Iberian Notebook in Wales concert series

Iberian Notebook (for solo cello, Moray Welsh) forms part of a series of four concerts in Wales presented by the Mid Wales Chamber Orchestra. The concerts will be:

• Friday 11 May 7.30pm: St Michael's Discoed
• Saturday 12 May 7.30pm: Willow Globe near Llandrindod
• Sunday 13 May 7.00pm: Llandefalle Church near Brecon
• Monday 14 May 7.30pm: Trinity Church Llanidloes

Also on the programme is Borodin's Sextet in D minor, Lennox Berkeley's Theme and Variations for Solo Violin and Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence.

• Concert flyer download (PDF)

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 in New South Wales between May 30 and June 1 2012.

Housman Lecture and Ian Bostridge at the Hay Festival

On Tuesday 5 June at 7pm, the Hay Festival presents a masterclass glimpse into the life and mind of the great Lieder singer Ian Bostridge. He discusses with Michael the music and composers he has worked with and his early enthusiasm and study of 17th-century witchcraft. Venue: Llwyfan Cymru - Wales Stage, Hereford, HR3 5AD.

On Wednesday 6 June 2012 at 5.30pm, Michael gives The Housman Lecture where he discusses A E Housman’s original subject The Name and Nature of Poetry. Michael has given his lecture the subtitle The Music of Loss and will relate Housman's life and work to music, particularly that of Lennox Berkeley and Benjamin Britten.

Michael Berkeley works at Presteigne Festival

Several of Michael's works will soon be performed at the Presteigne Festival in Wales.

Firstly, Michael's new Oboe Quintet for Nicholas Daniel and the Carducci String Quartet will be premiered on Sunday 26th August at 7.30pm in St. Andrew's Church.

The following day (Monday 27th August), Gillian Keith, with Simon Lepper at the piano, sings Nettles at 2pm, also in St. Andrew's Church. Later that day at 7pm Nicholas Daniel will perform Snake for Cor Anglais. Later in the evening in the 9.45pm concert at St. Michael's Church, Discoed, Gemma Rosefield will play Ode - In Memoriam.

Learn more from the Presteigne Festival brochure.

Hear Hollow Fires at the Celebrating English Song Festival

Michael's Hollow Fires will be performed on 19 August as part of the Tardebigge Celebrating English Song Festival. He will give a pre-concert talk at 2pm and the concert begins at 3pm in Tardebigge Church. Performed by Roderick Williams (baritone) and Susie Allan (piano). Please see here for full details of the programme.

Oboe Concerto performed in Minneapolis

Michael Berkeley's Oboe Concerto was performed on April 27, 28 and 29 at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA by Basil Reeve. Mr Reeve is the Principal Oboe of the Minnesota Orchestra and had long wanted to play the Oboe Concerto. Mark Wigglesworth conducts. Please see here for more details.

Touch Light on Valentine's Day

On February 14th in a concert to celebrate St. Valentine's Day and SEVEN STAGES OF LOVE, The King's Consort with Soprano Ruby Hughes and Countertenor Robin Blaze performed music from the Renaissance right through to the 1930s. The concert included Rogers and Hart, Gershwin, Cole Porter and went up to the present day with the TKC commission, Touch Light, one of Michael's most popular pieces directed by Robert King. Venue: Wilton's Music Hall, London.

Second Still Life part of Bracknell recital

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

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 2011.

Student composition prize winner Wenjing Wang accepting her award at the British Composition Awards (photo: Mark Allan)

British Composer Awards

Advent Anthem at Bishop's Enthronement

Michael's Advent Anthem, premiered in 2010 at Liverpool Cathedral, was again performed at the enthronement of the new Bishop of Durham, The Very Reverend Justin Welby, on Saturday 26th November 2011 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. ”

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 2011.

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 2011 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 on BBC Radio 3's Hear and Now on 23 April. Conducted by Lionel Friend, 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 2011. See here for more details.

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.

The exhibition Great British Composers: From Elgar to Ades was held in 2010 at The National Portrait Gallery. Michael appeared in a photograph by Sam Holden, and with Lennox Berkeley in another.

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.