provides gifted young players with a rare opportunity to work alongside and learn from some of the world’s finest pianists and teachers, to perform and to learn new repertoire, as part of a dedicated community of artists which encourages exchange over competition.
There are masterclasses at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building in St Hilda's College, Oxford, with pianists including Kathryn Stott, Stephen Hough, Nikolai Lugansky, Stephen Kovacevich and Ashley Wass. The festival concert programme begins with Isata Kanneh-Mason joining the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra and festival founder, Marios Papadopoulos for Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 at the Sheldonian Theatre. Other concerts include Vikingur Olafsson in Bach, Beethoven, and Schubert, Nicolai Lugansky in Merton College Chapel in an extraordinary programme of Beethoven, Schumann, Wagner and Liszt, and Stephen Hough in Christ Church Cathedral playing Chaminade, Liszt, Schumann and music from Mary Poppins! Andrey Gugnin's all-Russian programme includes Michael Pletnev's dazzling arrangements from Tchaikovsky's ballets and Stravinsky's own bravura take on Petrushka, and the festival concludes with Akiko Ebi making her festival debut playing Faure, Ravel and Chopin.
EMPOWER: Female Musical Icons is an evening of performances and conversation, celebrating the breadth and diversity of female music, at Kings Place on Friday 21 March 2025 at 7pm.
There will be musical performances from chamber ensembles, and the premiere of the inaugural OpusHER commission, plus panel discussion.
Here co-founder, Sinéad Walsh, introduces EMPOWER and their 2025 London event.
EMPOWER: Women Changing Music is an initiative dedicated to promoting fairness and gender equality in the music industry. By spotlighting female composers and musicians, EMPOWER creates an environment that celebrates women, broadening the historically male-dominated canon, and is an outlet for positive change. Centred on live events, EMPOWER offers performance opportunities to emerging artists and provides a space for dynamic, thought-provoking discussions.
EMPOWER was founded by myself, Sinéad Walsh, and Hannah Seymour, in late 2021, whilst in our final year at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. As two young female musicians coming out of the pandemic, we felt it was our obligation to make a positive impact on the industry we were about to graduate into.
And then EMPOWER was born, on the couch in our flat. Being students at the time, with no performance opportunities, we wanted to create a platform that showcased emerging artists, just like us, but playing music solely by women, from brand new works to underrepresented pieces. We held our first event in March 2022, and here we are three years on, having showcased over 150 performers, premiered 20 new pieces of female music, and created a community of over 1000 followers. We have since moved to London, where we are scholars at the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music. EMPOWER has now established itself as a platform for innovative, boundary-pushing performances that attract diverse and curious audiences, with March events at King’s Place London, the Royal Albert Hall, the Whyte Recital Hall in Dublin, and the Anthony Burgess Foundation Manchester.
Centred on live events, EMPOWER offers performance opportunities to emerging artists and provides a space for dynamic, thought-provoking discussions. EMPOWER has given a platform for female composers to premiere new works at their events, which otherwise may not have made it to the stage. These events are informal, and are a safe and inclusive space for everyone to learn, share, and ultimately empower each other to want to make a positive difference to society, through the sharing of music and experiences. The programmes consist of short musical performances, ranging from string quartets, to jazz band, to voice and electronics, showcasing a wide variety of music solely by female composers, both old and new. Composers and performers apply to be a part of the events, and the programme is curated around the breadth of music that EMPOWERs community of followers are passionate about.
We are ecstatic to be hosting our 2025 London event at Kings Place. It’s only our second annual event in London and to host it at such a prestigious venue truly is a dream come true. We were connected with the Artistic Director at Kings Place, Sam McShane, when she was a panellist at our Manchester event last year. She was extremely impressed with us and our work, and has been the greatest support through the whole process of organising the King’s Place event.
Performers apply to play at our events, and demand increases year on year. This year, 65 ensembles applied to perform at the London event, and only 5 could be selected. The quality, creativity, and enthusiasm of our successful applicants is incredible, and we can’t wait to hear them perform. We have a saxophone quartet, string quartet plus voice, a flute viola harp trio, a contemporary chamber ensemble, a string ‘band’, plus the London premiere of our inaugural OpusHER commission, an award for emerging female composers that we launched in September.
Our panel discussion is always a highlight of the evening. Our panellists are unbelievably generous with their time, by sharing their experiences and impacting wisdom in a beautifully vulnerable and honest way. It is always an honour to have the esteem and calibre of the women involved on the stage together, and this line up of women is no different. We are incredibly grateful to have the following panellists involved in our King’s Place event:
Errollyn Wallen CBE - Composer and Master of the Kings Music
Jess Gillam MBE - Saxophone Soloist and Presenter
Héloïse Werner - Soprano, Composer, and Founding Member of the Hermes Experiment
Dr. Leah Broad - Music Writer, Historian, and Author of ‘Quartet’
We are passionate about advocating for equity in the music industry. Through sharing music of the highest quality, our ultimate aim is to be a pivotal part in creating an industry that is accessible, diverse and welcoming to all, and to empower future industry trailblazers to have the confidence to make their voices heard, both musically and personally. Our goal is to inspire and support young people to make positive change, and we believe that the platform we are providing to emerging performers and composers will have an impact on the shape of the industry going forward.
