The International Wimbledon Music Festival is pleased to announce that actor Benedict Cumberbatch will join oboist Nicholas Daniel to narrate a performance of Benjamin Britten’s Six Metamorphoses after Ovid on November 18th at Trinity Church in Wimbledon.

The concert is a celebration of music for the oboe, and also features works by Mozart and Elisabeth Lutyens. Daniel was awarded the Queens Medal for Music in 2011 and will also be joined by the Britten Oboe Quartet for this exciting concert.

Dedicated to programming international artists of the highest calibre, this year’s festival also features a performance from Patricia Routledge accompanied by pianist Piers Lane;  as well as world-class musicians including Christine Brewer, Mikhail Rudy, Alina Ibragimova, Mark Padmore, Xuefei Yang and more.

The festival opens on November 10th with A Purcell Pageant and runs until November 25th.

For more information visit www.wimbledonmusicfestival.co.uk

(Written on November 1, 2012 )

The Telegraph

Online piano star Valentina Lisitsa gets Royal Albert Hall debut

YouTube star and and virtuoso pianist Valentina Lisitsa signs record deal and will play a concert at the Royal Albert Hall.

Jessica Duchen

A Music World Fair

This year’s International Wimbledon Music Festival is ‘A Music World Fair’ – a tremendously international job, lighting up South West London with performances by the Kopelman String Quartet, Alina Ibragimova, Nicholas Daniel and Sam West, Christine Brewer, Zuill Bailey, Cristina Ortiz, Mark Padmore and many more.

NY Times

Philadelphia Orchestra Submits Plan to Cut Debt

The Philadelphia Orchestra has laid out its plan to erase debts and cut costs in a major step toward exiting bankruptcy court.

The Guardian

King Priam, a pacifist’s opera, can still shed light on the trauma of war

Half a century after its first showing, Michael Tippett’s libretto based on the lliad is a fitting work for today.

Fischer-Dieskau’s 12 best recordings

Martin Kettle’s pick of the great baritone’s recorded output.

LA Times

Glenn Dicterow leaving New York Philharmonic, joining USC faculty

Glenn Dicterow, concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic for more than 30 years, will be leaving the venerated orchestra and joining the faculty of the USC Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles.

New West Symphony names Marcelo Lehninger as new music director

Marcelo Lehninger, the young Brazilian German maestro who serves as an assistant conductor for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has been named music director of the New West Symphony, which is based in Thousand Oaks.

Classical Music Magazine

Classical singles chart greeted with scepticism by industry

The launch of a weekly classical singles chart, the first of which will be released on 28 May, has been greeted enthusiastically by crossover artists but more sceptically by the core classical sector.

Gramophone

Anne-Sophie Mutter receives Distinguished Leadership Award

Violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter has been awarded the Atlantic Council’s 2012 Distinguished Artistic Leadership Award, recognising her as ‘one of the most significant leaders of our society’.

(Written on May 25, 2012 )

Classical Music Magazine

Runnicles Assembles Star Cast For BBCSSO Tristan.

The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra will perform the three acts of Tristan und Isolde over a set of three concerts that will take place between September 2012 and April 2013 at both Edinburgh’s Usher Hall and Glasgow’s City Halls.

LA Times

Muse/ique’s New Season To Feature Steven Page.

Muse/ique will kick off its 2012 season this month with a lineup that includes Steven Page, formerly of the band Barenaked Ladies, and appearances by actors Ed Harris, Amy Madigan and Wendie Malick.

New York Times

Playing It Safe In Programming Philharmonic.

Alan Gilbert and New York Philharmonic’s 2012-13 season.

Gramophone

ENO Launches Worldwide Search For Opera Creators.

English National Opera is launching Mini Operas, a worldwide, online search for scriptwriters, composers and film-makers that aims to preserve and redefine the future of opera.

Jessica Duchen’s Classical Music Blog

International Women’s Day – A Little Listening.

Jessica Duchen celebrates women in music.

(Written on March 8, 2012 )

Every day the WildKat team scan newspapers, websites and blogs for interesting classical music news, and now we’ve decided to publish our lists so that you can get a classical music news summary each day. If you’ve read anything interesting each day that we’ve missed do feel free to comment and let us know!

Robin Ticciati named Glyndebourne Musical Director

Ticciati will take over from Vladimir Jurowski in January 2014.

Your next box set – Glyndebourne: Comedy and Tragedy

Andrew Clements reviews Glyndebourne’s new box set of operas, featuring Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Rachmaninov’s The Miserly Knight.

The Marriage of Figaro and footie

An article by Michael Volpe, the General Manager at Opera Holland Park, and a ‘working-class, tattooed football fan’.

Can the symphony orchestra survive?

Norman Lebrecht says that we need classical music concerts today more than ever, but how it is funded is going to be difficult for the next couple of years.

Alina Ibragimova on life at the Menuhin School

The UK Foreign Office has included Ibragimova in a series of short films called ‘See Britain through my eyes’, in which individuals reflect on their experiences of modern Britain, in celebration of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

(Written on July 1, 2011 )