News

New perspectives on the musical languages of Elena Firsova and Dmitri Smirnov are offered in a pair of introductory articles by Gerard McBurney, highlighting how the composers were profoundly influenced by Osip Mandelstam and William Blake respectively.

Carlisle Floyd’s classic American opera Susannah is staged at Opera Theatre of St. Louis in June, directed by acclaimed soprano Patricia Racette.

Jess Gillam is saxophone soloist in the world premiere of Karl Jenkins’s new carnivalesque concerto Stravaganza, premiered at the Berlin Philharmonie on 11 June with the Deutschen Symphonie-Orchester under conductor Giancarlo Guerrero.

Explore Boosey & Hawkes’s new programming guide highlighting American music, in advance of the 250th anniversary of America’s founding in 1776.

A compiled list of 2023 summer festival highlights around the United States.

UK premieres of a pair of late song cycles by American composer Elliott Carter, who died in 2012, aged 103, take place at the Aldeburgh Festival on 14 June in performances conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth.

Soirées de Barcelone, Roberto Gerhard’s ballet tribute to his native Catalonia, receives its London concert premiere in the orchestration completed by Malcom MacDonald, performed on 21 May by the Salomon Orchestra under Edmon Colomer.

In June, Fiat Lux by James MacMillan receives its world premiere with the Pacific Symphony and Pacific Chorale.

Celebrated composer Karl Jenkins breaks records today, achieving over 1000 weeks in the UK classical charts with his much-performed work The Armed Man.

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) has long been established as one of the most important and performed composers of the 20th century. Hardly a day goes by without his music being played in some corner of the world. Nevertheless, there are also works that rarely make it onto concert and theatre programmes and are ripe for rediscovery.

On 11-13 May the Berlin Philharmonic presents the first German performances of Gabriela Ortiz's orchestral work Téenek - Invenciones de Territorio under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel. The internationally successful Mexican composer signed a publishing agreemeent with Boosey & Hawkes in 2022.

Sebastian Currier’s new chamber work Cognitive Dissonance debuts with loadbang in June.

Herrick’s Oratorio, David Del Tredici’s new work for choir and organ, premieres on May 20-21 with ensemble Cantori New York and organist James Wetzel.

The full album of David T. Little's film opera Black Lodge is released on June 2 by Cantaloupe Music with Timur and the Dime Museum and Isaura String Quartet.

May brings three international premieres for Catalan composer Ferran Cruixent, including the first staging of his new one-act chamber opera Thasos and Europa at the Theater Heidelberg.

German premieres of two orchestral works by Mark Simpson are on the programmes of the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne under Cristian Macelaru and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Cornelius Meister at the end of April.

Boosey & Hawkes is pleased to announce that Joan Armatrading, one of Britain’s great singer songwriters, has signed a new agreement to publish her Symphony No.1. The 30-minute orchestral score will be premiered by the Chineke! Orchestra at the Southbank Centre on 24 November 2023 and the work will be available for further performances from Boosey & Hawkes.

The first violin concerto composed by Elena Kats-Chernin is premiered by Emily Sun and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra on 21 April. Entitled Fantasie im Wintergarten, the concerto references a Berlin fairground venue, weaving a story of love and betrayal.

Critics praise Donghoon Shin’s Upon His Ghostly Solitude, premiered earlier this month by the LA Phil and Osmo Vänskä, for its epic scope, bold gestures, and dynamic range of colors.

Royal Harpist Alis Huws performs Welsh composer Sir Karl Jenkins’s Tros Y Garreg within the Coronation programme at Westminster Abbey in London on 6 May 2023.