I hope that people will leave our London event feeling positive, having learned something new, and ultimately empowered, in whatever way that resonates with them. You don’t have to be a woman or a musician to enjoy EMPOWER, and we can’t wait to welcome you into our community!
Music has the power for change and we, as EMPOWER, invite you to be a part of this movement.
EMPOWER: Female Musical Icons is at Kings Place on Friday 21 March 2025, further details from Kings Place website.
Buxton Opera House festival time. Credit Buxton International Festival
Having launched in 1979 with a production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in a version, rare at the time, that undid traditional cuts and transposition, the Buxton Festival returned in 1980 with Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet with Thomas Allen in the title role.
For 2025, the Buxton International Festival is returning to its roots with a new production of Thomas' Hamlet, directed by Jack Furness. The festival's artistic director, Adrian Kelly, will conduct the Orchestra of Opera North. The young American baritone Gregory Feldmann makes his role debut as Hamlet; Feldman was a member of Opernhaus Zürich's International Opera Studio from 2022-24 and his roles in Zürich include Mercutio in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette. Singing opposite him as Ophélie is one of Feldmann's colleagues from Zürich, Europe-based South Korean soprano Yewon Han. Also in the cast are Alistair Miles, Allison Cooke, Richard Woodall and Joshua Baxter.
le vase brisé: Hahn, Augusta Holmès, Liszt, Duparc, Lili Boulanger, Sir Paulo Tosti, Clemence de Grandval, Pauline Viardot, Bellini; Thomas Elwin, Lana Bode; VOCES8 Records Reviewed 26 February 2025
A debut recital that combines an imaginative programme, undeservedly neglected repertoire and strong performances in challenging music such as Liszt's Petrarch Sonnets. A fine achievement indeed.
Tenor Thomas Elwin and pianist Lana Bode's new disc, le vase brisé on Voces8 Records, takes as its title a song by the French composer Clemence de Grandval. But the image of a broken vase ultimately offers, however, the promise of healing, or of repair and the artists' thoughts evidently turned to the Japanese art of kintsugi, the practice of repairing the cracks in broken pottery with gold (or silver, or platinum) in order that the repair is both obvious and beautiful. As such, the item is not ruined – or compromised – but actually improved. And the booklet article by Dr Lucy Walker is headed by a quote from Menachem Mendel of Kotzk (the ‘Kotzker Rebbe’) - "There is nothing so whole as a broken heart".
The disc is notable for the imaginative selection of song encompassed with works by Reynaldo Hahn, Augusta Holmès, Liszt, Duparc, Lili Boulanger, Sir Paulo Tosti, Clemence de Grandval, Pauline Viardot, and Bellini. The composers’ lives straddle nearly the whole of the 1800s; the earliest song is Bellini’s La Ricordanza (1834), the latest Hahn’s A Chloris (1916).
Thomas Elwin is best known recently for his operatic work, he was a fine Gennaro in English Touring Opera's production of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia in 2023 [see my review, I missed his Rodolfo in La Boheme with them, alas] and Alfredo in a filmed production of La Traviata with Opera Glass Works. Plus he was artistic director for West Green House Opera's 2024 season [see my review of Rossini's The Barber of Seville]. This disc is his debut recital disc, and represents a remarkable engagement with the art of song, going beyond the traditional opera singer's song repertoire and including some real rarities.
Harry Christophers & The Sixteen in rehearsal - 2024 (Photo: Johnny Millar)
Harry Christophers and The Sixteen embark on their 25th Choral Pilgrimage, Angel of Peace, this month. Starting in Croydon Minster on Monday 17 March 2025, this sees them touring 21 venues across England, Scotland and Ireland including Dublin and Belfast, performing a programme that includes music by Hildegard of Bingen, John Taverner, Arvo Pärt, Will Todd and Anna Clyne. The tour takes its title from words by Cardinal Newman, set to music by Will Todd, ‘Let me be an angel of peace’.
Harry Christophers (Photo: Johnny Millar)
The Pilgrimage remains very much a Sixteen thing, the ensemble's own concerts across the breadth of the country, and when I chat to Harry Christophers about this year's tour he comments that everyone in the group feels strongly about it. After all, if they miss places off then some parts of the country lose out. But there is no doubt that it is getting economically harder; there is no problem with audiences, and they keep ticket prices low, but the other expenses such as hotels and travel have been increasing. And of course, the venues are UK cathedrals and churches, buildings that are often struggling economically and having to put up their prices.
He describes the Choral Pilgrimage as a burden the group has taken on, but it is a good burden, and the Pilgrimage remains important to audiences all over. The tour is launched in Croydon Minster, which is a prime example of what the tour is about, a gorgeous venue yet in an area of London that deserves more arts coverage. This year they are visiting Edinburgh, Dublin and Belfast, but some venues have been lost due to sheer economics, but there is hope to reintroduce them in the future. But Harry emphasises that no-one is to blame, simply costs have risen, it is the state of the arts in general. He comments that whilst there has been a tendency to judge arts organisations on how they dealt with the pandemic, but it is the last few years that the group has found difficult. They are, however, lucky to have wonderful patrons though he then adds, with a smile, that like most arts organisations, they could do with more.
