Sir Antonio Pappano and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Orchestra launch the 2016/17 Season in Rome and abroad
Sir Antonio Pappano and his multi-award-winning Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia announce the 2016/17 Season, opening in Rome on 20 October with a concert performance of Beethoven’s Fidelio. Due to popular demand, Pappano and his Roman Orchestra’s extensive touring continues with return visits to Central Europe - Prague, Budapest and Vienna - in September, followed by a May tour to Switzerland, Amsterdam, Paris, London and Essen.
Read moreSamuel Bordoli writes anthem - The Great Silence - to commemorate former choristers killed in World War I in aid of children’s music charity London Music Masters
British composer Samuel Bordoli has been commissioned by General the Lord Dannatt GCB CBE MC DL to compose a choral anthem - The Great Silence - in memory of fallen choristers who gave their lives in the First World War. The new anthem will be premiered at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle on 26 September in a concert to mark HM The Queen’s 90th birthday as part of the Windsor Festival. Samuel Bordoli’s chosen text is the poem Song and Pain by Ivor Gurney, chorister, poet and composer who was wounded whilst serving with The Gloucestershire Regiment in the First World War. The anthem will serve as the fallen choristers’ legacy to the young of today in supporting the work of music charity London Music Masters.
Read moreRaphael Wallfisch rediscovers exiled Jewish composers in a new series of CDs
Through a series of new recordings with Classic Produktion Osnabrück (CPO), cellist Raphael Wallfisch goes on a personal journey to rediscover the forgotten cello music of exiled Jewish composers who escaped Fascism and the Third Reich. The series will include premiere recordings of cello concerti by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Weigl and Reizenstein, and Bloch’s Symphony for Cello and Orchestra. With conductor Nicholas Milton, Wallfisch has joined forces with the Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra and Deutschland Radio starting in May to record the series of cello concertos of Hans Gál and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco for release later this year.
Read moreGianluca Marcianò and the Roma United Orchestra announce concert at the Roman Forum
Italian conductor Gianluca Marcianò leads the first open-air concert to be held in the Roman Forum - Music for Mercy - on Tuesday 26 July, which will be televised across the world and projected on a big screen on the church of Santa Maria Antiqua. Music for Mercy marks the Pope’s Jubilee of Mercy. It boasts a line-up of star musicians from across the globe including tenor Andrea Bocelli, musical star Elaine Paige, multiple Grammy-Award-winning pianist David Foster and The Tenors. From the Ave Maria and Mater Misericordiae to Morricone’s music to the film Cinema Paradiso, Marcianò will conduct Malaysian singer Zainal Abidin, Syrian clarinetist Kinan Azmeh and two Italian pop stars, Giovanni Caccamo - winner of the Best Newcomer at the 2015 Sanremo Festival - and rock guitarist Federico Paciotti.
Read moreThe Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras announce an international tour of Claudio Monteverdi’s surviving operas to mark his 450th anniversary in 2017
On 30 April at the Accademia Monteverdiana in Venice’s beautiful Fondazione Giorgio Cini, the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras with Sir John Eliot Gardiner announced their plans for Monteverdi’s 450th anniversary in 2017. From 10 April to October 2017, they will embark on a global tour with a trilogy of Monteverdi’s three surviving operas L’Orfeo, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria and L’incoronazione di Poppea in concert performances. The trilogy provides the first opportunity for Gardiner to perform Il ritorno d’Ulisse, which will open the anniversary celebrations in Aix-En-Provence on 10 April. A highlight of the tour will be the complete trilogy in Venice at La Fenice from 16 to 21 June. With appearances at the Berliner Festspiele and Lucerne Festival, the tour continues for further dates in the UK, Austria, France, Spain, and the USA, with more festival performances to be announced in due course.
Read moreSpanish conductor Juanjo Mena makes his much-anticipated debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in May
Juanjo Mena, the Spanish conductor in demand across the globe and as Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, makes his debut with theBerlin Philharmonic in May with a Latin inspired programme. Sir Simon Rattle asked Mena to conduct Falla’s El Sombrero de Tres Picos (The Three-Cornered Hat), following his seminal performance of the work with the BBC Philharmonic at the BBC Proms in 2013. To these works, Mena suggested adding Ginastera’s Harp Concerto with the Philharmoniker’s principal harpist Marie-Pierre Langlamet to mark the centenary of Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera’s birth, and Debussy’s Iberia, celebrating the French theme that runs throughout the Berlin Philharmonic’s season.
Read moreThe Orchestra dell'Accademia di Santa Cecilia opens the Edinburgh Festival with Sir Antonio Pappano
Following their triumph at the BBC Music Magazine Awards where their recording of Verdi's Aida won the Album of the Year and the Opera category, the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Sir Antonio Pappano return to the Edinburgh Festival on 6-7 August for the first time in almost 70 years. The last time the Orchestra appeared at the festival was in 1948 for a 6-concert residency with conductors including Furtwängler in his first UK appearance following the Second World War (Furtwängler had regularly worked with the Orchestra in Rome every season for over twenty years prior to this). This year, the Orchestra opens the festival with two contrasting concerts; both themed around Shakespeare including Rossini's Stabat Mater, classical interludes from Bellini and Verdi operas and the lesser known Pelleas und Melisande by Schoenberg.
Read moreChristophe Rousset revisits Mozart's early opera Mitridate in a new production at La Monnaie
Christophe Rousset revisits Mozart's early opera Mitridate in a new production by Jean-Philippe Clarac and Olivier Deloeuil at La Monnaie, 18 years after his recording with a stellar cast including Cecilia Bartoli, Natalie Dessay and Brian Asawa. This recording followed on from the success of Rousset's soundtrack to the film Farinelli, which sold more than a million discs worldwide. The artistic duo Clarac and Deloeuil from Bordeaux won La Monnaie's competition to stage Mitridate with the idea of setting the opera at a EU summit in the Belgian capital. From the podium, Rousset leads an outstanding cast including Michael Spyres in the title role, Lenneke Ruiten, Myrtò Papatanasiu, David Hansen, Simona Saturová, Sergey Romanovsky and Yves Saelens.
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