News and Press Releases

All news items and press notices

Scottish Chamber Orchestra announces six new concerts for Spring 2021, broadcast for free

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Scottish Chamber Orchestra Spring 2021 online season

Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) today announces six new online concerts for Spring 2021, broadcast for free. During March and April, concerts include the World Premiere of SCO Associate Composer Anna Clyne’s Overflow, guest artists such as baritone Marcus Farnsworth and oboist Nicholas Daniel, works by Vítězslava Kaprálová and Dani Howard, and a version of Prokofiev’s Sonata for Solo Violin in D major played by 8 violinists. Filmed at The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh and Perth Concert Hall, the concerts will be broadcast via SCO’s YouTube and Facebook channels and available for catch up for 30 days.

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Recorded for exclusive broadcast, Messiah from ENO is on BBC Two on 3 April 2021

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English National Opera and BBC Two announce the broadcast on Saturday 3 April at 6pm of Handel’s Messiah, captured exclusively for television this Easter

FOR A REVIEW FOLLOWING THE BROADCAST CLICK HERE

Laurence Cummings conducts the ENO Orchestra (c) Tristam Kenton

The hour-long performance of Handel’s much-loved masterpiece will be imaginatively staged at the London Coliseum, and filmed specifically for a television audience. With no live audience present, the performance will be brought to life by the creative teams of the English National Opera, and performed by guest soloists and the ENO Chorus and Orchestra, making imaginative use of the stunning auditorium at the London Coliseum. It will be presented by saxophonist and broadcaster YolanDa Brown and broadcaster Petroc Trelawny.

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Myaskovsky. Dialogues (9-13 March 2021) celebrates the composer’s 140th anniversary

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Myaskovsky. Dialogues – 9 to 13 March 2021

For the first time in its history, the Sverdlovsk Philharmonic hosts a festival entirely dedicated to the personality and work of Nikolay Myaskovsky (1881-1950). [For an essay on ‘Nikolay Myaskovsky – the Conscience of Russian Music’ by Seen and Heard International‘s Gregor Tassie click here.] Despite his great creative heritage, the composer, cared for and shunned by the Soviet regime, is one of the least known, understood and recognized figures of Russian music of the 20th century. The Festival has a form of dialogues – with the epoch, fate, counterparts – shedding light on the humble personality of Nikolay Yakovlevich Myaskovsky, whom his contemporaries called ‘the artistic conscience of music.’

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The Belfast Ensemble’s The Musician: A Horror Opera for Children streaming 12-14 March 2021

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The Belfast Ensemble, in association with Young at Art, Belfast Children’s Festival present
The Musician: A Horror Opera for Children
FOR OUR RECENT REVIEW CLICK HERE
Streaming: Friday 12 March – Sunday 14 March, 7pm

Conor Mitchell’s darkly comic children’s opera retells a familiar story: ‘who was the Pied Piper? and ‘Why did the rats all dance to his tune?’ This world premiere from the award-winning Belfast Ensemble (click here) brings opera home to Northern Ireland. Musically extraordinary, this cautionary tale explores themes of nature, nurture and just desserts!

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Waterperry Opera Festival returns in summer 2021 (12 – 21 August)

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WATERPERRY OPERA FESTIVAL – 12 – 21 August 2021
Waterperry House & Gardens, Waterperry, Oxfordshire, OX33 1JZ

Following the sell-out success of the 2020 Mini-Festival, Waterperry Opera Festival will return with an ambitious ten-day open-air Covid-safe festival in August 2021. This year’s programme will include seven productions, as well as a variety of workshops, masterclasses, talks, and pop-up performances. With the advantage of Waterperry’s extensive historic grounds, the festival will continue to adapt and innovate in this changeable climate to create an engaging festival for all.

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Leeds Lieder’s six livestreams this spring from Leeds Town Hall

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Leeds Lieder announce Spring 2021 recitals presented from Leeds Town Hall

Leeds Lieder are delighted to welcome outstanding artists to Leeds this Spring including Dame Sarah Connolly, Gerald Finley, Fatma Said, Kitty Whately, Julius Drake and Joseph Middleton who will perform alongside some of the UK’s leading young artists (in collaboration with the Kathleen Ferrier Awards and Momentum).

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The Metropolitan Opera co-produces the ENO’s new Ring cycle to be completed in 2025

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English National Opera announces new staging of Wagner’s Ring cycle

Directed by Richard Jones and conducted by Martyn Brabbins, The Valkyrie will form the first part of a complete Ring cycle over the next five years.

English National Opera (ENO) is to bring Wagner’s Ring cycle to the London Coliseum, starting with The Valkyrie this Autumn, subject to any further lockdown restrictions. Directed by the award-winning Richard Jones, and marking the first time in more than 15 years since ENO last staged The Ring, all four parts of The Ring cycle will be staged at the London Coliseum over five years. Rhinegold will premiere in 2022/23 followed by a reprise of The Valkyrie, and new productions of Siegfried and Twilight of the Gods in 2024 and 2025 consecutively. The Metropolitan Opera is co-producing.

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San Francisco Opera to mount a virtual Ring Festival in March

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San Francisco Opera’s Ring Festival 

There is nothing in music quite like a Ring Festival. As with a cricket test match or a baseball World Series, the four-day sequence of Wagner operas stands as a pinnacle of the form, draws the attention of aficionados from near and far, and often plays out with ancillary events that broaden the scope beyond the main affair.

Greer Grimsley (Wotan) and Iréne Theorin (Brünnhilde)
in Die Walküre final scene (c) Cory Weaver/SFO

San Francisco Opera announced plans on 16 February to stream videos of its excellent 2018 Der Ring des Nibelungen on four weekends in March, along with a new set of lectures, interviews and panel discussions on Zoom. Similar to events that were presented with the series when it was mounted in 2018, these live sidebars focus on individuals from the cast and creative team.

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