| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 6-Apr-2013 Wigmore Hall | BCMG's Into the Little Hill on George Benjamin Day at Wigmore Hall |
 “All music – smiles the minister – is incidental.” So says one of the two singers in George Benjamin and Martin Crimp’s Into the Little Hill, performed to perfection in Wigmore Hall by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group this Saturday. Anyone familiar with the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin will not be surprised to learn that the mysterious stranger whom the minister is addressing begs to differ. So, I am sure, would anybody listening to this mesmerising chamber opera itself.
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| 8-Mar-2013 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | New opera, ancient tales: George Benjamin's Written on skin at the Royal Opera |
 21st century opera is a broad church. There aren’t many of us, I suppose, who are intimately familiar with the biographical accounts of the lives of 13th century troubadours, popular at the time in Spain and south west France. But Martin Crimp and George Benjamin, librettist and composer of Written on skin, aren’t exactly run of the mill people.
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| 15-Nov-2012 The Jam House | Hebrides Ensemble: Eight Songs for a Mad King |
 The Jam House is a jazz and blues club occupying the BBC’s former Queen Street Studios in Edinburgh. Now owned by Jools Holland and designer Neil Tabbitt, its spacious Georgian interior is occasionally given over to theatrical and musical events. Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King (1969) qualifies as both music and theatre, and this production, which was directed by Ben Twist, designed by Fiona Watt and lit by Martin Palmer, was certainly theatrical.
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| 10-Jul-2012 Royal Albert Hall: Elgar Room | London Contemporary Orchestra Soloists at the Royal Albert Hall |
 Contemporary classical music is happening in all manner of unexpected venues in London at the moment, from Peckham car parks to pubs. But it isn't just getting edgier – it's also getting more respectable, if last night's suave affair in the Royal Albert Hall's Elgar Room is anything to go by. Set in a relaxed, up-market bar lounge area with the performers having to squeeze their way past beer-sipping patrons to get to the stage, all that separated this recital from a debonair evening of light jazz was a rather reverential, attentive atmosphere and some intense lighting. Oh, and the music.
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