Spring 2018 at the RNCM
Between January and April we host everything from classical, big band and opera to an array of festivals celebrating brass, strings, percussion and chamber music.
Classical highlights include the RNCM Strings Festival, offering a mixture of French and British music culminating in a concert featuring the Hallé and RNCM students conducted by Sir Mark Elder (13 – 14 Jan); the RNCM Chamber Orchestra performing concertos by Mozart and Mendelssohn with violinist Henning Kraggerud (10 Feb); and pianist Barry Douglas playing Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons Op 37a and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (13 Feb). Adding to this, our year-long French Connections festival continues with a concert by the RNCM-Paris Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra (01 Mar), and the annual RNCM Chamber Music Festival, Un Voyage des Impressions, which focuses on French music and its global influence from 1900 onwards (09 – 11 Mar).
Our In Focus series also continues this season with the music of Scottish-American composer Thea Musgrave in this, her 90th year (01 – 02 Feb). The two-day festival includes concerts by the BBC Philharmonic and RNCM New Ensemble and Wind Orchestra where a selection of Thea’s work will be performed alongside new pieces by student composers. And there’s the ever popular RNCM Brass Band Festival to look forward to (26 – 28 Jan), swiftly followed by the RNCM Day of Percussion, featuring staff, students and special guests (04 Feb).
Magic and mystery make an appearance in March when RNCM Opera presents Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel (17 – 25 Mar). Based on the Brothers Grimm story, Hansel and Gretel is possibly the most popular operatic fairytale of them all. For this production, we welcome conductor Anthony Kraus and director Stephen Medcalf, and set and costume designer Yannis Thavoris makes a welcome return after dazzling audiences with his incredible staging of Massenet’s Cinderella in December.
RNCM Young Company, a musical theatre group for young people aged 13 – 18, returns for its 10th anniversary with West Side Story, the production which first launched the initiative back in 2008 (22 – 24 Feb). And our RNCM Young Explorers series continues with An Arabian Adventure as the Piccadilly Symphony Orchestra brings to life Rimsky-Korsakov’s brilliant Scheherazade in a relaxed, family-friendly concert for ages 7 and above (21 Jan).
Finally, the RNCM Big Band makes two appearances, first with double bass supremo Steve Berry (03 Feb) and second with the RNCM Chamber Orchestra and trumpeter Markus Stockhausen (24 Mar). And the RNCM Session Orchestra is also back on stage, closing the season with an epic production featuring the 40-piece orchestra plus a 40-strong choir (21 Apr).
Full details of our Spring 2018 season, which also features saxophonist Marius Neset (02 Feb), a screening of Luis Bunuel’s Un Chien Andalou with live score (14 Feb), and Australian superstar Natalie Imbruglia (16 Feb), can be found here.
14 December 2017
