Article published in Manchester Evening News 9 September 2016

SINGING in choirs is getting more popular all the time, and some of our region’s well established choral societies have discovered the trick of engaging people who thought they couldn’t manage it and bringing them to a point where they can do justice to some of the great classical works.

One of those is 100-strong Altrincham Choral Society, and their open-to-all ‘Come and Sing’ day is on September 17. It’s called The Magic Of Mozart, and the music to be shared ranges from his Ave Verum Corpus motet to the choruses of his late masterpiece, the Requiem.

Conductor is Manchester-born Steven Roberts, ACS musical director and one of the most experienced trainers of amateur singers in the north of England. The society, founded in 1945, performs regularly at the Royal Northern College of Music and has appeared at St Paul’s Cathedral, the Bridgewater Hall and in Prague, Venice and Florence.

The ‘Come and Sing’ day is at St Mary’s Church, Bowdon, starting at 10am and running through to a free-entry performance in the early evening. Participants pay a small fee and register in advance.

“We pick music that’s achievable in a day,” says Steven Roberts. “Obviously this is not to concert standard, but people come with an open mind and a tremendous work ethic. We start with warm-ups, and then we get on with learning. And it helps to have breaks for tea and coffee!

“People visit us from other choirs, and some come who aren’t in choirs at all. It’s a stress-free day and a lot of fun.”

Steven was from a brass banding background, but studied choral music and conducting at university. He’s had charge of a male voice choir and conducted amateur musicals and operatic societies.

“Because I’ve conducted brass and wind bands and orchestras, I’m not uncomfortable with instrumental ensembles, which join us at Altrincham Choral for some of our concerts, too.”

In 1992 he won the British Federation of Young Choirs conducting competition – in front of judges including legends like Sir David Willcocks, John Rutter, Stephen Cleobury and Philip Ledger. He was himself a singer with the Huddersfield Choral Society at this point, and its musical director, Brian Kay, invited him to do chorusmaster work with them.

Two years later he answered an advertisement by Altrincham Choral for a conductor … and 22 years further on, as he says, “We’re still having a great time!”

Manchester Evening News article 2 September 2016

FOR my third survey of the coming season in Manchester classical music, I’m focussing on smaller-scale events, including our two city-based chamber orchestras.

Manchester Camerata is absent from the Bridgewater Hall except for its New Year concerts, but has plenty to offer in other venues. Its concerts with music director Gábor Takács-Nagy begin with two of Daniel Schnyder’s versions of rock classics (Sympathy For The Devil and Purple Haze) as well as Holst, Vaughan  Williams, Haydn and Mozart (RNCM, September 24), continue with an all-Mozart programme – including two piano concertos played by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (RNCM, March 2) – and finally, at Manchester Cathedral, there’s Haydn, Mozart, Philip Glass and the world premiere of Colin Riley’s Double Concerto For Two Cellos (June 8, soloists Guy Johnston and Gabriella Swallow).

Violin superstar Henning Kraggerud is both composer and performer in Equinox, a special programme for Manchester Science Festival, on October 16 at the Albert Hall, and the ‘Upclose’ series presents three rising star pianists: Alexander Ullman (The Whitworth, November 17), Emanuel Rimoldi (HOME, February 2), and Iyad Sughayer (Manchester Cathedral, May 2).

The Northern Chamber Orchestra performs mainly outside Manchester, and its series at Macclesfield Heritage Centre is always worth the trip. Soloists this season include violinists Chloe Hanslip (October 8) and Matthew Trusler (January 14), horn player Naomi Atherton (February 18), and pianists Steven Osborne (March 4 – this programme includes Anthony Gilbert’s lovely Another Dream Carousel) and BBC Young Musician winner Lara Melda (May 13).

Groups appearing at the Bridgewater Hall include The Sixteen with the Britten Sinfonia, conducted by Harry Christophers (October 28), the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge (December 13), and Gidon Kremer with his Kremerata Baltica (March 24).