This year’s programme began with John Taverner's two large-scale Antiphons, Gaude plurimum and O splendor gloriae. Back in the days of LPs, Harry and the group recorded the Taverner, though at that time they followed the fashion of performing the music up a minor third. Now they are, as Harry describes it, grown up and plan to perform them at the correct pitch. Harry calls the two antiphons stonking pieces, each ten to fifteen minutes long, so he needed some very different music for contrast. Some years ago, they did a programme that mixed the music of Arvo Pärt with Renaissance music, which worked well so this year they are doing Arvo Pärt's Tribute to Caesar, Da pacem Domine and Magnificat, recognising his 90th birthday.
Mozart: The Magic Flute - Matthew Kellett - Charles Court Opera (Photo: Bill Knight)
Mozart: The Magic Flute; Matthew Kellett, Alison Langer, Martins Smaukstelis, Peter Lidbetter, Eleri Gwilym, director: John Savournin/James Hurley, music director: David Eaton; Charles Court Opera at Wilton's Music Hall Reviewed 5 March 2025
A hard-working cast of nine in a chamber version that combined lively wit with a real sense of engagement along with a reworking of a plot made satisfyingly coherent, achieving a remarkable amount on a shoe string
Mozart: The Magic Flute - Martins Smaukstelis, Alison Langer Charles Court Opera (Photo: Bill Knight)
There was no overture, we plunged straight in. We were in a tropical rainforest in Peru with vines everywhere and fragments of ancient stonework. The Peruvian setting arose out of the original designer, Simon Bejer's visit to Peru, and Papageno and Papagena (Matthew Kellett and Sara Prestwidge) were in traditional Peruvian dress. The three Ladies (Sarah Prestwidge, Martha Jones and Meriel Cunningham) were a bit more exotic and not a little glam, whilst there was something distinctly feral Goth about Eleri Gwilym's Queen of the Night. Sarastro (Peter Lidbetter) and his cohorts wore cowled robes with hoods that made them look like exotic birds. Martins Smaukstelis' Tamino was an explorer whilst Joe Ashmore's Monostatos had a distinctly British Colonial feel to him.
This was a small scale performance, using a hard-working cast of just nine, but the stage at Wilton's is not huge and they filled it admirably. This was a lively and entertaining version of the opera, sung in English (the translation was uncredited), but certainly no pantomime. The three boys were dispensed with, and their music reallocated (though still sung by Sarah Prestwidge, Martha Jones and Meriel Cunningham). Peter Lidbetter's Sarastro had more presence in the trials, and it was clear that this Sarastro was a force for good and not the sinister figure that the opera can sometimes project. Enough thought had gone into refocusing the drama, particularly in Act Two, that though this remained The Magic Flute, the dramaturgy was somewhat more coherent with a greater point to be made.
David Butt Philip, Alison Langer, St Paul's Opera chorus at the David Butt Philip & Friends gala in 2024 St Paul's Church (Photo: Craig Fuller Photography)
My local opera company, St Paul's Opera will be welcoming tenor David Butt Philip back for the third year running for a fundraising gala, David Butt Philip and Friends at St Paul’s Church, Rectory Grove, SW4 0DZ on Friday 28 March 2025.
This year's gala will featured soprano Alison Langer, mezzo-soprano Clare Presland and bass William Thomas alongside David Butt Philip, accompanied by Ed Batting and Nicholas Ansdell-Evans.
This year David Butt Philip's performances include Beethoven's Fidelio at the Met in New York, and Wagner's Lohengrin in Vienna, but he will be performing in the UK on 5 April for Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius in Huddersfield with Huddersfield Choral Society and the Orchestra of Opera North, conductor Martyn Brabbins [further details]. On 23 May he joins Mark Elder, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Alice Coote for Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde at the Barbican [further details]. And on 15 June there is a chance to get up close and personal as he and pianist James Baillieu are in recital at Wigmore Hall [further details].
Alison Langer returns as Violetta in Verdi's La traviata at Opera Holland Park this Summer have made such a memorable stir in the 2018 Young Artists Production [see my review] and she is also singing in the Royal Opera's revival of its recent production of Bizet's Carmen. Clare Presland was recently singing in the premiere performances of Mark Antony Turnage's Festen at the Royal Opera. She too is getting up close and personal, joining tenor Nicky Spence and pianist Andrew Matthews-Owen at Wigmore Hall on 20 June [further details] and in August she will be in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream in Japan. William Thomas has been singing Colline in Puccini's La Boheme at the Bavarian State Opera and will be in Bach's St John Passion at Carnegie Hall, New York next month.
Last year, the gala featured arias and duets from operas by Bizet, Gounod, Mozart, Verdi, Beethoven, Korngold and Puccini, and from music theatre works by Bernstein and Rogers & Hamerstein, [see my article] so we are going to be for a treat this year.
