News

MRM Artists celebrated two major awards this month: Jordan de Souza has won the prestigious Virginia Parker Prize, awarded annually by the Canada Council for the Arts to a musician under the age of 32 who demonstrates ‘outstanding talent, musicianship and artistic excellence’. Previous winners of the CAD 25,000 prize include Marc-André Hamelin, Nancy Argenta and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The RPS...

James Way joins the English Concert for the opening concert of their autumn livestream series, singing selected arias from Handel Solomon together with the composer’s Foundling Hospital Anthem, conducted by Harry Bicket. Elizabeth Watts sings arias from Beethoven Egmont and Ah! Perfido with the Residentie Orkest, conducted by Richard Egarr. Garry Walker conducts performances with his Rheinische Philharmonie in Karlsruhe,...

Douglas Boyd opens the 20/21 season conducting performances of Fidelio for Garsington Opera, where he is Artistic Director: "[Boyd] seemed absolutely in his element, emphatically conveying the heights and depths of the score even in reduced form" (Opera News). The semi-staged production is also recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 26 September. Leading an outstanding cast in the...

Nominated for the Choral Award, Carolyn Sampson's widely praised recording of Bach's St Matthew Passion with Bach Collegium Japan and Masaaki Suzuki, for BIS Records also won Recording of the Month in the April 2020 edition of the magazine. Among the Recital Award nominees is Ruby Hughes' most recent album for BIS of works by Mahler, Berg and Rhian Samuel,...

The Edinburgh International Festival has reinvented itself in 2020 as an online event, with newly filmed videos of performances by, amongst others, Karen Cargill with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by Thomas Søndergård. Karen’s performance of three Rückert-Lieder by Mahler was acclaimed by Richard Morrison in The Times for her ‘ravishing tone’. Ivan Hewett in the Daily Telegraph wrote: 'The video...