Archives

Mozart Serenata Notturno
Telemann Horn Concerto
Cecilia McDowall Off the Ground
Arnold Horn Concerto No. 2
Coleridge-Taylor Four Novelletten

London Mozart Players
Ben Goldscheider horn
Ruth Rogers director

London Mozart Players, in association with Orchestras Live, returns to Suffolk with an adventurous programme of music for horn and strings, including a world premiere written especially for soloist Ben Goldscheider – rising star and BBC Young Musician brass champion.

Composers across the centuries have written music for the French horn, with Telemann one of the first to explore its unique solo sound. His adventurous Concerto for horn and strings is the perfect piece with which acclaimed soloist Ben Goldscheider can show off his prowess on the instrument. Goldscheider is destined for stardom – ‘one of our youngest and most succulent horn players’ said The Times. Malcolm Arnold’s outstanding second horn concerto, written for Dennis Brain in 1956, requires superb cantabile playing of the soloist, something that Ben delivers with every performance.

Alongside works for the French horn, LMP’s strings get their moment in the spotlight. Mozart’s Serenata Notturno is a delightful serenade for two orchestras – one of solo violins, viola, and double bass, and the other of strings and timpani – that marries formal dignity with a romantic minuet, and shows off Wolfgang’s more playful side. The dance theme continues with Coleridge-Taylor’s Four Novelletten, a brilliantly-crafted series of four dance-like pieces that recall Elgar and Dvorak. And to top this off is Cecilia McDowall’s inventive and invigorating Off the Ground. Buckle up for a musical whirlwind!

Elgar Introduction and Allegro
Mozart Concerto for Horn No.4 in E flat, K.495
Cecilia McDowall Off the Ground
Britten Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings

London Mozart Players
James Gilchrist tenor
Ben Goldscheider horn
Simon Blendis director

LMP’s concert at SMITF in May is simply a ‘must-see’. Dazzling young horn virtuoso Ben Goldscheider performs two giant works in the repertoire, Mozart’s best loved Horn Concerto, the No. 4, and Britten’s expressive and beautiful Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, in which he is joined by tenor James Gilchrist. When Benjamin Britten combined a tenor voice, a string orchestra and a horn in the raw; he discovered a fantastic new world – where old poems surge and toss on fresh sea breezes, and distant music echoes and rustles through the night. With sublime works by Elgar and Cecilia MacDowall also on the programme, this really is the dream ticket.

Please note that this performance will last approximately 75 minutes without interval.

James Gilchrist began his working life as a doctor, turning to a full-time career in music in 1996. His musical interest was fired at a young age, singing first as a chorister in the choir of New College, Oxford, and later as a choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge. A prolific and versatile recitalist, James enjoys imaginative and varied programming in collaborations with pianists Anna Tilbrook and Julius Drake, and harpist Alison Nicholls. Recent appearances include a Schubertiade weekend at St John Smith Square and Schwanengesang coupled with Beethoven An die Ferne Geliebte at the Wigmore Hall. James recently returned to the Wigmore Hall to begin his project with Anna Tilbrook, Schumann and the English Romantics, pairing Schumann song cycles with new commissions from leading composers, Sally Beamish, Julian Philips and Jonathan Dove, setting English poetry of the Romantic period.

Nominated by the Barbican as an ECHO Rising Star, during the 2021/22 season Ben Goldscheider gives recitals at major concert halls including the Concertgebouw, Musikverein, Elbphilharmonie and Köln Philharmonie, including an especially commissioned new work by Mark Simpson. At the age of 18 Ben was a Concerto Finalist in the 2016 BBC Young Musician Competition. Since then he has made his debut at the BBC Proms, and appeared as soloist with the Mozarteum Orchestra in Salzburg, the Aurora, Britten Sinfonia, English Chamber, Royal Philharmonic, London Mozart Players, Lucerne Symphony, Manchester Camerata, Prague Philharmonia and Sinfonie Orchester Berlin. He has worked with conductors James Gaffigan, Nicholas Collon, Mark Wigglesworth, Kristiina Poska, Radek Baborak, Andrew Gourlay and Jessica Cottis, and recorded the solo horn call from Wagner’s Siegfried with the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder.

Born in London, in 2020 Ben completed his studies with honours at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin with Radek Baborák. He was a prize-winner at the 2019 YCAT International Auditions.