St Paul's Opera's Summer performance this year will be Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore from 3 to 5 July 2025
Cherubini: Médée - Lila Dufy, Joyce El-Khoury in Act One - Opéra Comique (Photo: Stefan Brion)
Juliet, Jenůfa, Médée & Mary, Queen of Scots
February on Planet Hugill, our monthly digest of interviews and reviews has just come out. If you don't already subscribe, get it at MailChimp.
Welcome to February on Planet Hugill, a month that includes rare performances of Cherubini's Médée and Thea Musgrave's Mary, Queen of Scots and the start of English Touring Opera's Spring tour, not forgetting Schubert's birthday at Wigmore Hall.
Interviews this month include composer Jay Capperauld on Bruckner's obsession with death, George Petrou artistic director of the Göttingen International Handel Festival on this year's festival, composer Michael Zev Gordon on writing A Kind of Haunting, his new piece inspired by his family's experience of the Holocaust and Peter Mallinson on exploring the surprisingly fertile ground of music for two violas.
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The German YMCA in London has a lively programme of events including regular music related talks and performances, and their March programme includes a recital from violinist Madeleine Mitchell and pianist Nigel Clayton.
As part of the regular Peter's Music slot at the German YMCA in London, I will be talking next week on Wednesday 12 March 2025 (at 2pm). The venue is at 35 Craven Terrace, W2 3EL not far from Lancaster Gate Tube.
The talk is called Behind the Music. Unusually I will be talking about music in relation to myself and my activities as composer and writer, and its subtitle is perhaps Music in my life & my life in music.
There will be a chance for questions after the talk, so do please come along and say hello.
Further details from the German YMCA in London's website
Bringing music and the arts to the three most northerly Yorkshire Dales notably Swaledale, Wensleydale and Arkengarthdale, the Swaledale Festival comes round in May.
Under the patronage of writer, lecturer and arts advocate Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason and antiques expert Ronnie Archer-Morgan, the Swaledale Festival is an annual festival of music and arts based in the three most northerly Yorkshire Dales - Swaledale, Wensleydale and Arkengarthdale - a large rural area of outstanding natural beauty. Founded in 1972, this year’s festival runs from Saturday 24 May to Saturday 7 June offering 60-plus music, arts and walking events to inspire, transport and exhilarate one in the spectacular northern Yorkshire Dales.
Fraser Wilson, appointed Artistic Director of Swaledale Festival in December 2024
A host of festival venues are used ranging from tiny chapels seating fewer than 90 people to halls seating several hundred. Many are charming village churches, too, but there are also heritage sites such as Richmond’s Georgian Theatre Royal while in the past few years the festival has utilised the 600-seater Tennant’s Garden Rooms in Leyburn as a new venue.
The programme includes a core of classical music concerts as well as folk, brass bands, jazz and world music while poetry, film, dance, drama, comedy, workshops, masterclasses, exhibitions, family events, talks and themed guided walks run in parallel to the main programme.
There are usually a few surprises too (think steam-train trips, bat watches, archaeology projects and astronomy sessions!). There’s also a focus on the extraordinary landscape, the history, the legends and the characters that shape the northern Yorkshire Dales.
The Berlin Singakademie building, designed by Carl Theodor Ottmer, 1825-1827, now Maxim Gorki Theater painting by Eduard Gaertner, 1843
Bach: St Matthew Passion; Nicholas Mulroy, Ashley Riches, Julia Doyle, Helen Charlston, Samuel Boden, Michael Mofidian, Choir of The Queen's College, Oxford, the boys of Radley College, Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, Owen Rees; Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra's Bach Mendelssohn Festival the Sheldonian Theatre Reviewed 2 March 2025
Celebrating Mendelssohn's revival of Bach's great Passion in a symphonic performance in a historically apposite venue. Nicholas Mulroy's Evangelist and some strong solo singing make for a significant evening
When Mendelssohn performed Bach's St Matthew Passion with the Berlin Singakademie in 1829 he had known the work since at least 1824 when his sister Fanny gave him a copy of the score for his fifteenth birthday. But the Mendelssohns were closely interlinked with Bach's memory, one of Felix and Fanny's great aunts was a student of Wilhelm Friedeman Bach and a friend of Carl Philipp Emmanuel. It is due to her, and her brother (Felix and Fanny's grandfather) that a substantial quantity of Bach's original manuscripts were collected and survived.
Felix Mendelssohn presented Bach's St Matthew Passion in 1829 (to celebrate what was then believed to be the centenary of the first presentation of the work). It was a very different work to what Bach might have experienced. There were substantial cuts (including ten arias) and Mendelssohn adjusted the recitatives, whilst his performers included over 150 singers and 70 players.
Since then, Bach scholarship has developed and it is not unknown for performances to use as few as eight singers, following the Lutheran tradition of Bach's time. But Bach's music is able to transcend even the most individual vision, whether it be a full choral symphonic performance on modern instruments or a historically informed on using small forces and a vocal ensemble.
