Currently BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists, last year the ensemble released its first CD – which has already picked up a couple of major awards. Having recently premièred Judith Weir’s new piece in Aldeburgh, it brings her homage to Beethoven – referred to by a contemporary account of his [dark] looks as ‘the Spaniard’ – to London.

EPSG:4326

Leonkoro Quartet

Wigmore Hall

Join us for an enchanting evening with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) as we present "The Music Makers" on Wednesday, 20th November 2024, at 7:30pm in the prestigious Symphony Hall, Birmingham. This special concert is a celebration of the art of making music, featuring an exceptional lineup of talent under the baton of Sofi Jeannin, with the distinguished Dame Sarah Connolly lending her mesmerizing mezzo-soprano voice to the performance.

The evening's programme is a tribute to the creators and performers of music, starting with Judith Weir’s "Music, Untangled," which draws inspiration from Scottish folk songs, and Nico Muhly’s "Friday Afternoons," a piece inventively written for children that follows in the footsteps of Britten’s example. Benjamin Britten's "The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra" offers a fascinating tour of the orchestra's sections and instruments, while Edward Elgar's "The Music Makers" includes quotes from his famous "Nimrod," creating a profound connection between the composer and the performers.

The concert will feature performances by the CBSO Chorus, CBSO Youth Chorus, and CBSO Children's Chorus, making it a truly collaborative effort showcasing the breadth and depth of musical talent across generations.

Tickets are priced between £26 and £62, with a per-ticket commission of £3.50 included for tickets priced over £15. We are pleased to offer a range of ways to save on your tickets, including multi-buy discounts and reduced prices for students, 18-30s, under-18s, and benefit recipients.

The concert is expected to last approximately 2 hours, with a 20-minute interval. Don't miss this opportunity to experience the power and beauty of music as brought to life by the CBSO and its choruses, led by the remarkable Sofi Jeannin and Dame Sarah Connolly. Book your tickets now for an unforgettable musical journey.

The Music Makers

The International Convention Centre

This concert is free to the public and will feature Jennifer Sternick, violin; Roger Zahab, viola; and Cecilia Caughman, cello.

Prism Players–Music for Strings

University of Pittsburgh

Join the Toot! Ensemble for a fun family concert that’s perfect 7 to 11-year-olds and their families.

Travel around the world with music from all over the globe in a performance filled with warmth, excitement, and magic.

In this thrilling 40-minute family concert, five playful musicians set off on an unforgettable journey through music and make-believe, with a little help from a magical dressing-up box!

Toot! A Concert for Families

The Stoller Hall

Steven Osborne OBE is one of Britain’s most treasured musicians with an immense depth of musicality and exceptional refinement of expression across diverse repertoire be it in Beethoven or Messiaen, Schubert or Ravel, Prokofiev or jazz improvisations.

Steven Osborne

Cumnock Trinity Curch

Join us for an unforgettable evening at the Three Choirs Festival featuring the remarkable talents of Anna Lapwood and the BBC Singers, accompanied by the Philharmonia. This special concert will take place in the majestic setting of Worcester Cathedral on Tuesday, 30th July 2024, at 7pm.

The evening promises to be a profound musical journey, showcasing a diverse program that includes Arakelyan's "Seascapes," Britten's "Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes" transcribed for organ by Anna Lapwood, Poulenc's "Figure Humaine," and Weir's "In the Land of Uz." These pieces together explore themes of freedom, suffering, and the human spirit's resilience, making for a deeply moving experience.

Under the baton of conductor Sofi Jeannin, with performances by tenor Mark Padmore, narrator Charles Gibbs, and organists Anna Lapwood and Nicholas Freestone, the concert will bring to life the emotional depth and complexity of these works. The BBC Singers' collaboration with Anna Lapwood is particularly noteworthy, blending choral and organ music to create an evocative soundscape.

Tickets are priced between £15 and £58, offering a range of options for attendees. The concert will run for approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes, including an interval, allowing guests to fully immerse themselves in the music and the cathedral's atmospheric setting.

For more information or to purchase tickets once they go on sale, please contact the Three Choirs Festival Box Office at 01452 768928 or email info3choirs.org. Don't miss this opportunity to experience a night of exquisite music and powerful storytelling at one of the UK's most historic cathedrals.

Three Choirs Festival: Anna Lapwood and BBC Singers

Worcester Cathedral

Join us for a profound evening of music and reflection at the Three Choirs Festival: Mass for the Endangered, taking place in the majestic Worcester Cathedral on Monday, 29 July 2024, at 7:30 pm. This unique concert event promises to be a celebration of the natural world, featuring the Philharmonia and the Three Choirs Festival Chorus under the baton of conductor Samuel Hudson.

