Emily Howard: The Anvil CD Booklet

Kate Royal

Claire Booth

Hugh Cutting

Christopher Purves

BBC Singers

Hallé Choirs

BBC Philharmonic Ben Gernon, Vimbayi Kaziboni

ANVIL THE EMILY HOWARD

EMILY HOWARD

The Anvil: An Elegy for Peterloo (2019) Elliptics (2022)

(b. 1979)

MICHAEL SYMMONS ROBERTS (b.1963)

Weave

1 Heavy stone harvest [3:12]

2 Pelt of rough turf [1:47]

3 Battered shuttles [4:39]

THE ANVIL

Kate Royal soprano

Christopher Purves baritone

BBC Singers

Hallé Choir

Hallé Youth Choir

Hallé Ancoats Community Choir

BBC Philharmonic

Ben Gernon conductor

ELLIPTICS

Claire Booth soprano

Hugh Cutting countertenor

BBC Philharmonic

Vimbayi Kaziboni conductor

4 The Commissioner for Paving [1:07]

RISE

5 Fife drums love command liberty [1:59]

6 A lake of hats [2:24]

7 We walk in communion [0:58]

8 We ask for sustenance and suffrage [0:48]

The Order Comes

9 The order comes [0:25]

10 Were we quickened from brick-dust [0:45]

11 Sabred and stabbed [2:53]

12 The field turns inside out [4:35]

Some of Our Cry Is Their Cry

13 Some of our cry is their cry [3:09]

14 Now, when you see a blush [1:53]

17 Like a bird that has hit glass [1:12]

18 Be quiet, you say [1:54]

19 On the way, I reckoned up trios of street-lamps [1:21]

20 Rooks wake, warn and clatter [1:16]

21 The long-gone and the not-yet-here [2:05]

22 Full-tilt towards infinity [1:28]

23 Night-long drive [1:50]

24 Houses dark and steep, oblivious [0:56]

25 Love alone brooks resurrection [0:40]

26 Under our feet, below the sewers [1:48]

27 Seven swans in grief [1:28]

28 Wildfires on the bare hills [1:17]

29 Like a bird that has hit glass [0:52]

30 Beyond these walls is so much silence [0:15]

31 Dusk that never blossoms. Endless vespers [5:53]

Total playing time [60:54]

premiere recordings

Recorded live on 7 July 2019 (The Anvil )

& 29 October 2022 (Elliptics) at The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

Producer: Tim Thorne (The Anvil ), Matthew Bennett (Elliptics)

Engineer: Stephen Rinker

24-bit digital editing: Stephen Rinker

(The Anvil ), Matthew Bennett (Elliptics )

24-bit digital mixing: Paul Baxter

(The Anvil ), Matthew Bennett (Elliptics )

24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter

Cover image: Getty Images / Manuel Streit

Concert photography: Joel Fildes

Design: John Christ

Booklet editor: John Fallas

Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK

www.delphianrecords.com

@ delphianrecords

@ delphianrecords

@ delphian_records

15 Ghosts conjured from cotton smoke [2:49]

16 Our shibboleth [2:59]

Monday 16 August, 1819. Not three per cent of the British population were eligible to vote. Protestors from neighbouring mill towns made their way towards St Peter’s Fields in Manchester, bearing signs that read ‘Universal Suffrage’, ‘Annual Parliaments’, ‘Election by Ballot’, ‘Equal Representation or Death’. An observer described large bodies of men and women with bands playing and flags and banners […] There were crowds of people in all directions, full of humour, laughing and shouting and making fun. It seemed to be a gala day with the country people, who were mostly dressed in their best and brought with them their wives.

Magistrates ordered the crowds to be dispersed and the leaders arrested. The Manchester and Salford Yeomanry charged the crowd on horseback, sabres drawn. At least eighteen people were killed, including women and children; almost 700 were injured. Apparently the last words of Oldham cottonspinner John Lees, a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, were: ‘Waterloo there was man to man, but at Manchester it was downright murder.’ The massacre became known as Peterloo.

The imagined sounds of mass protest run through composer Emily Howard’s and poet Michael Symmons Roberts’s The Anvil, named after the shape of the scrap ground where Peterloo took place. Commissioned

by BBC Radio 3 and the Manchester International Festival to commemorate the bicentenary of Peterloo in 2019, The Anvil asks what future was being forged in the tragic events that took place that day. Of the lessons learnt, what has been remembered?

