Second Still Life part of Bracknell recital

Oboeist Rachel Porter will be performing Second Still Life for oboe and harp in a recital programme at Southill Park Arts Centre, Bracknell on Sunday 5 Feb at 3pm. Please see here for more details.

Oboe Concerto to be performed in Minneapolis

Michael Berkeley's Oboe Concerto will be performed on April 27, 28 and 29 2012 at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA by Basil Reeve. Mr Reeve is the Principal Oboe of the Minnesota Orchestra and has long wanted to play the Oboe Concerto. Mark Wigglesworth, conducting, has also shown a great enthusiasm for the work. Please see here for more details.

Hear the Sydney Symphony brass section play Music From Chaucer

Members of the Sydney Symphony brass section (conductor Benjamin Northey) will be performing three movements of the Music From Chaucer when they go on a regional tour to New South Wales in May.

Reviews of Michael Berkeley's Organ Concerto at the 2011 proms

Michael Berkeley's Organ Concerto received its London Premiere at the 2011 Proms on September 3rd when it was played by David Goode with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Jac Van Steen.

•  Heralded by a bell, its opening is perfectly suited to the Proms, with three trumpeters interlacing chromatically from different parts of the auditorium, suggesting an enchanted garden of sounds.  (Michael Church, The Independent)
•  Off-stage trumpets joined the soloist David Goode in making their mark in Michael Berkeley's arresting Organ Concerto – an Easter journey from darkness to light, receiving its London premiere after 24 years. Cerebral, sometimes belligerent, though lightened with lyrical flights and delicate colours, it resounded splendidly through the Albert Hall.  (Geoff Brown, The Times)
•  Berkeley has described the piece's origins in liturgical rituals, specifically those connected with Easter, and also in his own experiences as a chorister. But what immediately impresses about the result is the score's sense of propulsion, which rarely lets up, and its regular use of striking material, right from the dramatic opening gesture in which three solo trumpets, positioned around the building, sound a deliberately unsynchronised chant-like motif. Benefiting from the impact of Lutosawski, Berkeley's imaginative orchestration holds the attention throughout the 20-minute span, throwing up strong ideas and keeping them in interactive play. Organist David Goode, meanwhile, showed the bracing potential of the mighty Royal Albert Hall instrument at full tilt.  (George Hall, The Guardian)
•  The brass high in the Gallery at the start of Michael Berkeley's Organ Concerto heralded a revitalised BBCNOW. The huge and open space of the Royal Albert Hall was ideal for the striking opening to this magnificent work. Surprisingly this was its first London performance; yet it dates from 1987, employs standard winds plus percussion and strings, so why it isn't performed more often is an enigma.  Chris Caspell, Classical Source
•  The BBC National Orchestra of Wales played splendidly for the quietly masterful Jac van Steen. The player, David Goode, was soloist in the belated London premiere of Michael Berkeley's 1987 Organ Concerto, an imaginative single-span work occupied with the meaning of Easter and deploying peripatetic trumpeters to symbolise Pentecostal fire. The way they fitted with the unclichéd, undomineering organ writing and the freely shifting, Lutoslawski-ish orchestral textures into an acoustic blend was satisfying.  Paul Driver, Sunday Times

One of Berkeley's most frequently performed orchestral works, the Organ Concerto was inspired by the Easter ritual of bringing light into a darkened cathedral. There is a strong dramatic element to the piece with three processing and chanting trumpets 'setting alight' the orchestra. The huge space of the Royal Albert Hall was put to good use as was the massive Father Willis organ which alternated passages of great delicacy with moments of overwhelming power. Until recently both the big London concert venues have had their organs out of commission, thus delaying the London debut of the Organ Concerto until now.

• Michael Berkeley's Organ Concerto is available on The Berkeley Edition Volume 4 (Chandos Records)

Variations On Greek Folk Songs was played by James Boyd at the Memorial Service for Patrick Leigh Fermor at St. James, Piccadilly on 15 December.

British Composer Awards

Advent Anthem at Bishop's Enthronement

Michael's Advent Anthem, premiered last year at Liverpool Cathedral, was again performed at the enthronement of the new Bishop of Durham, The Very Reverend Justin Welby, on Saturday 26th November in Durham Cathedral.

String Trio at the Royal Academy of Music

20 November 2011

MASTER AND PUPIL. Petroc Trelawny chaired a round-table discussion between Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, Michael Berkeley and his brother Julian Berkeley, exploring the influence of Sir Lennox Berkeley's teacher Nadia Boulanger on his work, and his own influence on the generation of composers he taught at the Academy. Richard Rodney Bennett was one of Berkeley's pupils, but found his teaching too traditional as he became increasingly interested in the European avant-garde. Michael Berkeley was a student of both Berkeley and Bennett. Julian Berkeley studied at the Royal College of Music.

CONCERT. After the talk students of the Academy gave a concert of music by Lennox Berkeley (Flute Sonatina op. 13 and Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano op. 44), Michael Berkeley (String Trio) and Richard Rodney Bennett (Summer Music). Michael's String Trio was performed by Kanako Yanagida (violin), Wenhong Luo (viola) and Peiyao Guo (cello).

