Composer

Leave the bustle of everyday life behind and experience The Lark Ascending with Manchester Camerata, recommended by Classic FM. Under the baton of our esteemed Music Director, Gábor Takács-Nagy, and featuring our brilliant Leader, Caroline Pether, as soloist, this live classical concert will transport you into forests, fields, and open skies, celebrating the natural world and the feeling of pure joy.

Manchester Camerata: The Lark Ascending & The Sounds of Nature

Stoller Hall, Manchester

Cuban-American composer Tania León’s Pasajes (2025) opens the evening, painting a jubilant sonic portrait of her Cuban childhood, composed during her time as Composer-in-Residence at the London Philharmonic Orchestra.   

Claude Debussy wrote his Nocturnes (L. 98) for orchestra between 1897 and 1899. The title reflects decorative light impressions rather than traditional night pieces, inspired in part by the impressionist paintings of James McNeill Whistler.   

EPSG:4326

Trinity Laban Symphony Orchestra

Blackheath Halls

Nature, itself rich in sound, has always found its way into music – as onomatopoeic imitations of thunder, the lapping of water, or birdsong, but also as an expression of inner "feeling" in the face of its sublime beauty, power, and menace. In the grand opening concert, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and Music Director Daniel Hope dedicate themselves to the work that stands out among musical depictions of nature like the highest mountain peak: Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 6, "Pastoral ." Beethoven masterfully gives expression to this inner experience of nature without merely "painting" it in sound, even when he has the nightingale, quail, and cuckoo imitated.

Saisoneröffnung mit Daniel Hope

Tonhalle Zurich

The Latin verb concertare, meaning to fight or to contend, underwent a complete reversal of meaning on its way into the Italian language, where it came to mean to agree with one another, to work together. The concerto, a compositional model that developed in Italy at the dawn of the Baroque, makes this transformation audible: it presents virtuosically competing individual voices that are purposefully resolved into consonant harmony.

Sound of Democracy

St. Laurentius Michelbach

Join Orchestra Santa Monica for the opening concert of the 2026-27 season, featuring the World Premiere of a new commission by Jason Anthony Gomez, OSM’s first-ever Composer-in-Residence.  The program also includes Vaughan Williams’ lyrical Oboe Concerto with Santa Monica native and LA Phil Principal Oboe Ryan Roberts in his OSM debut, followed by Brahms’ monumental Symphony No. 1, one of the greatest achievements in the symphonic repertoire.

Gomez & Brahms

Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center

Music in the Round’s Singer-in-Residence Roderick Williams returns with a programme of heartrendingly beautiful English song, including Vaughan Williams’ glorious cycle Songs of Travel.

Vaughan Williams: Songs of Travel

Sheffield Theatres

Cherished brass classics meet reinterpretations of Chinese melodies in this concert, bringing together distinct musical voices in a shared space. The evening opens in bold colour, moves through lyrical writing and atmospheric modern textures, and reveals the brass quintet’s expressive world in a cultural dialogue.

HK Phil × WestK Performing Arts:  Echoes on the Horizon

Tea House Theatre

oin your Aurora Symphony for a concert celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Howard Shore’s incredible music for Lord of the Rings, including highlights from “The Hobbit,” “The Fellowship of the Ring,” “The Two Towers,” and “The Return of the King.”

Music from Middle Earth: Lord of the Rings and its Inspirations

Hinkley High School

A profound prayer for peace, Vaughan Williams’ choral masterpiece brings voices and orchestra together in a message of unity and compassion. Concertmaster Barrie Cooper brings Vaughan Williams’s soaring pastoral masterpiece The Lark Ascending to life.

Dona Nobis Pacem: Grant Us Peace

University of Memphis

In the darkest days of the Second World War, the 70-year-old Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote a symphony that sounded like a vision of peace. From misty opening to visionary finish, the Fifth Symphony is Vaughan Williams doing what he does best: spacious, eloquent and rapturously beautiful. But it’s got drama, too, and this evening conductor Adam Hickox places it alongside two powerful and atmospheric 20th-century landscapes by Vaughan Williams’ contemporaries. Grażyna Bacewicz’s Overture is bold and defiant – the work of a woman who spoke with her own voice in communist Poland. And RPO Artist-in-Residence Liya Petrova explores the fire and ice of Sibelius’ mighty Violin Concerto: a gripping showcase for the ‘gorgeous sound’ (Sunday Times) of this award-winning violinist.