The evening will commence with the UK premiere of Cameron Biles-Liddell’s "Yr Afon Yn Yr Awyr" (The River in the Sky), a playful and evocative piece inspired by the River Dee's journey through the Welsh landscape. Following this, the audience will be treated to Judith Weir’s "O Sweet Spontaneous Earth," a setting of three poems that contemplate our relationship with our planet. The first half will conclude with Edward Elgar’s beloved "Serenade for Strings," a piece cherished by the composer himself.

The highlight of the concert will be Sarah Kirkland Snider’s "Mass for the Endangered," a powerful and immersive work that combines music of intense beauty with words of deep concern for our planet. Drawing inspiration from a wide range of choral music traditions, Snider creates a prayerful and contemplative mass that serves as both a celebration of and a lament for the natural world.

Tickets are priced between £15 and £63, and the concert will run for approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes, including an interval. For more information or to purchase tickets once they go on sale, please contact the Three Choirs Festival Box Office at 01452 768928 or email info3choirs.org.

Don't miss this stunning evening of music that promises to leave you profoundly moved and more connected to the world around us.

Three Choirs Festival: Mass for the Endangered

**Event: Three Choirs Festival: The Cloud Messenger**

**Date & Time:** Sunday 28 July 2024, 7.30pm

**Venue:** Worcester Cathedral

**Ticket Prices:** £15 - £63

**On Sale:** Coming soon

**Overview:**
Immerse yourself in an evening of exotic romantic fantasy with "The Cloud Messenger" at the prestigious Three Choirs Festival, held in the magnificent Worcester Cathedral. This rich sung epic, inspired by Indian stories and beliefs, promises to transport the audience to a remote and colorful paradise through its vibrant music and compelling narrative.

**Artists:**
- **Conductor:** Geraint Bowen
- **Mezzo-Soprano:** Beth Taylor
- **Featuring:** Three Choirs Festival Voices

**Programme Highlights:**
- **World Premiere:** Nathan James Dearden's New work
- **Weir:** Still, Glowing
- **Respighi:** The Birds
- **Holst:** The Cloud Messenger

**Special Features:**
- Holst's "The Cloud Messenger" sets a Sanskrit poem to music, telling the story of a nature spirit who convinces a passing cloud to carry a love message to his distant wife in the Himalayas.
- Nathan James Dearden’s Festival commission offers a series of choral landscapes that echo messages from history to future generations.
- Respighi's "The Birds" brings to life the movements and songs of birds through lively and extraordinary music.

**Additional Information:**
- **Running Time:** 1 hr 45 mins, including an interval
- **Box Office Contact:** Three Choirs Festival Box Office: 01452 768928 | info3choirs.org

Join us for an unforgettable evening that blends the beauty of choral music with the mystique of ancient tales, all set against the backdrop of one of England's most historic cathedrals.

Three Choirs Festival: The Cloud Messenger

The BBC SSO return to Aldeburgh Festival for Britten’s Violin Concerto played by Daniel Pioro, the “heavenly” Mahler symphony which Britten so loved, and Judith Weir’s Forest with its fairytale character.

Aldeburgh Festival: Mahler, Britten & Weir

Snape Maltings

A slash of a paintbrush becomes a stroke of a bow. Three boundary-pushing composers take on the visual arts through sound.

Hear Judith Weir’s Heroic Strokes of the Bow, inspired by a work of the same name by Paul Klee, take the score-like composition of Klee’s painting literally, carving out thick passages of song from restless strings and clamorous woodwind. Then, experience Farrenc’s Symphony No. 1, shockingly neglected at time of release, exhibit a Tchaikovsky-like lyricism within its fiery, colourful landscapes.


Rush Hour #7: Impressions

St John’s Church, Waterloo

Join Principal Guest Conductor Dalia Stasevska and the BBC Symphony Orchestra for works by 3 UK and 2 American composers. There’s the UK premiere of RE|Member, by American Reena Esmail, who works between Hindustani and Western classical music – and the world premiere of Drifting Haze by a former BBC Proms Young Composer, Sasha Scott. We travel to ancient China with Dame Judith Weir’s Natural History, a setting of four brief texts taken from Chuang-tzu, a classic collection of Taoist writings – with soprano Lucy Crowe.

