‘Every Tree Speaks To Me’ Peter Ash, conductor of the Odyssey Festival Orchestra, talks about his latest project

American-born conductor and composer, Peter Ash, has always embraced ambitious classical music projects. With the Odyssey Festival Orchestra, an orchestra he founded, he has built up a huge following, presenting classical music in new, exciting ways. Last year, he packed out the Cadogan Hall with Astonish Me – Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes. Karine Hetherington…

A riveting Rhinegold at ENO

The Rhinegold at English National Opera and the auditorium is buzzing with high-energy. Not a spare seat in view. Wagner may be one of opera’s most controversial figures but interest in his music dramas shows no sign of abating. And for good reason, there is much to admire in his musical theatre. Wagner revolutionised opera, created masterpieces of…

Spear pressure: ‘Parsifal’, Opera North

‘Here is where time becomes space’: this is one of the most famous – and mysterious – quotes from Wagner’s final opera, ‘Parsifal’, which at its best can make that scientific impossibility seem real. Unhurried, epic storytelling punctuated with moments of overwhelming beauty or horror that somehow transcend a mere auditorium in what feels like…

April Frederick and ESO Latest Recording Impresses

After performing Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs with English Symphony Orchestra in March of last year, soprano, April Frederick, went down with Covid. For a month she was unable to sing due to numbing fatigue.  On the 26th July she returned to singing, recording Strauss’s magnificent songs on a new album called Visions of Childhood with ESO. This is an astonishingly…