Master of the Queen's Music: why it's vital that a woman gets the job

As some happy news for women in music - well, really for Judith Weir - leaked out in the Sunday Times earlier today, I've been writing this piece for The Guardian's Comment is Free. Bet you didn't know I once wanted to be a composer. It was a short-lived dream a long time ago, but never entirely forgotten.

When Rafa Nadal and Kate Winslet met the London Philharmonic...

...this was the result. ESPN roped in the LPO to help with its Wimbledon promotion, along with Kate Winslet, who does the narration. I am reliably informed that the music is by 30 Seconds to Mars and is called Kings and Queens. Er, enjoy.

Concerts are NOT expensive. Here are some figures.

There are people around who are convinced that because Glyndebourne and the ROH are awfully expensive if you sit in the stalls, this means that all classical music is impossibly expensive. This is not true.

Here are a few figures to prove the point: a few things you can do this Thursday, and how much you'd pay for them, top price and bottom price. Each event is a high-quality product representing the top notch of its genre.

Wigmore Hall, Michael Schade (tenor), Malcolm Martineau (piano). Lieder by Mozart, Schubert, Strauss and Brahms. Top price £35, bottom price £18.

Royal Festival Hall, Philharmonia Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts Sibelius: Top price £40, bottom price £9. (Premium seats available at £48.)

National Theatre, Olivier Theatre, Alan Ayckbourn's A Small Family Business. Top price £50, bottom price £15.

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, Harold Brighouse's Hobson's Choice. Top price (premium) £55, bottom price £25.

Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships 2014. Thursday prices: Centre Court £62, No.1 Court £52, Nos 2 & 3 courts, £46.

Dolly Parton, O2 Arena. Top price £86, bottom price £64.

English National Opera, Bizet's The Pearl Fishers. Top price £99, bottom price £12.

Glyndebourne, Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. Top price £250, bottom price (standing) £10.

You see, you can get into a world-class classical concert for less than pretty much anything other high-quality live performance. And even for opera at which the top price looks unconscionably high, the lower prices are far more payable than those at the O2.

Have a nice sunny Tuesday. I'm off to Longborough in the Cotsworlds to hear Lee Bisset sing Tosca.

An urgent call from Danielle de Niese

Tomorrow, Danielle de Niese is giving a recital at St John's Smith Square in aid of the Sohana Research Fund. Her programme is glorious - from Handel to Fauré and Delibes, Puccini to Gershwin. Book here.

Danni says:

Hey Everyone! (PLEASE FORWARD AROUND!!)

I WANT TO INVITE YOU ALL TO COME AND JOIN ME TOMORROW IN LONDON AT ST JOHN'S SMITH SQUARE IN AID OF A LITTL GIRL CALLED SOHANA WHO SUFFERS FROM RECESSIVE DYSTROPHIC EPIDERMOLYSIS BULLOSA (“RDEB”). RDEB IS AN INCURABLE GENETIC SKIN BLISTERING CONDITION. IT IS PROGRESSIVE AND INCREDIBLY PAINFUL AND LITTLE SOHANA HAS HAD THIS CONDITION ALL HER YOUNG LIFE!  

PLEASE COME AND LET'S CELEBRATE AN AMAZING CAUSE, UPLIFT SOHANA'S SPIRITS AND HELP HER TO BELIEVE THAT WITH OUR AID AND SUPPORT TOWARDS RESEARCH, WE CAN FIND A CURE FOR HER AND THE MANY OTHER KIDS WHO SUFFER FROM THIS RARE CONDITION.

IMAGINE WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE TO HAVE RDEC: IT IS LIKE HAVING BURNS THAT TAKE A LONG TIME TO HEAL – IF THEY HEAL AT ALL. BURNS THAT FLARE UP TO EVEN THE SLIGHTEST TOUCH.

PLEASE PLEASE COME AND CONTRIBUTE TO THIS CAUSE. YOU CAN SEE MORE ABOUT SOHANA AND THE DEBRA RESEARCH BEING DONE AT:

http://www.sohanaresearchfund.org/

AND

https://www.debra.org.uk/

THANK YOU FOR READING THIS, LOVE TO YOU ALL AS ALWAYS…

DANNI

PLEASE FORWARD AROUND TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE.
XOXO

Booking details here.