And recitalists in the International Concert Series there are legendary violinist Kyung Wha Chung, Paul Lewis (piano), guitarist John Williams, with John Etheridge and Gary Ryan, bass-baritone Sir Willard White with the Brodsky Quartet, and organist Wayne Marshall.

The Royal Northern College of Music’s programme is bursting with goodies: I’ll pick out the recital by the great bass singer Sir John Tomlinson – who’s to become the college’s President next year – with David Owen Norris, piano, on November 17. Its theme is ‘Michelangelo in Song’, and the music’s by Britten, Wolf and Shostakovich. Later there’s the James Mottram International Piano Competition, from November 28 to December 3, and the world premiere of Luka’s Winter, by Tim Garland, for narrator, chamber orchestra and big band on December 14.

Manchester Evening News article 26 August 2016

THIS week I’m taking a look at opera highlights of the coming season in Manchester. We get our opera in concentrated bursts here, as Opera North come over from Leeds usually for one week at a time, but present three different shows within it.

This autumn all eyes will be on the company’s new music director, Aleksandar Markovic, who will appear at The Lowry in November conducting one of its great past productions – Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. Heading the starry cast are Ylva Kihlberg as the Marshallin and Helen Sherman as Octavian, with Henry Waddington, Fflur Wyn and William Dazeley.

Alongside comes a double bill of Puccini: two of his Il Trittico one-acters. Il Tabarro is a revival of the David Pountney production seen in the ‘Eight Little Greats’ series in 2004, and Suor Angelica is a new production. Favourite soprano Anne Sophie Duprels stars in the latter (with Patricia Bardon), and Giselle Allen, David Butt Philip and Ivan Iverardi head the cast of Il Tabarro.

On top of that, there’s Billy Budd, by Benjamin Britten, a classic tale of seafaring drama, in a new production by Orpha Phelan. Singers include Alan Oke and Roderick Williams, and Garry Walker conducts. If this reaches even a fraction of the heights of the company’s Peter Grimes a few years ago, it will be magnificent.

In case Wagner fans had not had their fill with Opera North’s complete Ring Cycle earlier this year, the Hallé have a concert performance of Das Rheingold on November 27, conducted by Sir Mark Elder. The singers include Sarah Tynan, Jennifer Johnston, Leah-Marian Jones, Christopher Purves, Iain Paterson, Susan Bickley, Emma Bell, Reinhard Hagen, Clive Bayley … and more.

There’s English Touring Opera at Buxton, also in November, presenting La Calisto by Cavalli (with Catherine Carby), Ulysses’ Homecoming by Monteverdi (with Katie Bray), and Xerxes by Handel.

After all that, a welcome dose of levity will be in the Royal Northern College’s December production of La Vie Parisienne by Offenbach, conducted by Andrew Greenwood and directed by Stuart Barker

In the March 2017 week by Opera North we get three nights of fairytale: Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden, Humperdinck’s magical Hansel And Gretel (Katie Bray and Fflur Wyn, with Susan Bullock as the Witch), and Rossini’s romantic La Cenerentola (or Cinderella). And there’s Handel to follow at the RNCM: Theodora. So never say you don’t get much operatic choice.

Article published in Manchester Evening News 19th August 2016

AS Manchester’s classical music goes into summer holiday purdah for the next three weeks or so, I’m taking a long view of the coming winter-spring season’s highlights – starting today with the big battalions of orchestral and choral music.

Both the BBC Philharmonic and Hallé have choral works to offer at the Bridgewater Hall early in the season: Haydn’s Die Schöpfung (The Creation) from the BBC Philharmonic under Juanjo Mena on September 24, and Beethoven’s Choral Symphony from the Hallé on October 6, conducted by Sir Mark Elder (with scenes from Verdi’s Macbeth to precede it – quite a contrast). The BBC Phil employ the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus – and they’re doing The Creation in the German version – and of course the Hallé have the Hallé Choir.

