Written in just two weeks, this lyrical work reaches straight to the heart. The cello sings, sighs, and soars, in this intimate conversation with the orchestra.

Natalie Clein plays Schumann

Smith Square Hall

In the late 1990’s American star soprano Jessye Norman made a call to the Birmingham Copthorne Hotel. On the other end of the line was British composer Dame Judith Weir. "How would you like to write a solo concert work for me…?"  And so, with luminary writers Maya Angelou, Clarissa Pinkola Estés and Toni Morrison, woman.life.song was born, later premiering at Carnegie Hall New York in 2000. 25 years later and in association with Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation (UK) and ACE, Birmingham Opera Company brings the work home.

Join as an audience member on an extraordinary journey into Judith Weir’s woman.life.song filled with Brummie pride and talent as chorus, actors, dancers, star soloists Gweneth Ann Rand and Madison Nonoa and a cracking creative team led by director Madeleine Kludje and conductor Alpesh Chauhan OBE.

woman.life.song

St Martin in the Bull Ring

Under the baton of principal conductor Edward Gardner, the London Philharmonic Orchestra returns to the Festival for the first time in a decade with a stunning programme.

Edinburgh International Festival

Usher Hall

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.

EPSG:4326

International String Quartet Competition 2025 - Preliminary Round 3

Wigmore Hall

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.

International String Quartet Competition 2025 - Preliminary Round 2

International String Quartet Competition 2025 - Preliminary Round 1


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

In search of the hidden biodiversity of Berlin’s cemeteries: Researchers Katharina and Parm von Oheimb explore the fascinating world of snails. Join the pair as they set off on the trail of the slimy molluscs to examine the peculiar habitat they have found between ivy-covered gravestones and mausoleums. Travel with them as they share insights into their research on the impressive biodiversity of tropical land snails. During the evening's journey, they will report on the endangered diversity of their favourite gastropods, and explain why these creatures are severely affected by the current extinction of species.

Science, Talk and Music

Museum of Natural History Berlin

Woman.life.song

Paramount Theatre

The C major Trio No. 27 is part of an opus of three piano trios that Joseph Haydn wrote during his second stay in England in 1795 and dedicated to Therese Jansen, an obviously excellent pianist considering the technical demands of these works. The virtuosity of the piano writing in the C major Trio is also remarkable. In the first movement it surprises with large gestures and strong forzato accents. The Andante relies on contrasts that point to Beethoven and the humorous Presto finale, a sonata rondo, gets its originality from the perfect balance of humor, dance rhythm and precise fluency.

Trio classical

Anneliese Brost Musikforum Ruhr

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

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

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.

Leonkoro Quartet

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

Cello students of Norman Fischer

Alice Pratt Brown Hall

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

The theme behind this seasonal programme is the Virgin Mary, whether celebrating her own divinity (in the Votive Mass written by Byrd), or in the context of the birth of Christ (in Tallis’ epic Missa Puer natus).

Mother and Child

For the first time, Iceland, with the Harpa in Reykjavik, is participating in the European Concert Hall Organization's annual "Rising Stars" program, which sends young artists on tour through the continent's major concert halls. And with Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir, a singer from the Nordic island nation was directly nominated. She loves the poetic, mystical traditions of her country and is currently performing brilliantly not only on the major opera stages in Basel and Berlin, but also realizing unusual projects as a photographer and video artist.

Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir, Soprano

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

A monsoon downpour and a cascade of flame: elemental forces are in play as Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra continue their season with music inspired by the environment in all its fragility and power. But Stravinsky’s dazzling Firebird suite and Judith Weir’s magical rain-spell aren’t even the half of this gloriously colourful concert.

Yeol Eum Son plays Bartók's Third Piano Concerto

Barbican Centre

Stravinsky's Firebird

The programme begins with Gabrieli and Victoria’s Missa O magnum mysterium, which depicts Christ’s birth. Other pieces explore miracles, such as Egressus Jesus, recounting Christ exorcising a demon, and Weir’s Ave Regina Caelorum, which reflects on the mystery of the Virgin birth.

The Tallis Scholars: Mysteries & Miracles

Milton Court Concert Hall

This semi-staged concert is based on our preconceptions of mental illness, with each piece having a connection to the psychology of the mind – centred around Peter Maxwell Davies’ harrowing depiction of the ‘madness’ of King George III.

Maxwell Davies was a key member of the Manchester School of Composers, who reshaped the landscape of British music in the late 20th century. 8 Songs for a Mad King is a melodrama with a libretto based on the real-life observations of King George III, presenting an extravagant and disturbing portrayal of his condition. 

Vocalising weirdly as he bemoans his fate, trying to teach his instrumentalist-birds to sing – our musicians becoming projections from within his own mind.

Judith Weir

Events

Upcoming events

Dec 20, 2025

Mother and Child · Sinfonia Smith Square

Jan 22, 2026

Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir, Soprano · Elbphilharmonie

Mar 13, 2026

Yeol Eum Son plays Bartók's Third Piano Concerto · BBC Symphony Orchestra

Mar 13, 2026

Stravinsky's Firebird · Barbican Centre

Mar 26, 2026

The Tallis Scholars: Mysteries & Miracles · Barbican Centre

Past events

Dec 4, 2025

Natalie Clein plays Schumann · Sinfonia Smith Square

23 - 24 Aug, 2025

woman.life.song · Birmingham Opera Company

About

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