Sibelius Violin Concerto

Cadogan Hall

No country’s music embodies a pastoral spirit quite like England’s, and no piece quite enshrines that idea like Vaughan Williams’s image of countryside serenity rendered in the most lyrical music imaginable, The Lark Ascending. Doyen of English music and former Music Director of English National Opera, Martyn Brabbins opens our symphonic season at the Sheldonian Theatre with works that portray dark clouds above green fields, including deeply moving music by composers killed at the front during the First World War. A concert that speaks of tragedy but also of comradeship includes Roderick Williams’s flute concerto, written for his childhood friend and our own Solo Flute, Anthony Robb.

English Melodies

University of Oxford

Dani Howard wrote a new work when she won the Classic FM composition prize for the radio station’s 25th birthday in 2017 and now, internationally acclaimed for her inviting and shimmering sound world, she presents another new work written especially to celebrate the Orchestra’s 25 year relationship with Classic FM. There'll be iconic music from John Williams, a burst of Beethoven, Márquez's popular Conga party piece, and we'll hear ancient and contemporary British minds collide. Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra draws on themes by Henry Purcell, and Vaughan Williams reimagines the most famous of English folksongs. Something for everyone!

Classic FM Hall of Fame

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

The BBC Concert Orchestra and its Associate Conductor Jérôme Kuhn bring David Buckley’s powerful new opera, Oracle, to the UK for the first time, and mythologically-inspired curtain-raisers by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Dobrinka Tabakova.

Oracle with the BBC Concert Orchestra

Southbank Centre

Get under the skin of Mozart’s last symphony, as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra retells the story of a masterwork.

In 1788, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed his last symphony.

We’re still not quite sure how he did it: creating a masterpiece so perfect that for more than two centuries, it has shared a name with the king of the gods. But why is it considered to be a masterpiece? Here to answer that question (and more) are presenter Leah Broad, Vasily Petrenko (conducting the RPO for the first time at Cadogan Hall) and the full Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, with an entertaining guide to what makes Mozart tick. They’ll take the Symphony apart and show you how it works. And then they’ll put it back together, concluding the evening with a full performance.

Whether you’re a hardcore Mozart fan or a total newbie, it’s an experience that never fails to inspire.

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

A glance at Fretwork’s copious discography reveals the scope of its musical interests and appetite for exploring the glories of the viol consort repertoire. It is joined by a cast of close colleagues and friends to celebrate its 40th anniversary at Wigmore Hall with a programme that reaches back to the consort music of Dowland, John Jenkins and William Lawes and forward to works by Sir George Benjamin and Silas Wollston. ‘Fretwork is the finest viol consort on the planet’, wrote the London Evening Standard, a view endorsed by sage critics worldwide.

Fretwork; Sir George Benjamin conductor; Susan Bickley mezzo-soprano; Iestyn Davies countertenor; Ian Bostridge tenor; Silas Wollston organ

Wigmore Hall

Einsiedeln Abbey and its church are among the most important Baroque buildings north of the Alps. Inside, the frescoes and stucco work by the brothers Cosmas Damian and Egid Quirin Asam lend the building a breathtaking splendor that attracts thousands of visitors every year.

Three different spaces within the monastery will be brought to life through music during this promenade concert. The Zurich Chamber Orchestra (ZKO), performing in various formations from a quintet to a full chamber orchestra, will present a succession of half-hour programs in each space.

Wandelkonzert im Kloster Einsiedeln

Einsiedeln Abbey

Join London Symphony Chorus Director Mariana Rosas and members of the LSC to celebrate the LSC’s 60th birthday and spend a day getting to know Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony.

LSC at 60 Singing Day: Vaughan Williams

LSO St Luke's

Its opening chords descend like heavy steps. But this is not music of despair; it’s full of movement and fire, epitomised by the Dies Irae which races forward with haunting fury.

Mozart’s Requiem with Stephen Layton

Sydney Opera House

The scene is set for tonight’s concert by Vaughan Williams’ timeless Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, which opens with solemn chords before expanding into soaring strings. This contemplative work was inspired by a Tudor tune by 16th-century composer Thomas Tallis, and first performed in Gloucester Cathedral in 1910.