At the end of the season the two symphony orchestras join together for one of the biggest Romantic blockbusters in the repertory: Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder. It comes on June 4, and the Hallé and BBC Philharmonic will combine with the Hallé Choir, Sir Thomas Allen as narrator and five top soloists under Sir Mark Elder’s baton. It’s just after Sir Mark’s 70^th birthday, and billed as ‘a celebration for one of British music’s most treasured figures’.

That birthday is one he shares with composer Edward Elgar, and in March he presents an Elgar festival with the Hallé including the first symphony, ‘Enigma’ Variations and The Dream Of Gerontius (March 9 to 12).

There’s much more to be excited about, of course – I’d point to Tippett’s A Child Of Our Time, performed alongside Britten’s nearly-contemporary Sinfonia da Requiem, by the Hallé under Ryan Wigglesworth (October 27), an evening featuring virtuoso organist Jonathan Scott collaborating with conductor Cristian Mǎcelaru and the Hallé (February 9), and the BBC Philharmonic in Bach’s St Matthew Passion, with Manchester Chamber Choir and Nicholas Kraemer (April 14, Good Friday).

And each of the big two has a world premiere to share with us: the Hallé on April 20, with Huw Watkins’ Symphony, and the BBC Philharmonic on May 26, with Mark Simpson’s NOX – a concerto for cello and orchestra (soloist Leonard Elschenbroich).

Visiting orchestras at the Bridgewater Hall include the St Petersburg Philharmonic (always wonderful) on January 27, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the complete Bach Brandenburg Concertos on May 11.

Then there’s the Hallé’s performance of Wagner’s Das Rheingold on November 27 – but that’s next week’s subject: opera.

Article published in Manchester Evening News 12 August 2016

SYMPHONY orchestra concerts are thin on the ground in the north west in the summer months (and that’s an understatement!), but Buxton Opera House is boldly going where few others venture and putting on the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra on August 20.

The theatre also hosts the Hallé Orchestra with its ‘Pops’ conductor Stephen Bell, on September 18, in a gala fund-raising concert for the Blythe House Hospice, and the RLPO will be back in November. Links between Buxton and the Liverpool musicians have been built up and are set to continue.

I talked to Carol Prowse, a New Mills resident and chairman of the High Peak Theatre Trust, which runs the Opera House in Buxton. She’s been involved with it for more than 30 years, previously as assistant company secretary, company secretary, director and deputy chairman.

“Balance in our programmes is important,” she said, “and to me providing high-quality classical music is an essential part of the programme we offer.

“The RLPO had a weekend residency in the town last November, including a performance by Ensemble 10/10, its own contemporary music group, and that was very well received. For it we introduced the concept of a ‘gardens ticket’ – you buy a ticket for the central dress circle or upper circle and also get pre-show and interval drinks – which went very well.

“Our other classical commitments are to English Touring Opera and of course the annual Buxton Festival, which is the heart of everything for us.”

The RLPO’s programme next week is a tribute to Johann Strauss, the ‘waltz king’. It’s introduced by Classic FM presenter and author John Suchet and directed from the violin by James Clark, the orchestra leader, in the style of Strauss himself.

Its visit on November 9 is in a concert conducted by Cristian Mandeal, the brilliant Romanian who was the Hallé’s first chief guest conductor and remembered with respect and affection by Manchester audiences.

The programme includes Brahms’s third symphony, Debussy’s Prélude á l’Après-Midi d’un Faune, and Mozart’s clarinet concerto (soloist is Benjamin Mellefont, the RLPO’s own principal clarinet).

The RLPO is proud of its history, going back to the formation of a private concerts society in 1840 (not very long after the Manchester equivalent), and justly proud of its present chief conductor, Vasily Petrenko. Ensemble 10/10 is conducted by the Royal Northern College of Music’s top maestro, Clark Rundell.

Article published in Manchester Evening News 5 August 2016

MUSIC has long been a part of the life of St Ann’s Church in city centre Manchester, and on August 9 there’s a visit from Spanish pianist Maite Aguirre, assistant conductor at Grange Park Opera and director of the Academia de Musica in London.
Her programme at St Ann’s includes music by Granados, Ginastera and Ernesto Lecuona.

