Hazel is in her final year reading music at Oxford University. As well being a classical music reviewer, she has written arts commentary for the Oxford Student and reviewed plays at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Her particular interests lies in early German Romantic music and in how classical music functions within contemporary popular culture. Follow her blog here.
Thierry Fischer and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales presented an eclectic programme, with an exciting première by Simon Holt and the many different facets of 20th century French orchestral music.
The BBC Philharmonic's chief conductor Juanjo Mena and violinst Tamsin in an astonishing performance of Moeran's Violin Concerto. Mena also brings his own interpretation of Elgar's Enigma Variations.
Valery Gergiev conducts the unique World Orchestra for Peace in a devastating perfomance of Mahler's Sixth Symphony at the BBC Proms. A Strauss rarity and a European premier were programmed alongside.
There is apparently no reason for young people not to give opera a try. The Royal Opera House sells £10 student standby tickets, as well as advance booking for cheap standing or slip tickets.
The Bennewitz Quartet perform works by the Viennese masters Schubert and Webern, and by their Czech compatriot Dvořák, with varying degrees of success.
With a last-minute change of conductor from the excitable Andris Nelsons to the more reserved Jac van Steen, one might have forgiven a not exactly revolutionary performance. Last night’s concert was meant to be the first half of Nelsons’ Brahms cycle with the Philharmonia in the Sheldonian Theatre, part of Music at Oxford’s series, but illness unfortunately prevented him from performing.
It is difficult not to notice the youthfulness of the face greeting us on stage (especially in comparison to the, shall we say, more weather-worn ones in the audience). But Benjamin Grosvenor has come a long way from the eleven-year-old that won the BBC Young Musician of the Year piano final in 2004.