Gaia x BBC Concert Orchestra: Sounds of the Earth

Oslo Kammermusikkfestival closing gala concert featuring a virtuoso programme performed by festival musicians in Marmorsalen.

Closing Gala

Sentralen

Afternoon tea accompanied by world-class chamber music: Frank Bridge, Edmund Rubbra, Michael Finnissy, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Stuart MacRae.

London Calling - Oh Britannia! Afternoon Tea Time

Hotel Continental

Good things. Small packages. The 2026 Benoliel Chamber Music Series comes to a close with works by two living female composers and pieces by masters of centuries past. Nothing less than the full circle of human expression is on display in this program of miniature masterpieces.

Benoliel Chamber Music Series Finale: Little Miracles

Jackson Hole High School

Cambridge Summer Music Festival

Saffron Hall

Christopher Bell celebrates his 25th anniversary as Director of the Grant Park Chorus with Fauré’s beloved Requiem. James MacMillan’s powerful Cantos Sagrados opens the program alongside Vaughan Williams’s Toward the Unknown Region, a poignant setting of a poem by Walt Whitman.

Fauré Requiem

Millennium Park

Nicolas Ellis conducts a Shakespeare-inspired program featuring Mendelssohn’s magical music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Tchaikovsky’s impassioned Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy-Overture. Violinist Geneva Lewis contrasts Vaughan Williams’s tranquil The Lark Ascending with the fiery Carmen Fantasy, a perfect match for a summer night.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Davies Symphony Hall

The companion piece to Castor (conducted by Tarmo in December 2025), Salonen’s introspective Pollux draws inspiration from the mythological twin of the Gemini constellation. Vaughan Williams's expansive A Sea Symphony, which sets the poetry of Walt Whitman, charts a spiritual voyage across the ocean, with its themes of exploration and humanity. Featuring soprano Chen Reiss, bass-baritone Andrè Schuen, the HK Phil Chorus, State Choir LATVIJA and Tenebrae, the HK Phil sets sail on a musical odyssey. A fitting grand finale for Tarmo Peltokoski’s season as Music Director Designate, setting the stage for a much-anticipated tenure as Music Director commencing in the 2026/27 season.

Season Finale: Tarmo Peltokoski Conducts Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony

Hong Kong Cultural Centre

An evening of 20th-century English choral music celebrating high summer, with the Islington Choral Society and the Corinthian Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Michael Waldron.

Music for a Summer's Evening

The entire theater building will resonate with sound during the concert festival. Hosts of the celebration on all stages are General Music Director Leo McFall and the Hessian State Orchestra. The music, too, will audibly expand and journey into space: from Vaughan Williams' elegiac setting of a Shakespeare poem to harmonies of the spheres and Holst's popular "Planets" suite. Here, motivated amateur musicians can once again play alongside the professionals. Bruckner's Te Deum also has an epic quality: for the deeply religious composer, this powerful hymn was his ticket to heaven. For this performance, the singers from the opera chorus and the Wiesbaden City Choir will join forces.

8th Symphony Concert

Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden

Top emerging UK & international conductors showcase their talents with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra as the finale of a 5-day course with Martyn Brabbins, featuring Brahms’ Symphony No.3, Vaughan Williams’ Tuba Concerto and the premiere of RCS composer Andrew Jacob’s In the Hall of the Clockwork Dancer.

RCS & BBC SSO Emerging Conductors Showcase 2026

Glasgow City Hall

A lyrical evening of music, shining warm light on our vibrant WNO orchestral partnership, with members of WNO Orchestra joining the RWCMD Symphony Orchestra. Vaughan Williams' mesmerizing Oboe Concerto is a love letter to the English countryside; a virtuoso showpiece performed here by WNO’s Principal Oboe, Lucie Sprague.*

WNO Orchestra & RWCMD Symphony Orchestra 2026

Bute Park

Ralph Vaughan Williams’ monumental »Sea Symphony« merges solos, choir and orchestra into an ode to the sea and the longing for distant shores. This symphony is full of indulgent romantic exuberance and yet is far more than just a musical description of nature. It deals with the fundamental questions of human existence, which the American poet Walt Whitman expresses with enormous linguistic power. For him, the sea itself is a symbol – of the innermost self that man can and must discover and explore, just as he explores the sea.