Karl Jenkins The Armed Man (Mass for Peace)
Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending
Britten Simple Symphony

London Mozart Players
Simon Blendis (director/violin)
Choirs and young players from Trinity School, Whitgift School, Old Palace School

Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man is one of the nation’s best-loved contemporary works. A choral tour de force beloved the world over, this evocative work is inspired by texts from a variety of Eastern and Western sources, including poetry, the Muslim call to prayer, the medieval tradition of the ‘l’homme armé’ and the Mahabharata, among others, which are combined with the texts of the traditional Latin mass. From the menacing air of the Sanctus to the serenely beautiful cello solo of the Benedictus, The Armed Man ranges from the intense heat of battle to poignant reflection, maintaining the narrative that peace is always better than war.

In Vaughan Williams’ 150th anniversary year, LMP performs one of his most popular works The Lark Ascending, with LMP director Simon Blendis performing the iconic solo. Suffused with nostalgic melodies evoking the English countryside, the work was first performed in 1921, and is perhaps an elegiac lament for a generation lost in the trenches of the First World War. Also on the programme is the delightful Simple Symphony by life-long pacifist Benjamin Britten.

At a time when war is in the headlines, this concert brings together hundreds of young people from the Whitgift Foundation Schools who will join Croydon’s resident orchestra, the London Mozart Players, under the baton of Nicholas Chalmers, to perform these emotionally charged works at Fairfield’s iconic concert hall.

Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem
Finzi Lo, The Full, Final Sacrifice

London Mozart Players
Exeter Philharmonic Choir
Howard Ionascu conductor
Jessica Cale soprano
Timothy Nelson baritone

Exeter Philharmonic Choir celebrates its 175th anniversary with a performance of Brahms’ great work, Ein deutsches Requiem. The programme includes Lo, The Full, Final Sacrifice by Gerald Finzi, a rare opportunity to hear this piece accompanied by full orchestra.

London Mozart Players
Simon Blendis director
Michael Cox flute

Symphony No.34 in C major K. 338
Flute Concerto No. 1 in G major, K. 313
Symphony No.40 in G minor, K. 550

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL

In the spot where the desert meets the sea and the red mountains cast their shadow from above; at a meeting point between Asia and Africa, the greatest musicians from all over the world meet once a year to play music, give master-classes and workshops. Eilat, Israel’s southernmost city is its leading tourist resort, visited by hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. The Eilat Chamber Music Festival was founded seven years ago by Leonid Rozenberg, who serves today as the artistic and general director of the festival. In its six years of existence, the festival hosted the best international and Israeli musicians, who gave exciting performances to music from the time of Monteverdi and until the very recent musical compositions.

The 14th Eilat International Chamber Music Festival will present renowned classical music artists from Europe alongside other established world-famous artists. This year, the festival is hosting two orchestras, famous soloists, programs of classical and Baroque music, jazz, music for various instruments, vocal music, with a rousing, foot-tapping Flamenco event to wind up the festival.

Haydn The Creation, Hob. XXI:2

London Mozart Players
Isata Kanneh-Mason piano
Delyana Lazarova conductor

Prokofiev Symphony No.1, Op. 25 ‘Classical’
Clara Schumann Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.7
Rossini Overture to L’italiana in Algheri
Mendelssohn Symphony No.4 in A major, Op.90 ‘Italian’

The concerts opens with Prokofiev’s effervescent ‘Classical’ Symphony, which cleverly juxtaposes 20th-century style with the traditional four-movement symphony – with some added parody and humour. But the spotlight is on our soloist Isata Kanneh-Mason, who performs Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto, which Schumann composed at the tender age of 14. A BBC Young Musician finalist, four-time winner of the Royal Academy Iris Dyer Piano Prize (among many other prizes) and multi-scholarship winner, Isata is much in demand in concert halls around the UK and abroad. Isata recently recorded Schumann’s Piano Concerto in her much-celebrated debut album Romance. Rossini’s Overture to L’italiana in Algheri sets the scene for the second part of the concert, which centres on Mendelssohn’s jaunty and optimistic Italian Symphony.

‘She is a pianist who makes lines sing beautifully and virtuosic passages dance, finding intimacy and eloquence at telling moments…’ – BBC Music Magazine.