The Resonus Classics recording of Works for Piano and Orchestra by Elizabeth Maconchy, Elisabeth Lutyens and Errollyn Wallen has won the Premiere category in the 2024 BBC Music Magazine Awards. John Andrews was the conductor and Martin Jones the soloist in the works by Maconchy and Lutyens. Errollyn Wallen’s Piano Concerto was performed by Rebeca Omordia.
Fiona Maddocks found this album “engaging, serious, stimulating.” The third and final disc of Martin Jones’s survey of Elisabeth Lutyens piano music has now been released. Featuring works from across the span of Lutyens’s career, the earliest works to be included are the short pieces Overture, Berceuse, Barcarolle and Dance Souvenance from 1944, the unpublished Holiday Diary from 1949, Helix from 1967, and Three Books of Bagatelles from 1979 complete.
John Andrews’s recording of Ethel Smyth’s Der Wald for Resonus Classics has won the ‘World Premiere Recording – Rediscovery’ category at the 2023 Presto Music Awards.
OWM is pleased to announce that the British tenor, Peter Auty, joins its roster with immediate effect. His distinguished career has included performances with all the major British opera companies and orchestras, and abroad he has performed extensively in Europe, as well as the USA, Iceland and New Zealand. Photo: Robert Workman
Errollyn Wallen’s first book “Becoming a Composer’, published by Faber and Faber is now available. Part memoir it includes a collection of observations, essays and diaries following the progress of new works. It offers an intriguing glimpse into the mind and motivation of a composer.
Mary Plazas has been singing The Duchess in Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face for Semperoper Dresden. The production by Georg Schmiedleitner opened on Friday 20 October, and was conducted by Tim Anderson. She has previously sung the role for various companies including for Northern Ireland Opera (pictured) as well as on Channel 4 TV and DVD. Photo credited to Ludwig Olah
Louise Winter returns to Opera North as Mistress Quickly in a new production of Falstaff by Oliva Fuchs conducted by Garry Walker. The production opened on 28 September at the Grand Theatre in Leeds. Click here for full details.
Roman Arndt will make his role debut as Mario Cavaradossi in Cameron Menzies new production of Tosca conducted by Eduardo Strausser for Northern Ireland Opera. There are four performances on 9, 12, 14 and 16 September 2023. Click here for full details
John Andrews’s recording of John Frederick Lampe’s ballad opera The Dragon of Wantley for Resonus Classics has won the BBC Music Magazine Opera Award 2023. This is the second time in two years that John Andrews and Resonus Classics has won this award. The 2021 winner was their recording of Malcolm Arnold’s The Dancing Master.
This exciting new disc from Resonus Classics features works for Piano and Orchestra by Elizabeth Maconchy, Elisabeth Lutyens (soloist Martin Jones) and Errollyn Wallen (soloist Rebeca Omordia) with John Andrews conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra. All works are premiere recordings. “The BBC Concert Orchestra bounce off the coiled spring of Martin Jones’s piano playing as moments of reflective beauty shine through in previously unrecorded works.” Erica Jeale, The Guardian “Rebecca.
Louise Winter sings the roles of La Frugola in Il Tabarro and Zita in Gianni Schicchi in Sir David McVicar’s new production of Il Trittico at Scottish Opera conducted by Stuart Stratford. The production opens on Saturday 11 March in Glasgow’s Theatre Royal with two further performances in Glasgow on March 15, 18, and two in Edinburgh on March 22 and 25. Click here for further details.
Resonus Classics has released the second volume of Martin Jones’s landmark survey of the piano works of Elisabeth Lutyens. Reviewed in Gramophone: “The music of Elisabeth Lutyens never had it easy, being too radical for a mainstream audience but not experimental enough for the modern-music clique, and new releases are comparatively rare – making this second volume in Martin Jones’s survey of her piano output the more welcome. As on.
