Louise Thomson (harp) and Polly Ives, Director of Concerteenies, have teamed up many times in the past to present engaging, interactive activities and music for very young children. Indeed, they are looking forward to presenting Tiddler the Story-Telling Fish (by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler) together at St. David’s Hall, Cardiff, as part of the World Harp Congress which is now taking place in 2021.

The Concerteenies team is now releasing a series of 24 short, inspirational, and engaging films represent the ‘typical’ life of a family with young children. The films aim to inspire everyone to be musical and creative in their everyday lives as well as incorporating music in their home and school learning activities. Themes include train games, musical phonics, tidying up time, drawing, a park walk, running races, ‘Witching Hour’, a bedtime story, night-time lullabies and more! A fabulous line-up of musicians too! The project, ’24-Hour Soundtrack’, includes ‘Bedtime Story’ made by Louise and Polly (live from 7pm Wednesday):

The Linos Piano Trio is thrilled to be giving its first concert since March, this Thursday in Cologne, and to be able to mark the release of their CPE Bach CD. The trio will perform to a small, socially distanced audience, and the concert will also be live-streamed.  You can watch it here, or on facebook, and their programme will be:

The Ferio Saxophone Quartet’s latest project is a collaboration with vocal ensemble the Corvus Consort (formerly the New Oxford Consort), with a video coming soon, featuring music by J. S. Bach.

The video, recorded and produced during the lockdown, will be premiered as part of The Sixteen‘s Sounds Sublime Festival, which this year takes place online.

The Solem Quartet is excited to present a concert online at 1pm on Thursday 16th July.

Streamed on Facebook, the concert will take the form of a socially-distanced performance in the atmospheric setting of St Giles Church, Camberwell.

The half-hour programme will focus on themes of time and nature, and feature music written in times of isolation by composers including William Byrd, Bela Bartók, Cassandra Miller, Florence Price and Thomas Adès.

This year’s Corbridge Chamber Music Festival will be taking place online, with a series of concerts being streamed on the festival’s YouTube channel from 24th-26th July.

The Gould Piano Trio and Robert Plane, Artistic Directors of the festival, will be joined by a select group of talented performers to present this virtual incarnation of the annual summer festival.

Soirées at Breinton have successfully organised hosting their summer concerts outside this year, and Huw Wiggin and Oliver Wass look forward to appearing as part of the series, ‘Summer at Breinton’, next month.

In an enterprising move towards the return of live performances,  Summer at Breinton hosted its first live concert of the year on Saturday 4th July, with a socially-distanced audience taking their places in the garden at Breinton (pictured above).

If you missed it at the time, you can ‘listen again’ to Robert Plane chatting to Alice Neary on Penarth Radio about his career, the repertoire he has performed and recorded and also his new appointment as Head of Wind Performance at RWCMD. You can hear Robert from about fourteen minutes into the broadcast.

Daniel Rowland and the Stiftfestival management team have just announced that tickets will soon go on sale for their upcoming Limited Edition of the Summerfestival 2020. It will run from 23rd to 29th August, and will take account of the current guidance in the Netherlands in relation to COVID-19: events will have a maximum audience of 100 people, maintaining a 1.5-metre distance at all times. The themes of this edition, based on Beethoven’s life, are Isolation, Revolution, Freedom, Brotherhood, Nature and Love, which the organisers note now feel more important and relevant than ever.

For their spring issue earlier this year, Clarinet & Saxophone Magazine talked to Robert Plane about his latest recording. For those who have not already seen it, and with the very kind permission of CASSGB, we hope you enjoy reading the resulting article which you can find here.

We are thrilled to announce that the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama has appointed Robert Plane as its new Head of Woodwind Performance. Robert, who has been a clarinet tutor at the College for the last twenty years and also Principal Clarinet of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales over the same period, will start his new position in September in parallel with his highly successful career as soloist, chamber musician and recording artist.