Guildhall School of Music & Drama announces its Summer 2022 Events Season

Selected events will subsequently be broadcast online via the School’s website.

Highlights include:

• National Open Youth Orchestra presents its debut performance and a world premiere at Milton Court Concert Hall
• Guildhall School’s most prestigious music prize: the Gold Medal with finalists William Bracken (piano), Kryštof Kohout (violin), and Stephanie Tang (piano)
• Opera department presents Summer Opera: Monteverdi & Weill
• Summer Drama: Dennis of Penge by Annie Siddons
• Guildhall School’s annual summer Chamber Music Festival, including performances from the Consone String Quartet and Mithras Piano Trio
• A host of artists including flautist Adam Walker, pianists Paul Lewis and Richard Goode, and soprano Lise Davidsen working with Guildhall School musicians in public masterclasses
• More than 200 past and present Centre for Young Musicians & London School Symphony Orchestra students coming together to mark the 50th Anniversary of CYM and the 70th anniversary of LSSO

Music

Dante, From Dusk to Dawn (Dante, dal tramonto all’alba)
7.30pm, 22 April, Milton Court Studio Theatre

Conceived by Alessandro Timossi and directed by Andrea Nicolini, Guildhall musicians presents a musical-literary tribute to the great Italian poet Dante Alighieri in celebration of the 700th anniversary of his death.

This performance is in Italian; programme notes and a translation will be provided. There will also be a pre performance talk at 6:30pm.

The performance is made possible by the Guildhall School’s Music and Research Departments, in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute.

National Open Youth Orchestra (NOYO)
4pm, Sunday 24 April, Milton Court Concert Hall

Over twenty of the UK’s most talented young disabled and non-disabled musicians will take to the stage, for an afternoon of exciting new music that will celebrate the diversity of the orchestra and pushes the boundaries of classical and contemporary music in new directions. A new work by Alexander Campkin entitled What Fear We Then? will be performed, as well as a new piece by British Composer Award winner Liam Taylor-West. Accessible and electronic instruments such as the Clarion, LinnStrument, and Seaboard RISE will be heard alongside more familiar acoustic instruments, showcasing how diversity can lead to new musical possibilities for the future of inclusive orchestral ensembles.

This performance will be relaxed and BSL interpreted.

Voiceworks: Contemporary Collaboration
6pm, 3 May, Milton Court Concert Hall

Guildhall School welcomes Artist in Residence Julia Bullock to lead a contemporary and collaborative project. As part of a Voiceworks contemporary music project, postgraduate and fourth-year undergraduate singers will collaborate with composers, arrangers, electronic musicians, and pianists, offering an opportunity for participants to learn from Bullock’s depth of experience and to be guided through programming and the development of their own creative process.

The Gold Medal 2022
7pm, 12 May, Barbican Hall

Three outstanding musicians compete for Guildhall School's most prestigious music prize in a concert at Barbican Hall. This year it’s the turn of three instrumentalists to perform a concerto of their choice with Guildhall Symphony Orchestra conducted by Adrian Leaper. The programme features Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.4, Op. 58, performed by William Bracken; Berg’s Violin Concerto performed by Kryštof Kohout; and Brahms’ Piano Concerto No.1 in D minor, Op. 15, performed by Stephanie Tang.

Guildhall Chamber Music Festival
8-10 July, various venues

The Chamber Music Festival  will once again feature an eclectic mix of repertoire from Mozart to Mendelssohn and Martinů, as well as celebrating under-represented and lesser-known composers such as Coleridge-Taylor (8 July) and Roussel (10 July) along the way. Much of this repertoire will be performed by some of Guildhall School’s most outstanding senior students, playing alongside their distinguished chamber music professors in collaborative performances. 

Other events will include established student ensembles and Guildhall School’s Chamber Music Fellows, the Consone String Quartet (9 July) and Mithras Piano Trio (9 July)- both of whom are fast affirming their reputations on the international concert scene. There will also be an unmissable massed string workshop and performance of Mendelssohn’s String Quartet directed by Andrew Watkinson, Leader of the Endellion String Quartet (10 July).

Guildhall Wigmore Prize Recital
7.30pm, 14 July, Wigmore Hall

The Guildhall Wigmore Recital Prize annually awards an exceptional Guildhall School musician with a Wigmore Hall Recital. The recipient of the 2021 Guildhall Wigmore Prize, young Italian pianist Gabriele Strata, has already attracted wide attention throughout Europe and America, and has won a host of other prizes. This concert offers the chance to hear him performing a programme comprising the four Chopin Ballades interspersed with French keyboard music spanning three centuries, including Couperin, Satie, Messiaen and Dutilleux.

