WOMAD 2026

29 July 2026

When the WOMAD Festival moved to Charlton Park in Wiltshire in 2007 (reviewed here in August 2007) that first festival at the new site was beset by problems, exacerbated by the constant rain that created a sea of mud. Last weekend's first post-Charlton Park WOMAD, at the festival's new home of Neston Park near Corsham in Wiltshire, seemed to have learned much from the 2007 experience - and also benefited from near perfect weather. For the first outing at this new venue (after a fallow year with no festival in 2025), everything seemed to go extremely smoothly. Neston Park feels smaller than Charlton Park (the WOMAD programme described it as "more intimate") but the numbers attending seemed to fit the space well. I soon got the hang of the new layout of the festival arena (though it took me until Saturday afternoon to realise that the beautiful path through the sunflower field provided a handy shortcut between the two halves of the arena). I'm not sure they had got the positioning of all the stages quite right but I expect the necessary tweaks will be in place by next year's festival. And, for me, 2026 was, musically, the best WOMAD for quite a while. I saw 23 performances over the three days, including 15 full sets, and there were many many highlights. It was great to see WOMAD founder Peter Gabriel on stage on Saturday afternoon to pay tribute to the WOMAD Festival Director Chris Smith who is retiring after 20 years in charge. Later in the day I found myself standing immediately behind Peter Gabriel in the crowd in the Sunflower Tent, watching the band LYR, featuring the Poet Laureate Simon Armitage. I really enjoyed Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek and their 1970s psychedelic version of traditional Anatolian folk music. I was charmed by the intergenerational group representing the Lăutăresele Şaraimanic project that celebrates music from the variety of different ethnic communities in Romania. While these performances of Anatolian and Romanian folk music presented the traditional in an innovative modern way, the Mexican brass band Mixanteña de Santa Cecilia performed music from the Pacific coast of Mexico in a way that appeared to be completely historically authentic, with traditional costumes and dancers, but was no less thrilling. Bénin International Musical's "incendiary voodoo sound of West Africa" was engaging and varied. And I loved the Brooklyn disco funk of Say She She. Amidst these big danceable shows on the main stage, I'm pleased I also found the time to see Pakistani musician Ustad Noor Bakhsh on the smaller Village Stage. He plays the benju - a zither with typewriter-style keys, played like a lap-steel guitar - and he only found international recognition when already in his late seventies. His hypnotic fast-picking tunes found an enthusiastic audience at WOMAD and provided a beautiful opportunity for contemplation. But my favourite moments of the 2026 WOMAD Festival were the polyphonic vocals of the Occitan group Barrut from Southern France and the high energy singing and dancing of Galician female folk trio Tanxugueiras from Northern Spain. In both cases I found myself thrilled to have chosen to be at those stages at that time and thinking I will remember these performances for many years.

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Prom

22 July 2026

On Tuesday we were at the Royal Albert Hall in London for our first visit to the BBC Proms in many years. The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by John Storgårds, were in impressive form. The programme opened with 'Tales of a Summer Sea' - a piece by Betsy Jolas, who is due to celebrate her 100th birthday this year. This was a belated UK premiere for her 1977 reworking of elements of the incidental music she wrote in 1962 for a production of 'The Tempest'. It's an atmospheric piece that conjures up the power of the ocean through a large orchestra including masses of percussion and two sets of timpani. We then heard Sueye Park perform the Sibelius 'Violin Concerto' - one of my favourite pieces and one I have played in the orchestra for on several occasions. Sueye Park played beautifully and delicately but the acoustics of the vast Albert Hall made it quite a strain to hear the solo violin. John Storgårds restrained the orchestra volume very effectively but I would have preferred to hear both soloist and accompaniment a little more off the leash. The second half of the concert featured 'Also sprach Zarathustra' - Richard Strauss's orchestral tone poem inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's huge poem. The opening fanfare must be one of the most famous moments in classical music, from its use in the film '2001: A Space Odyssey', but the 35 minutes that follow are rarely heard. Which is a shame as it is a great piece - powerful, playful, spectacular and serene. Though I know the work from recordings, I had never heard it live before and it was really helpful to see it performed in order to make sense of the different sections of the music and the instrumentation. It was wonderful to hear the mighty Albert Hall organ. The tubular bells chiming midnight, heralding the quiet, enigmatic ending of the piece, rang out brilliantly from the balcony at the top of the Albert Hall. It was a very entertaining concert, excellently performed.

