There are many wonderful collaborations happening at the moment, celebrating the 400th anniversary of the great English renaissance composer William Byrd. You'll find some events listed at the Byrd Central website
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BBC Radio 3’s Manchester Week celebrates music-making in Manchester, with performances by BBC Philharmonic, the Hallé and Sir Mark Elder, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Chloë Hanslip, and Manchester Collective amongst others.
Following the cancellation of the January 2021 Manchester Week due to COVID-19, BBC Radio 3 announces new plans for a week of live and pre-recorded concerts from the English city, featuring performances from some of the city’s best-known concert halls and venues: Bridgewater Hall, The Stoller Hall at Chetham’s School of Music, Salford’s The White Hotel and Media City, home of the BBC Philharmonic. Highlighting BBC Radio 3’s continued commitment to connecting listeners and performers with broadcasts of music-making as it happens all over the UK, the Manchester Week celebrates the city’s ensembles, musicians, and composers, with appearances by established and up-and-coming artists, presenting well-known as well as experimental repertoire, including music based around the theme of sound and nature. A series of five Radio 3 in Concert programmes showcase the wide variety of the city’s performing groups in all sizes and combinations, alongside four Lunchtime Concerts live from The Stoller Hall, based alongside Chetham’s School of Music. Introduced by Elizabeth Alker, these recitals feature the emerging talents of some of the current and former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists: pianist Pavel Kolesnikov; tenor Alessandro Fisher and pianist Kunal Lahiry; the Consone Quartet; and the Mithras Trio. The week kicks off on Monday 24 January with a special pre-recorded edition of BBC Radio 3 in Concert, presented by Tom McKinney. Manchester Camerata, who are celebrating their 50th birthday this year, present an all-Mozart programme as recorded at The Stoller Hall, including Piano Concerto No 9 in E-flat major K. 271 “Jeunehomme” directed by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat major K. 364 with soloists Alexander Sitkovetsky and Timothy Ridout. Fran Healey, General Manager of The Stoller Hall, says: “Manchester’s music scene is legendary, but with so many emerging artists and with incredible venues to host them, classical music in Manchester has never been more vibrant. Here at The Stoller Hall we couldn’t be more excited to welcome BBC Radio 3 into our very special concert hall, sharing the city’s music with the nation and the world.” Read more at https://aboutmanchester.co.uk/bbc-radio-3s-manchester-week-celebrates-music-making-in-manchester/ and https://stollerhall.com/festivals/bbc-radio-3-manchester-week/ ● Ex Cathedra among 925 recipients to benefit from the latest round of awards from the Culture Recovery Fund
● This award safeguards concert programme and work for freelance musicians despite box office shortfalls whilst audience confidence returns More than £100 million has been awarded to hundreds of cultural organisations across the country including Ex Cathedra in the latest round of support from the Culture Recovery Fund, the Culture Secretary announced today. Birmingham-based Ex Cathedra has been awarded a grant of £56,944. Ex Cathedra is a leading UK choir and Early Music ensemble. Since artistic director Jeffrey Skidmore founded the group in 1969, it has developed a world-wide reputation for its dynamic performances underpinned by scholarly research, combined with a desire to seek the finest, the unfamiliar and the unexpected in the choral repertoire. This funding will safeguard Ex Cathedra’s planned concert programme over the winter, providing vital work for its freelance musicians despite ongoing uncertainties and deflated box office income. Concerts now secured include the world-premiere of Liz Dilnot Johnson’s major work I Stand at the Door – a love song to our planet that addresses the climate emergency, and 12 performances of the choir’s much-loved Christmas Music by Candlelight concerts across the Midlands – featuring no fewer than 5 new works and 12 living composers amongst an eclectic mix that ranges from a little-known Black Brazilian composer born in 1767 to texts from the 4th-century BCE Dhammapada. The third round of funding will support organisations from all corners of the sector as they deal with ongoing reopening challenges, ensuring they can thrive in better times ahead. Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said: “Culture is for everyone and should therefore be accessible to everyone, no matter who they are and where they’re from. “Through unprecedented government financial support, the Culture Recovery Fund is supporting arts and cultural organisations so they can continue to bring culture to communities the length and breadth of the country, supporting jobs, boosting local economies and inspiring people.” Over £1.2 billion has already been awarded from the unprecedented Culture Recovery Fund, supporting around 5000 individual organisations and sites across the country ranging from local museums to West End theatres, grassroots music venues to festivals, and organisations in the cultural and heritage supply-chains. Peter Trethewey, General Manager, Ex Cathedra said: “We are extremely grateful for this support. Without it, the work done to navigate the first 18 months of the pandemic would have been severely jeopardised and the viability of Ex Cathedra thrown into grave doubt. We can now deliver our programme with confidence, provide much-needed work for our freelance musicians, and welcome audiences to celebrate Christmas with world-class performances of choral music. Darren Henley, Chief Executive, Arts Council England, said: “This continued investment from the Government on an unprecedented scale means our theatres, galleries, music venues, museums and arts centres can carry on playing their part in bringing visitors back to our high streets, helping to drive economic growth, boosting community pride and promoting good health. It’s a massive vote of confidence in the role our cultural organisations play in helping us all to lead happier lives”. ‘RVW 150’
