A Memorable Year for Music: Highlights from Manchester and Beyond
Last year marked the 30th anniversary of the death of my father, John Charles Holmes, under whose benign and loving influence I developed a lifelong passion for music. He was the choirmaster and organist of the local church choir. I joined his choir at the age of six and went on to sing with several ensembles, including the choirs of Exeter and Worcester Colleges in Oxford, the BBC Symphony Chorus, the Hallé Choir and the John Powell Singers. Whenever I visit an English cathedral city, I always try to go to choral evensong, which remains part of the great choral tradition that has produced many great classical singers. Although it’s a while since I sang in public, I still appreciate choral music and several highlights of 2024 featured choirs.
I was honoured to be invited to review concerts by the superb Philharmonia Orchestra in London. I enjoyed Elgar’s choral masterpiece, The Dream of Gerontius, with a premiere of a wonderfully evocative new piece, Cusp, by the baritone and composer Roderick Williams, which describes end-of-life experiences in a powerful libretto by Rommi Smith. Another moving libretto, with war poems by Wilfred Owen, featured in another stunning concert by the Philharmonia with The Bach Choir in Britten’s War Requiem. The orchestra joined forces with Garsington Opera for a joyful, semi-staged performance of another Britten piece, his opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream conducted by Douglas Boyd at the BBC Proms.
David Hill conducted both of the concerts by the Bach Choir. He appeared at Manchester’s Stoller Hall in another guise as conductor of Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the young student forces of Yale Schola Cantorum and Juilliard415, who brought joy and precision to a performance which seemed to reveal Bach’s soul in all its intellectual and spiritual glory. That weekend was very special for music-making in Manchester, as the previous day was the end of an era as Sir Mark Elder ended his tenure as Hallé Music Director, a position he held for nearly a quarter of a century. His final concert included the European premiere of James MacMillan‘s splendid new choral piece Timotheus, Bacchus and Cecilia, a performance of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, and a passionate, moving speech by Sir Mark. He is replaced by new Principal Conductor Kahchun Wong from Singapore, who I have only seen once so far, conducting a lively Rush Hour Concert in October in Tan Dun’s Violin Concerto: Fire Ritual and Stravinsky’s Firebird: Suite. He seems to be a bright prospect with an engaging stage presence.
I made two choral discoveries in Manchester in 2024. Firstly, The Apex Singers, a Manchester-based chamber choir of eight voices, founded and directed by Ollie Lambert, who directs this young choir remotely in his stunning folk song arrangements. Then Kantos Chamber Choir, under their conductor Ellie Slorach, brought Behold The Sea, a bold and innovative programme of maritime music to the Stoller Hall. I also discovered the fascinatingly intense music of Tim Benjamin, whose evocative pieces The Seafarer and The Wanderer were beautifully recorded by Kantos Chamber Choir.
There were more fantastic chamber music performances from Manchester Collective, who I have seen perform live probably eight or ten times in the last few years, at all sizes and shapes of venues from Salford’s White Hotel to the RNCM, the Stoller Hall, the Bridgewater Hall and even the Royal Albert Hall. The Collective makes choosing to go to one of their concerts an easy decision, as it’s guaranteed there will be high-quality music-making, inspired programming and fascinating collaborations. I saw them twice in 2024, first in the uplifting Rothko Chapel with SANSARA chamber choir at the Bridgewater Hall, then in Sirocco with the force of nature that is the cellist Abel Selaocoe at the Stoller Hall. Both concerts brought deep, life-affirming joy across time and genres.
I spent the August Bank Holiday weekend in the charming market town Southwell in the heart of Nottinghamshire, enjoying the delights of the tenth annual Southwell Music Festival directed by the indefatigable baritone and conductor Marcus Farnsworth. There was supreme artistry in all the concerts, not least from the artist in residence, Mark Padmore, whose word painting in his Recital of English Song with pianist Libby Burgess was astonishing. There was new music from Martin Bussey and Gemma Bass and a world premiere of With What Sudden Joy by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, with a text compiled by the poet Kate Wakeling from words of local people in Southwell about the power and effect of music.
The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra were on excellent form as well in 2024. Early in the year, under conductor Nicholas Kraemer they were joined by Manchester Chamber Choir in a moving and dramatic interpretation of Bach’s St John Passion, 300 years after the first performance. In the Proms the orchestra under John Storgårds (Chief Conductor) played a searing version of Shostakovich’s fourth symphony, and Cassandra Miller‘s viola concerto I cannot love without trembling with Lawrence Power a remarkable soloist. The next evening, they performed Messiaen’s remarkable Turangalîla-Symphonie with pianist an Steven Osborne an energetic and compelling piano soloist. Osborne was stunning in another Messiaen work, Des canyons aux étoiles… with conductor Ludovic Morlot and outstanding solo contributions from Martin Owen (horn), Paul Patrick (xylorimba) and Tim Williams (glockenspiel) in a concert that also featured a lively wind machine and an instrument invented by the composer himself, the geophone.
The BBC Philharmonic also shone in two themed concerts. In Mischief and Magic, the orchestra under John Storgårds played one of the best live performances of Stravinsky’s Petrushka I have ever heard, and veteran Swedish trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger brought incredible virtuosity and great charm to Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto and Betsy Jolas’ Onze Lieder, and a warm arrangement of Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides, Now. In A Hero’s Life the orchestra under Alpesh Chauhan celebrated the human spirit with: Richard Strauss’ description of a heroic life; Alban Gerhardt‘s fiercely dedicated performance of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2; and the UK premiere of This Moment by Anna Clyne, inspired by Buddhist writings and Mozart.
Not content with one production of Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the year brought a second one, this time a fully-staged version by Opera North. It was fascinating to compare the production with the Garsington/Philharmonia version a month earlier at the Proms. The most striking difference was the role of Oberon, played in Leeds by countertenor James Laing. He played the character in the more imperious style of James Bowman in Peter Hall’s Glyndebourne production from the early 1980s, rather than the more troubled, argumentative character played by Iestyn Davies in the Garsington version. Opera North also revived Mozart’s Magic Flute, starring Emyr Wyn Jones as a very human Papageno. The lovely, warm rich tones of his voice matched the warmth of his personality.
Musical polymath Nitin Sawhney – producer, performer, and composer – joined the Hallé Orchestra for The Hallé and Nitin Sawhney in Concert. Last year wasn’t a good year for Sawhney – in early March, he announced that ‘out of nowhere’ he had suffered a heart attack.
Sawhney turned this experience into a new work for orchestra, Heart Suite. In this highly descriptive and powerful new piece, Sawhney drew on his vast experience as a film composer, taking us on a vivid, moving and immersive journey. On a personal note, I hope you will forgive me for quoting his lovely response on the new social network Bluesky to my review of the concert:
Finally, I would like to thank all my readers for sharing my musical journey in 2024. I hope you will join me again for more adventures in 2025.
For the year in Progressive Rock, click here.