John Andrews’s latest opera collaboration with Resonus Classics, Frederick Lampe’s 18th century opera, The Dragon of Wantley was included in Gramophone’s list of ‘Best Classical Music Albums of 2022’ and has now been nominated for a BBC Music Magazine Award 2023.
“John Andrews and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra showed just what can be done when you treat Sullivan’s score with sympathy and seriousness.” (planethugill); “John Andrews, a conductor who absolutely understands Sullivan’s style…”. (Spectator); “…just one of many sophisticated touches in the score which John Andrews’s sprightly conducting brings to life..” (Telegraph). Quotes from the excellent reviews John Andrews received for his conducting of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra for Christopher Luscombe’s.
Errollyn Wallen’s orchestral work The World’s Weather will be given its world premiere at Glasgow City Halls on Saturday 11 June by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in a special concert celebrating Martyn Brabbins’s 30 year association with the Orchestra. For further details click here
John Andrews conducts the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in a new Toccata Classics release of symphonies by East Anglian born composers, Christopher Wright and Nicholas Barton. Richard Watkins is the soloist in Christopher Wright’s Horn Concerto. Click here for further information
This month sees the premieres in London and Chicago of two operas by Errollyn Wallen. Both set in the 18th century, The Paradis Files tells the story of blind composer, Maria-Theresia von Paradis, and Quamino’s Map of man freed from slavery who struggles to make his way in London society. Graeae Theatre Company gives the premiere of The Paradis Files at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London on 13 April. Quamino’s.
Roman Arndt made his UK operatic debut in January as the Duke of Mantua in Opera North’s new production of Rigoletto by Femi Elufowoju Jr. The Telegraph wrote “…..the Duke of Mantua, played with suitably pernicious alacrity by the excellent Roman Arndt.” and in The Stage “Offering some of the most vivid singing is Roman Arndt as the morally depraved but physically fatally attractive Duke…..” The production is currently on.
Click here to read John Andrews’s article for Making Music
Who or what inspired you to pursue a career in music? I would say at first it was Julie Andrews who inspired me, I went to see The Sound of Music and that was it! At first I wanted to be a nun (I was eleven at the time) but then realized it was the other thing… to be in theatre with singing. I distinctly remember at an even younger.
Errollyn Wallen was BBC Radio 3’s featured composer during the week of 3 January. Each weekday she talked to Donald Macleod about her life and work, illustrated with a selection of her music. The programmes are available on iPlayer. For further information click here
OWM is pleased to announce that David Cohen has been appointed principal cello of the London Symphony Orchestra from September 2022, alongside Rebecca Gulliver. His appointment follows the departure of Tim Hugh. In an interview with The Strad he said ‘I am hugely honoured to be joining the LSO. I feel beyond excited by the prospect of working with an orchestra with such a broad repertoire of work, unflagging energy.
Owen White Management is delighted to announce representation of the composer and performer, Errollyn Wallen. She is the holder of the 21/22 Wort Residency in Cambridge. As singer and pianist, she recently performed a selection from the Errollyn Wallen Songbook at West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge. For further details click here
Kamilla Dunstan will make her English National Opera stage debut as Waltraute in Richard Jones’s new production of The Valkyrie, which opens on 19 November 2021. For full details click here
Martin Jones has embarked on a series of recordings of Elisabeth Lutyens’s piano music for Resonus Classics, with Volume 1 released in October 2021. Volume 2 will be released in summer 2022. Click here for Andrew Clements 4* review in The Guardian.
David Cohen commissioned Gavin Higgins to write Gursky Landscapes for solo cello and string quartet in 2015. The work was premiered at the Cheltenham Festival in 2018 and now features, along with Ekstasis for string sextet, on a new recording from Nimbus Records released today 1 October. David Cohen is joined by the Piatti Quartet and Sara Roberts viola. Click here for play options.