Symmons Roberts first devised a large textual grid, like the warp and weft of a woven fabric. (On reading historical sources about Peterloo, Symmons Roberts noted the high numbers of weavers among those injured – apart from their important role in the mills, there were many present because Monday was their day off.) If read straight through it seems experimental. If read like a ‘woven text’ by reading every other word, there are threads of speech and slogans and poetry in every direction. Symmons Roberts explains that:

Like the protesting crowds it evokes, it contains multiple voices and registers, from lists of injuries to slogans on banners, declarations of political will to shouts of protest, prayers to cries for help and snippets of stories.

At the centre of the grid is the word ‘suffrage’.

scale of the score. The work is scored for a large symphony orchestra, with extra woodwind and brass and a huge percussion set-up that incorporates ‘trash metal’. Several different vocal ensembles are required, with Howard responding to their particular musical requirements: the Hallé Choir read music whereas the Ancoats Community Choir learn by ear; the Hallé Youth Choir needed to get to know their parts quickly; and the BBC Singers wanted something that suited their considerable expertise. Together, they become the crowds at the protest – singing hymns, hoping, suffering.

Manchester becomes the protagonist, with hotels and offices built on the bloodied stones.

Howard took ‘The Anvil Grid’ as her starting point for composition. The noisiness of the industrial city and the Peterloo protests is conveyed through the use of microtones, dynamic extremes, and the spectacular

The two vocal soloists – soprano and baritone – take on specific roles. To complement the Anvil Grid, Howard asked Symmons Roberts to trace out a narrative, which he provided with the poem-sequence ‘The Stones of Peterloo’. Part 1 of that sequence, itself consisting of seven stanzas, is sung by the soprano, who interjects between choral passages that pick up some of her phrases. Whereas some of the chorus’s words are muttered or obscured to become part of the patina of the soundscape, the soprano’s line stands out clearly. Her first verse, ‘Pelt of rough turf’, describes the anvil-shaped patch of ground; in verse two the ‘Commissioner for Paving’ prepares the ground for the gathering. Three: ‘two Ancoats skylarks’ fly above the crowd. In verse four, ‘the order comes’. By the last two verses modern

If the soprano narrates and remembers, the baritone seems caught in the action. He sings the second part of ‘The Stones of Peterloo’, which can be heard as a song of the weavers, asking: ‘Were we summoned or are we called?’ But then, ‘sabred and crushed’, his vocal line breaks down towards Sprechstimme as he repeats ‘Climb – We try. – We fall’. By the penultimate section of the work, his melodic line is a held note wavering between quarter-tones. The chorus had been thrown into disarray during the protest: as ‘The field turns inside out’, the singers are instructed to choose a column of words from the Anvil Grid, to be repeated with increasing speed. Each column is assigned a collection of four pitches, to be sung from lowest to highest. Later, as the soloists acknowledge ‘ghosts conjured from cotton smoke’, the gathered choruses patiently, watchfully, repeat over and over again the word ‘suffrage’. After the baritone has descended to the depths of his range, chorus and soprano intone the final lines of part one of ‘The Stones of Peterloo’ (beginning ‘Our shibboleth’). The baritone resorts to selecting words from the grid; according to the score, his reading should feel ‘chaotic, disconnected’.

By pitting an individual against the masses in The Anvil, and by splicing past and present,

Howard and Symmons Roberts ask questions about how horrific events such as the Peterloo massacre can and should be memorialised. A ‘dinner-plate-sized pale blue plaque’, marking the site of events but rarely noticed, is scarcely sufficient. Howard’s mammoth choral and orchestral work impresses on its listeners the horror of the experience and the fact that, as Percy Bysshe Shelley exhorted at the end of The Mask of Anarchy (itself written in response to the massacre at Peterloo), ‘Ye are many – they are few’. Yet the final line, sung by the soprano alone, sounds a note of caution. All this clamour, with the passing of time, is forgotten: it becomes little more than ‘a piece of grit lodged in a tooth’.