I talked to Simon Passmore, St Ann’s director of music, and his colleague, James Hume, who are responsible for the concert programme there – including not just the long-established Tuesday lunchtime organ recitals, and regular piano and chamber music recitals provided by the Royal Northern College of Music, but also performances on Tuesday evenings, Saturday lunchtime and evening concerts, and other events.

The free organ recitals were a feature of the music directorship of the late Ronald Frost, who gave over 1,000 of them, and Simon Passmore is continuing that tradition – currently working through the entire organ works of J S Bach, alongside other music.

Concerts by guest performers have been promoted for around two decades at St Ann’s: recent ones have included performances by the Pleyel Ensemble, Manchester Chorale, guitarist Frederick Lawton and organist Jonathan Scott.

Simon Passmore, who took up his post a year ago after being organ scholar, said: “James and I decided it was now time to have tickets, print brochures and make St Ann’s a proper concert venue.

“We produced a brochure listing everything. Our audience is mainly older people, but in term time there are a lot of students, too, and they get special prices just like at the Hallé and BBC Philharmonic.”

James Hume (who became the assistant music director in 2010) added: “As a venue St Ann’s is pretty wonderful. The organ is one of the best in the north west, and we have a Steinway B grand piano on loan from the RNCM.”

Their programme for autumn and winter includes the Gravity Percussion Duo (October 11), the RNCM Jazz Collective (November 15), and Handel’s Messiah (on December 3), with a chorus based on the church choir and soloists and orchestra mainly from recent RNCM graduates. That’s conducted by Simon – who points out that St Ann’s, as a setting, is probably the only remaining church in Manchester built during Handel’s lifetime. It even has some stops in the organ with pipes in them from the period, too!

Article published in Manchester Evening News 5 August 2016

MUSIC has long been a part of the life of St Ann’s Church in city centre Manchester, and on August 9 there’s a visit from Spanish pianist Maite Aguirre, assistant conductor at Grange Park Opera and director of the Academia de Musica in London.
Her programme at St Ann’s includes music by Granados, Ginastera and Ernesto Lecuona.

I talked to Simon Passmore, St Ann’s director of music, and his colleague, James Hume, who are responsible for the concert programme there – including not just the long-established Tuesday lunchtime organ recitals, and regular piano and chamber music recitals provided by the Royal Northern College of Music, but also performances on Tuesday evenings, Saturday lunchtime and evening concerts, and other events.

The free organ recitals were a feature of the music directorship of the late Ronald Frost, who gave over 1,000 of them, and Simon Passmore is continuing that tradition – currently working through the entire organ works of J S Bach, alongside other music.

Concerts by guest performers have been promoted for around two decades at St Ann’s: recent ones have included performances by the Pleyel Ensemble, Manchester Chorale, guitarist Frederic Lawton and organist Jonathan Scott.

Simon Passmore, who took up his post a year ago after being organ scholar, said: “James and I decided it was now time to have tickets, print brochures and make St Ann’s a proper concert venue.

“We produced a brochure listing everything. Our audience is mainly older people, but in term time there are a lot of students, too, and they get special prices just like at the Hallé and BBC Philharmonic.”

James Hume (who became the assistant music director in 2010) added: “As a venue St Ann’s is pretty wonderful. The organ is one of the best in the north west, and we have a Steinway B grand piano on loan from the RNCM.”

Their programme for autumn and winter includes the Gravity Percussion Duo (October 11), the RNCM Jazz Collective (November 15), and Handel’s Messiah (on December 3), with a chorus based on the church choir and soloists and orchestra mainly from recent RNCM graduates. That’s conducted by Simon – who points out that St Ann’s, as a setting, is probably the only remaining church in Manchester built during Handel’s lifetime. It even has some stops in the organ with pipes in them from the period, too!