A special concert to celebrate Martin Jones’s 80th birthday will now go ahead on Saturday 2 October 2021 at LSO St Luke’s. Originally scheduled for March 2020 it had to be postponed twice due to COVID restrictions. Martin Jones has selected an eclectic and diverse programme giving a taste of the 100 recordings he has made for Nimbus Records since 1973. For further details click here
Red Squirrel Opera, John Andrews’ new production company, presents Malcolm Arnold’s The Dancing Master at the Buxton Festival this July. There are four performances on 9, 13, 16 and 22 July. Click here for further details. Earlier this year the Resonus Classics recording of The Dancing Master won the BBC Music Magazine Opera Award 2021.
Louise Winter made her role debut as Mistress Quickly in Sir David McVicar’s new outdoor production of Falstaff for Scottish Opera, conducted by Stuart Stratford. The first of six performances was at Scottish Opera’s production studios on 3 July at 7pm. The production will also be seen at the Edinburgh International Festival in August. For further details click here
We are delighted to announce that Russian tenor Roman Arndt will make his UK opera debut this season as the Duke of Mantua in a new production by Femi Elufowoju Jr of Rigoletto for Opera North, conducted by Garry Walker. The production opens on 22 January 2022. For further information about Opera North’s 21/22 season click here.
Congratulations to Kamilla Dunstan who is the only singer from Europe to have been selected for the finals of the Lyra New York International Vocal Competition for opera singers. For further information click here
Following the success of his recording of Malcolm Arnold’s The Dancing Master, John Andrews has announced the formation of Red Squirrel Opera, to bring to life unknown and neglected operatic works. The Company’s first project will be a co-production of The Dancing Master with the Buxton International Festival in July 2021. The Resonus Classics recording has been nominated for BBC Music Magazine’s Opera Recording of the year. Voting now open
Sadly the performances of Tosca at the Royal Opera House have been cancelled due to the latest Government guidelines. Christian Federici was due to make his debut there as Angelotti.
The Resonus Classics recording of Malcolm Arnold’s The Dancing Master conducted by John Andrews has won the BBC Music Magazine Opera Award 2021. John Andrews says “I’m beyond delighted that our disc has received this accolade. It was such a delight to make the recording, the cast are not only brilliant musicians and actors, but charming and delightful colleagues, and the BBC Concert Orchestra were absolutely in their element and.
As a result of the latest national lockdown it is disappointing that it was only possible for Glyndebourne to present three semi-staged performance of The Magic Flute in early November. Glyndebourne advises ticket holders to keep an eye on the website for further announcements. For information click here
As part of St John Smith Square’s “Arts of Fugue’ concerts, David Titterington performs works by CPE Bach, Schumann and JS Bach streaming on YouTube and Facebook from 8pm on 11 August. Click here for the link. It is already possible to hearing him perform ‘Thin Air’ by Calliope Tsoupaki recorded live from St John’s Smith Square as part of ‘Festivals for Compassion’, a musical ‘relay race’, journeying through Europe,.
John Andrews is the Music Director of an exciting post lockdown project for The Grange Festival later this month. The director Sinéad O’Neill is creating a promenade production, using a variety of natural stages at The Grange. Performers will including Sir John Tomlinson, Kiandra Howarth, Claire Barnett-Jones and members of Shobana Jeyasingh Dance. John Andrews will co-ordinate The Grange Festival Chorus in works by Poulenc and Lili Boulanger. The performance.
Baritone Thomas Humphreys is joined by Pavel Timofeyevsky for a livestream recital of Russian Song on Sunday 2 August at 4pm broadcast from the 1901 Arts Club in London. Here is a taster from their rehearsal. To watch on Sunday please click here.
Opera Holland Park has made the exciting announcement of an outdoor performance of comic opera selections conducted by John Andrews on Friday 7 August. The seating capacity will be strictly limited to take into account the current social distancing guidelines. For further information click here.
In July 2018 David Cohen and the Carducci Quartet gave the premiere of Gavin Higgins ‘Gursky Landscapes’ for solo cello and string quartet at the Pittville Pump Room. The work was commissioned by David Cohen and the Cheltenham Festival and is currently available on a Podcast linked here