A little-known chapter of the Second World War is the subject of the recently premiered and stunning new work Émigré. It’s an oratorio about the thousands of Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany seeking a haven in Shanghai in the

Some of opera’s biggest box-office champions began life as spectacular misfires. From Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (heckled by a claque in 1786) to Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (booed off the La Scala stage in 1904), opera performances have been ruined

Elisabeth Lutyens (1906–1983) was one of the most daring and innovative British composers of the twentieth century. The daughter of famed architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, she defied both her family’s expectations and the male-dominated classical music world to carve out

For two centuries, winning the Prix de Rome was the ultimate accomplishment for young French composers. The Prix de Rome, associated with the Paris Conservatory, was a fiercely competitive award that offered its winners the chance to create with fellow

Historically, April has been packed with pivotal moments in classical music history. The month has seen the births of Russian giants like Sergei Rachmaninoff and Sergei Prokofiev, as well as the deaths of some of the world’s most famous composers,

Even the greatest classical musicians – those renowned the world over for their superhuman discipline and focus – have moments when everything just goes blank. In an era when memorisation is seen as a prerequisite for performing, memory lapses have

They’re the only member of the orchestra who stands with their back to the audience; nonetheless, every member of the orchestra keeps an eye on them…just in case. It’s the conductor, of course. The English historian Charles Burney quotes Jean-Jacques

Before modern concert halls and subscription series, classical music performances in Europe mostly took place behind closed doors at courts, in churches, or in private salons. But by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a new idea began to take shape: