Composer

EPSG:4326

Guitar Chamber Music 2026

Royal Academy of Music

Just 18 years old, and already the Queen of France, Mary Stuart is poised, politically savvy, and confident in her divine claim to the Scottish throne. However, the Scotland she returns to bears little resemblance to the one she left behind as a child, and she will need every ounce of resolve to hold onto her crown.  

In Mary, Queen of Scots, composer Thea Musgrave brings one of history’s most captivating figures to the stage with a score as bold and compelling as its heroine. As Mary navigates a treacherous political landscape, she leans on her closest advisors: her calculating half-brother James, Earl of Moray; the enigmatic Earl of Bothwell; and her charming, but weak-willed future husband, Lord Darnley. Slowly, but surely, each man’s hunger for her power reveals itself in increasingly manipulative ways, and Mary must outmaneuver one betrayal after the next.

Making her company debut, Clelia Cafiero conducts this co-production with English National Opera by director/designer Stewart Laing sets 16th-century intrigue against a backdrop of contemporary Scottish life and sectarian violence, lending fresh resonance to an almost 500-year-old story.

Mary, Queen of Scots

War Memorial Opera House

Commissioned in 1945 by the Ministry of Education for a children’s film titled “Instruments of the Orchestra”, Britten’s cheery tour de force is the perfect excuse to show off the considerable talents of the BBC SSO’s individual players. You’ll also be stunned by the “consummate artistry” (The Guardian) of Alban Gerhardt as he performs Britten’s deeply expressive Cello Symphony, originally written for the great Russian virtuoso Mstislav Rostropovich.

Afternoon Performance: Alban Gerhardt Plays Britten's Cello Symphony

City Halls

This program is the first in a series of tributes to the far-reaching influence of Nadia Boulanger, one of the 20th century’s most legendary music pedagogues. From Thea Musgrave’s dynamic Points of View to Aaron Copland’s lyrical Appalachian Spring, we hear the imprint of her guidance—clarity, structure, and emotional truth. Mozart’s Horn Concerto reflects the ideals Boulanger championed, searching in tradition the possible paths for novel expressions.

Boulangerie 1

Ithaca College

Sci-fi meets rococo in Missy Mazzoli’s mind-blowing tone poem Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres), which opens this space-inspired program. The evening’s main number is Thea Musgrave’s oboe concerto Helios, performed by German soloist Juri Vallentin, in which we follow the Greek sun god’s journey across the firmament. Robert Schumann’s more earth-oriented, jubilant First Symphony, also called the “Spring Symphony,” finally brings us back down to earth.

Musgrave and Schumann

Sara cultural center

Norrlandsoperan

Pergolesi’s sacred masterpiece, the Stabat Mater, is filled with gorgeous, spine-tingling music that explores the nature of grief, hope and healing. These emotions also course through Barber’s sublime Adagio for Strings and Carlos Simon’s Fate Now Conquers, a high-spirited tribute to Beethoven. CSO Piccolo Jennifer Gunn solos as the mercurial protagonist in Thea Musgrave’s Piccolo Play.

Piccolo Play & Adagio for Strings

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

This chamber music evening is all about mythological transformation stories in text and music: Richard Strauss' "Metamorphoses", Benjamin Britten's "Narcissus" and works by Karol Szymanowski and Thea Musgrave will be performed.

Chamber Music VI: In the mirror

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Tickets for this performance go on sale in mid-July, but you can reserve your seats today by becoming a New World Symphony subscriber. New World Symphony subscribers play a vital role in launching the careers of the world’s best young musicians and enjoy the lowest ticket prices on the best seats in the house.

Season Finale with Gil Shaham

New World Center

Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin pays homage to the stylings of bygone French keyboard music – each movement taking the form of a traditional Baroque dance, and dedicated to friends of the composer who had died fighting in World War I.

Nil Venditti conducts Ravel, Musgrave and Say

BBC Maida Vale Studios

The Ancient Greeks believed that the flute was the oldest of all musical instruments, created by the god Pan himself. Debussy’s retelling of that myth is at the heart of this ravishing recital from the Orchestra’s flautist Helen Wilson: an evening of magical melody and wondrous new sounds.

Myth and Legend

The Music Room

This opening concert with the DR Vocal Ensemble presents church music from over four centuries, at the same time as we celebrate two musical anniversaries – the 200th anniversary of the great Austrian symphonist Anton Bruckner and the 80th birthday of the Danish composer and influential pedagogue Niels La Cour.

Randers Church Music Festival

St Martin's Church Randers

Anton Bruckner's symphonic music is often described as 'cathedrals of sound' due to the music's grand and majestic proportions. But at the same time, it is romantic music that goes straight to the heart.

Fantastic Voices

Church of Our Lady Svendborg

Come and experience tomorrow's stars from the Jutland Music Conservatory. Here, the students will play a varied program in different constellations with music by e.g. Brahms, Haydn and Saariaho. The audience will experience a flute/singing duo, a clarinet trio and a string quartet.

Aarhus Chamber Music Festival: RISING STARS

Musikhuset Aarhus

The Symphony is joined by the mighty Western Michigan University Grand Chorus for a powerful performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s haunting Requiem. Thea Musgrave’s The Seasons takes us on a musical voyage through the seasons of our lives.

Mozart's Requiem

Miller Auditorium

Join us for Magnetic South, an innovative partnership between the Charleston Symphony Orchestra (CSO) and the College of Charleston Department of Music. It combines the resources of the two institutions to present contemporary classical music in Charleston in an informative context. The goal of the Magnetic South partnership is to bring to the audiences of the Lowcountry, including students at the College, masterworks of the 20th and 21st centuries along with important new works by living composers.

Magnetic South

Gaillard Center

Former Dudamel Fellow Tianyi Lu leads a blazing program that includes Mussorgsky’s unforgettable Pictures at an Exhibition—in Ravel’s dazzling orchestration—a world premiere fanfare by Ricardo Molla dedicated to the LA Phil’s brass and percussion sections, and a new Trumpet Concerto by acclaimed composer Thea Musgrave, played by one of the world’s leading trumpeters, Alison Balsom.

Tianyi Lu Conducts "Pictures at an Exhibition"

Hollywood Bowl

With a view of the New York City skyline, Philharmonic musicians perform music with a story to tell by Pulitzer Prize winners Ellen Reid, John Luther Adams, and Jacob Druckman, plus Thea Musgrave. Hosted and curated by <strong>Nadia Sirota, Creative Partner.

Sound ON: Telling Tales

Debussy’s two books of Images contain some of the composer’s most evocative and beautiful pieces, the rippling ‘Reflets dans l’eau’ and ‘Poissons d’or’ among them. Danny Driver, lauded by San Francisco Classical Voice for his ‘dazzling virtuosity’ and ‘interpretive depth’, sets their shimmering tone colours in company with a sequence of Piano Portraits by Amy Williams, character studies inspired by what the American composer and pianist calls ‘the pianists in my life’. Mighty works by Rachmaninov and Musorgsky, each related to visual imagery, flank the heady nostalgia of Thea Musgrave’s Snapshots.

Danny Driver piano

Wigmore Hall

All music paints pictures, but Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition takes them to the next level. Dancing chickens, glowing skulls, witches, gnomes and the sound of a thousand bells – they’re all here, large as life, and to see them you only have to listen. But that’s just one highlight of an evening that opens in Poland with a love letter from Chopin (played by the amazing Rafał Blechacz) and features a real surprise from Scotland’s own Thea Musgrave. A guaranteed sighting of Nessie? Hearing is believing!

Perth Concert Series: Royal Scottish National Orchestra - Pictures at an Exhibition

Perth Concert Hall

All music paints pictures, but Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition takes them to the next level. Dancing chickens, glowing skulls, witches, gnomes and the sound of a thousand bells –they’re all here, large as life, and to see them you only have to listen. But that’s just one highlight of an evening that opens in Poland with a love letter from Chopin played by the amazing Rafał Blechacz and features a real surprise from Scotland’s own Thea Musgrave. A guaranteed sighting of Nessie? Hearing is believing!

Composer

Thea Musgrave

Events

Upcoming events

Sep 24 - Nov 20, 2026

Guitar Chamber Music 2026 · Royal Academy of Music

Nov 21, 2026

Danny Driver piano · Wigmore Hall

Dec 9, 2026

Perth Concert Series: Royal Scottish National Orchestra - Pictures at an Exhibition · Perth Theatre and Concert Hall

Dec 11, 2026

RSNO Season 26-27: Pictures at an Exhibition · Usher Hall

Past events

Sep 24 - Nov 20, 2026

Guitar Chamber Music 2026 · Royal Academy of Music

Sep 20 - Oct 4, 2026

Mary, Queen of Scots · San Francisco Opera

About

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