Launched in November 2012, the competition offers a multitude of prizes and opportunities to the winners and runners-up, including exclusive scholarships to the School, cash prizes and performance opportunities with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Whitgift Chamber Orchestra.

The competition is open to string players from age 12 to 17 and is divided into three age categories. The grand prize for the winner of each age group is a full scholarship to Whitgift School, including instrumental tuition and full board in the new boarding house, which is due to open later this year.

To apply, musicians submit a YouTube video of them performing a piece of their choice. The finalists will then be invited to Whitgift School to perform in front of a jury on 1st and 2nd July. The jury will consist of Royal Academy of Music Professor, Remus Azoitei; a member nominated by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; acclaimed cellist and former winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, Guy Johnston; novelist and Independent journalist, Jessica Duchen; and Whitgift’s Director of Music Development, Rosanna Whitfield, and Head of Orchestral Music, Philip Winter. The Winners concert and official Prize-giving will take place on Wednesday 3rd July at 6pm.

If you are a string player aged 12 to 17 and would like to apply for this fantastic opportunity, visit the competition website here before it’s too late!

(Written on April 30, 2013 )

Last year, Whitgift School in Croydon announced the launch of the Whitgift International Music Competition, offering talented young musicians an array of fantastic prizes and opportunities. Open to string musicians in three age groups from 12 to 17 years, the competition requires the young musician to submit a performance video via YouTube. Successful applicants will then perform before a jury between 29th June and 3rd July. The jury will consist of Whitgift’s Director of Music Development, Rosanna Whitfield, and Director of Orchestral Music, Philip Winter; Royal Academy of Music Professor, Remus Azoitei; cellist and former winner of BBC Young Musician of the Year, Guy Johnston; novelist and journalist for the Independent newspaper, Jessica Duchen; and a further member, nominated by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

The Whitgift International Music Competition offers the winners prizes that will not only further their musical training, but also provide them with valuable performance experience with professional musicians. The Grand Prize is a full scholarship to Whitgift, including full board, fees and instrumental lessons. The winner will also perform with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra as part of the Whitgift Chamber Orchestra. There are also three runner-up prizes, including cash prizes and performance with the Royal Philharmonic.

This fantastic opportunity can change the life of an aspiring young musician, and there is less than a month to go. Applications for the competition close on 1st May 2013.

Visit the Whitgift International Music Competition website here for full details of how to apply, along with prize details.

(Written on April 5, 2013 )

The Independent

Monteverdi gets the Silent Opera treatment

Jessica Duchen visits Trinity Buoy Wharf for the rehearsals for Silent Opera’s L’Orfeo. The article can also be read on Jessica’s blog here.

When a wet tenor wowed Woody Allen

Fabio Armiliato’s recent experience in itself reads almost like a Woody Allen film.

Gramophone

Sir Simon Rattle to step down as Berlin Philharmonic chief conductor in 2018

Conductor announces he will not extend his contract when it expires in five years’ time

Classic FM

Funding for Whitacre’s Virtual Choir 4 reaches halfway

Virtual Choir 4 has reached $50,000 in donations, halfway to its target of $100,000.

Pianist’s classical Pink Floyd is unlikely hit

A young Turkish pianist and graduate of the Royal Academy of Music has become an unlikely sensation after recording a Lisztian interpretation of the works of Pink Floyd.

The Guardian

Royal Opera House reveals new direction on eve of chief executive’s departure

Shows based on Oscar Wilde and Iain Banks works among those announced as Tony Hall gets ready to join BBC

Benjamin Britten at 100 – time for a new appraisal?

A more relaxed attitude may be emerging towards the colossal musical legacy of Britain’s modern titan of the opera

The Telegraph

ENO accounts are ‘shockingly bad’

English National Opera has £2.5million deficit and 2012 audiences were down nine per cent on previous year.

Slipped Disc

Just in: Vienna’s Jews honour the Philharmonic chairman

Just as the orchestra is besieged once more with allegations of sexual and racial discrimination, the Vienna Philharmonic chairman, Clemens Hellsberg, has received a notable award from the city’s Jewish community.

BBC News

Celebrating Doctor Who pioneer Delia Derbyshire

Twelve years after her death, a group of artists and musicians are preparing to celebrate the work of electronic music pioneer, Delia Derbyshire.