Choir St. Michaelis / Ensemble Reflektor / Jörg Endebrock

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

The British Isles boast a magnificent anthology of music grounded in lush, poetic landscapes and thriving cities. This concert will transport you there. British violin and viola virtuoso Lawrence Power makes his ACO debut directing music from Thomas Tallis’ evocative theme - made famous by Vaughan Williams - to the genre-defying exuberance of Kate Bush.

Isles of Light

ACO On The Pier

ENGLAND AND EMPIRE with RAPHAEL WALLFISCH cello

Dorchester Abbey

A programme of 20th century British choral music, with works by Parry, Howells and Vaughan Williams performed in the beautiful surroundings of St John's Church, Wimbledon.

Britten Sinfonia With Academy Choir Wimbledon

St John the Baptist, Wimbledon

Is there an English sound we can all agree on? Of course not. But at least we can celebrate the music of English composers and how they have depicted the country over time. Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending is enduringly popular as a portrait of rural England. But it was written amongst military manoeuvres preparing for World War I and so must be heard as much as a heartbreaking piece about loss as it is some depiction of bucolic Albion. Our leader, Sophie Rosa, is our violin soloist. If you’ve heard Sophie before you know what a treat you’re in for, and if you haven’t then you really wouldn’t want to miss this performance

We also have music by two composers who bookend the idea of English classical music. Henry Purcell wrote wild, emotive music for both the palaces and backstreets of early 17th century London. Edward Elgar is the composer we associate with pomp and circumstance and the rigour of Empire. But actually no – listen to Elgar’s Serenade for Strings and you can hear the same raw emotion of Purcell. Maybe the English aren’t so straight laced after all!

The Lark Ascending

Derby Cathedral

Johannes Brahms looked out over an Austrian lake as he worked on his Symphony No. 2. The music captures the menacing yet mellifluous view of nature he saw, as the passing clouds of day gave way to the infinite beauty of the sunset, the dark stillness of night and a glorious awakening to a new day. Before this, Sir Stephen Hough joins Marios Papadopoulos and the orchestra for a performance of his own piano concerto, a work ‘of jaw-dropping complexity and finger-crunching virtuosity’ for orchestra and pianist, in the words of one critic. The concert opens with purifying music by Ralph Vaughan Williams: his serene and somehow wholly English Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.

Hough plays Hough

Mc Jefferson Agloro, baritone

Northwestern Bienen School of Music

When Sir James MacMillan writes a new choral work, the world takes notice, because few living composers write with more honesty and passion. With a span of around an hour, Angels Unawares is a major new statement from MacMillan coupled with a brilliant libretto written by Robert Willis, former Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, completed shortly before his untimely death in autumn 2024. Who better to give the work’s UK premiere than The Sixteen and the Britten Sinfonia, both tireless champions of MacMillan’s work?

Angels Unawares: London

Cadogan Hall 

When Sir James MacMillan writes a new choral work, the world takes notice, because few living composers write with more honesty and passion. With a span of around an hour, Angels Unawares is a major new statement from MacMillan coupled with a brilliant libretto written by Robert Willis, former Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, completed shortly before his untimely death in autumn 2024. Who better to give the work’s UK premiere than The Sixteen and the Britten Sinfonia, both tireless champions of MacMillan’s work?

Angels Unawares is commissioned and supported by the Genesis Foundation for Harry Christophers and The Sixteen.

When Sir James MacMillan writes a new choral work, the world takes notice because few living composers write with more honesty and passion. With a span of around an hour, Angels Unawares is a major new statement from MacMillan coupled with a brilliant libretto written by Robert Willis, former Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, completed shortly before his untimely death in autumn 2024.

The Sixteen with Britten Sinfonia

England’s musical tradition is like a parchment on which voices have been superimposed over the centuries – from the Renaissance to the present day, from Thomas Tallis to Edward Elgar and Joanna Marsh. The RIAS Chamber Choir from Berlin and the Ensemble Resonanz make these layers resound and address the questions of farewell and transience as part of the International Music Festival »Ende«. An evening of requiem-like depth, in which the past resonates and the present pauses.

Ensemble Resonanz / RIAS Chamber Choir Berlin / Justin Doyle

Celebrate creative ingenuity with conductor Robert Spano and renowned classical saxophonist Steven Banks. From Copland’s Appalachian Spring Suite to Joan Tower’s new Saxophone Concerto, this program pulses with vitality. Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 5 brings lyrical warmth and a sense of peace.