Title page of Anna Magdalena Bach's manuscript: Suites á Violoncello Solo senza Basso
Bach: Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor, Cello Suite No. 4 in E flat major, Cello Suite No. 6 in D major, Partita in A minor, BWV 1013; Mats Lidström; Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra's Bach Mendelssohn Festival at Holywell Music Room, Oxford Reviewed 1 March 2025
Three of Bach's solo cello suites in highly personal, not to say idiosyncratic performances by one of Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra's solo cellos as part of its joint survey of Bach and Mendelssohn
We don't know when, why or for whom Bach's cello suites were written, though we can deduce a lot. For a start, they are a coherent group not an assemblage, deliberate works, all six structured the same. We can perhaps imagine one of Bach's cellists in Köthen (where the kapelle had three fine cello players in it) playing a suite for the instrument music loving Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen, Bach's employer at the time the suites were probably written.
But we have no real performing tradition for the works, simply Anna Magdalena Bach's manuscript written years after their creation, and subject to some discussion as to slurs and phrasing. For much of the 19th century, though the works were known, they were regarded as mere studies and it was only when cellist Pablo Casals discovered them and started playing the suites as coherent works that they took off.
It could be argued that even to play the cello suites on a modern cello is to make a transcription, so different sonically and technically are the instruments. And in performance, each cellist must make their own stylistic choices. How much of this is pure music and how much a simulacrum of the past.
A composer himself, Mats Lidström is solo cello with the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra and on Saturday 1 March 2024 he performed three of Bach's cello suites at Oxford's Holywell Music Room. Lidström was taking up the baton from his Oxford Philharmonic colleague Peter Adams, between them the two performing Bach's complete cello suites as part of the Oxford Philharmonic's Bach Mendelssohn Festival. On Saturday, we heard Mats Lidström in Bach's Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor, Cello Suite No. 4 in E flat major and Cello Suite No. 6 in D major along with the Partita in A minor, BWV 1013, originally for solo flute.
Ada Witczyk performing music from the 2023 Růžičková Composition Competition
Violinist Ada Witczyk's new album, New Baroque - Sonatas on First Hand Records, features new sonatas for baroque violins and harpsichord, the six winning works of the 5th Růžičková Composition Competition 2024, with violinist Simon Standage and harpsichordist Dominika Maszczyńska. Ada founded the Růžičková Composition Competition in 2020 and each year composers are invited to write for Baroque instruments using a different form, this year it was sonata form with either violin and harpsichord, or a trio sonata for two violins and harpsichord. The 2024 competition received over 50 entries, the biggest since 2020; that first competition received just over 60, but as Ada points out, people had time on their hands.
Ada's first disc was an EP, New Baroque, performing music commissioned from composers who had won the first competition. She feels that it is important to support the participating composers and to strengthen her bond with them. The EP received a very positive reception, which led to the production of the new album.
In the competition, Ada feels it is important to recognise the work each composer has put into their pieces and so they play through every entry. For each competition, the judging panel has involved Simon Standage (Ada's teacher) and arts manager Nick Hardisty (currently executive director of Lake District Music) along with the musicians involved in the competition. They play through everything because Ada does not feel that simply hearing a recording does work justice; playing means you feel the piece in your fingers. Also, they get something different out of the instruments, using the colours and sounds of gut strings. Finally, they reduce the entries to a shortlist, though the process can take an entire day. The scores are considered anonymously, and they only find out who the composers are once the shortlist is created.
There tends to be a huge mixture of pieces, and this is reflected by the works on the new album. Alexander Unseth is relatively young (born in 2002) and is still studying; his piece, One of Seven, is about his siblings. The more established composers include the Italian-American composer, keyboardist and conductor Raphael Amado Fusco and Andrew Wilson, Vice Principal of the National College of Music and Arts. Raphael Amado Fusco's Sonata for Baroque Violin and Harpsichord uses the composer's experience in opera and jazz to create French Baroque dances with jazz harmonies, a combination of different worlds. Andrew Wilson's The Summer Folly from his Vanbrugh Sonata is inspired by the architect Sir John Vanbrugh's sketches and Ada feels you can appreciate the craft in his music.
As individuals, each composer brings their own culture and musical style to the mix, each writes differently, often using the period instruments to tap into a different world. Fabricio Maximiliano Gatta is Argentinian and his Suite for Violin and Harpsichord uses tango, folklore and sentimental melodies, but the Baroque instruments create a magical sound, as if from old movies. Yet, for Ada, it is his voice and relevant today. Whereas David Jason Snow's L'Apotheose de Tati references the great French filmmaker Jacques Tati and for Ada the Baroque instruments create a very black and white sound.
Listening to the works of some of the other composers on the disc Ada comments that you wonder why they are not better known so that Salvatore Passantino's Ostination comes alive in its first few notes.
St Nicholas Church, Leipzig Where Bach's St John Passion first performed
Bach: St John Passion (1725); Solomon's Knot; Wigmore Hall Reviewed 26 February 2025
Sung from memory with remarkable emotional directness, at times this was close to a concert staging and very much a powerful communal experience
We know frustratingly little about the details of Bach's actual performance practice in Leipzig. For instance, when Bach revived the St John Passion in 1725, having first performed it in 1724, how many of the performers were the same? We can make assumptions, but we don't know. This has relevance because for 1725, Bach made significant changes to the work, replacing the opening and closing choruses, adding and replacing arias. Given his musicians' workload, you might have assumed he would want to rely on their remembering the music.