Going Gold at the Royal Northern

I can think of few greater privileges in the musical world than having the chance to listen to the crème-de-la-crème of a college's talented youngsters perform all day. Last weekend I was lucky enough to be on the panel for the Royal Northern College of Music's Gold Medal Competition, together with the college's principal Linda Merrick, its artistic director Michelle Castelletti, composer Robert Saxton and general manager of the BBC Philharmonic Simon Webb.

The eclecticism, imagination and programmatic flair that we heard was a joy in itself. The day was arranged into five concerts, each consisting of two solo performances and in four of the five newly composed saxophone quartets. The atmosphere was lively and enthusiastic, with plenty of audience to cheer on the contestants, and on the platform all of musical life, just about, was here - from a budding Wagnerian soprano to an extraordinary performance on the cusp of body percussion, mime and contemporary dance, and from Berio's Sequenzas to a close encounter with Russian pianism of the Gilelsy kind. Ten of the college's most gifted students had reached this final stage, along with four composers, and the standard was so high that we ended up awarding four medals instead of three, plus one designated for a composer.

Here are our winners, in alphabetical order.

L to r: Lauren, Alex, Leanne, Sergio, Delia

Leanne Cody (piano). A young pianist whose passion for contemporary works was reflected in her ability not only to memorise Joe Cutler's On the Edge, George Benjamin's Shadowlines, and Ligeti's Etude No. 10 'Der Zauberlehrer', but to play them with the musicality, imagination, beauty, flair and sheer sense of love that other musicians might offer Beethoven or Schubert, creating rapt atmospheres with singing, glowing sound.

Sergio Cote (composer): Sergio, from Colombia, wrote a short saxophone quartet that made immense virtuoso demands on its performers and their ensemble, pushed the boundaries of the soundworld with startling breathing effects, and kept us on the edge of our seats.

Lauren Fielder (soprano). Lauren is blessed with a rich, pure and powerful soprano voice that proved deliciously versatile, especially when handled with so much intelligence and stylistic awareness. Having wowed us by opening with the demanding 'Come scoglio' from Così fan tutte, she gave mellifluous performances of three of Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder, a set of beautiful and sensitively performed Roger Quilter songs and to close 'Voi lo sapete' from Cavalleria Rusticana - in which she suddenly sounded entirely Italian.

Alexander Panfilov (piano). Having started his studies at the Gnessin School in Moscow, Alex has one of those unmistakeable techniques that shows the Russian School is alive and well...and living in Manchester. He's a big chap with a big sound, yet capable of great delicacy and vivid colouration; he performed a little-known piece of Beethoven, the Fantasia Op.77, with improvisatory flair and an ideally Beethovenian sound, followed by a very fine account of the Chopin Second Ballade, in which his feel for musical storytelling was particularly impressive. Finishing with Stravinsky's Three Dances from Petrushka he gave the music all the narrative and virtuosity you could wish for, besides making it look ridiculously easy.

Delia Stevens (percussion). It seems almost invidious to call Delia a "percussionist": what we saw here bordered on performance art and sound sculpture. She opened with Casey Cangelosi's Nail Ferry from Naglfar, a fearsome invocation of Norse mythology's "beginning of the end of the world" veering from repetitive bass drum booms to a conclusion in which cutting a series of strings released 20 suspended chopsticks onto the ground - think Norns cutting the strings of life, humanity scattered to the winds... Per Nørgård's Hexagram No.57: "The Gentle, The Permanent" from I Ching was a rapt meditation; marimba virtuosity whirled us away in Leigh Howard Stevens's Rhythmic Caprice and to close, the Compagnie Kahlua's Ceci n'est pas une balle required her to undertake a mime of invisible bouncing sphere to a pre-recorded tape that would surely make Marcel Marceau applaud.

Many plaudits to all our contestants: Helen Clinton (oboe); Michael Jackson (saxophone) - who gave a stunning performance of Berio's Sequenza VIIb; Kimi Makina (viola); Kana Ohashi (violin); Jeremy So (piano), Meinir Wyn Roberts (soprano); and composers Nelson Bohorquez, Richard Evans and Aled Smith.

Thanks to all of you for an amazing and memorable day.