Planet Hugill
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Planet Hugill is a London-based classical music blog written by composer, journalist and singer Robert Hugill. Get Classical music news, opera, concert & CD reviews, live performance previews, features and musings on contemporary music from classical music composer, Robert Hugill.
Planet Hugill
16h ago
Steven Devine
Music@Malling's Bach + series presents five concerts on 26 and 27 April 2024 in historic venues in and around West Malling, Kent, including St.Mary’s Church, West Malling, Pilsdon Barn (part of the historic Malling Abbey) and All Saints’ Church, Tudeley with its unique set of Marc Chagall windows. The concerts all feature Bach's music with contemporary pieces alongside, some works specifically created as companion works.
Chamber Domaine, conductor Thomas Kemp (artistic director of Music@Malling) perform Bach's Brandenburg Concertos III and VI alongside companion works by ..read more
Planet Hugill
16h ago
Jan Lisiecki (Photo: Christoph Köstlin/Deutsche Grammophon)
Kaija Saariaho: Ciel d’hiver (Winter sky), Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No.2 in G minor, Sibelius: Lemminkäinen Suite; Jan Lisiecki, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, cond. Tarmo Peltokoski; Philharmonie, Berlin
Reviewed by Tony Cooper, 23 March 2024
Helsinki-born composer, Kaija Anneli Saariaho’s Ciel d’hiver made a great contribution to Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester’s concert at the Philharmonie, Berlin
Whilst taking a break from Dmitri Tcherniakov’s Ring cycle at Staatsoper Berlin [see Tony's review], I took in a concert ..read more
Planet Hugill
2d ago
In its 52nd year, Perth Festival of the Arts returns on 22 May to 1 June and on 8 June 2024 with a diverse programme of arts and culture. As ever, there is a strong classical music strand. Steven Mercurio conducts the Czech National Symphony Orchestra at Perth Concert Hall in a programme of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 and Bruch's Violin Concerto with soloist Chloe Hanslip. European ensemble II Giardino d'Amore present their programme, The New 4 Seasons, a musical theatre experience with music by Vivaldi, Piazzola and Richter.
The Scots Opera Project return to the fest ..read more
Planet Hugill
2d ago
Wagner: Das Rheingold - Staatsoper Berlin, 2022 (Photo: Monika Rittershaus)
Wagner: The Ring of the Nibelungen; Tomasz Konieczny, Rolando Villazón, Johannes Martin Kränzle, Robert Watson, Vida Miknevičiūtė, René Pape, Claudia Mahnke, Anja Kampe, Andreas Schager, Stephan Rügamer, dir: Dmitri Tcherniakov; Staatskapelle Berlin, cond: Phillipe Jordan; Staatsopernchor, dir: Dani Juris, Staatsoper Berlin, Germany
Reviewed by Tony Cooper, 26 March 2024
True to form, Dmitri Tcherniakov drifts miles away from Wagner’s original intentions but, nonetheless, comes up with an interesting and extre ..read more
Planet Hugill
2d ago
Joseph Middleton & Louise Alder at Wigmore Hall in 2022
Young Lovers: Fauré, Nadia Boulanger & Raoul Pugno, Mahler, Copland, Ned Rorem, Rogers & Hammerstein; Louise Alder, Joseph Middleton; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 25 March 2024
Young love in all its forms in an entrancing recital from this duo partnership which took is from France to settings of a Belgian symbolist to intimate Mahler, then evocations of a New England poet and an American composer in Paris, before ending with a damned good song from musical theatre
Soprano Louise Alder and pianist Joseph Middleton returned to ..read more
Planet Hugill
2d ago
Three Choirs Festival 2023 (Photo: James O'Driscoll)
The Three Choirs Festival has launched a new composer development scheme. New Voices Academy will be devoted to choral music, led by composer Daniel Kidane and hosted by the Three Choirs Festival in partnership with Carice Singers and Spitalfields Music.
Applications are now open, for the Academy will run from Friday 26 July to Tuesday 30 July, embedded within the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester, and will offer four ‘springboard’ and further ‘sandbox’ places for composers at the start of their professional careers. It will provi ..read more
Planet Hugill
2d ago
The full line-up for the radical new 2024 Nevill Holt Festival has now been announced. Running from 1 to 26 June 2024, guest festival director James Dacre's programme features opera, classical music, jazz and contemporary, alongside visual arts, talks and literature.
This is a very different style of festival to previously, instead of two main operas there is a wide mix of events intended to tempt people into repeat visits. Also, the wider estate is more involved with an outdoor art exhibition, come for a concert and stay for Anthony Caro's sculpture.
The musical events place quite a relianc ..read more
Planet Hugill
3d ago
Manchester Camerata at Stoller Hall (Photo: Robin Clewley)
Manchester Camerata's Hearing Voices at Stoller Hall on 5 April 2024 features the ensemble, conducted by Simone Menezes, joined by mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill and Kantos Chamber Choir for a programme that explores voices from the past and present, the work and memory of those before us.
So, there is Britten's re-creating Phaedra's fatal obsession, Arvo Pärt remembering Britten, Michael Tippett evoking Corelli, Sally Beamish in Showings using Julian of Norwich's revelations of divine love, and Ni ..read more
Planet Hugill
3d ago
The 75th Aldeburgh Festival opens on 7 June and runs until 23 June 2024. The festival features stagings of Judith Weir's Blond Eckbert and Britten's Curlew River, and the festival's featured musicians are composers Judith Weir and Unsuk Chin, violinist Daniel Pioro and cellist Alban Gerhardt.
Judith Weir's Blond Eckbert is being staged as a co-production between Britten Pears Arts and English Touring Opera, and the work is directed by Robin Norton-Hale, conducted by Gerry Cornelius with a cast that includes Simon Wallfisch and Aoife Miskelly. Ryan Wigglesworth will conduct the Knus ..read more
Planet Hugill
4d ago
Our Mother - Rowan Pierce, Emma Kirkby, Alexandra Achillea Pouta - Figure at Stone Nest (Photo: Kristina Allen)
Our Mother: Pergolesi: Stabat Mater with interludes by Alex Mills; Emma Kirkby, Catherine Carby, Rowan Pierce, Alexandra Achillea Pouta, Nadya Pickup, Figure, Frederick Waxman, Sophie Daneman; Stone Nest
Reviewed 23 March 2024
An abstract, immersive staging, concentrating on dramatising the emotional arc of Pergolesi's work interleaved with impressive new interludes from young composer Alex Mills
Historical performance group, Figure, music director Frederick Waxman ..read more