In case anyone hasn’t noticed, it’s Olympic and Jubilee year, and the 2012 BBC Proms opens with an unashamedly patriotic programme: English music sung by top British singers (with one Canadian interloper in the shape of Gerald Finley) with the baton relayed between a quartet of our top conductors.
Kevin O’Hare’s first season as the Director of the Royal Ballet brings 6 world premières to The Royal Ballet’s repertoire. The artistic team has been bolstered by appointing Christopher Wheeldon and Wayne McGregor to the new titles of Artistic Associates.
We got a lot of interest last January when we published our Concert and Opera League Tables for 2010, so we thought we'd do it again for 2011. It's fascinating to see how a great deal is constant from year to year, with the biggest visible differences due to which composers have anniversaries. I'm not at all sure what will happen this year, where there are few anniversaries of major significance (Debussy, Delius, Cage and John Ireland fans may now throw rotten eggs at me, but in all honesty, none of these figure on most people's top 10 lists).
For the last few years, the Salzburg Festival had been suffering somewhat from a lack of direction, but from this autumn Alexander Pereira (formerly Intendant of Zürich Opera) has taken up the role of Artistic Director, and he and his team have just announced an ambitious yet well-balanced programme for the 2012 summer festival.
Tucked into the rolling hills of Central New York State, edged into the western tip of Lake Otsego, lies an opera experience—the Glimmerglass Festival—pairing artistry and aspiration, elegance and enterprise, greenery and gravitas.
Like swallows to Capistrano, happy patrons return to Glimmerglass season after season to enjoy professional opera, informative talks and lectures, and a growing roster of programs both educational and entertaining in relaxed, comfortable surroundings.
As a young man, British composer Jonathan Dove read Jane Austen's classic novel Mansfield Park and as he turned the pages, he heard music.
"There was something about the storytelling in this particular book that created a space into which music naturally flowed,” he says.
Can you imagine the thrill of conducting thousands of voices in the Royal Albert Hall?
On Sunday 10 July, more than 1,500 singers from around the world will be taking part in The Really Big Chorus performance of Carl Orff’s iconic work Carmina Burana. Here’s what some of them have to say about their preparations and the unique nature of a TRBC concert with a note from a regular member of the audience too.
‘Ever fancied singing at the Royal Albert Hall with Brian Kay?’ was the question I found myself asking my fellow sopranos back in 2005 having picked up a leaflet for The Really Big Chorus Summer ‘Singday’ of Carmina Burana. The answers I got were enthusiastic and positive, so I sent in my choir application for the performance on 10 July and thus began a regular summer pilgrimage to join the Sony Award winning broadcaster and choral conductor for a fabulous day in one of the world's greatest concert halls. This year we’ll be there to revisit the work that hooked us into The Really Big Chorus and I’d like to share with you how our love affair with the ‘Singday’ began.
Like last year the Proms is opening with some impressive concerts, with a very different feel from previous years. For the full details, see our Full listings of the 2011 BBC Proms.