Appalachian Spring

Hilbert Circle Theatre

“Here is enshrined the soul of…” This mysterious note, scribbled by Elgar opposite the title page of his Violin Concerto, sets the tone for an unforgettable end to the Season. Journey from the deeply introspective beauty of Elgar’s concerto to the playful charm of Vaughan Williams’s Wasps Overture and the sweeping grandeur of Strauss’s Viennese gem Der Rosenkavalier. This concert is a celebration of life’s full emotional spectrum – joy, sorrow, love and everything in between.

Soul Music

Belfast

“Here is enshrined the soul of…” This mysterious note, scribbled by Elgar opposite the title page of his Violin Concerto, sets the tone for an unforgettable end to the Season. Journey from the deeply introspective beauty of Elgar’s concerto to the playful charm of Vaughan Williams’s Wasps Overture and the sweeping grandeur of Strauss’s Viennese gem Der Rosenkavalier. This concert is a celebration of life’s full emotional spectrum - joy, sorrow, love and everything in between.

Ulster Orchestra: Soul Music

Waterfront Hall

William Scarrow, bass-baritone

Sibelius Iron Works Vaughan Williams

Gasteig HP8

Pacific Chorale welcomes beloved Artistic Director Emeritus John Alexander back to the podium for a deeply meaningful and unforgettable season finale. Framed around the healing power of music and its vital connection to humanity and nature, this thoughtfully curated program explores the serenity, beauty, and resilience found within the art form to which Alexander has devoted his life.

A Serenade to Music

Segerstrom Center for the Arts

Nino Rota had every reason to be happy in 1973 – at least for a short time: his music for Francis Ford Coppola’s film The Godfather was initially nominated for an Oscar, but was suddenly removed from the list. During this time, the Italian composer wrote his clarinet trio, which shows him from both a romantic, yearning and humorous side. Rota did win the Oscar two years later. The melodic arcs in the Phantasy Quintet by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams are shrouded in mist. These elegiac sounds blend 16th and 17th century idioms with moments of English folk song. Just as Vaughan Williams transformed his most successful film music for Scott of the Antarctic into his seventh symphony, Erich Wolfgang Korngold incorporated music from many films into his concert music. The sonorous passion so typical of his style also pervades his large-scale Piano Quintet in E major op. 15, where exuberant intensity and eruptions of sound alternate with the most delicate lyricism and airy sentiment in the smallest of spaces.

7. Chamber Music Concert

Liederhalle Cultural and Congress Center

Chrisjovan Masso, tuba

Sam Russ, tuba

Longing, transformation and the poetry of nature – from the fragile to the magnificent. That's just a little of what's at stake at this concert.

Brahms' 2nd Symphony

Odense Concert Hall

Three of Britain’s leading musicians come together for this evening’s special concert on the theme of Homecoming, culminating in an arrangement of Schubert’s sublime masterpiece Shepherd on the Rock and Vaughan Williams beautiful The Lark Ascending, which has enjoyed enduring popularity in English repertoire.

Homecoming

Holy Cross Church Ramsbury

Conductor Stephanie Childress leads a program filled with the enduring charm of springtime, beginning with Britten’s Simple Symphony, a delightful showcase of youthful energy and playful spirit. Canadian bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch brings Vaughan Williams’s stirring Songs of Travel to life, each movement brimming with wanderlust. The program concludes with Schumann’s "Spring" Symphony, a joyous celebration of renewal and awakening, capturing the season’s freshness and vitality.

Spring Journeys

Meridian Arts Centre

Conductor Stephanie Childress leads a program filled with the enduring charm of springtime, beginning with Britten’s “Simple Symphony”, a delightful showcase of youthful energy and playful spirit.

Toronto Symphony Orchestra: Spring Journeys

2025/2026 May Concert

St Mary’s Church Nottingham

May Concert

Dexter High School

Join the Residentie Orkest for an evening with a rich and compelling programme celebrating Britain-inspired music. Our regular guest conductor Richard Egarr will kick off the concert with Mendelssohn's The Hebrides, a vivid and evocative orchestral ode to the wild beauty of Scotland. Inspired by Mendelssohn's visit to the island of Staffa, it paints a musical picture of the waves crashing against the cliffs and the ruggedness of the landscape.

A British Evening

Amare

Leave the city and follow the living tones of nature on a dramatic journey towards paradise with Beethoven and Brabbins. 