Classic FM

(Written on January 14, 2013 )

Tomorrow, the fourth annual International Wimbledon Music Festival opens with The Purcell Paegent at St John’s, Spencer Hill. The festival boasts ‘A World Music Fair’, with musicians and repertoire from around the globe. With a feast  of performances at venues across SW19, the festival promises to be the best yet.

Featuring works from Messiaen by the Nash Ensemble, the festival this week announced a second performance of Jessica Duchen’s much anticipated sold out play ‘A Walk Through The End of Time’, which describes how Messaien’s Quatour pour la Fin du Temps was composed and performed by him and three other prisoners in a German prisoner-of-war camp. Joining Henry Goodman and Harriet Walter in the play, is Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who tells the extraordinary story of The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz. Another celebrated performance is the production of ‘Petrushka’, with Russian virtuoso Mikhail Rudy on the piano, alongside a cast of intricate puppets and ballet dancers from leading companies. Watch a preview of Petrushka here. 

Celebrating its global repute, another highlight of the International Wimbledon Music Festival is the newly comissioned piece by British composer Benjamin Wallfisch, which will receive its European premiere at the festival’s gala concert on November 24th. With close links to the Martinu Festival in Basel, Pro Musica Festival in El Paso, Texas, along with the Australian Festival of Chamber Music and the Sitka Summer Music Festival in Alaska, the Wimbledon festival is able to share the commission of works along with musicians, such as cellist Zuill Bailey, Artistic Director of both the El Paso Pro Musica and the Sitka Summer Music Festival, who with play alongside Artistic Director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in a celebrity cello recital on Friday 23rd November. 

The festival also recently announced that actor Benedict Cumberbatch will join oboist Nicholas Daniel to narrate a performance of Benjamin Britten’s Six Metamorphoses after Ovid on November 18th.

For more information on the festival, and to purchase tickets to any of the events, please visit their website: http://www.wimbledonmusicfestival.co.uk/ 

(Written on November 9, 2012 )

The Independent

Jessica Duchen: How I put the tale of music in a Nazi camp on the stage

(Written on November 1, 2012 )

Classic FM

Classic FM celebrates Bond music with Hollywood composers

The music of James Bond will be celebrated by Classic FM in a two-hour special broadcast featuring interviews with Bond composers David Arnold and Thomas Newman.

New Zealand MP to become opera singer

Dr Lockwood Smith, MP and Speaker of the House of Representatives in New Zealand, is to perform alongside the New Zealand Pops Orchestra later this month.

The Evening Standard

Deceptive Cadence, NPR

The MacArthur ‘Genius’ Bow Maker Who Makes Violins Sing 

Among the 23 recipients of the MacArthur “genius” grants this past week: an economist, a mathematician, a photographer, a neuroscientist, and a Boston-based stringed instrument bow maker.

The Independent 

(Written on October 8, 2012 )

This year’s International Wimbledon Music Festival celebrates ‘ A Musical World Fair’, with musicians from across the globe flocking to South West London for a feast of music-making in November.

Festival highlights include a new production of Stravinsky’s Petrushka, combining a performance from Festival regular Mikhail Rudy with puppetry and live projects.

Singers feature prominently in this year’s Festival, which opens with a Purcell Pageant with the Academy Choir and Baroque Orchestra and soloists Susan Bickley, Malin Christensson, Njabolo Madlala and Robin Blaze performing Dido and Aeneas. In addition, Mark Padmore will perform Schubert’s Schwanengesang with pianist Simon Lepper, Cardinall’s Musick perform ‘Music of Spain’s Golden Age’ and Christine Brewer performs with Roger Vignoles.

Celebrating the Festival’s international partners and co-comissioning programme, cellist Zuill Bailey (Artistic Director of the Pro Musica Festival in El Paso, Texas and of the Sitka Summer Music Festival in Alaska) performs with Piers Lane (Artistic Director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music). Together these festivals have commissioned an exciting new work from Benjamin Wallfisch –  Chopin’s Waterloo - inspired by the paintings and sculptures of the French artist Arman, which will premiere on November 24th.

