New season, new challenges, new collaborations: Britten Sinfonia launches its ambitious 2024/25 season

Britten Sinfonia with sitarist Anoushka Shankar and percussionist Manu Delago at Barbican Hall, 2022 (Photo: Mark Allan

The Britten Sinfonia’s 2024/25 season launches on 8 October with a trio of concerts (at the Barbican, and in Saffron Walden and Basingstoke) with Will Gregory’s Moog Ensemble, an event which promises a fusion of maths, music, and retro-futurist synths including tributes to electronic music pioneers Delia Derbyshire and Wendy Carlos, and the premiere of Gregory’s Archimedes Suite. Other cross-genre partnerships in the season include Irish folk singer Lisa O’Neill, jazz-giants Tim Garland’s Lighthouse Trio and the American bluegrass singer and mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile.

The ensemble will be marking 80 years since the end of World War II, the 50th anniversary of Shostakovich’s death and Arvo Pärt’s 90th birthday. Performances will include Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony op.110a, a scaling-up of his String Quartet No.8, dedicated to the “Remembrance of the Victims of Fascism and War, the world premiere of Michael Zev Gordon’s A Kind of Haunting, which explores the enduring and cross-generational trauma of the Holocaust, and Messiaen’s rarely performed tribute to the victims of the World Wars, Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum. Some of Pärt’s greatest works -including Tabula Rasa – as well as the world premiere of a work for strings and percussion by Cheryl Frances-Hoad.

The ensemble continues to experiment with ways to expand and develop audiences for classical music in the East of England. Its Surround Sound Playlist tourfeatures performances in the cathedrals of Chelmsford, Ely, Peterborough, Norwich and St Edmundsbury, and audiences are invited to take in the music and majesty of these glorious cathedrals in less formal ways. Guests at these concerts include saxophonist Amy Dickson, oud virtuoso and composer Joseph Tawadros, and Tenebrae conducted byNigel Short.

The ensemble is also presenting concerts celebrating its own musicians. Principal trumpet Imogen Whitehead, who in 2023 became the first woman to be appointed to a principal brass role in a major UK orchestra in more than a decade, stars as soloist in Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto. Principal oboe, Nicholas Daniel, conducts Messiaen’s powerful Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum, and other works by Stravinsky. Britten Sinfonia’s winds, brass and percussion are joined by those of Sinfonia Smith Square in the resonant expanses of Pugin’s St George’s Catholic Cathedral in Southwark.

Other performing partners include joining the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, conductor Daniel Hyde, for Mozart’s Requiem in King’s College Chapel as part of Cambridge Music Festival’s 2024 Autumn series. The orchestra celebrates St Cecilia’s day with Saffron Walden Choral Society at Saffron Hall, in Britten’s Saint Nicolas.In 2025, Britten Sinfonia will begin a residency at Merton College, Oxford, with concerts, recordings and chamber music coaching across the year, including Bach’s St John Passion, conducted by Benjamin Nicholas in the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford.

Britten Sinfonia is commissioning and collaborating with three graduates of its Magnum Opus scheme, Jonathan Brigg, David John Roche and Crystalla Serghiou. This season’s cohort of Opus 1 composers will showcase eight world premieres in Cambridge, while the Magnum Opus Composer Showcase in London will present new concertos by Anibal Vidal, Alex Groves, and Eden Lonsdale performed by Britten Sinfonia musicians with soloists Imogen Whitehead (trumpet), Rakhi Singh (violin) and Alexandra Achillea Pouta (mezzo soprano)

Full details from Britten Sinfonia’s website.