Irish National Opera’s biggest-ever seasonWednesday 7 July 2021 to Saturday 25 June 202258 performances in 26 spaces at 20 different locations, 9 new productions,6 operas by Irish composers, including 4…
Author: Claire Seymour
Academy of Ancient Music to launch new season with Haydn’s The Creation
The Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) opens its first season under new Music Director Laurence Cummings on Tuesday 28 September, with a performance co-produced by the Barbican. In an evening celebrating new beginnings, Cummings…
Gilchrist and Williamson offer insights and new avenues in One Hundred Years of British Song Vol.2
In October 2020 tenor James Gilchrist and pianist Nathan Williamson opened their three-volume survey of the less well-traversed byways of the British song repertoire, One Hundred Years of British Song,…
Handel’s Heroes and Heroines: Mary Bevan and Barnaby Smith, Live from London
The now-familiar Live from London format was slightly revised for this recital of sinfonias, arias and duets from Handel’s oratorios and operas, titled Handel: Heroes and Heroines. VOCES8 were represented…
Cheery charm in Opera Holland Park’s The Pirates of Penzance
Oh, is there not one maiden breastWhich does not feel the moral beautyOf making worldly interestSubordinate to sense of duty? ‘The Slave of Duty’ is the subtitle of Gilbert and…
The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra celebrates Stravinsky at the Proms
When Stravinsky’s ‘one-act ballet with songs’, Pulcinella,was first performed in 1920 – by Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes, with choreography by Léonide Massine and designs by Pablo Picasso – the music was…
ENO presents Tosca at the brand new South Facing Festival
On Friday 27 and Sunday 29 August 2021 – as a part of South Facing Festival at historic music venue Crystal Palace Bowl in Crystal Palace Park, South London –…
A very special Schumanniade, hosted by Bostridge, Coote and Drake, closes a season to cherish at Wigmore Hall
After keeping the music alive and the song flowing during an incredibly challenging 2020-21 season, Wigmore Hall’s artistic and executive director, John Gilhooly, offered one final feast of lieder to…
Heart & Hereafter: Elizabeth Llewellyn shines a lustrous light on the songs of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Last September, soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn made her belated Wigmore Hall debut, an occasion which introduced me to Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Six Sorrow Songs – settings of Christina Rossetti’s poetry which I…
The 20th Oxford Lieder Festival, 8-23 October 2021: Nature’s Songbook
Oxford Lieder, the UK’s biggest festival of song, marks its 20th year with its most ambitious programme to date, featuring more than 100 events, both in-person and live-streamed. · 20 new works…