Leighton has extensive teaching experience from early years to postgraduate level music. Currently he works as a primary music specialist, visiting instrumental teacher and examiner. As a pianist, he was inspired to play after hearing Moura Lympany at a young age and has a large collection of her recordings. Leighton’s postgraduate studies focussed on his interest in 20th-century English orchestral music, with particular study of Britten, Rawsthorne, Walton and Vaughan Williams. A keen choral singer he has developed a comprehensive knowledge of chiefly British choral music.
Malcolm Arnold’s overture Peterloo presents the tragic events of the beginnings of the trade union movement. The melodramatic tragedy of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake closes the evening, after Juan Pérez Floristán makes his Proms debut.
Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra fills the Royal Albert Hall, while Schumann’s piano concerto is followed by MacMillan’s masterpiece The Confession of Isobel Gowdie.
As part of their ‘summer’ season, Vasily Petrenko conducted the RLPO in Mendelssohn’s sunny “Italian” Symphony. Boris Giltburg uses Beethoven’s Emperor as a showcase for his flawless talents.
Barry Douglas, in his home town, gives an excellent reading of a piece central to his repertoire,while Olari Elts puts the Ulster Orchestra through their paces in a highly colourful Petrushka.
Mozart’s early youthful 29th Symphony felt rather misplaced in this otherwise solemn concert from Rafael Payare, Ulster Orchestra and the Belfast Philharmonic Choir.
The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra present a programme of Rossini, Paganini and Dvořák with Michele Mariotti conducting, but it’s Ray Chen who steals the show.
Ulster Orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor Jac van Steen returns to lead an outstanding evening, culminating in Elgar’s First Symphony. Louis Schwizgebel impresses in Saint-Saens’ Fifth Piano Concerto.
Reaching the climax of his exploration of Shostakovich’s “war symphonies”, Rafael Payare and the Ulster Orchestra pit Strauss’ epic tone-poem against the colossal “Leningrad” Symphony.
Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall was plunged into luscious sunshine with music from across the Tropics. The first half was filled with the sounds of Latin America before a nautical Arabian tour.
Widmann, Mendelssohn and Beethoven draw a full house to the Ulster Hall. Rafael Payare leads the Ulster Orchestra confidently, but Veronika Eberle steals the show.
Tchaikovsky’s warhorse piano concerto is given a performance stripped of all showmanship. Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra completes this oddly programmed concert from the RLPO.
Rafael Payare and the Ulster Orchestra present a programme of music that looks both backwards and forwards from composers who were musical visionaries.
Ben Gernon conducted the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall in colourful Stravinsky and soulful Tchaikovsky, while Cooper encapsulated this in Mozart.
Simon Trpčeski gives a commendable performance of Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto, whilst Gabriel Bebeşelea conducts the Ulster Orchestra in a thought-provoking Sibelius Second Symphony.
The classical masterpieces of Haydn and Schubert miss the spot, but Ligeti and Poulenc enthral in the splendid setting of the Concert Room, St George’s Hall, Liverpool.
Francesco Piemontesi performed Brahms’ monumental second concerto with captivating results, followed by Andrew Manze’s carefully considered interpretation of Mozart’s Jupiter symphony in Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall.
Honouring a quarter-century since their creation, alumni from the orchestra united to give a very special anniversary commemorative concert filled with musical fellowship and pride.