Buckingham Music Festival

16 July 2026

On Wednesday, we made a first visit to the Buckingham Music Festival at the Radcliffe Centre, a lovely converted church concert venue in the middle of Buckingham (where we previously saw the Adderbury Ensemble, reviewed here in October 2024). In the morning we saw a piano recital by Craig Greene which featured three early sonatas by Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 3 was composed in 1775 during his early years visiting Munich. Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 1 was composed in 1795 and dedicated to his teacher, Joseph Haydn. And Brahms' Piano Sonata No. 1 was his Opus 1, composed in 1853 when he was just 20. It was fascinating to hear the contrast in these early works by the three composers, brilliantly played by Craig Greene, and to hear the development in the use of the piano over a relatively short period of time from the 1770s to the 1850s. The hall was packed for this morning recital. After lunch, we returned to the Radcliffe Centre for a performance by Oxus, a string quartet from Oxford, who presented a programme 'From the Steppes of Central Asia', inspired by the peoples and vast landscapes of the Caucasus and beyond. This featured movements from string quartets by Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky and Borodin, which drew on local folk music across Russia and Ukraine. They also played arrangements of traditional pieces, including a Ukrainian folk song, music collected in Kazakhstan, an Armenian traditional tune, and finishing with a medley from 'Fiddler on the Roof'. It was a very entertaining and varied programme, nicely introduced by the members of the quartet. A very pleasant way to spend a Wednesday afternoon.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

14 July 2026

Our traditional, season-ending, short, Sunday afternoon Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert for the Friends of the Orchestra, is always a lovely way to mark the start of the summer. It's also a great opportunity for the orchestra to play repertoire that wouldn't fit into one of our normal concerts. It's a chance for us, and our audience, to explore shorter pieces for a smaller orchestra. At this year's Friends' concert at Christchurch in Northampton on Sunday we played Schubert's 'Symphony No. 8' (the 'Unfinished Symphony'). I hadn't played this popular work for many years and had forgotten what a lovely piece it is. There is something very satisfying about playing a classical symphony that is so cleverly constructed and beautifully written but less technically challenging than some of the repertoire we usually play, providing the opportunity to play much more carefully and precisely. I would agree with our percussionist, Keith Crompton, who said to me after the concert that he thought the Schubert was the best the orchestra had played for a long time. Conductor John Gibbons drew a lovely, rich sound from the orchestra and kept the rhythms clear and steady. We continued our tradition of featuring the latest Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust soloists competition winners. Amy played the final section of the Glazunov 'Saxophone Concerto' very impressively. And Stan gave a stunning performance of the last two movements of the lovely 'Concertino for Trombone' by Ferdinand David. When Felix Mendelssohn was asked to compose a trombone concerto he declined due to time restraints but passed the task to the leader of his Gewandhaus Orchestra, Ferdinand David. The resulting Concertino was dedicated to the Gewandhaus trombonist Karl Traugott Queisser, who first performed it, with Mendelssohn conducting, in 1837. We also played the catchy 'Folk Song Suite' by Vaughan Williams and we finished the concert with the Rossini overture ‘The Thieving Magpie’ which featured excellent solos by Harriet Brown (oboe), Helen Taylor (flute), Rob Reid (clarinet), Sian Bunker (bassoon) and Ian Jones (horn). 

Suntou Susso and the Gambian Superstars

2 July 2026

Last Friday we were at The Stables in Wavendon to see Suntou Susso and the Gambian Superstars. Suntou Susso is a Gambian griot in the tradition of the hereditary musicians whose songs chronicled history and tradition across the Mandé Empire of West Africa (like the late great Malian kora virtuoso Toumani Diabaté, reviewed here in May 2008). Suntou Susso is a singer, songwriter and kora player with a very likable personality. He had the audience up dancing, almost from the start, on one of the hottest days of the year. He was backed by a very impressive six piece band of brilliant musicians, playing a mixture of traditional and contemporary instruments, who are clearly having lots of fun. It was mostly fast and frantic dance music: one tune with a slightly slower reggae beat provided a nice contrast. I also particularly enjoyed the couple of more contemplative solo pieces with Suntou Susso accompanying himself on kora. It was a very enjoyable evening that left the audience and the band smiling.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

23 June 2026

I've been a member of Northampton Symphony Orchestra for 26 years but last Saturday was the first time I can remember us dedicating a whole concert to a single piece of music. Any Gustav Mahler Symphony is a significant undertaking for an orchestra, but Mahler's 'Symphony No 3', which we played at St Matthew's in Northampton, brings some particular challenges. As well as being the longest of his symphonies, its six movements lasting around 95 to 110 minutes, it requires a massive orchestra, a mezzo-soprano soloist, a ladies choir and a children's choir. It was an amazing experience being one of 160 performers on Saturday (including an orchestra of more than 100 players).

NSO rehearsing Mahler 'Symphony No 3' in St Matthew's

I wasn't familiar with the 3rd symphony until we started to rehearse it and I found it quite difficult to appreciate at first. While there were clearly some beautiful, brilliant (and many seemingly impossible) passages, playing through one or two of the movements at a time they felt as if they came from completely different pieces. But as I got to know the symphony better I began to spot the use of common thematic material across the very different feeling movements and the work as a whole began to make more sense to me. Again I was reminded that there is no better way to understand and appreciate complex music than by playing it.