Celebrate women composers and performers with the BBC SO

BBC Maida Vale Studios

Elgar’s boldly virtuosic Violin Concerto was one of the few works he admitted to being proud of: ‘Awfully emotional! Too emotional,’ he said, ‘but I love it.’ A deeply personal work, its title-page carries the enigmatic inscription ‘Herein is enshrined the soul of .....’. Distinguished German violinist Christian Tetzlaff is the soloist, following in the line of Fritz Kreisler, for whom the concerto was written. Schumann’s ‘Spring’ Symphony reflects the freshness and drive that seized the composer around the time of his marriage. Begin Afresh, a new commission from Master of the King’s Music Judith Weir, also celebrates new beginnings, inspired by Philip Larkin’s poem ‘The Trees’.

Prom 51: Weir, Schumann and Elgar with the BBC Symphony Orchestra

Royal Albert Hall

Join conducting talent from across the UK and from Finland as they direct the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in a varied programme of works by Judith Weir, Tchaikovsky, and Brahms. This concert, jointly presented by the BBC SSO and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is the culmination of a week’s activities with conductor Martyn Brabbins.

Young Conductors Showcase - RCS & BBC SSO

Glasgow City Hall

When Robert Plane’s recording of Iain Hamilton’s Clarinet Concerto was released in 2020, BBC Music Magazine hailed ‘a thrilling rediscovery from an unfairly neglected composer.’ Inspired by the Book of Genesis, William Wallace’s mighty 'Creation Symphony', meanwhile, is by turns rousing, mysterious, and warmly lyrical.

Afternoon Performance: The Sound of Scotland

City Halls

Cellist Zlatomir Fung is on a roll—in 2019, he was the first American in four decades and the youngest musician ever to win First Prize in the cello division of the International Tchaikovsky Competition, and he followed that success with a 2020 Avery Fisher Career Grant. Fung lends his “refined playing…singing tone, pinpoint pitch and phrasing” (Aspen Times) to an eclectic and engaging program that matches cello showpieces by Beethoven and Dvořák with an arrangement of Ives songs and two contemporary works with distinctly American sensibilities. Judith Weir’s 1999 Unlocked is a set of five cello solos inspired by American folk songs in the Library of Congress collected by John and Alan Lomax in the 1930s, many of which were contributed by Black prisoners in Southern jails. And a masterful cello sonata by George Walker, the first Black composer to win a Pulitzer Prize for Music, combines complex rhythmic counterpoint with enthusiastic lyricism and rich blues sonorities.

Zlatomir Fung, cello
Janice Carissa, piano

University of California, Berkeley

London Sinfonietta returns to Kings Place, presenting an evening of music by Scottish composers exploring the idea of love and our deepest human need for connection.

Judith Weir’s evocative music sets the scene, before the Public World Premiere of a privately commissioned work Love Bade me Welcome by James MacMillan setting poetry about divine love by George Herbert.

Love Lines

Kings Place Music Foundation

A programme of new music for flute, clarinet, oboe, horn and bassoon from Music in the Round’s Bridge Ensemble.

Sounds of Now: Bridge Ensemble

Portsmouth Guildhall

Woman.life.song

Paramount Theatre


Join the CCO for the season finale with a world premiere composition by emerging composer, Seare Farhat.   Maestro Pirard and Atkinson present their artful arrangement of Schumann’s piano quintet for the Orchestra.  Experience Judith Weir’s musical connection with Paul Klee’s brush strokes and energy, and Thomas Adas’ 21st century take on the Baroque.  Hear and see how art over the ages translates, impresses and inspires.

Translations

Ithaca College

Each of the competing quartets will present two contrasting recital programmes, including cornerstones of the repertoire. The first recital consists of Haydn alongside Judith Weir’s String Quartet No. 2 'The Spaniard' (commissioned by Britten Pears Arts and Wigmore Hall for the Leonkoro Quartet); the second features a late Mozart quartet paired with a major 20th-century quartet.

International String Quartet Competition 2025 - Preliminary Round 1

The 2025 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition is the 16th edition of this prestigious Competition, and a celebration of the art of the string quartet, which attracts leading ensembles from around the world.

Judith Weir

Events

Upcoming events

Dec 6, 2024

Love Lines · London Sinfonietta

Dec 11, 2024

Sounds of Now: Bridge Ensemble · Portsmouth Guildhall

Feb 21, 2025

Woman.life.song · Oakland Symphony

Mar 22, 2025

Translations · Cayuga Chamber Orchestra

Apr 1, 2025

International String Quartet Competition 2025 - Preliminary Round 1 · Wigmore Hall

Past events

Nov 21, 2024

Leonkoro Quartet · Wigmore Hall

Nov 20, 2024

The Music Makers · City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

About

Judith Weir hasn't added a bio