The Festival’s musical offering also boasts a performance from Alina Ibragimova and her father Rinat, performances by the Nash Ensemble, New Zealand String Quartet, the Rosamunde Trio, Cristina Ortiz, and the Kopelman Quartet.

In addition, this year’s festival sees an exciting performance of Jessica Duchen‘s play: A Walk Through The End Of Time performed by Henry Goodman and Penelope Wilton. The play, which explores the ideas behind Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, as well as the circumstances under which it was composed, is followed by a retelling of the extraordinary story of The Woman’s Orchestra of Auschwitz, told by Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who survived it.

For full programme information please visit the International Wimbledon Music Festival website and become a fan on Facebook.

(Written on May 25, 2012 )

The Telegraph

Jonathan Harvey: Spirits Soar In The Hands Of A Master.

For truly spiritual music, you need to turn to Jonathan Harvey, says Ivan Hewett.

Jessica Duchen’s Classical Music Blog

Debussy’s Bustin’ Out All Over

Jessica Duchen celebrates 150 years since the composer’s birth.

The Guardian

Tom Service: Gustav Leonhardt: Precision, Coolness, Brilliance – And Alfa Romeos.

Gustav Leonhardt was the most austere of the fathers of the Early Music movement. But there’s more to his personality, and playing, than intellectual rigour – even if he did wear the sharpest suits of any harpsichordist, ever…

Behind The Music: What If The Culture Industry Shut Down For A Day?

Wikipedia went black in protest against anti-piracy legislation. But which would you miss more: an encyclopaedia or music?

Robin Gibb To Honour Titanic Victims In First ‘Classical’ Composition.

Titanic Requiem – which will be composed by Bee Gees singer and son – will be played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jan/20/robin-gibb-titanic-victims-classical-piece-1

(Written on January 20, 2012 )

Every day the WildKat team scan the newspapers and blogs online to bring you a digested list of the day’s classical music.

The Financial Times

La Forza del Destino, Paris Opera (Bastille)

American baritone Leonard Warren collapsed and died during a performance of La forza del destino at the Metropolitan Opera in 1960. Pavarotti is said to have avoided singing it on stage because of its supposed curse. The opera world is still full of such superstition but the real curse afflicting the work is its impossible libretto.

The New York Times

Margaret Atwood Named Mentor in Rolex Arts Program

The Canadian author Margaret Atwood and the French theater director Patrice Chéreau are among the six artists who will serve as mentors in dance, film, literature, music, theater and visual arts as part of a program sponsored by Rolex.

Jessica Duchen’s Classical Music Blog

A Lang Way to Go

Calling all keen pianists: wanna go to New York?

BBC 

World Citizen pianist Sourikova’s musical Journey.

Russian-born pianist Katya Sourikova is gaining a growing following in Europe with her brand of jazz shaped by years of classical training.

ThisIsTheWestcounty

Ilminster music organisation looking for help

CHANCE for a youngster to gain some work experience with an Ilminster music charity has become available this week.

(Written on November 16, 2011 )

Every day the WildKat team scan the newspapers and blogs online to bring you a digested list of the day’s classical music.

The Guardian

Another View on La Sonnambula

Bellini’s views on somnambulism are very much of his time – who thinks a sleepwalker is a phantom these days?

The Times (£)

Toby Spence on his role in Eugene Onegin

Toby Spence played the rake offstage and on. Now the tenor loves gardening and his new role swings both ways…

The Times (£)

Eugene Onegin at the London Coliseum.

Traditionally staged and passionately conducted, English National Opera’s new production of Tchaikovsky’s lyrical masterpiece is full of ensemble virtues.

Jessica Duchen’s Classical Music Blog

A Great Gate of… Wimbledon?

Mikhail conceived a way to update this ever-musical artist’s work for a modern context. Joining forces with an expert animation company, he set about breathing life into Kandinsky.

The Telegraph

Mireille, New Sussex Opera, Cadogan Hall.

Like some fresh sweet rosé which turns astringent once it leaves its native soil, Gounod’s Mireille doesn’t travel well. With its Provençal setting and pseudo-folk songs and dances, it’s much loved in France, but everyone else looks down their noses at its sentimental religiosity…

(Written on November 14, 2011 )