The close working relationship established between Howard and Symmons Roberts for The Anvil also informed the creative process of Elliptics, completed three years later. Composer and poet share a fascination with the underlying patterns of words and music, in this case explored through numbers. While the form of Elliptics takes its inspiration from the opening line, ‘Full-tilt towards infinity’, special weight is given to the number eleven, from the ‘eleven hounds’ of the first line to the eleven verses that constitute the poem. The mystical symbolism of the number eleven has a sonic counterpart: the word sounds like ‘elision’, associating it with loss. The death

of the poet’s mother, Iris, in summer 2021 changed the course of the work. For Symmons Roberts, Elliptics became an elegy, ‘a poem about love and death – what becomes of love beyond death, what we hope will survive’.

Elliptic means ‘relating to or having the shape of an ellipse’ – an oval, the course of the earth around the sun – or ‘relating to or resulting from ellipsis’. The looping structure could continue endlessly. Indeed, Howard’s setting begins not at the start of the poem but with verse 7, ‘Like a bird that has hit glass’, the soprano slowly sinking through the octave and just beyond to ‘Not knowing what realm you’re in’, a line that when sung again later by the countertenor again slips mid-phrase into a lower register, a different realm.

Initially, the two singers seem to inhabit separate worlds; they pick out different lines from the poem and contrast musically. Soon, though, their voices begin to blend, in unisons, seconds, thirds and sixths. They chase each other as if in canon, mimicking and repeating phrases. Howard’s propensity for exploring the extremities of their vocal ranges – separately and together, low and high – is part of her distinctive soundworld. So too are the orchestral textures: hazy washes of strings, feisty brass chorales, ‘clattering’ woodwind. Initially introduced as separate sections, the orchestra combines in

huge crescendos that contrast dramatically with moments of silence between verses. Repetition plays an important role in the text-setting and in the structure. The opening verse of the poem recurs as the piece draws to a close, the strings motoring away beneath the singers’ incantations of the ‘endless vespers’, eventually fading to nothing. As Howard and Symmons Roberts put it in their own programme note: ‘Finally, Elliptics is a piece about a common and exceptional experience. Everyone loses people. Everyone ends up as the person being lost.’

The BBC, BBC Radio 3 and BBC Philharmonic word marks and logos are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and used under licence. BBC logo © BBC 2007

The copyright in the sound recordings is owned by the BBC and is licensed to Delphian Records Ltd for this release.

The Anvil was recorded by the BBC on 7 July 2019 at The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester and first broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 16 August 2019. Elliptics was recorded by the BBC on 29 October 2022 at The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, and first broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 4 March 2023.

Laura Tunbridge writes about song and chamber music. She has taught at the universities of Reading and Manchester and is currently a Professor of Music at the University of Oxford.

This work is supported by PRiSM, The RNCM Centre for Practice & Research in Science & Music, funded by the Research England fund Expanding Excellence in England (E3).

© 2023 Laura Tunbridge

The Anvil

The text for this work is drawn from two sources: the poem-sequence ‘The Stones of Peterloo’ (below) and ‘The Anvil Grid’ (overleaf).

The Stones of Peterloo

Pelt of rough turf, wasteland, scrap-belt, brick-strewn spew from building sites, a place of open light, edgeland, shape of an anvil seen from a height, stony ground, too thin for seeds to take.

The Commissioner for Paving comes at dawn to glean all hand-sized stones – like bulbs too-shallow-sown, like tubers – never to be thrown.

A lake of hats, bonnets, sprigs of laurel, liberty-black-caps raised on poles. Banners shiver and fade beneath merciless sun. Speeches. Children mewl. Sole-nails spark and scuff on stones. Two Ancoats skylarks in a backwards corkscrew rise above the field.

The order comes. Now horseshoes, kicks, stray shanks, high flanks that fell you, now sabres, now a scattering, a funnelling away of people that looks from the sky like rings from a stone cast into a lake.

By force of fear, you are thrown against the Quaker graveyard wall, its blackened, moss-topped brick that keeps the living from the dead. Climb. You try. You fall. The field turns inside out.

Hotels, offices took footings from those stones, new roads were cut. Now, when you see a blush, a bloom, a rush of blood, the face on a front page caught mid-chant, mid-rage, in burnt-out squares of distant cities, that rouge is the dust of Mancunian brick.

Our shibboleth. Our half-remembered badge of pride, our massacre, our mob, our dinner-plate-sized pale blue plaque. A piece of grit lodged in a tooth.