Centre for Young Musicians & London Schools Symphony Orchestra Anniversary Concert
7.30pm, 25 May, Barbican

On 25 May, more than 200 players and singers - made up of a combination of past and present students - will come together to mark the respective 50th and 70th anniversaries of CYM and the LSSO.

World premieres of new and revised works written specifically to celebrate the double anniversary will be heard alongside music of varying styles that will showcase the talents of the LSSO and the students of the CYM Saturday Centre. Brass fanfares from Richard Causton and James Moriarty open each half of the programme while Michael Zev Gordon’s Youth is an overture celebrating what it was like to be young. Vincent Lindsay Clarke was a student on the very first day of CYM and has adapted his guitar ensemble piece, March on the Red Planet, to include percussion too. The evening culminates in a revised version of the finale of Jonathan Dove’s moving cantata There Was a Child.

At Six Concerts
6pm, various dates

The At Six series continues with multiple free concerts held at 6pm across the summer season including Strings at Six: Double Bass (28 April); Songs at Six: Stephen Hough and Alisdair Hogarth (2 May); Keyboard at Six: Contemporary Piano Concerto (4 May); and Songs at Six: Zarzuela with Ricardo Gosalbo (1 June).

Masterclasses

Guildhall School welcomes a host of prestigious artists this summer to give masterclasses to students. These include a flute masterclass with Adam Walker (1pm, 25 April); piano masterclass with Paul Lewis (6.30pm, 13 May); piano masterclass with Richard Goode (10am, 26 May); and a vocal masterclass with Lise Davidsen (10am, 31 May).

Jazz

Guildhall Big Band: Ella Swings Lightly
7pm, 24 May, Silk Street Music Hall

Guildhall Big Band, directed by Matt Skelton and with vocal direction from Emma Smith are joined by special guest Callum Au to perform a programme featuring material from Ella Fitzgerald’s 1958 album recorded with the Marty Paich Dek-Tette, Ella Swings Lightly. This performance will also feature material from the Thad Jones, Mel Lewis and Ruth Brown 1968 album The Big Band Sound of Thad Jones/Mel Lewis featuring Miss Ruth Brown.

Jazz Vocal Ensemble Concerts
7pm, 12 July, Silk Street Music Hall

Guildhall School presents a celebratory showcase of the talents of the Jazz department's four sensational vocal groups: Guildhall Jazz Singers, Jazz Vocal Ensemble, Jazz Choir and Conchords.

Guildhall Jazz Orchestra
7pm, 14 July, Milton Court Concert Hall

Guildhall Jazz Orchestra, directed by Scott Stroman and featuring special guest guitarist Phil Robson, present a varied programme of contemporary writing for Big Band. The performance will feature a selection of fusion-tinged material as performed by Jaco Pastorius for ‘The Birthday Concert’ and the ‘Avery Fisher Hall’ gigs, alongside writing by composers recently featured by the Jazz Orchestra including Nikki Iles, Jim McNeely, Bill Holman, Scott Stroman and Guildhall student composers. The Jazz Orchestra is made up of a revolving line-up of current Guildhall students who collaborate on large ensemble projects to explore and celebrate the Big Band sound of today.

Opera 

Summer Opera: Kurt Weill & Monteverdi
7pm, 6, 8, 10 and 13 June, Silk Street Theatre

Opening on 6 June for four performances, the Opera department presents a collection of Monteverdi Madrigals, Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda by Monteverdi, and Der Zar lässt sich photographieren by Weill. Coming together for these performances is a creative team including conductor Christopher Hopkins, director Victoria Newlyn, designer Louie Whitemore and lighting designer Jake Wiltshire.

First performed in Leipzig in 1928, Weill’s one-act comedy was extremely popular in its day and on the German stage, part of the now rarely performed “Zeitoper” genre of music theatre. The performance opens with music from 17th Century Italy: students from Guildhall’s Opera department perform a collection of Monteverdi Madrigals alongside Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, an operatic scena for three voices.

Drama

Routes
from Monday 25 April

Routes is a collection of short, stand-alone solo performance works, written, directed and performed by Guildhall School’s final year Acting students with Luke Barnes as dramaturg.

Filmed at Guildhall and on location across the UK, Routes invites you on a journey through 21 very different stories, told by 21 distinctive artists. This eclectic series of films sees the actors take full creative control and gives audiences unique insight into the diverse range of perspectives, artistry and experiences that exist within Guildhall’s student community.

