Entering its 40th year, City of London Sinfonia (CLS) is beginning a new era with recently appointed artistic leaders, Stephen Layton (Artistic Director & Principal Conductor) and Michael Collins (Principal Conductor) on board.
CLS is one of the UK’s most established and well-regarded chamber orchestras having earned a reputation for consistently high quality performances and recordings, often with a particular focus on music featuring the human voice. The Orchestra performs throughout the UK, with regular London appearances at Cadogan Hall, St Paul’s Cathedral and other City of London churches and venues. It has been resident orchestra at the capital’s popular festival Opera Holland Park since 2004 and holds long-standing residencies in High Wycombe and Chatham, as well as being a regular guest at major UK festivals. The Orchestra also performs inventive Crash, Bang, Wallop family concerts at Cadogan Hall with a strong emphasis on audience engagement and participation in core musical pieces.
CLS’s musicians work creatively in schools and community projects through the acclaimed Meet the Music programme, with a particular focus on the field of health and wellbeing, including a long standing residency at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children. They also work with corporate businesses through the Development through Music scheme offering creative approaches to professional skills training through the medium of music.
| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 18-Oct-2012 Cadogan Hall | Stravinsky and Adams with City of London Sinfonia and Michael Collins |
 Before last night I had reserved judgement on John Adams’ Grand Pianola Music (1982), which I knew from CD but hadn’t previously heard live. It was an effect-piece, I thought, so while it had left me a little cold in recorded form, I was open to the possibility that this enormous, ecstatic major-key pile-up would blow me away in the concert hall. But while City of London Sinfonia’s gleeful rendition in Cadogan Hall last night certainly made an impression, I can’t help but continue to think that the piece is a bit daft.
Read full review... | |
| 24-Jul-2012 Holland Park Theatre | Verdi's Falstaff at Opera Holland Park |
 With Verdi's centenary coming up, his last opera Falstaff has had more attention than usual, with this production at Opera Holland Park following hot on the heels of Robert Carsen's new production at Covent Garden. I don't know whether OHP's director Annilese Miskimmon was aware of Carsen's production, but she certainly ended up with a similar aesthetic, set in twentieth century England with pastel-clad posh housewives and much brown clothing for the men.Read full review... | |
| 25-Jun-2012 Royal Opera House: Linbury Studio Theatre | Tutti all'Opera: Gluck's Il Trionfo di Clelia |
| Il Trionfo di Clelia is one of almost 50 operas composed by Gluck, many of which are unknown to the average opera-goer. What makes it interesting, in terms of the history of opera, is that it marks a return to opera seria only months after the first performance of his celebrated Orfeo ed Euridice, widely regarded as the cornerstone of 'reform opera', to which simplicity of plot and music were key.
Read full review... | |
| 22-Jun-2012 Holland Park Theatre | Zanetto and Gianni Schicchi: Opera Holland Park's Florentine Double Bill |
 After their Mascagni debut last year, with L’amico Fritz (the composer’s first post-Cavalleria opera), Opera Holland Park have set out to uncover more music from the so-called ‘one-hit-wonder’ – still known to most for his smash verismo opera alone. This year, the opera company brings to London audiences an even more rarely performed work by the Tuscan-born musician: the one-act opera Zanetto, in a double bill with Puccini’s much more popular musical comedy, Gianni Schicchi.Read full review... | |
