The trumpet shall sound: Marin Alsop on reinventing Handel’s Messiah

Marin Alsop conducts the Seattle Symphony

London Adventist Chorale

Marin Alsop and Leonard Bernstein in Tanglewood, 1988

Excerpt from Handel’s manuscript of Messiah

By Stephen Pritchard, 04 December 2023

Loading, please wait...

“They could see that pretty much everything in the piece could swing”

Mark Pullinger, 7th April

The Hong Kong-born conductor talks about her entry into music, her love of big Russian repertoire, her “Cinderella moment” winning the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition and her ambition to “go against the grind”.

Opera in the blood: Speranza Scappucci

Mark Pullinger, 17th March

The Royal Opera’s Principal Guest Conductor explains her passion for opera, her journey into the pit and how good conductors share the attributes of football managers.

Ben Glassberg on depression and a journey back to music

Elisabeth Schwarz, 16th January

Elisabeth Schwarz sits down with the British conductor to talk about his history of mental illness, his coming out and his journey back to the joy of music.

Singing on the strings: Élodie Brzustowski on Early music in France

Danny Riley, 14th January

Lute player and guitarist Élodie Brzustowski talks about the challenges of the two-metre long theorbo, rediscovering guitar music of the 1830s, and the multifaceted Early music scene in France.

A new work will celebrate the centennial of Antoni Gaudí’s death

Bachtrack, 11th December

The new work will include the bells being cast for the eighteen towers of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, which is expected to be completed in 2026 after 144 years.

Nathalie Stutzmann joins Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo

Bachtrack, 11th December

French conductor Nathalie Stutzmann will be the first woman to hold the position of Artistic and Music Director of Monaco’s orchestra in its 170-year history.

Stephen Pritchard

Stephen Pritchard began singing as a treble at the age of eight and progressed to become a tenor in Portsmouth Cathedral Choir, the Gibbons Consort and now the English Chamber Choir. Writing about music has been at the core of his 40-year career in journalism, chiefly at the Observer. He has been known to play a pretty mean jazz double bass.