Flugelhorn solo from the balcony

Although there are plenty of tricky passages for the first horn player, Mahler 3 doesn't feature the substantial horn solos that terrified me when we played Mahler 6 in 2011 (reviewed here in November 2011). In the third symphony, while challenging solos throughout the orchestra were impressively conquered by NSO players, the limelight belongs to three instruments that have lengthy, exposed solos. John Whittall gave a fantastic performance of the commanding operatic trombone solo in the first movement. And Dan Newitt's beautiful Flugelhorn solo in the third movement, played from high up in the balcony at the back of the church, was stunning. But I would also like to praise the incredibly delicate, quiet bass drum solos that punctuate several sections of the symphony, played carefully and precisely by Henry Taylor.

Mezzo-soprano Rachel Roper was wonderful in the fourth and fifth movements. And the children's choir from the Malcolm Arnold Academy and ladies' chorus from the Northampton Bach Choir, directed by Simon Toyne, added a magical feel to the fifth movement.

NSO conductor John Gibbons deserves huge congratulations for pulling this enormous piece together and guiding us through a very impressive performance - and for conducting the whole symphony with one hand, with his left arm in a sling following a recent accident.

I suspect any performance of Mahler's 'Symphony No 3' feels like a significant event. It was amazing to be in the room to hear it live, let alone to play a part in the performance, and it was wonderful to be part of a brilliant horn section of nine players. I think our realisation of this massive undertaking was a triumph and I really enjoyed it.

NSO Horns

Afterwards, one member of our audience told us she was overwhelmed, saying "It's my absolute favourite piece of music and I never thought I would hear it live." This is an important reminder of the role amateur orchestras play in sharing lesser performed music with local audiences. While our performance of Mahler's 'Symphony No 3' definitely included a few minor mistakes (from me at least), it was much more exciting to hear it live than to listen to a recording.

Switzerland

8 June 2026

We had a wonderful holiday in Switzerland to celebrate the start of my retirement. We started in Basel in the north of the country, next to the borders with France and Germany, where our first challenge was to leave the airport through the Switzerland exit rather than end up in the wrong country! Basel is a lovely small city, with a pretty old town on either side of the impressive Rhine river. We visited the Fondation Beyeler art gallery - a stunning Renzo Piano building set in a beautiful garden with views of the nearby hills - to see an exhibition of Paul Cezanne paintings. We also attended an orchestral concert at the Stadtcasino concert hall which featured four concertos played by students from the Basel Academy of Music, accompanied by the Basel Symphony Orchestra. After Basel we travelled by train to Wengen in the Jungfrau region - a car-free village halfway up a mountain, only accessible via a cogwheel train. Our self-catering chalet was just outside Wengen and the view from our balcony was beautiful, looking down the Lauterbrunnen valley and across the three mountains - Jungfrau, Mönch and Eiger. As we sat on the balcony in the late afternoon we heard the increasing sound of cowbells and watched the cows being walked downhill for milking right past our cottage. We had a wonderful week in the mountains, catching the cable cars and mountain railways, walking, taking a cruise on Lake Brienz and soaking up the amazing views. From Wengen we moved on to Bern - the capital of Switzerland - which has a very pretty old city contained within a loop of the river Aare. It reminded us of Edinburgh's old town, with its cobbled streets and tall, thin, many storied buildings - but with added porticos (like we saw in Bologna). We visited the Einsteinhaus museum - in the apartment in which Einstein had once lived - and the Zentrum Paul Klee - another stunning modern building, by Renzo Piano, which holds 4,000 works by Paul Klee and displays a small selection on rotation. Finally we had a couple of days in Geneva where we travelled across the edge of Lake Geneva on the Mouette water buses, giving us beautiful views of the water and showing us how quickly you can get out of the city into lovely countryside. You can see a selection of my photos from Switzerland at: https://culturaloutlook.blogspot.com/search/label/Switzerland2026

