Lord Byron on His Deathbed, by Joseph Denis Odevaere (c. 1826). An Evening of Don Juan: Emily Hazrati along with songs by Schubert, Elise Schmezer, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Wolf, Ravel, Quilter, Walton, Maconchy, Barber, Britten, James MacMillan; Ella Taylor, Jocelyn Freeman; SongEasel at St Catherine's Church Reviewed 31 May 2024 Song in South East London, an imaginative programme taking us through Byron's Don Juan in an eclectic but vivid programme bookended by two new songs from Emily Hazrati Pianist Jocelyn Freeman's concert series, SongEasel has as it subtitle, 'Bringing Song to South ..read more

Puccini: Tosca - Amanda Echalaz & Morgan Pearse - Opera Holland Park, 2024 (Photo: Ali Wright) Puccini: Tosca; Amanda Echalaz, José de Eça, Morgan Pearse, director: Stephen Barlow, conductor: Matthew Kofi Waldren, City of London Sinfonia; Opera Holland Park Reviewed 30 May 2023 Transposed to the student ferment of Rome in 1968, this revival breathed remarkable life into the concept and showcased a trio of strong performances for a satisfying evening in the theatre With this year's centenary of Puccini's death, Opera Holland Park (OHP) is celebrating a composer whose works play an ..read more

Rebeca Omordia's African Concert Series is returning to Wigmore Hall on 20 July 2024 with a day of concerts featuring a wide range of African art music. In the morning, African Flute Music will feature works by Joshua Uzoigwe (Nigeria), Kwabena Nketia (Ghana) and Bongani Ndodana-Breen (South Africa) alongside West African traditional songs, performed by flautists Baba Gallé Kanté and Rowland Sutherland with pianist Rebeca Omordia and percussionists Richard Olatunde Baker and Moussa Dembele.  In the afternoon, Music from North Africa features a musical kaleidoscope from Eg ..read more

NYO Side by Side in Liverpool 42% of schools in England no longer enter any pupils for Music GCSE, and the number of pupils opting to do Music at A-Level has fallen by 45% between 2010 and 20232. There has been a 15% decline in children learning an instrument and 80% of young people believe more should be done to get their generation into orchestral music. For ten years, NYO Inspire, the National Youth Orchestra's (NYO) scheme to encourage young people to play an instrument and discover the joys of orchestra music, has put members of the orchestra in the community inspiring their pee ..read more

Euan Kemp, winner of Scottish Young Musicians Solo Performer of the Year 2024 (Photo: Ian Georgeson) Euan Kemp, 17-year-old Saxophonist from East Dunbartonshire has won the Scottish Young Musicians Solo Performer of the Year 2024 the final of which took place at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland on 26 May 2024. Kemp, an S6 pupil from The Music School of Douglas Academy, has been playing Saxophone since he was 11 years old and performed music by Ryo Noda and André Jolivet. Second place was shared by pianist Magnus Shanks (aged 16) from Aberdeenshire and accordion player Jake Joh ..read more

Ben Goldscheider Horn player Ben Goldscheider has talked in interviews about his desire to expand the instrument's repertoire, and he has certainly been busy doing just that. So far this year he has premiered Gavin Higgin's Horn Concerto [see my review] as well as that by Huw Watkins [see my review], both works providing significan technical challenges, plus giving a recital at Wigmore Hall featuring contemporary works by Watkins and Jörg Widmann [see my review]. But Goldscheider is also keen to challenge perceptions of the instrument, presenting it in a wider range of setti ..read more

Alice d'Lumiere's Trans Lady Sings Gender can seem remarkably fluid, at times, in opera despite the apparent restrictions of vocal physiology. To a long tradition of female mezzo-sopranos in trousers and tenors in frocks, we are now adding the emergence of trans opera singers such as baritone Lucia Lucas and tenor Holden Madagame (who was Mime in Regents Opera's recent Siegfried, see Holden's article on Planet Hugill). To gender-fluid spoken word artist, Alice d'Lumiere, classical music has always seemed terrifyingly stratified: Soprano, Contralto, Tenor, Bass; is the role you pl ..read more

Esther, mosaic from The Dormition Church on Mount Zion in Jerusalem Handel: Esther (Canons version); Solomon's Knot; Wigmore Hall Reviewed: 27 May 2024 Solomon's Knot on vibrant and vivid form in a dramatic account of the earliest version of Handel's first oratorio Handel's Esther has an important place in music history as the first of his English oratorios, though it wasn't intended as such. Written as a small-scale masque at Canons around 1718 for the Duke of Chandos, that original version probably used just a handful of singers, though the work was revised in 1720 for a l ..read more

ROH Youth Opera in Jonathan Ainscough & Jonathan Briggin's The Sapling in July 2023 When I chatted to conductor Nicholas Chalmers in 2019 [see my interview], one of the topics that popped up was his work with the youth opera at the Royal Opera House, working with children aged 13 to 18 with the idea of taking young kids who sang as trebles and ensuring that they keep singing when they get older. Opportunities for teenage boys to sing at secondary school level are poor and many just give up. Based on his experiences, Nicholas Chalmers was working on arrangements for youth choi ..read more

Vivaldi: L'Olimpiade - Sarah Richmond, Alexandra Urquiola, Gemma Ni Bhriain, Chuma Sijeqa, Meili Li, Rachel Redmond, Sean Boylan - Irish National Opera (Photo: Ros Kavanagh) Vivaldi: L'Olimpiade: Gemma Ni Bhriain, Alexandra Urquiola, Meili Li, Sarah Richmond, Rachel Redmond, Sean Boylan, Chum Sijeqa, director: Daisy Evans, conductor: Peter Whelan, Irish Baroque Orchestra; Irish National Opera at Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House Reviewed 25 May 2024 The youthful vitality of the cast was compelling in his highly imaginative version of Vivaldi's Olympic opera that managed to mix entert ..read more