During 2022-23 the music industry will celebrate the 150th birthday of British composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 – 1958). Hardly a music genre has been left untouched or failed to be enriched by Vaughan Williams’s work, which includes nine symphonies, five operas, music for film, ballet and stage, several song cycles, church music and works for chorus and orchestra. Comprehensive information about the composer’s life and works as well as help for promoters can be found at: www.rvwsociety.com/rvw150 First-ever global online vocal festival announced: singing returns
'Live from London' is a new, paid-for online festival from the VOCES8 Foundation, featuring some of the world's finest vocal ensembles including VOCES8, I Fagiolini, Stile Antico, The Swingles, The Sixteen, Chanticleer and more
. “The five step roadmap given to us last week”, Stephen Maddock tells me, “could have been written by any of us on the back of a fag packet in March. It gave no details, no timescale and no cash.” The Chief Executive of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is by no means universally critical of the authorities, praising Darren Henley at the Arts Council and saying that “the Chancellor has played a blinder in the last six months”. But his patience is beginning to run thin as he plans half a dozen different scenarios for the CBSO’s future in the next six months. It’s not just that there’s a vacuum of information: “because that implies a degree of neutrality. It’s like a sort of Pullman-esque parallel universe”.Live performance is in mortal peril. Now is the time to shout.
Read more from David Karlin at Bachtrack here 24 - 26 July 2020
"This year the Corbridge Chamber Music Festival will be streamed in real time on the Corbridge Chamber Music Festival YouTube channel. Recordings made especially for the festival, in our own homes, will be brought to you online, to enjoy in the safety and comfort of your own. There is no charge to access these concerts but we would be hugely grateful for donations to contribute towards the cost of producing this event and to ensure a secure future for our festival." Artistic Directors: Gould Piano Trio Robert Plane, clarinet with guests Elias String Quartet Heidi Rolfe, piano Florence Plane, bassoon Kate Gould, cello David Stark, double bass Piers Hellawell, composer-in-residence Kenji Wilkie, dancer Sinéad Morrissey, poet There's not so much about the classical music world in this article from the Guardian, but keep reading...
"In the classical music world, things are just as uncertain. Outside Britain’s big “portfolio” orchestras, most musicians are precariously employed. One conductor I recently spoke to drew my attention to an awkward fact: that audiences for classical music tend to be older, and will therefore be anxious about any return to past concert-going habits. He also mentioned his work with a choir in Yorkshire that has lost two of its members to Covid-19, and how important collective singing is to so many people’s lives. That simple pleasure, he reminded me, is suddenly reducible to “people in a room where everyone’s breath is repeatedly coming out”. Of course, to write about this in the midst of an international emergency might seem misplaced. But beyond the superstars, a lot of musicians are actually more vulnerable than people in other professions. To help them, you can buy the odd CD and record from an independent shop by mail order. Have a look at Bandcamp, the platform for independent musicians that supports them to a much greater extent than the services hosted by corporate record companies and big tech firms. The Musicians’ Union is hosting a crowdfunder for members facing hardship, offering emergency payments of up to £200. But all of us should also think about the wider context of this cultural crisis. Amazon’s share price has recently rocketed by a third. Netflix, all of whose offerings feature an ocean of music, is in the middle of a boom. Big tech, which has built so much of its power on downloading and streaming, will emerge from this period comparatively unscathed. Somewhere in those facts there may lie the key to how we keep music and musicians going, and avoid a dreadful silence that would make this crisis even harder to bear." (John Harris) Thank you to The Telegraph for this - and you'll need a subscription to read the full article online, but...
"Music to our ears: how Britain's rallying around the classical music community In these dark times for orchestras, Chipping Campden is showing the way. Ivan Hewett reports Read the article here Some potentially positive effects of the corona virus on classical music from Classic FM
including: - Classical music is going online and being seen by more people -Arts funding is in the spotlight and carries an important message - Music education is at the forefront -People have the chance to help musicians through hard times Thank you Classic FM! |
AuthorBlog written by Jill Davies, who runs the Severn Muses project as well as Chamber Music Plus. Archives
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