It opens with Stravinsky’s Danses Concertantes: music that feels like a witty, abstract ballet, full of twists, playful rhythms and bursts of colour. It’s lean, stylish and packs a punch. Next comes Nielsen’s Flute Concerto, a piece that feels both charming and mischievous. It’s music that sings, sparkles and teases,…

Stravinsky’s airborne neoclassical dances; the soaring flute lines of Nielsen’s concerto; Stanhope’s wind octet, a tribute to space exploration; Beethoven’s first ascent to the symphonic stratosphere: this propulsive program draws together eclectic styles across three centuries under the heartfelt leadership of Maestro Umberto Clerici. Igor Stravinsky’s Dances Concertantes (1941–42), written after…

We’ll hear Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen, written at the end of the Second World War for 23 solo strings. The piece feels like a single, flowing breath, at once tender, haunting, and heartbreakingly human. Its plangent emotion vibrates in the intimate proximity of the Meat Market. We’ll also explore These Worlds…

Richard Strauss’s late masterpiece Metamorphosen stands among the most moving works of the 20th century: a lament for a world destroyed by war, written for 23 solo strings whose lines weave together in an outpouring of grief and beauty. In striking counterpoint, American composer Missy Mazzoli’s These Worlds in Us…