(ii)

Were we quickened from brick-dust, leached out of pig-iron like rust in rain, were we stones raked from bare fields, ghosts conjured from cotton smoke, a film of soot on the lap of a lake, did we fall from this city’s cloud-lid, to be brushed like flies from the faces of demigods like these, were our fingers spent fuses, our eyes unlit beacons, our hearts battered shuttles –were we summoned or are we called?

© 2019 Michael Symmons Roberts. Reprinted by permission

heavy a stone cap harvest of picked liberty from all Peter’s taxation we without would representation walk wrong a unjust day and hearts dance in our hope course soar to like liberty petrels because no this flags was in our black gala and day with now our children’s laurel voices cuts lift as ours harbingers mancunian our dun stitched veil communion lifted flag in night our famine we bellies heads cut raised me cheer quick all o our sun banner by inspires march hopeful bears steps lions joy sing step in with bleach will clad with progress honour you city this greets night its as citizens two with wake fife so we stead the fast not our cowed hearts ours sore rebels hand we in lack one weapons clasped just in drums wave turn of flat bright bow banners heads with all hands stand held tie failing o vast ropes hands fasten unity love sticks we bread ask smocks for frocks clemency claim liberty new in out the light kings body name with we will command as spin looms those your anyone eyes but cross ours hatched defiance o not be deference lean gifts love people not liberty staffs we and ask boots for march sustenance on and human sabred tattered and torn stabbed and sabred sewn and rest crushed as rise summer white salt dress some caught sixty on thousand both o arms to broken raked and across much o harmed staves we on ask the saint tongue peter make rock good cut torn on be left set eye it brow no and sing fall this white bankside o spill stones of stand green right o elbow used slashed full severely o his truth finger out we day flag blood down no carts well and land thrown offer down as with alive hurt we trampled be by of recite link we armed from hopers full wishers stay thought three mercy blade dressings cuts demanding in march face sound head history these condemns raise riders rooves judges and on in that knocked withhold from for strong to arms live lost until his makers our kissers song lovers join weavers taken masons memory tailors man retribution chest raw was be dreadfully until crushed we spat left litanies ankle scales shattered us by out shot of fell woman before was wounds pierced listened fallen all her see right of our umbrellas liberties seamstresses burnt readers lack thinkers them seers trampled we by look some to yeoman’s the horse resurrection so all every our justice banners of were peace buried sheriff or equal die representation now beats o death servitude o here unite fall name with o ashes right in then our all throats

we field need our shield disarmed against battleground sun now burn rise to tyranny hear no the corn white laws hat cry guest banners o song spare pledge me equality harm cries ignite go history up white we skulls wore cross fine bones fustian clenched and fists corduroy when of they peace rise a like patriotic plumes unity above o stray honour witness so weave elysian now field our crops future blaze we praise stand for up him charms skies from can our bear dogs with words stand the all beasts to fight be servitude counted become countless immortal uncounted rise hymned like cloud musket be heads witnesses we drum met voices held raise hands the made dazzling promises stars we these hold souls release no talismans less barrels beloved o let tune pipes blades foundation breath stones this sword ceaseless kills cry truth the hard true from hearts hammers o and over brushes over shuttles and then strength and all cast pitched lots at win freedom spoils fair won representation rights o voice carry faith their peace last rest solitude silence in hear for now must the dusk riot earth act begins from no work such in books ill heads lit words rooms universal o one in quaker fall graves many we rise fall suffrage lives not sorely servitude mis bread handled not o king darken such sabred brutality culled am shot now sabred loved bled true trampled some sabbath nail lovers blades taken made into cotton one bloom field plenitude in in blood here body o legs darkness sore o hurt of hymns ages friends o hope pray suffer for good us people cannot right the hand in side keeper her helps head save o our like pass ring Lord upon bless ring us just o sing be clean other cut his off arms by hide sharp us sabre cry lies for out help poor hope broken for heart sanctuary o held crowds o of name fleeing our men wounds women a children is keepers ages change like makers made hope mass seekers recovery leave in left let arm as hurt memory by o musket printed strike their field pleas o oaks poor sing weavers for found resistance no keeping mother the trampled only under bearer hooves stones and calico perished cry founders unheard mothers our blacksmiths o plasterers multitude labourers o takers by blood bones for together a raise fortnight that so shroud poor time into arrest cellars downtrodden wound we dressers can helped triumph out men eye tell with we point custodian of bear drawn in steel to traitors us fallers people drinkers march thinkers only hawkers forever citizens of all our flesh dead stripped and bare our her living calf honour burnt constable or shall hidden forever or be handed indemnified in wealth and stories be sing free prophet no names borough memory mongering fifteen into to coopers stand street with cellars us into o light

Full-tilt towards infinity, eleven hounds track the earth’s sharp curvature. No bobtail pelt of hare, no halt of wounded deer, not in pursuit, just muzzle down and go as the world turns towards them. Dusk that never blossoms. Endless vespers.