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

28 April 2026

Last Saturday's Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert at Spinney Theatre in Northampton was the third time we have played with the brilliant young pianist Julian Chan. Following stunning performances of the ‘Piano Concerto No 5’ by Saint-Saens (reviewed here in February 2023) and Amy Beach’s ‘Piano Concerto’ (reviewed here in July 2024), Julian joined us again on Saturday to play Rachmaninoff's 'Piano Concerto No. 3'. Julian gave a truly thrilling performance of this incredibly emotional showpiece, which received a rapturous reception from both the audience and the orchestra. It was a pleasure and privilege to accompany him. We started the concert with España - the popular rhapsody for orchestra by Emmanuel Chabrier. After the interval we played Arnold Bax's 'Symphony No 2'. In his pre-concert talk Eric McElroy, a trustee of the Sir Arnold Bax Society, told us that there were only two performances of Bax symphonies scheduled anywhere in the world this year - a performance of the Sixth Symphony in Tokyo a few weeks ago and our performance of the Second in Northampton. Writing in The Guardian a few days before our concert, Tom Service bemoaned the continued absence of Bax from the Proms schedule, saying: "There may currently be no less fashionable music than the hyper-romantic symphonies and orchestral works of Arnold Bax. The British composer’s music featured in pretty well every Proms season throughout the 1930s and 40s and early 50s, yet he has been the rarest of visitors to the Royal Albert Hall since then. When was the last Bax symphony heard at the Proms, you ask? 2011! Far too long for a fan like me." NSO performed Bax's First Symphony two years ago (reviewed here in March 2024) but the Second Symphony (completed in 1926) is a very different work. As we started to rehearse, it seemed incredibly challenging - chromatically unpredictable and rhythmically complicated. Yet the music felt romantic rather than avant-garde. I enjoyed getting to grips with the symphony - initially as an intellectual exercise but gradually coming to appreciate the piece as a whole. Bax draws on many different musical influences: there are elements of the symphony that sound like some of his contemporaries, including Vaughan Williams, Stravinsky and the Celtic-inspired music of Granville Bantock. But Bax mixes these styles to create a consistent and satisfying whole, with all the thematic material of the symphony introduced in the first section of the opening movement. And there are some beautiful passages, particularly at the beginning of the second movement. I think our performance on Saturday went really well, making sense of what had appeared to be a challenging piece and winning many of our audience over to Bax - a tribute to the excellent work of our conductor John Gibbons. The symphony starts and ends with the same slow melancholy cor anglais fanfare, wonderfully played by Harriet Brown, providing an unresolved epilogue at the end of the final movement as the music fades to silence. The conductor Vernon Handley, who recorded all seven Bax symphonies with the BBC Philharmonic, said: "He knows he's leaving the Second Symphony for something to be said in his next symphony". I'm looking forward to discovering what resolution awaits when we tackle Bax Symphony No. 3 in a couple of years' time.

Vienna

2 April 2026

We had a lovely time in Vienna last week, visiting the Schonbrunn Palace - the summer residence of the Hapsburgs - where we walked through the room where the six year old Mozart first performed for the Empress. We enjoyed the Gustav Klimt collection at the Belvedere Palace and walked through the Prater amusement park to see the famous Ferris wheel. We went to the Musikverein to see a great concert by The Orchestral Association of the Society of Friends of Music - Vienna's oldest amateur orchestra (founded in 1859 - 11 years before the Musikverein opened). We also visited the stunning Kunsthistoriches Museum and the Albertina - a lovely art gallery within a beautiful Hapsburg palace. We had a day trip to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, where the Old Town is very pretty, with pastel coloured buildings and open squares. We also went by train to the small town of Melk (population 2,000), set on the banks of the Danube in Lower Austria, which is dominated by the dramatic, imposing and enormous Benedictine Monastery, Sift Melk, which sits on a rock, high above the town. Back in Vienna we managed to get cheap standing tickets for the Vienna State Opera where we saw 'The Bartered Bride'. We were in the ground floor standing area at the back of the stalls with a surprisingly good view. It was great to see the inside of the opera house and to see the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. You can see a few of my holiday photos here. 

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

3 March 2026

Our Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert at Spinney Theatre last Saturday featured four pieces by American composers, all written in the 1930s and 1940s, celebrating The Jazz Age and The Golden Age of Hollywood. We opened the concert with Aaron Copland's 'Quiet City' - a remarkable piece for string orchestra with solo parts for trumpet and cor anglais, brilliantly played by NSO members Terry Mayo and Harriet Brown. William Grant Still's 'Symphony No 1: Afro American' was the first symphony by an African American composer to be performed by a major orchestra ion the USA (in 1931). It's a lovely work which pairs up-beat jazz with achingly emotional blues-inspired melodies. I particularly loved the gorgeous slow opening of the final movement with its powerful descending bass line in the tuba. The composer Ferde Grofé is now best remembered as the orchestrator of 'Rhapsody in Blue' by George Gershwin and for his popular 'Grand Canyon Suite'. I hadn't previously encountered his suite '6 Pictures of Hollywood' and enjoyed discovering this comic peak backstage at the making of an imaginary 1930s film musical. Our finale was 'Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture' - Robert Russell Bennett's medley of the classic songs from George Gershwin's folk opera. It's a great arrangement which revels in the wealth of Gershwin's melodies (including 'Summertime', 'Bess, You is My Woman Now', 'I Got Plenty of Nuttin' and 'It Ain't Necessarily So') and toys with the listener - three times sounding as if it has come to a conclusion, only to segue into yet another famous tune. For our celebration of American Voices the NSO was swelled by three harps, four saxophones, banjo and an impressive array of percussion. Our Conductor John Gibbons wonderfully slotted the many jigsaw pieces together on the day: in the concert I think all four pieces were the best we had performed them. But this concert belonged to Terry and Harriet - not only playing their beautiful solo parts in 'Quiet City' but appearing to dominate the rest of the programme too. Both the 'Afro-American Symphony' and 'Porgy and Bess' open with cor anglais solos (followed by a trumpet solo in the Gerswhin) and these and the Grofé feel like showpieces for the trumpets. This really was a fun concert and the cheer from the audience at the end of 'Porgy and Bess' felt well-deserved. 

