Schütz: A German in Venice - Schütz, Monteverdi, Rossi, Grandi, Cavalli, Sances; David de Winter, The Brook Street Band, FHR; Reviewed 24 April 2024 A wonderfully engaging and life-affirming disc which mixed Schütz's music with pieces he might have heard whilst he was in Venice in the 1620s Heinrich Schütz had a huge life, born in 1585, the year that Thomas Tallis died and with Palestrina, Victoria and Guerrero still at the peak of their powers, he died in 1672 not long before the births of Telemann, Bach and Handel. His life encompassed the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), work in Dresden and ..read more

Summer at Snape, Britten Pears Arts' series of events at Snape returns for 2024 with 50 events from 26 July to 31 August.  Visiting orchestras include John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London in Britten and Walton, Simon Over and Southbank Sinfonia in Brahms and Rachmaninoff, Peter Whelan and Irish Baroque Orchestra in a programme of Baroque classics, Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra in Elgar and Sibelius, and BBC Concert Orchestra presenting Friday Night is Music Night.  Visiting artists include violinist Alina Ibragimova and pianist Cédric Tiberghien in Beethoven ..read more

The 13th Lewes Chamber Music Festival takes place from 6 to 8 June 2024 with artistic director Beatrice Philips bringing together 18 of today's most exciting chamber-musicians and soloists to explore the musical ties between Europe and America through celebrating the 150th birthdays of Arnold Schoenberg and Charles Ives, including Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1 and Ode to Napoleon with actor Samuel West, and rare chamber versions of larger scale works by Richard Strauss and Mahler. The weekend opens with early piano quartets by Mahler and Richard Strauss along with music by Ell ..read more

The Paradox Orchestra (Photo: Elizabeth Brown) The Yorkshire-based Paradox Orchestra, whose founder Michael Sluman I chatted to recently [see my interview 'No boundaries or rules'], is presenting a series of concerts for charitable causes across Yorkshire, including two upcoming concerts in aid of the homeless in Sheffield in the magnificent setting of Sheffield Cathedral.  The orchestra will perform its 50 Years of Pink Floyd programme at the cathedral on 16 May and their Fleetwood Mac programme on 12 July. The concerts will raise funds and awareness for the Cathedral's Arc ..read more

Ethan Loch at the BBC Young Musician 2022 Final (Photo: BBC) For their next performance in Manchester, the Manchester Camerata is changing their base of operations and giving a concert in the Albert Hall on Thursday 2 May 2024. Performing in the round, the orchestra will be conducted by young Irish conductor, Karen Ní Bhroin in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Symphony No. 8, plus a new work by Manchester-based composer Carmel Smickersgill.  Smickersgill studied composition with Gary Carpenter at the RNCM in Manchester, and is now an associate member of the college, and she h ..read more

Fanny Hensel (Mendelssohn) in 1842 Mozart, Bartok, Maja Ratkje, Fanny Mendelssohn; Engegård Quartet; Conway Hall Reviewed 21 April 2024 Playing of extraordinary vividness and presence by the Norwegian ensemble in a programme moving from Mozart and Fanny Mendelssohn to Bartok and contemporary Norwegian compose Maja Ratkje The Engegård Quartet (Arvid Engegård, Laura Custodio Sabas, Juliet Jopling, Jan Clemens Carlsen) was at Conway Hall on Sunday 21 April 2024 as part of a UK tour which sees the quartet giving the BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert on 26 April from LSO St Luke's.  At Co ..read more

The Hub at St Mary's - Brodsky Quartet at Lichfield Festival, July 2023 (Photo: Tyler Whiting) The Lichfield Festival returns for ten days of classical, folk, world, jazz, cabaret and popular music, theatre, dance and the written word from 4 to 14 July 2024. The 2024 festival opens with Rachel Podger (violin) and her ensemble Brecon Baroque in Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.   A 150th anniversary celebration of Gustav Holst includes Egdon Heath from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Ryan Bancroft (along with Brahms and Elgar's Cello Concerto) and the Carice Singers ..read more

Joana Carneiro & Gavan Ring Thomas Traherne was a Herefordshire clergyman who died in 1674 aged 38. Known now as a poet to equal his great contemporary religious writers John Donne, George Herbert and Henry Vaughan, his works had been substantially lost and are only recently being rediscovered. His Centuries of Meditation was only rediscovered in 1898, other volumes turned up but the biggest cache of his work was found only as recently as 1997 at Lambeth Palace Library where they were catalogued as anonymous. Amongst these works is a 42-chapter treatise entitle ..read more

Mozart: Don Giovanni - Hurn Court Opera (Photo: Patrick Frost, BlackStar Pictures) Mozart: Don Giovanni: Sam Young, Samuel Lom, Lizzie Rydeer, Daniel Gray Bell, Hanna O'Brien, Harrison Chéné-Gration, Tilly Goodwin, William Stevens, dir: Joy Robinson, cond: Lynton Atkinson; Hurn Court Opera at Theatre Royal, Winchester Reviewed by James McConnachie, 11 April 2024 A dedicated group of vastly talented singers – young singers – riding on the delight of an audience that was evidently as full of newbies as buffs Even lifelong opera-lovers can sometimes feel dispirited. Opera survives on the ..read more

Leeds Lieder Young Artists 2024 at Howard Assembly Room Composers & Poets Forum Showcase: A Leeds Songbook; Leeds Lieder Festival at Leeds Minster Reviewed 17 April 2024 Young Artists Showcase: Leeds Lieder Festival at Howard Assembly Room Reviewed 19 April 2024 First a programme of specially written new song and then a chance to shine in their chosen repertoire, and for us to experience some fine young voices and performers really stretching themselves. Leeds Lieder Festival certainly keeps its Young Artists busy. They arrived in Leeds on Sunday not only have they been takin ..read more