Houses dark and steep, oblivious –their street numbers and names half-lit on gates three, five, seven, nine –now run out into fields.

Love alone brooks resurrection, nothing else withstands its blaze, a lock that picks itself.

Wildfires on the bare hills. Three blackbird pairs on startle in their gardens.

Night-long drive. The road one step ahead. Picture flowers by your bed: deca-petalled heartleaf arnica, child’s drawing of a sun, full butter, sweetcorn, wake up to a morning curtains cannot hold, world out there for which we have no words.

Under our feet, below the sewers, held by ligaments of a nameless stream, a doctor-fish heals itself.

Scarred tench stutters into heartbeats, ons and offs, ones and zeros, hum. After winter’s stasis, this is life as bulb on the blink, burnt-out filament, arcing from silt to float downstream. Now you become a shoal of four, six, eight, and how salt, how singular, how like the sea you are.

Like a bird that has hit glass. Like a rinsed-through, freeze-dried version of yourself. Like a loose suit of you that nobody checked if you wanted to wear. The wire-wool of your hair.

Pipe-cleaner fingers in a glove of skin. Not knowing what realm you’re in. 8

Be quiet, you say.

Rooks wake, warn and clatter. Bees like loose-wires under roof-tiles. The long-gone and the not-yet-here have better things to do than pay attention to this room but if they did they would

know this as the punctum where love can be undone or done, can be undone or done.

Seven swans in grief alight on seven highways, mistaking them for rivers, cars schooling and shoaling, pedestrians as trees weep on the banks, blue lights scale the undersides of bridges.

Beyond these walls is so much silence. Damned if I can hear it. 9 On the way, I reckoned up trios of street-lamps so as not to be outfaced by multiples. Every time I thought of you I lost my thread and had to start again.

© 2022 Michael Symmons Roberts. Reprinted by permission

Born in London, Kate Royal is winner of the 2004 Kathleen Ferrier Award and the 2007 Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award.

Kate also starred in the Korean–British director Insook Chappell’s short film KUT 굿, which received funding from the BFI.

Operatic roles include Miranda (Adès, The Tempest ) and Pamina for The Royal Opera; Micaela, Die Marschallin, Helena and Pamina for Glyndebourne; Micaela and Eurydice for the Met; Handel’s L’Allegro and Pamina for Opéra de Paris; the Countess and Governess for Glyndebourne on Tour; and the Countess again for Aix-en-Provence Festival.

In concert Kate has appeared with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker under Sir Simon Rattle, the Cleveland Orchestra and Franz WelserMöst, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the New York Philharmonic with Alan Gilbert, and the London Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Harding. She was a soloist in the US premiere of Paul McCartney’s Ecce Cor Meum at Carnegie Hall.

Much in demand on the concert and recital circuit, Kate has appeared throughout Europe, North America and Asia. Her recordings include the solo albums Kate Royal and Midsummer Night with Edward Gardner, A Lesson in Love with Malcolm Martineau, as well as Schumann’s Liederkreis , Op. 39 with Graham Johnson and Mahler’s Symphony No 2 with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle.

British soprano Claire Booth has become internationally renowned both for her commitment to an extraordinary breadth of repertoire, and for the vitality and musicianship that she brings to the operatic stage and concert platform. Recent highlights include Poulenc’s La Voix humaine at Wigmore Hall, in a video performance for Welsh National Opera, and live-streamed for Grange Park Opera; a jazz rendition of Schumann’s songcycle Frauenliebe und -leben with Alisdair Hogarth and Jason Rebello; critically acclaimed recordings of the songs of Mussorgsky, Grieg and Grainger; Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra; Vivier’s Lonely Child with the London Sinfonietta; the role of Irene in Vivaldi’s Bajazet, directed by Adele Thomas at the Irish National Opera and the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre; and a tour-de-force rendition of Handel’s Italian cantata Agrippina condotto a morire at the London Handel Festival.

