On Saturday afternoon (23 May, 4pm) I'll be at The Depot in Lewes, Sussex, to take part in a screening and discussion of Tim Hopkins' film Four Quartets. In his characteristically orginal way, Tim has created a visual counterpoint to a soundtrack composed of four contemporary string quartets (by John Woolrich, myself, Joe Cutler and Helen Grime) played straight through, in their entirety. I'm a big string quartet fan, but in a concert hall, even I would find an unbroken seq

Kicking off Sheffield Chamber Music Festival tonight will be King Harald's Saga, sung by its ideal interpreter of today Claire Booth; who "in her spare time" is directing the whole of this year's Festival. She'll also perform, in the next week, Poulenc's La Voix Humaine, a recital of British song from Purcell to Knussen, and as a finale, the Strauss Four Last Songs. It's an exemplary series, programmed by a different artist every year, and has its roots in the memorable ye

The London Festival of Contemporary Church Music opens tonight, and somehow this event always surprises me by its yearly appearance, and by the huge number of London choral events featuring new music it covers. Scroll down the front page of LFFCM.COM to see the extremely numerous list of contemporary composers whose work will be performed over the next ten days in choral services in London churches. It's an indication of the diversity and constant invention in this genre of m