When Beethoven was allowed to go out into the country, he was immediately in a good mood. Join chief conductor Martyn Brabbins out into nature where we can join the happy composer in the Pastoral Symphony and enjoy the babbling brook where the nightingale sings its trill. Our own brilliant concertmaster Marika Fältskog gently coaxes the lark's poetic flight from her violin in The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Beethoven & Brabbins

Malmo Live Concert Hall

In collaboration with the University of Northern Colorado choirs, your Greeley Philharmonic brings you a night of masterful works. Be immersed in a daring prison escape with Beethoven’s Fidelio Overture. Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition brings Viktor Hartmann’s artwork to life. In the second half, the choir and orchestra combine with Vaughan Williams’ “Serenade to Music,” which pays homage to Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. To end your Greeley Philharmonic’s 114th season, the combined ensemble performs Bernstein’s Hebrew Chichester Psalms. You don’t want to miss the season finale!

Beethoven to Bernstein

Union Colony Civic Center

Experience the Australian Chamber Orchestra in a uniquely intimate setting, bathed in the warm glow of candlelight. This renowned ensemble, known for their virtuosic playing and adventurous programming, will present a program that spans centuries of musical expression. In the candlelit Samueli Theater, hear Purcell's hauntingly beautiful Fantasia on One Note, Handel's majestically celebratory Concerto Grosso in A Major, Op. 6 No. 11, a sonically immersive new work by John Luther Adams, Vaughan Williams' ethereally soaring "The Lark Ascending" (arranged by Adam Johnson), and Schubert's String Quartet in D minor, D.810 "Death and the Maiden" (arranged by Richard Tognetti).

Australian Chamber Orchestra

Wind Division Recital

560 Music Center

Tempest Tossed

Town Hall

The violin soars melodiously above the rest of the quartet in the gorgeous arrangement of Vaughan Williams’ most popular work The Lark Ascending, which concludes this concert of English music.

Cast

Sir Stephen Hough: a pianist whose effortless brilliance at the keyboard has been described as little short of genius. John Wilson: the Newcastle-born conductor who knows how to make an orchestra sound like a million dollars. Put them together and sparks will fly – whether in Rachmaninov’s showstopping concerto, Ravel’s sumptuous dream waltz or Vaughan Williams’ glorious technicolor portrait of a great city in all its bustling, glittering life. Trust us: this is going to be special.

Stephen Hough Plays Rachmaninov

Usher Hall

This year’s Featured Artist, baritone Roderick Williams OBE, will perform a unique recital in the round with pianist Christopher Glynn at Westminster Hall. For his program, entitled An English Song Winterreise, Williams has chosen English songs which reflect each of the 24 individual songs that make up Franz Schubert’s Winterreise to craft a unique musical journey. This curated song cycle will include works by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten, and Gerald Finzi, as well as more modern works by Judith Weir and Errollyn Wallen.

Roderick Williams OBE, baritone and Christopher Glynn, piano: Recital in the Round

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Sir Stephen Hough: a pianist whose effortless brilliance at the keyboard has been described as little short of genius. John Wilson: the Newcastle-born conductor who knows how to make an orchestra sound like a million dollars. Put them together and sparks will fly – whether in Rachmaninov’s showstopping concerto, Ravel’s sumptuous dream waltz or Vaughan Williams’ glorious technicolour portrait of a great city in all its bustling, glittering life. Trust us: this is going to be special. 

Sir Stephen Hough Plays Rachmaninov

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Music Hall, Aberdeen

Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Schubert’s single movement of the Quartettsatz opens a concert of vibrant musical landscapes—ranging from the vast Australian geographies that inspired John Luther Adams’ latest work for the ensemble, to the soaring heights of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ shimmering skylark, and the haunting beauty of Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” in a special arrangement. Offering a full chamber orchestra’s exhilaratingly fresh take on string quartet repertoire is a perfect reflection of the intrepid and collaborative spirit that has garnered the Australian Chamber Orchestra international acclaim and made it a fan favorite of our audiences.

Richardson Auditorium

Kaleidoscopic hues and big emotions sit side by side in this vibrant concert weaving together the Baroque era and the present day, directed by outstanding British viola player Lawrence Power.