Booth’s plans for the upcoming season include Berg’s Seven Early Songs with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra in collaboration with Jessica Cottis, her first performances of Strauss’s Four Last Songs

with the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie and Sinfónica de Galicia under Jonathon Heyward, the Britten Pears Residency at the Aldeburgh Festival, and a memorial concert for Sir Harrison Birtwistle with the Nash Ensemble at Wigmore Hall.

Hugh Cutting is a former choral scholar at St John’s College, Cambridge, and a graduate of the Royal College of Music, where he was a member of the International Opera Studio. On graduating, he was awarded the Tagore Gold Medal, presented by King Charles III. In 2021 he became the first countertenor to win the Kathleen Ferrier Award, and he is the first countertenor to become a BBC New Generation Artist (2022–24). In the 2021/22 season, he was one of six young singers selected for the 10th edition of Les Arts Florissants’ programme Le Jardin des Voix, receiving critical acclaim for his portrayal of Arsace in Handel’s Partenope conducted by William Christie.

In the 2022/23 season he made his Zurich Opera debut in a Monteverdi ballet project and appeared in recitals at Wigmore Hall, the Ryedale Festival and Théa˘tre Grévin, Paris; he also sang a solo concert of Bach and Handel at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, New York, with the Orchestra of St Luke’s and Bernard Labadie. He appears as a soloist on two Purcell recordings (Royal Odes and Birthday Odes

for Queen Mary ) with The King’s Consort and Robert King, and joins Iestyn Davies and Fretwork on Lamento (Signum Classics).

Christopher Purves is renowned for his commanding stage presence, impeccable musicianship, and celebrated interpretations of a diverse and eclectic range of roles and repertoire.

Recent and forthcoming highlights include Alberich Der Ring des Nibelungen in London, Zurich, Houston, New York and Munich; the title role in Handel’s Saul for the Royal Danish Theatre and at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Houston Grand Opera and the Adelaide Festival; and roles including Verdi’s Falstaff, Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Golaud Pelléas et Mélisande, Forester The Cunning Little Vixen, Balstrode Peter Grimes and Sharpless Madama Butterfly for houses including Glyndebourne, English National Opera, Opéra National de Lyon, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Opera North, Salzburger Festspiele and Chicago Lyric Opera.

Particularly affiliated with contemporary repertoire, Purves has created notable new roles in Philip Glass’s The Perfect American (Walt Disney), George Benjamin’s Written on Skin (the Protector), and three operas by James MacMillan – The Sacrifice at Welsh National Opera, Inés de Castro at

Biographies

Scottish Opera and Parthenogenesis at Edinburgh International Festival. He has also appeared in recent performances of Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence (The Royal Opera, Covent Garden) and Adriana Mater, and has performed H.K. Gruber’s Frankenstein!! in concert with the San Francisco Symphony.

His recent solo album My Soul, What Fear You?, a collaboration with pianist Simon Lepper, was BBC Music Magazine ’s Choral and Song Choice in July 2023. Other recordings include Mozart operas for Chandos, Donizetti and Ricci for Opera Rara, Handel oratorios with Harry Christophers and The Sixteen, and two acclaimed volumes of Handel’s Finest Arias for Base Voice on Hyperion with Arcangelo and Jonathan Cohen.

The BBC Singers (Sofi Jeannin chief conductor ; Bob Chilcott, Owain Park principal guest conductors ) have held a unique place at the heart of the UK’s choral scene for almost 100 years and have collaborated with many of the world’s leading composers, conductors and soloists.

They promote a 50:50 gender policy for composers whose music they perform, and they champion composers from all backgrounds. Recent concerts and recordings include music by Joanna Marsh, Soumik Datta, Cecilia McDowall, Sun Keting and

Roderick Williams, and they have performed with singers Laura Mvula and Clare Teal, South Asian dance company Akademi and world music fusion band Kabantu.

The BBC Singers appear annually at the BBC Proms. The 2023 season sees them perform at the First and Last Night of the Proms, as well as with Sir Simon Rattle, in an evening with Jon Hopkins and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and in a concert with Sofi Jeannin performing two BBC commissions.

