Read our artists’ latest news and keep up to date with the developments in their careers.
Timothy Orpen to feature in RSNO Digital Season
Timothy Orpen looks forward to performing in a live-streamed chamber concert as part of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s Spring/Summer Digital Season 2021.
In his role as Principal Clarinet of the RSNO, Timothy will perform alongside several of his RNSO colleagues in a concert that also involves star pianist Paul Lewis.
Their programme will feature works by Mozart and Weber with particularly prominent roles for Timothy’s clarinet, as well as an item by Scottish homegrown composer Michael Murray and Paul Lewis’s rendition of Mozart’s twelfth Piano Concerto.
Recommended by Classic FM, the concert will broadcast at 7.30pm on Friday 23 April, and will be available to ticket holders until Friday 30 July.
Solem Quartet announced awardee of Live Work Fund
The Solem Quartet has been announced as an awardee of the Live Work Fund, one of 33 artists selected from more than 1200 applicants.
The Live Work Fund is a new initiative launched in collaboration by Jerwood Arts, The Wolfson Foundation, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and The Linbury Trust, which aims to support exceptional artists whose work relies on live performance, following the impact of Covid-19. They have selected 33 young artists to receive awards of £20,000 over 12 months to help them adapt their approach to making and sharing live work.
The Solem Quartet takes its place amongst some of the UK’s brightest artistic voices, with award recipients spread across practices including music, theatre, opera, circus, dance, live art and performance, as well as those who work in the gaps between these disciplines.
Solem Quartet and Anthony Friend Live Concert Stream from Conway Hall
This Sunday, 21st February, the Solem Quartet and clarinettist Anthony Friend perform a programme which is full of variety and colour.
In addition to the ever-popular Brahms Clarinet Quintet, you will be able to hear music by Vasks, Bartók, Schumann & Florence Price,
World premieres with the Solem Quartet at Bangor Music Festival
The Solem Quartet look forward to their concert of world premieres for Bangor Music Festival in North Wales, which will be streamed online on Friday 12 March.
The Festival, which has taken place annually since 2000, is particularly focused on contemporary music, and this year’s festival theme is ‘the environment’.
The Solem Quartet’s concert, to be filmed at Bangor University, will feature world premiere performances of four brand new works for string quartet by leading contemporary composers.
Tim Horton piano recital from Wigmore Hall – live
Tim Horton‘s solo piano recital at Wigmore Hall will be live-streamed on Friday 26 February at 7:30pm.
Chopin’s four Ballades opp. 23, 38, 47 and 52, key pillars of the composer’s extensive oeuvre for solo piano, will feature alongside Mozart’s Fantasia in C minor, K. 396, and Szymanowski’s Masques, op. 34.
Tim has also just launched his brand new website, where you can read more about his solo work, as well as his extensive ensemble work as a chamber musician.
Rowland Bogdanovic Duo stream from empty Concertgebouw
Daniel Rowland and Maja Bogdanović have been invited to record a recital at Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw for broadcast as part of the Empty Concertgebouw Sessions.
Works by Halvorsen, Sibelius, Vasks and Piazzolla will feature in their short programme, to be filmed and recorded onsite at one of Europe’s most eminent concert venues.
The concert will be broadcast at 8:30pm (Central European Standard Time) on Thursday 18th February via the Concertgebouw YouTube channel.
Hiroaki Takenouchi piano recital to be streamed in South Africa
Performances recently recorded by Hiroaki Takenouchi will be streamed by Brooklyn Theatre in Pretoria, South Africa, as part of their series being broadcast on ArtMusic TV.
This concert marks Hiro’s virtual return to Pretoria’s Brooklyn Theatre, after he performed a complete cycle of Mozart Piano Sonatas there across three days as part of the Gauteng International Arts Festival in September 2019.
Solem Quartet seeks composer to write for BBN: Pioneers
The award-winning Solem Quartet is looking for a composer to write an ambitious new work for Beethoven Bartók Now: Pioneers, to take place in Spring 2022.
