The Times

LPO/Jurowski at the Festival Hall, SE1

Introducing this concert, Vladimir Jurowski spoke for 15 minutes: much longer than the first piece, Webern’s Variations.

The Telegraph

Amy Dickson: Siren of seductive, late-night sax

Amy Dickson is used to playing concertos but adopted a cooler sound for her new disc, she tells Adam Sweeting.

The Guardian

James Rhodes: ‘Find what you love and let it kill you’

My life as a concert pianist can be frustrating, lonely, demoralising and exhausting. But is it worth it? Yes, without a shadow of a doubt.

City of London Festival

Former Edinburgh Festival Fringe Director appointed as new City of London Festival Director

The City of London Festival today announced the appointment of Paul Gudgin to succeed Ian Ritchie as Festival Director.

Classic FM

Chloë Hanslip in Tim Lihoreau’s Wednesday Web Chat

The acclaimed violinist will be joining More Music Breakfast presenter Tim Lihoreau on Wednesday 1 May at 9am.

Classical Source

Southbank Centre takes festival of 20th century music to Shanghai

Gillian Moore, Julian Johnson and Sara Mohr-Pietsch stage discussions on 20th Century music with performances by the Aurora Orchestra and Shanghai Conservatory with Rory Macdonald.

City of London Festival

(Written on April 30, 2013 )

The Telegraph

New music scholarships for London’s talented children

Talented children who might otherwise slip through the music education net are fulfilling their promise thanks to a new scholarship scheme.

The Guardian

Damon Albarn’s opera Dr Dee – video

Dr Dee, an opera about the Elizabethan mathematician, astronomer and astrologer Dr John Dee, opened at the Coliseum on Monday night.

Gramophone

China holds its first Li Delun National Conducting Competition

Designed to inspire young Chinese conductors of the future.

BBC Music Magazine

Tower Bridge as a musical instrument

Composer Samuel Bordoli has written a piece to be performed on London’s Tower Bridge as part of the City of London Festival’s 50th anniversary.

Arts Journal – Slipped Disc

German theatre chief: Give the Ring a rest

In a perfect curtain-raiser to the Bayreuth festival and the Wagner bicentenary, the president of the German Theatre Association Klaus Zehelein says there are too many productions of the Ring.

New artistic director at Ensemble Intercontemporain

It’s the composer Matthias Pintscher.

 LA Times

El Sistema produces a new, younger Gustavo Dudamel

Gustavo Dudamel, 31, seems practically middle-aged compared to Jose Angel Salazar, a 14-year-old El Sistema student who has gained attention recently for his talent as a conductor.

(Written on June 29, 2012 )

As summer approaches (very slowly, through all these grey clouds), an air of excitement surrounds the world of classical music: the festival season is here!  Whether at home in the UK or elsewhere in Europe and beyond, there is so much choice for great classical music this summer. In Olympic spirit, London is celebrating itself at the ‘City of London Festival’ from the 24th June to the 27th July, featuring the LSO and acclaimed guitarist John Williams. Also gloriously British, is the ‘Longborough Festival Opera’, which features the famous ‘Sweeney Todd’ performed by the festival’s Young Artist Production; the festival is on now, until the 29th of July.

Whilst Glastonbury’s usual Rock and Roll tenants take a break this year, the ‘Orchestra in a Field’ at Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, takes place this weekend (30^th June to 1^st July) providing ‘Tchaikovsky to Tubular Bells by way of Opera, Hip Hop and hand bells’ (Classical-music.com) as well as free tickets to those under the age of 13, a great, fun event to introduce children to classical music. Another great event this weekend takes place at the prestigious ‘Wigmore Hall’: you can hear and see the Leipzig String Quartet as well as soloists of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, providing exciting music from Brahms to Beethoven.

Finishing this week is the renowned ‘Istanbul Music Festival’, which has been running for the entire month of June. In its 40^th year, it has featured (a staggering) over 750 artists this year, including the Warsaw Philharmonic Choir and the Chamber Orchestra Vienna-Berlin. It has also commissioned works by the revered composers Giya Kancheli and Fazil Say, which were premiered at the festival.

Even further east is the ‘IV Gabala International Festival‘ of Azerbaijan, taking place from the 25^th of July to the 5^th of August, featuring traditional Chamber music, as well as Mugham – the folk compositions of Azerbaijan, which are now a UNESCO protected cultural heritage.

More centrally in Europe, Austria is hosting some of the world’s finest classical music festivals. The month-long, extraordinary ‘Bregenzer Festspiele‘ (18^th July to the 18^th August), in its breathtaking lake-side location features Opera on the Lake (with its stunning staging), an array of Chamber music, Theatre, and Music and Poetry: a highlight of which is Shostakovich’s ‘Ten Poems on Texts by Revolutionary Poets for mixed chorus op.88’. The renowned ‘Salzburger Festspiele‘ is one of THE summer events, from the 20^th July to the 2^nd September, featuring music and operas, from ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’, to ‘La Boheme’; Whilst August welcomes the ‘Innsbrucker Festwochen der alten Musik‘, from the 8^th to the 26^th, spanning all areas of classical music from Oriental Baroque to Slavonic Dances.