Bedford Sinfonia concert

27 January 2026

On Saturday I was at All Saints Church, Queens Park, Bedford to play in the Bedford Sinfonia concert, conducted by Ian Smith. It's more than 10 years since I last played with the orchestra (accompanying a Bedford Choral Society concert, reviewed here in November 2015). Saturday's concert was a programme of pieces by female composers. We started with Ethel Smyth's Overture 'The Wreckers' - which was, for a long time, the only orchestral piece by a female composer in the repertoire of many orchestras. I enjoyed discovering the 'Gaelic Symphony' by Amy Beach (whose piano concerto we played with Northampton Symphony Orchestra a couple of years ago, reviewed here in July 2024). The second half of the concert featured the 'Overture' by Fanny Mendelssohn, followed by 'Symphony No 1' by Florence Price - the first work by a Black woman composer to be performed by a major US orchestra. I had seen a performance of the symphony by the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Edinburgh Festival (reviewed here in September 2022) and it was great to get the chance to play it. I hadn't played any of the four pieces in Saturday's concert before. It was an interesting and entertaining programme - though quite a long, tiring concert to play. 

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

17 December 2025

The Northampton Symphony Orchestra’s ‘Christmas Cracker’ concert - a Sunday-afternoon, family-friendly performance - always features a narrated piece. This year we told two stories to our packed audience at the Spinney Theatre in Northampton. In the first half of the concert our compere William Thallon narrated 'Paddington Bear's First Concert' – in which Herbert Chappell creates an extensive theme and variations from his signature tune for the old BBC TV 'Paddington'. And after the interval William told the story of Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ in a version by Lawrence Killian, with words by Margaret Killian. This year’s concert was a particularly Christmassy Christmas Cracker - with no film music and almost every piece featuring familiar Christmas carol tunes. It was billed as a British Christmas, focussing on works by UK composers, including ‘A Christmas Overture’ by Nigel Hess and Malcolm Arnold’s arrangement of ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ - but still finding room for our signature ‘Sleigh Ride’ by Leroy Anderson. It was a very slick, enjoyable concert, brilliantly held together by conductor John Gibbons and featuring excellent solos across many sections of the orchestra but I will particularly remember Helen Taylor’s beautiful flutter-tongue piccolo solo evoking Paddington’s Darkest Peru. 

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

18 November 2025

I have been a member of the Northampton Symphony Orchestra for 25 years but last Saturday’s concert was special for me as it was the first concert programme I was involved in choosing. I joined the orchestra’s programming committee in August 2024 to help to decide the repertoire for our 2025-26 season. As we approached the first concert of the season I was surprised how responsible I felt. In particular I had pushed for the inclusion of the ‘Sunrise Orchestral Suite’ by the Finnish composer Ida Moberg - which had been suggested by a member of the orchestra and I had really enjoyed listening to. Rehearsing the suite over the past 10 weeks I began to worry that it wasn’t quite as strong as I had thought, but it provided a beautiful opening to the concert and seemed to go down well with our audience at the Spinney Theatre in Northampton. 

Peter Donohoe, who joined us to play the Bliss Piano Concerto, has been one of the UK’s best known pianists since winning the International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow in 1982. I played the Grieg Piano Concerto with him as a member of the Didsbury Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester in 1983. So it was fascinating to discover that his first performance of the Grieg Concerto was in the Spinney Theatre in 1977 - the year it opened. The last time Peter Donohoe played with NSO was in our 125th anniversary concert at the Derngate in June 2019 when he performed Tchaikovsky’s ‘Piano Concerto No 2’. I remember the final movement as a frenetic romp with Peter Donohoe racing the orchestra to a thrilling finish. Sir Arthur Bliss is now best remembered for his music for the 1936 science fiction film ‘Things to Come’. His Piano Concerto was premiered in 1939 in Carnegie Hall by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. It was dedicated “to the people of the United States of America” and shows significant American influence, including echoes of Gershwin and Korngold, as well as a touch of Stravinsky and some recognisable appearances of the march theme from ‘Things to Come’. It is a spectacular showpiece concerto with two muscular outer movements and a beautifully delicate slow movement. Peter Donohoe gave a stunning performance and our conductor John Gibbons did a brilliant job of holding this complex piece together. There were excellent duets with the piano from Corinne Malitskie (‘cello), Richard Smith (violin) and Keith Crompton (timpani). It was wonderful to hear, after the concert, that Andrew Burn, Chair of the Bliss Trust, was astonished by the quality of the orchestra. As an encore Peter Donohoe treated us to the ‘Intermezzo in A major op.118 no.2’ by Brahms - an achingly beautiful performance that moved many of us to tears. 

