The Art of Sound

Veni, vidi …

JULIUS Caesar is centre stage at Grange Opera Festival, where Sarah Brady (pictured) captures the magnetic power of Cleopatra. Christian Curnyn, well-known to local opera lovers from the former Iford Opera Festival (near Bath), conducts his Early Opera Company to accompany the singers, led by countertenor Tim Mead, as Caesar. One of Handel’s most popular…

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Mozart satire on tour

OPERA Anywhere  is touring with a delightful new adaptation of Mozart’s satire Cosi Fan Tutte, making three stops from 19th June to 12th July in the south west. The company will be performing the wickedly funny “Thus do all women” story of two flirtatious young women, two jealous (and rather stupid) young men, an old…

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Jeneba at Dorchester

JENEBA Kanneh-Mason, the fifth of the seven remarkable Kanneh-Mason musical siblings, returns to Dorchester Corn Exchange on Tuesday 2nd June at 7.30, welcomed back after her Dorchester Arts debut in 2023. Her programme for this return visit features works by Bach (Partita No 5), Beethoven (Sonata No 17, Tempest), William Grant Still (Summerland), Debussy (La…

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Sumer is icumen in

HISTORIC performance duo GreenMatthews are touring arts venues with their new show, Midsummer Revels, with local dates at the Museum of Rural Life at Glastonbury on 17th June and the Corn Exchange at Dorchester on Sunday 21st June. Chris Green and Sophie Matthews are modern-day balladeers, specialising in telling stories through song, and playing a…

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Summer concert at Axminster

AXE Vale Orchestra, conducted by Walter Brewster, gives its summer concert at the Minster on Sunday 7th June at 3.30pm. The afternoon programme includes Bizet’s Petite Suite: Jeux d’enfants, Dvorak’s Romance for violin and orchestra, with soloist Jane Bultz, and Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. The audience can enjoy tea and cake after the concert. The Axe…

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Pupils spellbound by Roderick Williams

ACCLAIMED baritone Roderick Williams has concluded his year-long tenure as Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s artist-in-residence, with a concert with the orchestra, and a song recital, both at Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre. He also visited Longfleet CE Primary School at Poole, where he joined an assembly and shared in a workshop with pianist Simon Gilliver and music…

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An invitation to explore the orchestra

PRIMARY school aged children in around the south west have a chance to experience live music, when the BSO’s Explore the Orchestra tour visits Poole Lighthouse on 19th and 20th May. With the addition of a digital concert, broadcast live from Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre in May, the project enables thousands of young people to…

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Piano trio on tour

THE Greenwich Trio come to Dorset and Somerset for the May series of Concerts in the West, with recitals at Bridport arts centre on Friday 15th May at 11.30am, Ilminster arts centre that evening at 7.30pm and Crewkerne Dance House on Saturday at 7.30. Formed in London in 2006, and marking their 20th anniversary this…

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Baroque quintet with Concerts in the West

CONCERTS in the West’s April series brings Ensemble Augelletti, specialists in the music of the 17th and 18th centuries, to Bridport Arts Centre for the usual coffee-time recital at 11.30am on Friday 10th April, with a 7.30pm concert at Ilminster Arts Centre, and Crewkerne Dance House on Saturday 11th at 7.30pm Founded in 2019, the…

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