As we wish everyone a Happy New Year, it is a time to look back at 2024 and celebrate

Ben Goldscheider & Gavin Higgins at the London premiere of Gavin Higgins’ Horn Concerto with London Chamber Orchestra (Photo: Jerome Weatherald)

There were just on 80 concert reviews and 53 opera reviews with everything from Lampe’s The Dragon of Wantley to Bizet’s Carmen at the BBC Proms. There was new opera by Stephen McNeff and revivals of Poul Ruders’ The Handmaid’s Tale, Judith Weir’s Blond Eckbert, and Jonathan Dove’s community opera, The Monster in the Maze, as well as Baroque rarities by Vivaldi, Pergolesi, Gazzaniga and Jommelli. And we heard horn player Ben Goldscheider in two terrific new horn concertos, by Gavin Higgins and Huw Watkins, and Gavin Higgins was back with a revival of his terrific Concerto Grosso for Brass Band and Orchestra.

Out of the UK, our new correspondent, Robert, started his Letter from Florida, including visits to Palm Beach Opera and Sarasota Opera. We made a return visit to Le piano symphonique in Lucerne, the Dresden Music Festival and the Göttingen Festival, whilst Tony caught the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. We received a warm welcome at the Glasperlenspiel Festival in Tartu, Estonia where a programme of my music was performed.

We heard a fine account of Massenet’s Werther in Zurich and a revelatory historically informed performance of Wagner’s Die Walküre at the Dresden Music Festival and Tony Cooper revisited Dmitri Tcherniakov’s Ring Cycle at the Staatsoper, Berlin.

Still with Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Florence caught the next instalment of Regent Opera’s powerful new chamber version of the cycle, Siegfried and transgender tenor Holden Madagame wrote about singing Mime in the production, whilst Tony heard the London Opera Company’s full-scale concert performance of Siegfried.

Around the UK we made three visits to Opera North, and two to WNO, plus helping Leeds Lieder celebrate its 20th anniversary, as well as catching some of the Summer festivals at Glyndebourne, Garsington, and the Grange Festival, whilst in London there was Opera Holland Park, Grimeborn and of course the BBC Proms.

It was a year of rarities galore, but particular highlights must include a first chance to explore the songs of Robert Kahn, and a rare outing for Ethel Smyth’s The Prison, whilst Nigel Foster’s London Song Festival gave us the chance to explore the song output of Gustav Holst.

These remain worrying and challenging times for the arts in the UK, whilst the outlook can sometimes look bleak it is heartening to find so many artists and companies finding ways to demonstrate the value of the arts in so many ways.

As ever, you can explore further in our recently updated archives of live reviews, record reviews, and interviews.