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Classical music & opera

  • A modern arts venue with people drinking and talking in a courtyard outside

    News
    Five-hour avant garde Philip Glass opera among ENO’s Manchester plans

  • Philharmonia Orchestra - Herbert Blomstedt and pianist Maria João Pires. Credit Tom Howard (6)

    More endurance than you can shake a stick at: does conducting keep you young?

    The 97-year-old Herbert Blomstedt is in London today to conduct the Philharmonia. He is one of a very long line of maestros working well into old age
  • ‘Her Scarf Dance alone is said to have sold more than five million copies’ … Cécile Chaminade.

    From the salon and the scarf dance … to silence: the music of Cécile Chaminade

    Her work was played at Queen Victoria’s funeral, and her compositions celebrated all over the world – but today she is barely known. Stephen Hough on why he is putting Chaminade in his current season
  • Superbly expressive … Rhian Lois as Adina in The Elixir of Love at the Coliseum, London.

    Review
    The Elixir of Love – Donizetti’s romcom staged as second world war sitcom is hugely enjoyable

  • A scene from The Sound Voice Project @ Linbury Theatre. Composed by Hannah Conway. Libretto, Hazel Gould. Video Designer Luke Halls. Sound Design, David Sheppard. (Opening 14-11-2024) ©Tristram Kenton 11-24 (3 Raveley Street, LONDON NW5 2HX TEL 0207 267 5550 Mob 07973 617 355)email: tristram@tristramkenton.com

    Royal Opera House
    ‘Take anything, but please not my voice!’: the Royal Opera’s Sound Voice Project

  • Channelling the music from head to toe … Klaus Mäkelä conducting the LSO at the Barbican, 10 November 2024

    Review
    LSO/Mäkelä – dazzle and drama, but backed by exceptional musicality

  • Impressive debut … Olga Pudova as Olympia (right), in The Tales of Hoffmann at the Royal Opera House, London.

    Review
    The Tales of Hoffmann – fun, carnivalesque staging goes to the dark side

Live reviews

  • A glorious blaze in her tone … Erin Morley.

    Morley/Montague Rendall/Martineau review – Wolf’s Liederbuch sounds exquisite

  • Rafael Payare and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal at Barbican Hall, London.

    Orchestre symphonique de Montréal/Payare review – colour, pace and silky strings

  • Juan Diego Flórez (Hoffmann) and Marina Costa-Jackson (Giulietta) in The Tales of Hoffmann.

    The week in classical: The Tales of Hoffmann; Philharmonia/ Salonen; Berlin Philharmonic/ Petrenko – review

  • Superlative … the Takács Quartet.

    Takács Quartet review – a superlative performance in which the music never sits still

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

Album reviews

  • Appealing melodies … Adèle Hugo.

    Adèle Hugo: Mélodies sur des poèmes de Victor Hugo review – a daughter’s voice uncovered

  • Tom Coult

    Tom Coult: Pieces That Disappear album review – strikingly rooted and assured works from young composer

  • Pure quality … Bruce Liu.

    Tchaikovsky: The Seasons album review – exquisite care and ego-free piano playing

  • Linda Catlin Smith

    Linda Catlin Smith: Flowers of Emptiness album review – compelling beauty and quiet intensity

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People

  • ‘Creating a kind of magic’ … BBC Young Musician 2024 winner Ryan Wang.

    News
    BBC Young Musician competition crowns pianist Ryan Wang

  • Roderick Williams sitting on a bench.

    Q&A
    Baritone Roderick Williams: ‘I once heard a singer at a party say: “No peanuts. I’m singing in three days!”’

  • Jakub Jozef Orlinski at Warner Music Uk, South Kensington, London, for Q&A New Review, 26/06/2024. Sophia Evans for The Observer

    Q&A
    Countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński: ‘Breakdancing feeds into my performances – music dictates the way you move on stage’

  • Roger Wright, CEO of Britten Pears Arts

    ‘I’ve always been a glass half full person’
    Aldeburgh festival’s outgoing CEO Roger Wright

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You may have missed

  • Antonio Vivaldi.

    Feature
    Vivaldi taught Venetian orphan girls – did they help write his music in return?

  • People seemed to be conscious, judging from strawberries consumed … Glastonbury 2024.

    Radio 3's Georgia Mann
    I’ll take your brain to another dimension … my classical DJ set at Glastonbury

  • Backstage during dress rehearsals

    The Guardian picture essay
    Love, laughs and lavish designs: The Merry Widow at Glyndebourne

  • ‘Our first time’ … Gemma New will conduct the world premiere of City of Floating Sounds.

    In the key of 5G
    The ‘dimensionalist’ who wrote a symphony for 1,000 phones

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Guides

  • 1216 Portrait of Ethel Smyth<br>PBBHMT 1216 Portrait of Ethel Smyth

    Know the score
    Without Ethel Smyth and classical music's forgotten women, we only tell half the story

    Leah Broad
  • From left: The Tempest, The Minotaur, L’amour de loin, Hamlet

    The best classical music works of the 21st century

  • A guide to contemporary classical music

  • Fireworks light the sky above the Brandenburg Gate shortly after midnight in Berlin, Friday, Jan. 1, 2016. Hundred of thousands of people gathered for the New Year celebrations, welcoming the new year 2016 at the area around the Brandenburg Gate in the capital of Germany. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

    A musical tour of Europe
    Stephen Moss's guide to the music of Europe's great cities: Berlin

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