The winner of the competition, launched this week, will receive a prize of £1500 and they will be tasked with composing a 15-minute work to interact with and respond to Bartók’s Quartet no. 1 and Beethoven’s Quartet no. 14, op. 131.
Applications are now open, and run until 11pm on 28 February 2021.
Click here for more information about applying.
TODAY: Huw Wiggin recital live-streamed from ROSL
Huw Wiggin is giving a recital this evening at 6:30pm, live-streamed from the Princess Alexandra Hall at the Royal Over-Seas League in London.
“Close of harmony, cool of rhythm, and totally stirring of spirit”
The Corvus Consort’s Christmas project “Twelve Composers Composing”, released online over the recent festive period, has been met with praise and admiration from public and industry professionals alike.
Twelve of the UK’s most exciting young composers were commissioned to write twelve new miniature works for a choir of twelve voices based on the text of the well-known song The Twelve Days of Christmas — the resulting twelve works were recorded by the Consort and premiered online in twelve short videos released daily throughout the Twelve Days of Christmas.
A French Connection: Chausson, Debussy, Franck
Champs Hill, CHRCD157
Release date 19th February 2021
‘Writing for Quartet’ workshop with the Solem Quartet
The Solem Quartet will host their first digital ‘Writing for Quartet’ workshop at 6:00pm on Thursday 28th January, as part of their ambitious Beethoven Bartók Now project.
The workshop will offer an opportunity for composers of all ages, levels and backgrounds to meet the Solem Quartet, and investigate how to write successfully for string quartet. In the format of a Zoom meeting, the quartet will be taking questions, demonstrating techniques, and performing short excerpts of submitted works.
Free tickets for the workshop can be reserved by clicking here, and composers’ submissions can be sent in advance to solemquartet@gmail.com — more information about submissions below.
Online: Rachel Roberts and Tim Horton live from Conway Hall
Rachel Roberts and Tim Horton look forward to their upcoming duo concert for Conway Hall Sunday Concerts on Sunday 24th January.
Live-streamed from Conway Hall, this will be a great opportunity to hear a brilliant duo performing some of the greatest works of the viola and piano repertory.
The Linos Piano Trio is back in the recording studio
Hot on the heels of their first commercial CD (released on the CAvi label in May 2020) and the ensuing flurry of excellent reviews, the Linos Piano Trio are now recording their second disc. They have been invited to make this new disc in a partnership between Bayerischer Rundfunk and AVI-Service for music, and have been recording this week in the Bayerischer Rundfunk building in Munich.
Julian Bliss and Tim Horton – Sunday’s BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert
First broadcast live on 25th November, as part of Cheltenham Music Festival’s recent residency at St. David’s Hall in Cardiff, this recital by Julian Bliss and Tim Horton can be heard again on Radio 3 tomorrow lunchtime (Sunday 3rd Jan 2021).
New Year Festival
‘New Year Music Festival’ is an exciting new co-production by Stiftfestival and Classical NOW!, with Studio 150 Bethlehemkerk. Seven chamber music concerts will be live-streamed in the first three days of 2021.
Corvus Consort’s “Twelve Composers Composing” videos coming soon
The Corvus Consort looks forward to releasing twelve new videos during the Twelve Days of Christmas, as part of its “Twelve Composers Composing” project.
Beethoven Bartók Now
The Solem Quartet is excited to present its new Solem Lates project, Beethoven Bartók Now, an ambitious six-part series running from December 2020 until March 2023.
Kurtág Hommage à Robert Schumann
As part of today’s Penarth Chamber Music Festival concert, broadcast live from St David’s Hall, Cardiff as Radio 3’s Lunchtime Concert, Robert Plane performs the Kurtág Hommage à Robert Schumann with David Adams (viola) and Robin Green (piano).
MacMillan and Elgar – broadcast from the Concertgebouw
On Sunday morning, Daniel Rowland and pianist Nino Gvetadze played MacMillan and Elgar as part of the Concertgebouw’s Sunday Morning Concert given by the Netherlands Radio Choir with Conductor Benjamin Goodson. The concert was broadcast live on NPO4 from the beautiful Grote Zaal and you can listen to it here.