Orchestra of the Swan explores the surreal nature of dreams through dance, music and literature in new streamed concert on Monday 29 March
In a new multidisciplinary digital concert to be released on Monday 29 March 2021, Orchestra of the Swan explore the surreal and highly personal nature of dreaming in The Interpretation of Dreams. The Interpretation of Dreams showcases visionary music including Arvo Pärt’s Fratres, Monti’s Csárdás, Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata and Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, intertwined with more unusual selections including Angelo Badalamenti’s Audrey’s Dance (from Twin Peaks), the Cuban composer Ignacio Cervantes and even The Chordettes’ Mr Sandman, including arrangements by the Swan’s Artistic Director David Le Page.
Read moreOperaStreaming presents a surreal new production of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia from the Teatro Municipale, Reggio Emilia
In a new production to be broadcast on Sunday 11 April 2021, OperaStreaming presents Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia from the Teatro Municipale, Reggio Emilia. Italian conductor Leonardo Sini – winner of the 2017 Maestro Solti International Conducting Competition – conducts the Filarmonica dell’Opera Italiana Bruno Bartoletti in a surreal new production directed by Fabio Cherstich, who has previously been involved in Rome’s unconventional OperaCamion productions.
Read moreGöteborg Opera’s Siegfried from Stephen Langridge’s sustainably-focused Ring cycle to premiere free online
Ahead of the 400th anniversary of the city of Gothenburg in 2021, the Göteborg Opera premieres the third instalment of Gothenburg’s ground-breaking Ring cycle, an epic four- year sustainably-focused project, as director Stephen Langridge returns to Gothenburg to stage Siegfried. With the house currently closed to the public, Siegfried will premiere exclusively online from opera.se, with Act I available from Friday 26 March, Act II from Saturday 27 March, and the full three acts from Sunday 28 March until Wednesday 31 March. The production will be free to view, and sung in German with Swedish and English subtitles.
Read moreFor UN International Day of Forests, musicians Viktoria Mullova, Matthew Barley and Tasmin Little lead a campaign to save the endangered pernambuco trees used to make bows, with only 6% habitat left
Launching on UN International Day of Forests, Sunday 21 March 2021, a new campaign from the classical music world, Trees of Music, will protect and reforest threatened pernambuco trees in Brazil – essential in the manufacture of musical bows – whilst restoring their native habitats and addressing the historical impact of classical music on the environment. The campaign launches with a video by violinist Viktoria Mullova, cellist Matthew Barley and Misha Mullov-Abbado of two compositions by the pioneering Chiquinha Gonzaga (1847-1935), the first woman conductor in Brazil, an abolitionist campaigner and feminist icon. They perform Gonzaga’s ‘Lua Branca’ and ‘Yayá Fazenda’ accompanied by a lockdown string orchestra, in a specially commissioned arrangement by ambassador Ben Comeau.
Read moreBaroque au Féminin: Itinéraire Baroque celebrates female composers in 2021 Festival
The intimate Itinéraire Baroque Festival and Artistic Director Ton Koopman announce a 2020 programme championing an intrepid range of Baroque gems in historic churches across the French Dordogne. Set in the picturesque medieval villages and towns of the Périgord Vert, the 20th annual Festival runs over an extended summer weekend from Thursday 29 July – Sunday 1 August 2021. Among the eclectic topics celebrated in the 2021 Festival are the musical contributions of the early women composers Chiara Margerita Cozzolani and Maria Xaveria Perucona, a late-night harpsichord recital by Masaaki Suzuki, and instrumental focusses on the dulcimer and bass viol.
Read moreSamantha Ege launches Florence Price piano album on International Women’s Day in streamed concert from Lincoln College, Oxford
Musicologist and pianist Samantha Ege launches an album of piano music by the trailblazing yet overshadowed African-American composer Florence Price on International Women’s Day. Her album includes the first full recording of all four of Price’s virtuosic Fantasie Nègre showpieces, following her rediscovery of Price’s Fantasie Nègre No. 3. Launching the album, Ege will give a lecture-recital on Monday 8 March 2021, streamed on YouTube by TORCH (The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities) from Lincoln College, Oxford, where she is a Junior Research Fellow. During her International Women’s Day recital, Samantha Ege traces the lives and legacies of Black women composers in Chicago, contextualising the music of Florence Price, Nora Douglas Holt, Margaret Bonds, and Betty Jackson King, which represents the foundations of a vibrant creative network, in the transformative movement of the Negro Renaissance.
Read moreFree broadcast of Orchestra of the Swan’s Luna concert for Random Acts of Kindness Day, Wednesday 17 February 2021
Orchestra of the Swan are marking Random Acts of Kindness Day on Wednesday 17 February 2021 by streaming Luna: Night Owl Digital Concert for free, as a gesture of kindness to celebrate the day. Normally £10 to stream, Luna will be available to audiences for free from 17-19 February 2021. This act of kindness is even more timely with the challenges the nation has faced over the last year, particularly with lockdown seeing many music venues being temporarily closed to the public. Luna is part of the Swan’s straight-to-streaming Night Owl Digital concerts series, taking audiences to ethereal worlds in innovative late-night sets. Exploring the moon as an object of longing, mystery, and romanticism, it tells the story of the unprecedented scientific leap that captured the world’s imagination, as man took to the moon half a century ago, intertwining words by Sylvia Plath, Tehereh Mafi, James Joyce, John F. Kennedy, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong with music by Philip Glass, Haydn, Beethoven, Paul Simon, Schönberg and including works from the Swan’s Artistic Director, David Le Page.
Read moreCraig Ogden and Miloš Milivojević duet in Piazzolla’s Concerto for Guitar and Bandoneon in Doubles, a new digital concert from Orchestra of the Swan
Following the release of their latest album Timelapse, which received over 1.3m streams within the first week of release, Orchestra of the Swan are back with a new digital offering, Doubles. Featuring acclaimed classical guitarist Craig Ogden and accordionist Miloš Milivojević, Doubles, which is available to stream from Friday 12 February 2021, explores duets from the double concertos of J. S. Bach and Astor Piazzolla. Directed by the Swan’s Artistic Director David Le Page, the programme was filmed at Stratford Play House, following its postponement during the November lockdown.
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