The choir are based at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios, where they rehearse and record for Radio 3. They present an annual series of concerts at Milton Court Concert Hall, perform free concerts in London, and appear at major festivals.

The BBC Singers also offer a wide programme of innovative learning activities working with schools, colleges/ universities and community groups.

Founded alongside the Hallé Orchestra by Sir Charles Hallé in 1858, the Hallé Choir (Matthew Hamilton director ) is a large symphony chorus, made up of over 200 singers from across the North West and beyond, and from all walks of life. It is open to all adult singers by audition.

The Hallé Choir regularly performs with the Hallé, Sir Mark Elder, guest conductors and soloists in The Bridgewater Hall and around the UK. It also features regularly on the Hallé’s multi-award-winning CD label.

Recognised as one of the country’s leading mixed-voice youth choirs, the Hallé Youth Choir (Stuart Overington director ) was established in 2003 for talented young singers, aged 13–19 years, from across the North West and beyond.

The choir performs a wide range of diverse repertoire together with the Hallé, other ensembles and independently. It has performed live with the bands Elbow and Snow Patrol, and featured on several of the Hallé’s own-label recordings, on Elbow’s album build a rocket boys! and on Mercury Prizenominated artist C Duncan’s album Health.

The Hallé Ancoats Community Choir (Stuart Overington & Matthew Roughley co-directors ) is open to any adult who enjoys

singing together with others. No prior singing or music-reading experience is needed, and weekly sessions are open to all. The choir has performed in various community events around Manchester and is known for its infectious joy when performing across a wide range of musical styles.

The BBC Philharmonic is reimagining the orchestral experience for a new generation – challenging perceptions, championing innovation, and taking a rich variety of music to the widest range of audiences. Along with around 35 free concerts a year at its MediaCityUK studio in Salford and a series of concerts at Manchester’s The Bridgewater Hall, the orchestra broadcasts concerts from venues across the North of England and appears annually at the BBC Proms. Its performances are broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and available on BBC Sounds.

Championing new music, the BBC Philharmonic has recently given world premieres of works by Tom Coult, David Matthews, Emily Howard, Outi Tarkiainen, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Erland Cooper, Anna Appleby and Robert Laidlow, with the scope of the orchestra’s output extending far beyond standard repertoire.

The orchestra also collaborates regularly with various record labels, and enjoys working

with a range of artists, conductors and composers – a growing family that includes both familiar faces and exciting new talent. The BBC Philharmonic’s Chief Conductor is John Storgårds, with whom the orchestra has held a long and successful association; he joined as Principal Guest Conductor in 2012 and held the position of Chief Guest Conductor between 2018 and 2022.

In 2020, the BBC Philharmonic entered the UK Top 40 chart with Four Notes: Paul’s Tune, and in 2022 it released The Musical Story of the Gingerbread Man – a unique musical re-telling of the classic children’s tale narrated by BBC Radio 5 Live’s Nihal Arthanayake.

In May 2023 it performed at the Eurovision Song Contest, both in the fan park with previous Ukrainian winner Jamala, and in the final itself, with Italian artist Mahmood for a soulful rendition of John Lennon’s Imagine during the Liverpool Songbook medley.

Through all its activities, the BBC Philharmonic is bringing life-changing musical experiences to audiences across Greater Manchester, the North of England, the UK and around the world.

orchestra and his incisive, heartfelt and evocative interpretations. Recent highlights have included debuts across the globe with orchestras such as the Vienna Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, DSO Berlin, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra of St Luke’s. Gernon is a regular favourite of several UK orchestras – including the Philharmonia, BBC Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra – and from 2017 until 2020 was Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, making him one of the youngest conductors to have held a titled position with a BBC orchestra. He appears on recently released recordings with the Czech Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony and Royal Scottish National orchestras, as well as with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir.

Ben Gernon studied at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama with Sian Edwards, with whom he still works closely, and with Sir Colin Davis, who was a profoundly influential figure in Gernon’s musical development.