Dennis of Penge by Annie Siddons
8–13 July, Silk Street Theatre

Inspired by Euripides’ ancient Greek tragedy The Bacchae, Dennis of Penge is an epic, mythical, heroic tale by Annie Siddons, drawing on real experiences and relationships from Siddons’ childhood in South East London. Expect raw poetry combined with music in this urgent, compassionate and uplifting show directed by Emma Baggott.

Production Arts

Re-fractions
showings at 2.30pm & 3.30pm, post-performance discussion at 4pm
16 May, Milton Court Theatre

Conceived and presented by Zarah Hussain

Artist Zarah Hussain works across many mediums, including animation, sculpture and painting, to combine the pattern-making skills of traditional geometry with contemporary art processes. In this project Zarah works with Production Arts students to create a series of 2D square screens hung in a custom configuration, rigged on the stage of Milton Court Theatre and flown in using the theatre’s state-of-the-art automation flying system.

BA Video Design for Live Performance finalists Reuben James Cohen and Viktors Mileika present their own video design for projections mapped across a series of screens that move across the Milton Court Theatre stage.

Mohammed Ali - Artistic Process - a work-in progress for video realisation
3pm, 25 May, Milton Court Theatre

5pm Round-table discussion with Mohammed Ali (Artistic Director, Soul City Arts), Dan Shorten (Creative Director, GLE), Munsur Ali (film producer and Guildhall governor), facilitated by Gilly Roche (Head of Interdisciplinary Practice, Guildhall) Milton Court Theatre

Conceived and presented by Soul City Arts, facilitated by Guildhall Live Events (GLE), and supported by iMAG

This workshop forms part of Soul City Art’s development of a new live stage production entitled ‘Waswasa’ Presented by Birmingham 2022 Festival as part of the Commonwealth Games cultural programme. Mohammed Ali will work with the GLE team and Guildhall students to explore a visual sequence for a projected backdrop as part of the performance in August. A movement artist will perform on stage, while lighting, projection, and LED screens will create an abstract environment around the performer.

Towards ORCHESTRAM - a music video for immersive orchestral performance
3pm, 27 May, Milton Court Theatre 

Conceived and produced by Guildhall Live Events, with RAM Records, supported by iMAG

This workshop will produce two edits of a music video for an orchestral adaptation of an electronic music track. Artists from RAM Records will work with students to experiment with video production formats, developing artwork, preparing technical systems, and shooting and editing the music video. This is part of a larger project celebrating RAM’s 30th anniversary.

Limitless – A Laser and Light Showcase
6pm, 1 June, Milton Court Theatre

A DJ will perform live in Milton Court Theatre in a show that’s typical of a mid-scale Electronic Dance Music (EDM) gig. The lighting and lasers to accompany this performance are designed and realised by two final year Production Arts Theatre Technology students working closely with GLE producers, artists, and engineers to develop a cohesive visual design.

Other events

BOYS – The PappyShow
12–23 April, Silk Street Theatre

The Barbican and Guildhall School welcome The PappyShow for eight performances of BOYS. Created by the 10-strong company to unravel preconceptions and uncover the endless possibilities of masculinity, the award-winning show BOYS presents past experiences of young men of colour, through weaving slick choreography and dialogue with a soundtrack of contemporary beats. Directed by Kane Husbands, the creative team for this production also includes Roly Botha (composer and sound), Saul Valiunas (lighting) and Lewis Hetherington (dramaturgy).

Presented by the Barbican in association with Guildhall School of Music & Drama

Bishopsgate Institute x Guildhall School

In partnership with Bishopsgate Institute, this summer Guildhall School will run a series of spectacular evenings, curated and created by Guildhall alumni. Each event explores a specific area of the Bishopsgate Institute archive, focusing on themes such as London’s 70s and 80s drag scene, the history of sex worker rights in London, and the working class political movements of East London. The performances will draw upon archival material, shining a light on London’s lesser known histories and bringing to life iconic queers, Queens, and activists through performance, spoken word and cabaret.
Dates, ticket info and more details to be announced.

ResearchWorks

Research at Guildhall School explores fundamental questions about the creative arts. It embraces a wide range of disciplines within music and drama including composition, performance, pedagogy, the social impact of music making, institution studies, historical musicology, electronic music, creative writing and music therapy. Throughout the year, the department runs a regular series of online ResearchWorks events that are open to all. Topics this term include The Drama of Dissection: A performance-based investigation of human anatomical dissection (6 June, 6pm) and Composing Narratives: Reimagining musical storytelling in new vocal and instrumental works (4 July, 6pm) with more to be announced.

Tickets and more information

Priority booking for Guildhall School members: 21 March 2022, 10am.

Public booking: 28 March, 10am.