The beautiful landscapes of Italy host the ‘Incontri in Terra di Siena’ in lush Tuscany, where classical music is coupled with contemporary Jazz as well as Olive Oil and Wine tasting (definitely not one to miss!) A highlight is the Borromeo String Quartet playing Bach, Debussy and Schubert on the 22^nd of July. The entire festival is from the 20^th to the 29^th of July.

Whether travelling abroad or staying at home in this important 2012 summer, there are numerous great festivals not be missed, an abundance of which can be found on our ‘July Unmissables’ pinterest page here.

The Famous Staging at Bregenzer Festspiele

(Written on June 28, 2012 )

This Saturday, Ruthless Jabiru, an all-Australian chamber orchestra based in the UK, makes its City of London Festival debut in a concert at LSO St Luke’s from 7.30pm.

Led by Australian conductor Kelly Lovelady, this exciting new chamber orchestra is formed of Australian musicians living and working in the UK. Performing works by their esteemed patron, Peter Sculthorpe, as well as Barber and Copland, the ensemble will be joined by Soprano Emma Pearson, making her much-anticipated London debut!

For more information, find the orchestra on Facebook and Twitter, and for tickets, visit City of London Festival’s website.

Programme:

Sculthorpe Small Town
Sculthorpe Shining Island [European premiere]
Sculthorpe Djilile
Barber Knoxville: Summer of 1915
Sculthorpe Second Sonata for Strings
Copland Appalachian Spring

(Written on July 4, 2011 )

Organ of Corti by liminal is four-metre high sonic crystal which filters and manipulates sounds in its environment, without adding any noise of its own.

In the first of a series of Q&As, we asked Keith Attenborough, research professor at The Open University to explain how Organ of Corti will work and why there will be two different layouts for the 96 transparent tubes which make up the body of the instrument.

Organ of Corti will be unveiled at the City of London Festival on July 1st, outside St Paul’s Cathedral, Carter Lane Gardens. For more information about the UK tour this summer, including the three other locations which Organ of Corti will visit and supporting events, become a fan on facebook.

Organ of Corti is the winner of PRS for Music Foundation’s New Music Award 2010.

(Written on June 8, 2011 )

WildKat PR are happy to announce two new additions to our client roster: We are now working with Australian conductor Kelly Lovelady, and producer Alexander Van Ingen.

Kelly Lovelady is the founder and music director of a new all-Australian chamber orchestra in the UK, Ruthless Jabiru. WildKat PR are excited to be working with Kelly and the ensemble, who make their debut at the City of London Festival on July 9th. The programme honours the orchestra’s patron, Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe. A selection of Sculthorpe miniatures shares the platform with two vintage American masterworks, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and Copland’s Appalachian Spring, parallelling the iconic soundworlds of these two vast countries.

You can find out more about Ruthless Jabiru’s concert at LSO St Luke’s and book tickets via the City of London Festival website and follow Kelly and the orchestra on Twitter for up-to-date news and information.

Photo credit: Harald Hutter

Alexander Van Ingen has become regarded as one of the UK’s finest young record producers since founding the independent recording company Six Music Productions. He works worldwide with renowned conductors, ensembles, choirs, composers and soloists recording for leading classical labels. Alexander’s work had led him to develop a distinguished client list which includes the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Liverpool Philharmonic, composers Karl Jenkins, Arvo Pärt and Michael Nyman, Winchester Cathedral Choir, conductors Edward Gardner, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and John Wilson, and numerous soloists from Alfie Boe to Raphael Wallfisch.

Photo credit: Andrew Mellor

(Written on June 2, 2011 )

Taking its name from the organ of hearing in the inner ear, Organ of Corti will be unveiled and open to the public for the first time as part of the City of London Festival from July 1^st – 7^th, at Carter Lane Gardens, St Paul’s Cathedral, before moving on to three further UK locations during the summer.

Organ of Corti by liminal, allows you to become both composer and audience as you step inside and move around this pioneering, experimental instrument. Inspiring you to explore new ways of listening by re-engaging with the sonic world around you, the Organ of Corti compels you to ask, “What defines a piece of music?”

The Organ of Corti is a four-metre high, visually transparent sonic crystal that takes sounds from the environment in which it is placed and recycles them, without adding any noise of its own. As you listen to sounds of road traffic or a weir filtered by the sonic crystal, you can hear musical structures in what many would consider to be merely day-to-day noise of the environments in which we live.

You will be able to climb inside the instrument to discover a different sound experience from one heard on the outside of the structure. The Organ of Corti will accentuate or attenuate different frequencies as you move through and around the instrument, creating an evolving sound experience.

Following its installation outside St Paul’s Cathedral, the Organ of Corti will be installed in four contrasting locations at Tebay Gorge in the Lake District, Cotswold Water Park in Wiltshire and Diglis Weir in Worcester. The tour will be supported by onsite talks and sound walks, enabling you to undertake an aural exploration and observation of your environment.

To find out more, visit PRS for Music Foundation‘s website, or www.organorcorti.co.uk. You can also check out Organ of Corti on Facebook.

Where and When?

July 1st – 7th: World premiere at City of London Festival; Carter Lane Gardens, St Paul’s Cathedral
July 9th – 11th: Lake District Summer Music Festival; Lay-by on A685 overlooking M6,Tebay Gorge
Aug 15th – 17th: Cotswold Water Park; Lake 6, near A419
Aug 19th – 21st: Worcester Music Festival; Diglis Weir, River Severn.

(Written on May 17, 2011 )