Elena Kats-Chernin’s opener is a high-tempo whirl, and Robin Haigh’s superb Grin, commissioned by Britten Sinfonia and winner of an Ivor Novello Award, brilliantly conveys 'brutality through frivolity', as light and cheerful music, with echoes of Richard Strauss, is run through a filter of dark 'millennial haze'.

Britten Sinfonia and Jeneba Kanneh-Mason

Milton Court Concert Hall

Britten Sinfonia also perform Schubert’s most Mozart-like symphony, filled with grace and invention, Elena Kats-Chernin’s high-tempo opener, and Robin Haigh’s superb Grin, commissioned by Britten Sinfonia and winner of an Ivor Novello Award, which brilliantly conveys “brutality through frivolity”, its light and cheerful music with echoes of Richard Strauss run through a dark “millennial haze”.

Britten Sinfonia With Jeneba Kanneh-mason

St Peter Mancroft

University of Cambridge

Christmas is a time for tradition. Together with a romp through the exuberant final chorus of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, the Connaughts savour seasonal Tchaikovsky, while an Advent carol wraps itself around wistful Nina Simone. But there’s room for innovation too. And as well as a 150th anniversary nod to planetary Holst, there’s Terry Johns’ piano-gilded meditation inspired by the stained glass of Eduardo Paolozzi triptych in St Giles’ Cathedral Edinburgh.

Christmas with Connaught Brass

Sibelius got caught in fog on the boat to England, and those mists of sound swirl around the melodies of his bracing Third Symphony. Mozart wrote his Ninth Piano Concerto to showcase his own youthful talents: he can’t be here, sadly, but Angela Hewitt has a hotline to his imagination. Guest conductor Matthew Halls also shares a joyous new mini masterpiece by the young British star Robin Haigh. We love it, and we think you will too.

Sunday Afternoon Mozart

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

Christmas is often the time for a trip to the ballet, and this concert will take you there; albeit with a bit of a twist! In 1960, the great jazz band leader Duke Ellington and his regular collaborator Billy Strayhorn took the music (and movement titles!) of Tchaikovsky’s ballet suite The Nutcracker and made it swing. This concert’s concerto, Luck, commissioned by the Ulster Orchestra for Matilda Lloyd, starts with string and wind flurries like snowflakes, that melt into a playful, buoyant work for trumpet and orchestra that keeps jazz-inflections to the fore. The concert closes with selections from another of Tchaikovsky’s peerless compositions for the ballet, the romantic tragedy, Swan Lake.

Robin Haigh

Events

Upcoming events

Dec 5, 2025

Ulster Orchestra: Sugar-Plum Swing · Ulster Hall

Past events

Oct 1, 2025

Britten Sinfonia and Jeneba Kanneh-Mason · Barbican Centre

Sep 28 - Oct 1, 2025

Britten Sinfonia With Jeneba Kanneh-mason · Britten Sinfonia

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