We completed the concert with Dvořák’s ‘Symphony No 8’, which I have always adored as it was one of the first symphonies I played on joining the Didsbury Symphony Orchestra in my teens. I can still remember our conductor telling us, definitively, that the third movement of the symphony is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written. Whether or not you agree, the confidence of his statement made a big impression on me as a teenager. It was lovely to rediscover this gorgeous symphony - a great way to show off the wonderful NSO ‘cello section (though the haunting opening unison theme in the first movement is played by the horns, 1st clarinet and 1st bassoon as well as the ‘cellos). And there were many perfect flute solos throughout the piece by Graham Tear who always seems to make the most intricate passages sound easy. It was a really enjoyable concert and felt like one we will fondly remember for a long time. 

Bologna

17 October 2025

We had a wonderful holiday in Bologna - the culinary capital of Italy and the location of the oldest university in the Western world, founded in 1088. It is a beautiful and very distinctive city, with most of the buildings conforming to a colour palette of warm tones of yellow, red and orange, and miles and miles of porticoes (wide arched covered pedestrian walkways) - more than any other city in the world. If you are visiting Bologna I would recommend reading John Grisham's 2005 novel 'The Broker' while you are there. It's a gripping thriller and its descriptions of Bologna - and the experience of learning to speak Italian - were the perfect companion to our holiday. We were lucky to see a Bologna Festival concert by the MDI String Quartet in the magnificent Oratorio di San Filippo Neri - one of the grandest places I have ever seen a classical concert. We had day trips, by train, to Milan, Ravenna and Venice. Milan was nicer than we were expecting with some stunning buildings, particularly the Castello Sforzesco. The town of Ravenna was a little less picturesque than we had imagined but its famous Byzantine mosaics were amazing. And it was wonderful to return to Venice, 24 years after our previous visit, and to manage to find the little hotel where we had stayed all those years ago. You can see a selection of my holiday photos at: https://culturaloutlook.blogspot.com/search/label/Bologna2025 

Edinburgh Festivals 2025

29 August 2025

We had a great time at the Edinburgh Festivals last week, seeing 21 shows across a wide variety of genres, topics and venues. There were many highlights but I'll just mention a few favourites:

'Down to Chance' is a great piece of fringe theatre from the Cornwall-based theatre company Maybe You Like It. A two-hander with Ellie Jay Cooper (also the writer) and Robert Merriam playing multiple roles, it tells the story of the Great Earthquake that hit Anchorage, Alaska, on Good Friday 1964. The earthquake took out all communications apart from the local radio station, where female reporter Genie Chance was left in sole charge, broadcasting through the night to reunite missing people and coordinate the volunteer efforts. A gripping true story, entertainingly told.

'Lady Macbeth Played Wing Defence' by West Australian company Crash Theatre Co. and House of Oz reimagines the Scottish play as the story of a high school netball team. ‘Mac’ is determined to become captain of the team, even if it means dispensing with her teammates by murdering their reputations. It's great fun, and very silly, but the occasional actual Shakespearean speeches are surprisingly moving.
'The Queen Is Mad' is a musical/chamber opera, by Amy Clare Tasker and Tom James McGrath, about Joanna, elder sister of Catherine of Aragon and daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, who inherited the thrones of Castile and Aragon but was prevented from ruling either by her father, her husband and her son who imprisoned her, claiming she was mad. It's beautifully sung by a cast of three, featuring Maria Coyne as Joanna, and a fascinating piece of history.  

We were very lucky to see the Aurora Orchestra, conducted by Nicholas Collon, at the Usher Hall, playing Shostakovich's 5th Symphony from memory. Memorising this titanic work for a huge orchestra is an incredible feat but it's not just a party trick. The whole orchestra standing, without any music stands, and moving with the music, was an amazing sight. And it sounded fresh and incredibly exciting. They had played the symphony at The Proms in London a few days before and it's well worth watching on BBC iPlayer, but it only gives you a flavour of the live experience. It was a thrilling performance. 