Baroque Threads, Contemporary Colours

The Queen's Hall

City Halls

Holy Trinity Church St Andrews

Daniel Spielman, clarinet

Matthew Huang, bass-baritone

For the season finale, the SSSO makes an appearance at UPH and Proctors! Joined by Saratoga Voices, the SSSO will present an inspiring celebration of music and poetry. Florence Price’s “Four Songs from the Weary Blues” brings the evocative words of Langston Hughes to life, while Vaughan Williams’ “Towards the Unknown Region” sets Walt Whitman’s poetry to sweeping, emotional music. The program closes with Mendelssohn’s enchanting “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” capturing Shakespeare’s timeless tale of magic, love, and mischief.

Concert IV: Poetic Echoes

Universal Preservation Hall

Proctors Theatre

A More Perfect Union illuminates the dreams of our country, honors those who fought for our civil rights, and contemplates the uncertainties facing our nation. Vaughan Williams’ powerful antiwar cantata Dona Nobis Pacem anchors a compelling program that spans Margaret Bonds to contemporary voices such as Shawn Kirchner, Mari Esabel Valverde, Gwyneth Walker, and others. Together, these works confront where we've fallen short and celebrate the stories — some resounding, some quietly persistent — of individuals and communities who have challenged injustice and imagined a better future.

Grace Chorale of Brooklyn’s spring program affirms that democracy is not a static achievement, but a living project — one sustained through the ongoing, intentional work of its citizens. Rather than merely observing where we've been or accepting where we are, A More Perfect Union invites us to envision our path forward to pursue peace, abundance, and the enduring promise of the American dream.

This spring, on the verge of the 250th anniversary of American Independence, join Grace Chorale for a stirring program exploring the unfinished symphony of American democracy: its contradictions and courage, its fragility and hope.

A More Perfect Union

St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church

Your Colorado Symphony and Chorus present an evocative program uniting music born from the shadows of war, offering a journey through conflict, grief, and the search for peace. Two movements from Handel’s Messiah set the stage with a searing portrayal of nations at war. Haydn’s Mass in Time of War continues the narrative, its solemn prayers for peace interrupted by martial rhythms that reflect the looming threat of Napoleon’s armies. Missy Mazzoli’s These Worlds in Us – a haunting orchestral work inspired by her father’s service in Vietnam – intertwines grief and resilience, merging vulnerability with militaristic energy. Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem closes the program with an urgent cry for peace, drawing on sacred texts and Walt Whitman’s poetry, while offering a vision of hope. Through these works, the Colorado Symphony and Chorus remind us that even in humanity’s darkest hours, the struggle to find harmony is urgent and eternal.

War and Peace: Haydn, Vaughan Williams, and Mazzoli

Denver Performing Arts Complex

Through its use of the chorus and vocal soloists as an integral part of its texture, Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony was a groundbreaking work in the symphonic and choral repertoire. Crafted around the poetic words of Walt Whitman, the work vividly and poignantly illustrates the journey of the human soul, through the metaphor of intrepid sailors weighing the anchor and exploring the ocean wide.

A Sea Symphony

The Bridgewater Hall

Tarmo Peltokoski is joined by a duo of star-studded soloists and two generations of Hallé singers for Vaughan Williams’ immense Sea Symphony, a groundbreaking work in the symphonic and choral repertoire for its use of the chorus and vocal soloists as an integral part of its texture. Crafted around the poetic words of Walt Whitman, the work vividly and poignantly illustrates the journey of the human soul, through the metaphor of intrepid sailors weighing the anchor and exploring the ocean wide. In the first half of the concert, we hear Chen Reiss’ performance of Mahler’s gloriously romantic Rückert-Lieder. Mahler was driven by melody – often incorporating many of his favourites within the symphonies for which he is known – and this quintet of songs contains some of his best.

Composer

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Events

Upcoming events

Nov 3, 2026

Flanders Symphony Orchestra · Cadogan Hall

Nov 6, 2026

Spotlight: Hannah Kendall’s Rosalind · Royal Northern College of Music

Nov 6, 2026

Leeds Song: Mary Bevan and Joseph Middleton · Leeds Conservatoire

Nov 7, 2026

Salford Choral Society Presents Fauré’s requiem · Royal Northern College of Music

Nov 8, 2026

National Symphony Orchestra ·

Past events

Oct 30, 2026

Manchester Camerata: The Lark Ascending & The Sounds of Nature · The Stoller Hall

Oct 29, 2026

Trinity Laban Symphony Orchestra · Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance

About

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