Nadine Benjamin opens the 10th London Song Festival celebrating songs written by black British and African-American composers as part of Black History Month
Hailed by Opera Now magazine as one of the top ten new generation sopranos who are destined to have impressive careers, Nadine Benjamin performs at the opening concert of the 10th London Song Festival. Nadine performs alongside baritone Julien van Mellaerts, winner of both the Kathleen Ferrier Award and Wigmore Hall International Song Competition 2017, and pianist and London Song Festival founder and artistic director Nigel Foster. The programme features both past and present composers including Errollyn Wallen, Florence Price, Margaret Bonds and Undine Smith Moore.
Read moreChristophe Rousset makes his debut at the Royal Festival Hall and Musikverein conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Handel’s Semele
Christophe Rousset makes his debut at the Musikverein and Royal Festival Hall conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Handel’s Semele with the award winning young soprano star Louise Alder in the title role alongside Brindley Sherratt and Catherine Wyn-Rogers. This follows Rousset’s stunning debut at the Royal Opera House early in June in Mozart’s Mitridate. With his forthcoming debut at the Berlin Philharmonie with Les Talens Lyriques and Anne Hallenberg (‘Telemann et la France’) this season marks many new ventures.
Read moreCellist Raphael Wallfisch releases disc in new series of cello concertos by exiled Jewish composers
Raphael Wallfisch releases a new album Voices in the wilderness as part of an ongoing series featuring cello concertos by exiled Jewish composers with Classic Produktion Osnabrück (CPO). With this series, Wallfisch embarks on a personal journey to rediscover the forgotten cello music of exiled Jewish composers who escaped Fascism and the Third Reich. The first disc includes cello concertos by Hans Gál and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, the latter of which is a world premiere recording. Later discs will include pieces by Goldschmidt, Ben Haim, Korngold, Bloch and Weinberg. Many of the selected composers had a connection either to Wallfisch’s own parents, themselves émigrés, or to his teacher Piatigorsky. With conductor Nicholas Milton, Wallfisch has joined forces with the Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra and Deutschland Radio to record the series.
Read moreGianluca Marcianò announced as new Chief Conductor of the Serbian National Theatre of Novi Sad
Gianluca Marcianò has been announced as the new Chief Conductor of the Serbian National Theatre of Novi Sad. In 2021 Novi Sad will become the European Capital of Culture and Marcianò is now planning for a year of celebration with a focus on building ties internationally.
Read moreMonteverdi Choir & Orchestras conclude their triumphant Monteverdi 450 tour with FINAL concert at V&A on 15 December
Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists conclude a triumphant year celebrating Monteverdi’s 450th anniversary at the Victoria and Albert Museum on Friday 15 December for the only London performance of their critically acclaimed Monteverdi Trilogy. They will perform highlights from Monteverdi’s three extant operas in the Raphael Cartoon Gallery, where 50 years ago the young conductor and his newly-formed choir marked the composer’s 400th anniversary. Attendees will receive entry to Opera: Passion, Power and Politics. The exhibition, from the V&A and Royal Opera House, is the first to explore opera on a grand scale, featuring seven seminal premieres in seven cities including Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea.
Read morePalazzetto Bru Zane and Chandos release the little-known works of Antoine Reicha
Antoine Reicha is the focus of the autumn chamber festival at Palazzetto Bru Zane, and to celebrate this Palazzetto Bru Zane is releasing a disc of Reicha’s music on Alpha Classics coinciding with Ivan Ilić’s new disc of solo piano sonatas released on Chandos.
Read moreCellist Mario Brunello embraces Bach’s repertoire in a pictorial odyssey at the National Gallery
Cellist Mario Brunello, former first prize winner of the Tchaikovsky Competition in 1986, embarks on a series of lunchtime concerts at the National Gallery from 14 September to 7 December, with art historian Guido Beltramini, director of the Andrea Palladio International Centre for Architectural Studies. Choosing three paintings by Botticini, Holbein and Conegliano at the National Gallery, Brunello has devised three programmes to explore three individual themes - resonance, enigma and distance. For the second concert on 24 October, Brunello explores the idea of an enigma at the heart of Holbein’s Ambassadors – the skull placed between the Ambassadors only visible from certain angles – through Bach’s Partita No.2 for violin but on a violoncello piccolo.
Read moreFilomena Campus marks the centenary of the jazz legend at EFG London Jazz Festival and on tour
To mark Thelonious Monk’s Centenary, EFG London Jazz Festival hosts a new edition of Filomena Campus’ critically acclaimed Monk Misterioso at Kings Place on Saturday 18 November, sponsored by Arts Council England and marking the 30th anniversary of Black History Month. With a revised script by renowned Italian writer Stefano Benni, a new selection of arrangements by Rowland Sutherland and new video design by SDNA, this dramatised jazz production explores the revolutionary jazz legend who lived his last seven years in silence. Prior to the UK tour of Monk Misterioso -Colchester, Milton Keynes and Portsmouth - there will be a launch at the British Library on 11 October to mark Monk’s Centenary exploring his legacy not just as a jazz musician or composer but as a modernist pioneer.
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