Tom Robinson

6 August 2025

On Friday we were at Esquires - a small live music venue in Bedford - to see the Tom Robinson Band. We've seen Tom Robinson so many times that we don't just know all the songs, we know all the stories he tells about them and have to restrain ourselves from spoiling the punchlines. But we still love seeing him perform and Tom and the band (including excellent new drummer Siân Monaghan) were on top form last weekend. It always surprises us how many people cheer when he asks if there is anyone in the crowd who hasn't seen him before. It's wonderful to see him continuing to grow his fanbase at the age of 75. And each time we see him I am reminded what a good songwriter Tom Robinson is, and what an extensive back catalogue of songs he has to draw on. 

Le Vent du Nord

23 July 2025

On Tuesday evening we were at the giant Spiegeltent in Campbell Park, Milton Keynes, to see the legendary Québécois folk group Le Vent du Nord, performing as part of the Milton Keynes International Festival. The five-piece band were formed 23 years ago and have an amazing reputation but I had never seen them live before. Most of their tunes are upbeat rhythmic masterclasses, with frantic fiddles and rasping hurdy-gurdy, accompanied by hypnotic rapid percussive foot-tapping on sound boards by the two seated fiddle players (which is visually compelling to watch). Many of the songs feature typical French Canadian call and response vocals. The occasional slower ballads were very beautiful. Canadian folk music has a lot in common with Scottish and Irish folk, feeling pleasingly familiar yet different. I was also reminded of another great Canadian folk band, The Bills, who we saw many years ago (reviewed here in May 2006). Le Vent du Nord were on great form - a toe-tapping delight.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

16 July 2025

On Sunday I was at Christchurch in Northampton for the annual Northampton Symphony Orchestra end-of-season Friends' Concert. This short Sunday afternoon concert and buffet for the Friends of the Orchestra is our way of saying thank you for their support over the past year. As usual we performed a selection of shorter pieces. Our programme included the 'Waltz from Masquerade' by Khachaturian, the 'Overture to The Barber of Seville' by Rossini and Dvorak's 'Slavonic Dance No 8'. We also played the last three movements of Beethoven's 'Symphony No 6 (Pastoral)'. This was the symphony we were rehearsing in March 2020 for a concert that was sadly cancelled because of the COVID lockdown. Having played the Pastoral Symphony recently with Milton Keynes Sinfonia (reviewed here in March 2025), it was great to have a chance to get a few more notes right in the famous horn solos. As we have done for the past few years, we used our Friends' Concert as the opportunity to showcase some of the best local young musicians by featuring Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust soloists competition winners. This year's concert included the first movement from Handel's 'Harp Concerto' ('Concerto No. 6 in B-flat major', originally for harpsichord or organ), beautifully played by Elizabeth. She also treated us to an amazing encore: 'Harpicide at Midnight' by Pearl Chertok. I really enjoyed getting to grips with the Vaughan Williams 'Tuba Concerto', which we last played in 2008 (reviewed here in June 2008). It's a lovely piece, worthy of being heard more often, excellently performed for us by Charlie. Overall it was a lovely miniature concert with some very controlled, precise playing throughout the orchestra, expertly directed by our conductor John Gibbons.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

18 June 2025

Last Saturday's Northampton Symphony Orchestra 'Film Night' concert, conducted by John Gibbons, at the Spinney Theatre in Northampton was an incredibly enjoyable evening - a great introduction for those members of our packed audience who told us it was their first experience of going to a live orchestral concert. 

We started the concert with one of the most famous musical moments in film history, from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' - the opening fanfare of 'Also sprach Zarathustra' by Richard Strauss.  When Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws' came out in 1975 I was too young to go to see it but I distinctly remember walking to school past the Scala cinema in Withington which, instead of the useful small identikit lettering to announce the film showing that week, was displaying the word JAWS in six-foot high lettering, dripping with blood! 'Jaws', which is often credited with inventing the modern Hollywood blockbuster, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Its success owes much to John Williams and "the scariest two notes in musical history ... a theme that catches you by the ears and drags you by the ankles", according to a recent article in The Washington Post. Our performance of John Williams's 'Suite from Jaws' featured brilliant trumpet solos from Dan Newitt. Our performance was also notable for the sinister appearance of shark fins on the heads of the first violin players.

We finished the first half of the concert with the 'Symphony No 2' by Howard Hanson, which was used for the closing credits of the film 'Alien' (without the composer's permission) and was later cited by John Williams as the model for his music for 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'. Hanson is not very well known these days but was an important and influential 20th century American composer. His second symphony ('The Romantic') is a gorgeous schmaltzy piece which suggests Hanson might have been the missing link between Aaron Copland and John Williams. It features some beautiful solo horn counter-melodies which I really enjoyed playing, and our trumpet section sounded magnificent.

