BERLIOZ IN CONCERT WITH DAVID NICE
David Nice has been running Thursday Zoom courses on orchestral, instrumental and chamber music since 2020 - four on Russian music, one apiece on Czech, Hungarian, Finnish (mostly Sibelius), Danish (mostly Nielsen), two on Mahler and the latest on Bernstein.
The next course, starting on 18 April, is devoted to Berlioz. David has covered Les Troyens and Benvenuto Cellini previously in his Monday Opera course, but now thinks it is high time to deal with the great concert scores of the greatest orchestrator and original thinker.
The course runs for 10 Thursdays on Zoom, 2.30-4.30pm, starting 18 April 2024. For details please click the box below.
CHINEKE! ORCHESTRA TACKLES BERLIOZ, 3 MAY 2024
On May 3 at 7.30pm at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, the famed Chineke! Orchestra performs Berlioz's Prix de Rome cantata La Mort de Cléopâtre with soprano Isabelle Peters at the helm. For more details, including ticket purchase, please click here.
FESTIVAL BERLIOZ 2024
This year's festival at Berlioz's birthplace La Côte-Saint-André in the Isère near Grenoble focuses on young musicians - and youth orchestras - une jeunesse européenne - and presents some 32 concerts in the local château and other venues - during the period August 17-September 1.
The orchestras include the Orchestre Français des Jeunes who play the Symphonie fantastique under the Danish conductor Michael Schønwandt on August 18, followed by the Jeune Orchestre Hector Berlioz-Isère with François-Xavier Roth and the Ukrainian Youth Orchestra, and chamber ensembles such as the Paris Mozart, Bâle and Lausanne Chamber Orchestras, the latter with Renaud Capuçon, violin. Regular symphony bands include the Wroclaw Orchestra under Paul McCreesh, the Croatian Radio-TV Orchestra, the Orchestre de l'Opéra national de Lyon with Daniele Rustioni (Roméo et Juliette Symphony extracts) and last but absolutely not least on September 1, the London Symphony Orchestra under Antonio Pappano in Berlioz's Carnaval romain and works by Richard Strauss and Holst. For full programme and tickets please click here.
SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE AT BBC PROMS
On September 3 at 7.30pm, the Orchestre de Paris under its new chief conductor Finn Klaus Mäkelä visits the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall to perform Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique (and works by Debussy & Stravinsky).
Proms run from July 19-September 14, booking opens on May 18. Tickets can be obtained after then from: royalalberthall.com - telephone 02075898212 - see www.bbc.co.uk/proms/event.
LSO STARTS 2024/2025 SEASON WITH BERLIOZ
On September 15 at 7.00pm in the Barbican Hall, the LSO under its new chief conductor Antonio Pappano are to open the new season with a concert starting with Berlioz's Le Carnaval romain overture (also works by Rachmaninoff & Saint-Saëns). For more information and tickets please click here.
BBCSO TO PERFORM L'ENFANCE DU CHRIST AT THE BARBICAN, 13 DECEMBER 2024
The BBC Symphony Orchestra will perform Berlioz's oratorio "L'Enfance du Christ" at the Barbican Concert Hall on December 13 at 7.30pm. For more details please click here.
LSO TO DELIVER SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE AT HALF SIX FIX AT BARBICAN, 21 MAY 2025
Antonio Pappano and LSO will perform Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique at the Barbican at an early evening Half Six Fix concert with presentation by conductor at the Barbican on May 21 at 6.30pm. For tickets and details please click here.
PAPPANO/LSO TO PLAY SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE & LE CORSAIRE OVERTURE AT THE BARBICAN, 22 MAY 2025
Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra will play on a (largely) Berlioz programme at the Barbican on May 22 2025 at 7pm, featuring the overture Le Corsaire and the Symphonie fantastique. For more details please click here.