We also don't know why he made the changes. The 1725 version, whilst not wildly different, has a couple of 'new' arias that make the reaction to Christ's Passion journey seem rather angrier. And for a modern listener the start of the piece is disorientating as the new opening chorus eventually found a permanent home in the St Matthew Passion.
Easter seems to be starting early this year, and on Wednesday 26 February 2025, Solomon's Knot gave us our first Passion of the year, Bach's St John Passion in its 1725 version at Wigmore Hall. Whilst the hall's acoustic is nothing like that of the churches in Bach's Leipzig. The very full platform, with eight singers and 13 instrumentalists, must surely have echoed the organ loft in Bach's performances. One quibble, an eternal one with Passion (and oratorio) performances in concert halls, we missed the characteristic depth sound of Bach's organ and had to live with a chamber one.
"Consider the scenario where all live, organically-produced music, whether professional or amateur, suddenly vanished globally. The absence would profoundly affect people everywhere."
The above comes from a statement released by Music Will Save The World, a non-profit organisation founded by an opera singer, experimental music artist and director Anna Starushkevych, and dedicated to protecting and promoting organic music, music that is performed live and does not rely on any form of technology.
Anna Starushkevych was born in Lviv, Ukraine and first studied there before coming to the UK to study at the Guildhall School. A relative's disappearance at the frontline in Ukraine triggered thoughts of those missing in war and she has produced a film, Magura as part of Music Will Save The World's Opera is Us project. This seeks to illuminate pertinent social issues by extracting an operatic aria from its original context and creating a short film based on the aria's music.
Magura is dedicated to the missing people of war, both in Ukraine and globally and raising funds for the search group for the missing - Platzdarm
The film blends Ukrainian mythology with modern storylines, highlighting cultural and historical elements. It features Magura, a Ukrainian pagan goddess of war and victory, who appears in the film’s climax. The soundtrack feature's Handel's aria Cara Sposa with its repetitive 'Where are you?' lyrics, accentuates themes of loss and hope, aligning with the film’s emotional journey.
A relatively unassuming modernist house in Aldeburgh, 9 Church Walk, has just been listed at Grade II by Historic England. The house was built in 1962 to 1964, designed by architects HT (Jim) and Elizabeth (Betty) Cadbury-Brown for composer, arranger and conductor Imogen Holst, daughter of composer Gustav Holst.
The house features innovative design elements including a soundproofed music room where Imogen Holst worked and thoughtfully positioned windows framing views of the parish church. It retains many original features, including built-in shelving systems, curtains with recessed tracking, and Imogen Holst's personal items such as her writing desk and coloured glass panel hung on the window in front of her desk to diffuse the sunlight. The property also houses Gustav Holst's oak music cupboard, where she stored her father's manuscripts.
After graduating Jim Cadbury-Brown worked for architect Ernő Goldfinger, assisting with the design of Goldfinger's Willow Road house, and became his lifelong friend. Jim and Betty Cadbury-Brown were also involved as designers for the 1951 Festival of Britain’s Southbank site. They built their own holiday home in Aldeburgh (3 Church Walk) which was listed in 2000, and Imogen Holst's house was on the same site.
In 1952, Imogen Holst was invited to assist Benjamin Britten who was working on his latest commission, the opera Gloriana. She accepted and became Britten’s musical assistant, then later Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival. She lived in a variety of lodgings and rented flats until moving to 9 Church Walk.
In thanking the Cadbury-Browns for the house, which was built on their land, She wrote: "…my IMMENSE and perpetual gratitude for the loveliest house in the world. I think of you both every night of the year and send blessings in your direction for having enabled me to get on with my work in such heavenly quiet and solitude and comfort."
The house is now owned by Britten Pears Arts and is available as a holiday rental, allowing visitors to experience the special atmosphere of this artistic haven. It is also open to the public every year for Heritage Open Days.
For those interested in staying in the cottage, details are at the Britten Pears Arts website.
Sholto Kynoch & Helen Charlston in rehearsal (Image from YouTube video)
Notes of Old: Mompou, Hahn, Monteverdi, Bach, Schubert, Bach arranged by György Kurtág, Anna Semple Pauline Viardot, Ravel, Marc Antoine Charpentier, Schumann; Helen Charlston, Sholto Kynoch, Temple Music; Temple Church Reviewed 25 February 2025
The two performers drew us into to their fascinating world of influences and connections, a real duo recital as voice and piano complemented and echoed each other.
Mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston was joined by pianist Sholto Kynoch for Notes of Old at Temple Church as part of Temple Music's Spring season. Kynoch explained that it was a programme of music that the two performers loves, reflecting themes which are timeless preoccupations for everyone, love, nature and music. It was a programme that moved freely between the Baroque, the Romantic and the contemporary in a which which not only brought out themes, but reflected the way composers of one generation absorbed the music of another; Robert Schumann's obsession with Bach or Reynaldo Hahn's self-conscious classicism.