Hollow Fires performed at Aberdeen Sound Festival

Jeremy Huw Williams performed the new song cycle Hollow Fires at the Sound Festival in Aberdeen on 3 November 2011. Jeremy also sang the role of the Doctor in the original Music Theatre Wales production of For You. He premiered Hollow Fires at the Beaumaris Festival on the 26th May 2011.

Lennox & Freda discussed at The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival

Michael was joined by Tony Scotland, author of Lennox & Freda, to reflect on Lennox and Freda's remarkable marriage and the music it inspired at The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival. Chaired by Carmen Callil, writer and critic and founder of Virago, the event took place at Imperial Square, Cheltenham on Sunday, October 16, 2011. Speaking at the event, Callil commented, “This book is a most unusual achievement, because it brings alive a successful and loving marriage, undertaken at considerable odds ... and understands the peculiarities of the human heart ... A wonderful evocation of the 1940s. The story should be filmed. ”

Collision receives London premiere

On the evening of October 13, Art First gave the first London screening of Collision which is on show until 12th November. Collision examines the intersection of research in music and contemporary art, and has previously been on display at the Leeds Art Gallery and St. Mary's Pro Cathedral in Dublin. It is a collaboration with visual artist Kevin Laycock.

Worry Beads at Maurizio Biasini International Classical Guitar Competition

Michael's guitar piece Worry Beads has been chosen as one of the set pieces at the first Maurizio Biasini International Classical Guitar Competition. The competition was held from October 10-16 2011 in Bologna, Italy. Michael was invited to attend and to participate in a workshop on his music at the Conservatorio of Bologna on the morning of October 13. For more details of the competition, you can download a flyer here, or visit the competition website.

Gail Pearson and Andrew Matthews-Owen performed the Three Songs to Children and Echo: Homage a Francis Poulenc in the evening concert at the Llandeilo Festival. They were joined by Michael for an exploration of music which has shaped his career both as composer and broadcaster. Michael Berkeley and Friends took place in St. Teilo's Church at on 12 July.

As part of the Cheltenham International Festival of Music, Gemma Rosefield gave the first public performance of Ode – In Memoriam for solo 'cello on Friday 1st July in St. Giles Church, Bredon.

Three Rilke Sonnets, the new song cycle for Claire Booth and the Nash Ensemble, was premiered on March 23 2011 in the Wigmore Hall and broadcast by BBC Radio 3 on 23 April. These settings of Sonnets by Rilke formed part of a Nash Inventions concert which also included works by Richard Rodney Bennett, Simon Holt, David Matthews and Mark-Anthony Turnage. Michael Church in the Independent called it "a new-minted classic", while Guy Dammann described the Sonnets in the Guardian as "surprisingly expressionistic and densely variegated, Berkeley's detailed and inventive score fizzed in frequent and sustained collision with the emotional charge of Rilke's verse".

Biographer Michael Holroyd explored the influence of biographer on biography, and artist on portrait, in a talk at the National Portrait Gallery. He was joined by Michael Berkeley, the subject of a recent portrait at the gallery, and presenter of the long-running Radio 3 programme Private Passions. 'Portraiture and Biography' was on 7 April. See here for more details.

Michael Berkeley and Ian McEwan received a rapturous reception following the highly successful European premiere of their opera, For You, at Teatro Olimpico, Piazza Gentile da Fabriano, Rome on 25 November 2010. For more details, download a flyer here.

The Italian music magazine Classic Voice has given the opera a brilliant review in their December issue.

Italian TV channel Rai 3's programme Prima della prima goes behind the scenes and shows the making of the opera. You can watch a clip from the programme here (requires Microsoft Silverlight)

Michael is writing a new opera based on Ian McEwan's novel Atonement, with a libretto by poet Craig Raine. Michael and Ian announced the new project at their talk at the Purcell Room on London's Southbank. • BBC News article

Read the latest reviews from The Independent, The Times and others

They also discussed their recent collaboration, the opera For You (see video below), which is out now on the Signum label and has been warmly greeted by reviewers.

Michael recently wrote about Beethoven and deafness in the Guardian. See the full article here.

Michael, as one of a group of distinguished British composers who have worked closely with The Nash Ensemble over the years, has contributed a 70th birthday tribute, Musical Chairs, to the Artistic Director of the Nash Ensemble, Amelia Friedman. It was premiered on November 21 at the Wigmore Hall.

Lennox & Freda, Tony Scotland's revealing new book about Michael's father, the composer Sir Lennox Berkeley, has been published by Michael Russell. More than a biography, this is a portrait of an unconventional marriage and a record of Berkeley's generation and a vanished way of life. Drawing on his own original research, Tony Scotland presents fresh perspectives on the Oxford of Auden and Waugh; the Paris of Stravinsky, Diaghilev and Poulenc; Somerset Maugham's set on the French Riviera; Dylan Thomas, William Glock and Humphrey Searle during the Battle of Britain; Eddy Sackville-West, Tippett, Bliss and Boult at the BBC; and Britten and Pears at Aldeburgh. Find out more, and buy online, at www.lennoxandfreda.com.

The Royal Ballet performed the Ballet Rushes last February and March. Principal dancer Alina Cojocaru also danced the final Pas de Deux at the Mariinsky Theatre in Russia on April 26th.

The exhibition Great British Composers: From Elgar to Ades was held last year at The National Portrait Gallery. Michael appeared in a photograph by Sam Holden, and with Lennox Berkeley in another.