TE DEUM AT THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL, 13 JULY 2025
The Vivace Chorus and others will sing Berlioz's Te Deum under the baton of Jeremy Backhouse at the Royal Albert Hall, 7.30pm on July 13 2025, Further details will be made available nearer the time.
FESTIVAL BERLIOZ 2023 - MYTHIQUE!
Please click on the box below to read Christopher Follett's review of this year's Festival.
NEW HANDBOOK ON SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE BY JULIAN RUSHTON
Julian Rushton, editor of the Society Bulletin and author of the excellent Cambridge Music Handbook on Roméo et Juliette, has written a handbook on the Symphonie fantastique. This book will be published in November and as an introductory offer will be offered with a 20% discount. Details are given below.
THE TROJANS IN NOTTINGHAM
Nottingham Music Hub have just released a performance of the Act 1 finale to Berlioz’s epic 5 act opera The Trojans.
This dramatic scene of the famous wooden horse being brought into Troy was recorded live last week at Nottingham Music Hub’s Great Orchestra Experiment and performed by the Robin Hood Youth Orchestra with hundreds of year 4 city children and featuring Helena Payne as Cassandra.
We are sharing this performance to celebrate the energy, commitment and sense of drama our young musicians have brought to this masterpiece.
NEW PUBLISHER FOR MEMOIRS AUDIOBOOK
The audiobook of the complete and unexpurgated Memoirs of Berlioz, using the classic translation by our President, David Cairns and read by the esteemed actor Malcolm Sinclair, is now available for just £15 from exciting new online publisher Spiracle: please click here for more details, and to purchase. The audiobook is available through many other outlets but Spiracle offer the Society the best royalties, so you would be helping both of us by purchasing through this channel.
This is a splendid chance to treat a fellow Berliozian, or to make new converts!
"DISCOVERING BERLIOZ" BY DAVID CAIRNS OUT ON TOCCATA PRESS
"Discovering Berlioz - Essays, Reviews, Talks" - the new, 400-page book on Berlioz by Society President David Cairns is now out and available (price £39.50) on Toccata Press, London.
For further details please click here.
PETER BLOOM'S NEW ANNOTATIONS FOR BERLIOZ MÉMOIRES PUBLISHED
French publisher Vrin has announced the publication of U.S. Professor Emeritus Peter Bloom's fresh annotations to Berlioz's Mémoires, a major 900-page project supported in part by the Berlioz Society. A compendious work by a leading Berliozian scholar, casting fascinating new light on the Memoirs. In French.
MÉMOIRES D'HECTOR BERLIOZ DE 1803 À 1865, ET SES VOYAGES EN ITALIE, EN ALLEMAGNE, EN RUSSIE ET EN ANGLETERRE ÉCRIT PAR LUI-MÊME
Price 49€ - For more information please click here.
CONCERT MONSTRE - PERFORMANCE FILMED
24 June 2019 saw five hundred artists on stage at the Philharmonie de Paris, performing the Funeral and Triumphal Symphony under the direction of François-Xavier Roth.
To watch, please click here. Thanks to Jim Hart for sending the link.
BERLIOZ LETTERS PUBLISHED BY ACTES SUD
The long-awaited ninth volume of the Correspondance générale - entitled "New Letters by Berlioz, his family and contemporaries" - has appeared - with some 300 hitherto unpublished letters - as a continuation of the initial eight volumes published by Flammarion under the editorial supervision of the late Pierre Citron. This latest volume is published by Actes Sud and the Palazzetto Bru Zane, with support from the Association nationale Hector Berlioz, the Musée Hector Berlioz, the Festival Berlioz, Smith College USA and the Fondation d'entreprise La Poste.
This collection is available in French only.
Nouvelles lettres de Berlioz, de sa famille, de ses contemporains
Peter Bloom, Joël-Marie Fauquet, Hugh J. Macdonald, Cécile Reynaud (Editors)
Published by Actes Sud / Palazzetto Bru Zane, 792 pages, price 30 € (available from Musée Hector Berlioz - price includes postage and packing).