The second half of the concert included Ennio Morricone's 'L'Ultima Diligenza di Red Rock' from Quentin Tarantino's 'The Hateful Eight' - featuring gorgeous growling contra-bassoon solos by Frank Jordan - followed by Malcolm Arnold's music for Ralph Thomas's 1961 British film 'No Love for Johnnie' (reconstructed and orchestrated by Philip Lane) - with beautiful oboe solos by Sarah Mourant. 

For many the highpoint of the concert was the music from Hayao Miyazaki's 2004 Studio Ghibli animated film 'Howl's Moving Castle' in the Symphonic Variation "Merry-go-round" by Joe Hisaishi - particularly the solo piano theme, beautifully played by Georgina Neil.

The concert concluded with three pieces from John Williams' music for the 'Star Wars' series - from three different films: 'The Asteroid Field' (from 'The Empire Strikes Back'), 'Across the Stars (from 'Attack of the Clones') and 'The Throne Room and End Title' from the original 'Star Wars'. This provided a thrilling end to a great concert with the whole brass section in excellent form, and it was fantastic to have all seven regular NSO horn players playing the famous 'Star Wars' theme.   

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

7 May 2025

Last Saturday's Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert featured Prokofiev's 'Symphony No 7', which I first played in 1988 as a member of the Manchester Youth Orchestra. Despite having not played the symphony in the intervening years I was amazed, when we started rehearsing it in March 2025, how well I remembered it. There was a rigour to the youth orchestra approach that means I can still remember subdividing the beats to determine the precise lengths of particular notes. Prokofiev's final symphony feels like a companion piece to his first. 'Symphony No 1 (The Classical Symphony)' was completed in 1917 in the style of Haydn and Mozart, and 'Symphony No. 7' (completed in 1952, having been commissioned by the Children’s Division of State Radio and described as a ‘Children’s Symphony’) has a similar clean simplicity. Prokofiev writes beautiful, catchy tunes and the seventh symphony has plenty, with its obvious joyfulness and passion sitting alongside darker poignant moments. He is also a clever orchestrator and, while our NSO performance included many brilliant solos from across the orchestra, this is a symphony in which the stars are the tuba (Nick Tollervey), the piano (Georgina Neil) and the harp (Chris Clarke), all of whom were outstanding. 

Shortly after I joined the NSO in 2000, at one Wednesday rehearsal I was amazed to walk into the room to see Rachel Chapman, who I had played with in the Manchester Youth Orchestra. I didn't know that she had recently moved to Milton Keynes and she didn't realise I was living in Bedfordshire. We were delighted to be reunited and have played together in NSO for nearly 25 years. Saturday was Rachel's final NSO concert as she is moving to the Lake District, and it was lovely to finish our years of playing together with a piece we had both played in the youth orchestra so many years ago. At the end of the symphony, when conductor John Gibbons, asked the trumpets to take a bow, Terry and Stephen deliberately remained seated to allow Rachel to take the applause alone. She has been a really important long serving member of the brass section and was a brilliant Chair of the orchestra. She will be much missed but we hope to see her again as an occasional guest player.

We started Saturday's concert with the'Overture' by the female Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz. Written in 1943 in German‑occupied Warsaw this is an understandably serious piece of music, with an insistent rhythmic underpinning that suggests a determined resistance, and hints of a brighter future on the horizon. It was a timely reminder of the dark days of the war, in the week when we are marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day.

The first half of our concert also featured Dvorak's 'Violin Concerto' which I didn't know before we started rehearsing it. Dvorak's 'Cello Concerto' (which we last played with NSO in November 2018) is a gorgeous piece, incredibly popular and often performed, and I was looking forward to something similar. Initially I was quite disappointed: the Violin Concerto just doesn't sound like Dvorak as we know him from his symphonies or the Cello Concerto. But when I began to see the similarities between this concerto and Beethoven or Brahms - and started to think of Dvorak building on these composers as Prokofiev did on Haydn and Mozart - the concerto really grew on me. It also helped to have an amazing soloist to show us the excitement in the piece. Sharon Zhou gave a thrilling performance which always sounded like she was playing with a smile.

At a time of so much angst, horror and uncertainty in the world, John Gibbons was determined we should end our concert on an upbeat note. 'Overture: Brighton Beach' by the contemporary British composer Paul Lewis is a ridiculously jolly seaside postcard that evokes the south coast resort in all its guises. In the middle section the wind, brass and percussion form a military band playing ‘Sussex by the Sea' on the pier. This leaves the string players unusually under occupied and it was lovely to see many of them enjoying their day on the beach with knotted hankies on heads, reading newspapers and wearing water wings. It was lots of fun and the piece was clearly a big hit with our audience in Christchurch, Northampton.