The first half mixed Mompou, Hahn, Monteverdi, Bach, Schubert, Bach arranged by György Kurtág, Anna Semple, Pauline Viardot, Ravel and Marc Antoine Charpentier. Then the second half consisted of Robert Schumann's Zwölf Gedichte von Justinus Kerner, Op 35 where the themes from the first half of the concert seemed to be refracted and reflected through Schumann's genius.
Gavin Higgins: Horn Concerto, Fanfare, Air and Flourishes, The Faerie Bride; Ben Goldscheider, Marta Fontanals-Simmons, Roderick Williams, Three Choirs Festival Chorus, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Jaime Martin, Martyn Brabbins; Lyrita Reviewed 25 February 2025
Two of Gavin Higgins most substantial recent works in outstanding performances that reveal the wealth of vivid detail in the writing, with horn player Ben Goldscheider on white-hot form and strong performances from Marta Fontanals-Simmons, Roderick Williams
Composer Gavin Higgins has been having a busy time of it in the last few years, producing a clutch of impressive, large-scale works and now a new disc from Lyrita gives us a chance to catch two of them. Higgins' Horn Concerto was premiered in 2024 by horn player Ben Goldscheider, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conductor Jaime Martin [we caught the work's London premiere with a different orchestra, see my review] and the same forces went into the studio to record the work. BBCNOW was joined by conductor Martyn Brabbins, baritone Roderick Williams, mezzo-soprano Marta Fontanals-Simmons and the Three Choirs Festival Chorus for Higgins' The Faerie Bride at the 2023 Three Choirs Festival [see my review] and we have a live recording of that performance on the disc. Linking the two are three movements for solo horn, Fanfare, Air and Flourishes.
The Winchester Chamber Music Festival, artistic director Kate Gould, returns from 2 to 5 May 2025 for the 18th festival, with a wide range of performances, schools performances, family concerts, talks and masterclasses at venues across Winchester including St. Paul's Church, St Lawrence Church and the Theatre Royal.
Music performed includes the Clarinet Quintet by the English composer Pamela Harrison (1915-1990) who was a pupil of Gordon Jacob and Arthur Benjamin, the Voice of the Whale by George Crumb (1929-2022), Branching Patterns by New York-based composer Inti Figgis-Vizueta [whose orchestra piece devour I reviewed recently], Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1 in Webern's arrangement for piano quintet, Hanns Eisler's Scherzo, Ailie Robertson's Beannacht (Blessing) for solo viola and electronics, Jessie Montgomery's Voodoo Dolls, Clarinettino by Czech composer Ondrej Kukal, and Caroline Shaw's Punktum plus music by Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Mahler, Saint-Saens, Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninov, Villalobos, Prokofiev, Holst, Shostakovich, Britten.
For the festival performers, artistic director, cellist Kate Gould has gathered around her a group of distinguished chamber musicians many of whom have featured at previous festivals including David Adams violin, Lucy Gould violin, Magnus Johnston violin, Scott Dickinson viola, Richard Lester cello, Ronan Dunne double bass, Zenith Quartet, Matthew Featherstone flute, Robert Plane clarinet, Simon Crawford-Phillips piano, Philip Moore piano, and Julian Milford piano.
I am never really sure about lists of things, the Top 50 Best whatevers. However, finding out that you are in such a list is terribly seductive, even if you wonder how the list has been produced. FeedSpot, the company that produces FeedSpot Reader which allows you to subscribe to all your online media needs in one place, has produced its Top 60 Opera Blogs list. Perhaps one's response should be wow, are there actually 60 opera blogs out there!
Planet Hugill, I am pleased to say, is at number eight. You can explore the whole list here.
For the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, the PRS Foundation's New Music 20x12 showcased a range of short (no longer than 15 minutes) pieces by contemporary music creators. Renamed New Music Biennial, the festival has become a showcase for works in a range of genres, including contemporary classical, jazz, R&B, folk, global, sound installations, and electronica, creating a pop-up, interactive space for audiences to discover and engage with new music and reaffirming new music is for everyone whilst highlighting the continuing important role commissioning new music has today in the UK.
This year's New Music Biennial is being presented by PRS Foundation, Southbank Centre and Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture in partnership with BBC Radio 3, and NMC Recordings. New Music Biennial 2025 feature 20 pieces of brand new works selected through an open call, alongside pre-existing new pieces that were premiered within the last four years.
The 20 pieces will make up two festival weekends of music taking place both in Bradford in various venues including new arts space Loading Bay, The Underground and St George’s Hall as part of the UK City of Culture celebrations and at venues and performance spaces in the Queen Elizabeth Hall at London’s Southbank Centre. The Bradford weekend is 6 to 8 June 2025, as part of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, with the music being performed at the Southbank Centre from 4 to 6 July 2025. Both festivals are free to attend but ticketed.