Widely sought after for his depth of approach, interpretive imagination and expressivity, Zimbabwean-born conductor Vimbayi Kaziboni has led many critically lauded performances with orchestras across the globe, performing at some of the world’s most prestigious concert halls including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Walt Disney Hall, the Royal Concertgebouw, Berlin Philharmonie, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Philharmonie de Paris, and the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall.

music of his generation (‘A conductor who clearly knows his way around an avant-garde score’ – The Times ). He currently serves as music director of the annual summer programme the Composers Conference, artist-in-residence with the International Contemporary Ensemble, artistic advisor of Boston Lyric Opera, and professor of orchestral studies and contemporary music at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. A former Fulbright fellow, Kaziboni holds degrees from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles and the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

British conductor Ben Gernon is praised repeatedly for his effortless authority on the podium, his drive and command of the

Equally at home in the opera house, in 2018/19 Gernon made his ENO debut conducting Simon McBurney’s production of The Magic Flute, and returned to Royal Swedish Opera for a new production of Madama Butterfly following his debut there the previous season. Other operatic engagements have included The Barber of Seville with Glyndebourne Touring Opera and The Marriage of Figaro at Stuttgart Opera.

Recent collaborators have included the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra, Ensemble intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta, Klangforum Wien and the International Contemporary Ensemble, among many others.

Critics have hailed Kaziboni among the foremost interpreters of modern classical

Raymond Yiu: The World Was Once All Miracle

Andrew Watts countertenor, Roderick Williams baritone; BBC Symphony Orchestra / Sir Andrew Davis, Edward Gardner, David Robertson

DCD34225

Resident in the UK since his late teens, Hong Kong-born composer

Raymond Yiu has over the last twenty years developed a sophisticated yet defiantly eclectic style, heard to best advantage here on his debut portrait album, with an all-star line-up of performers. The BBC Symphony Orchestra is joined by baritone Roderick Williams in a song-cycle commissioned to mark the centenary of the writer Anthony Burgess, while Andrew Watts’s countertenor voice brings an unforgettable human dimension to Symphony, written for the BBC Proms.

‘Terrifically engaging ... the recording finds the BBC SO on brilliantly agile form and in every way a match for Yiu’s electric musical imagination’

— BBC Music Magazine, May 2021

Martin Suckling: The Tuning

Aurora Orchestra principal players; Marta Fontanals-Simmons

mezzo - soprano, Christopher Glynn piano

DCD34235

The everyday is transfigured in this intimate collection of chamber music and songs – settings of five magical, moonlit poems by Michael Donaghy and a string quintet written in collaboration with the poet Frances Leviston, whose readings of her own texts frame the four movements of a piece which pays dual homage to Schubert and to Emily Dickinson. Nocturne for violin and cello bears witness to Suckling’s night vigils at the composing desk, setting down his pen as the stillness starts to ripple with birdsong, while the cello solo Her Lullaby is a nostalgic reflection on the early years of parenthood that also displays Suckling’s characteristically refined harmonic palette.

‘This beautifully played and recorded disc shows [Suckling’s] more intimate side’ — BBC Music Magazine, March 2022, *****

Alex Paxton: Happy Music

Dreammusics Orchestra & Ensemble

DCD34290

An album of joyful music for orchestra, ensemble and improvisers, from a multi-award-winning composer described as ‘unique, inventive, brave and arresting’. With inspirations as wide-ranging as the artists Ody Saban, Madge Gill and Grayson Perry, the cartoon music of Roobarb and Custard, the water drumming of the African Baka women, or the sheer chaotic joy of getting a class of primary-school children to make music together, Paxton’s work finds happiness in mess, friction, imprecision and excess.

‘structures that miraculously hold together, while threatening constantly to burst apart from sheer exuberance’ — The Wire, May 2023

Lliam Paterson: Say It to the Still World

Sean Shibe electric guitar, The Choir of King’s College London / Joseph Fort DCD34246

Multi-award-winning Sean Shibe, widely recognised as the leading guitarist of his generation, joins Delphian regulars The Choir of King’s College London in these beguilingly conceived works by Shibe’s friend and compatriot Lliam Paterson, for the rare combination of choir with electric guitar. Say it to the still world casts Shibe as Orpheus with his lyre, in a work which draws fragments of text from poetry by Rilke to meditate on language, loss and the transcendent power of song. Elegy for Esmeralda is a rawer, angrier response to grief, while poppies spread – composed especially, like the other two works, for the performers who bring it to life here – is a further testament to art’s ability to reflect and transform the outer world.

‘Fort’s evocative choir and Shibe’s moody though equally ecstatic electric guitar … Gorgeous’ — The Scotsman, November 2021, *****

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