The composers showcased cover a wide range, Halina Rice, Jasdeep Singh Degun, Shae Universe, Ailís Ní Ríain, Shri Sriram, Uri Agnon, Xenia Pestova-Bennett, Verity Watts, Alex Groves, Dali de Saint Paul, Maxwell Sterling, Charlie Hope and Rebecca Salvadori, Stef Conor, Emily Levy and Matthew Bourne, Rylan Gleave, Ellie Wilson, Hardi Kurda, Daniel Kidane, m3UNTITLED, GOMID, Mark David Boden and Chisara Agor, with performers including BBC Concert and BBC Symphony Orchestras, Brìghde Chaimbeul, Ailis Sutherland, Maxwell Quartet, Kenzo Jae, Scout Bolton, Dave Kane, DJ Woody, Onyx Brass, Drum The Bass, CoMA, Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble, Zubin Kanga, Ensemble 1604, All Unto Me, The Carice Singers, Fenella Humphreys and Sinfonia Cymru.
New Music Biennial performances will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show at a later date, with recordings available via all DSPs (including Apple Music and Spotify) through NMC Recordings following the festivals.
Jenny Harris, Director of Programme at Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture said, "The composers and musicians that will be performing at New Music Biennial have responded beautifully to the context in which this year's festival is set, with northern voices and sensibility reflected throughout. There's a huge variety of music genre reflected; from jazz, R&B and folk to contemporary classical, sound installations and electronica, all taking over our district's incredible venues. Audiences can come with open ears and take a risk on something they've not experienced before, or immerse themselves in music they love - it's a real opportunity to be curious. We're delighted for Bradford to become the canvas for this wonderful event, and to introduce composers and musicians from across the UK to our city and district."
Poster for the première performance of Édouard Lalo's Le roi d'Ys.
During the 19th century, many French composers became fascinated by Wagner and his operas. Not every composer managed as balanced an attitude as Gabriel Fauré and André Messager. After their visit to Bayreuth, they produced Les Souvenirs de Bayreuth, a series of quadrilles based on Wagnerian themes for piano duet, a piece which remains a nerdy delight for Wagner enthusiasts.
Other composers were influenced both by Wagner's techniques and his choice of subject matter. Composers attempted to bring Wagnerian sweep to French lyric drama with mixed success, resulting in a clutch of works based on myth, legend or simply set in Anglos Saxon or Viking times that are interesting but never quite take off. Only occasionally do works rise above this, and even then the late romantic French opera style has fallen out of fashion during the 20th century, making formerly popular works into rarities.
Chausson's Le Roi Arthus is based on the Arthurian legend was written in the late 1880s and early 1890s but not performed until 1903 and it never took flight properly. The opera was inspired both by Wagner and by Chausson's teacher Franck's opera, Hulda, this time set in 11th century Norway. Hulda was performed in the 1890s but again, never had great success. Chabrier, despite being known nowadays for his music in lighter style, repeatedly tried to succeed in Wagnerian opera. Gwendoline, set in eighth century Britain, was performed in Brussels, Paris and elsewhere, but then lay forgotten. During his final illness he struggled to continue work on Briséïs, set in Corinth during the reign of Emperor Hadrian. Too often, the librettos for these operas leave rather a lot to be desired, pianist Graham Johnson described Catulle Mendès libretto for Chabrier's Gwendoline as catastrophic!
Some successful composers managed to copy Wagner without emulating. Ernest Reyer was a moderately successful opera composer and for his fifth opera, Sigurd he turned to the Scandinavian legends of the Edda Völsunga saga (Nibelungenlied), the same source which Richard Wagner drew upon for the libretto for his Ring cycle. However, Reyer's sound world is not that of Wagner, but much closer to Berlioz who was something of a mentor to the young composer.
Critics, however, were less than enamoured of this trend and complaints of being too Wagnerian were levelled at composers including Bizet for Carmen, unlikely though it seems nowadays. This was a criticism also levelled at Édouard Lalo's opera Le Roi d'Ys, despite its popularity with audiences.
The composer Édouard Lalo married a contralto from Brittany, Julie Besnier de Maligny, in 1865 and this seems to have been one of the impetuses for an operatic project. Based on the Breton legend of Ys, Lalo's opera Le Roi d'Ys is his most complex and ambitious creation, with the role of Margared was originally written for his wife.
The legend of Ys, a mythical city on the coast of Brittany that was swallowed up by the sea, is the same on that inspired Claude Debussy's La cathédrale engloutie.
Initially, Lalo struggled to get the work performed, it was rejected by Parisian theatres in the 1870s, but after revisions it premiered in 1888 at the Opera Comique. Within a year of its premiere, Le roi d'Ys had reached its 100th performance there and by 1940 had reached 490 performances there. Perhaps part of the success of the opera might be down to its libretto which is by an experienced librettist, Édouard Blau who wrote operas for Bizet, Offenbach and Massenet (Le Cid and Werther).
Despite this eventual popularity, the work initially incurred criticism for being "too progressive" and "Wagnerian" and this put Lalo off writing any more for the stage and he concentrated on chamber music and orchestral works.
The post-War history of Lalo's opera is rather more patchy, though there have been influential stagings in France including in Toulouse in 2007. On Sunday 30 March 2025, Chelsea Opera Group are giving us a rare opportunity to hear Lalo's Le Roi d'Ys at Cadogan Hall, when Paul Wingfield conducts with a cast including Thomas D Hopkinson, Hye-Youn Lee, Maria Schellenberg, Alexei Gusev, and Luis Gomes.
Full details from the Chelsea Opera Group website.
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