Alfred Brendel 1931–2025; interview with DOMNIQ; Steven Osborne plays Schubert; plus recent reviews and summer highlights No images? Click here DOMNIQ releases A New Dawn on 4 July, an album of his own compositions that started with a dance project with breakdancer Redo and developed as a response to his own cancer diagnosis and treatment. He explains how recording the album helped him process the experience ‘Last year I had melanoma skin cancer. It was a very tough period, but composing helped me to give my emotions space and to process everything. The first song of the album is an uplifting song with electronic and pop influences, which I made in my sister’s attic when I was staying there. I was trying to tell everyone, ‘It will be fine.’ The whole album is like that – the theme being that you can control your own mindset, whatever is happening. ‘In the beginning it was hard not being able to play, but once I got the good news that the cancer hadn’t metastasised, it didn’t matter any more. I was on a cloud – I’m still on a cloud. I thought, ‘Well, if I don’t gain my full physicality back, I will just play a different instrument or do something else, but at least I’m alive.’ The bar suddenly becomes much lower, and everything is put in perspective.’ ‘These compositions became a place for me to put my emotions. The theatre version made an art piece from the experience, which helped me to process the experience. For me, it was about struggling with this illness and facing the possibility of having a shorter life. In the show, there’s a part where I read from my diary. In the first rehearsals, when I had to read that, I would just cry.’ A New Dawn is released on streaming platforms on 4 July, with its first track, Daydreaming, out now. DOMNIQ performs A New Dawn with Redo at Wonderfeel (5 July), and in a solo set at Down the Rabbit Hole (6 July). His climbs the Stelvio Pass by bicycle on 27 June to raise money for childhood cancer charity Kika. Photo: Sabine van Nistelrooij DOMNIQ discusses A New Dawn ![]() ![]() ‘The tenor Allan Clayton was superlative in Britten’s Our Hunting Fathers, an emotionally and technically tricky work musing on man’s inhumanity to animals and humans. Clayton held us in its discomfort, gripping with every word and note’ – The Times reviews Allan Clayton at the Aldeburgh Festival. ‘With great restraint and elegance, Laurent Pelly’s staging features a central platform flanked by aisles and walkways lit with neon, providing a solid framework for two uninterrupted hours of musical numbers.... Inventive and full of energy, the production is subtly laced with the kind of humour that has long enlivened Pelly’s work – most memorably in a brilliant striptease sequence where seasoned performers teach the novice Louise the “ropes” (or rather, the strings) of the trade. The direction is spot-on’ – Le Monde reviews Laurent Pelly’s Gypsy, with dialogue translated by Agathe Mélinand. ‘It is to the Lebanese conductor Bassem Akiki that the full musical success of the evening is owed. A deep connoisseur of the work, which he had already conducted at La Monnaie in 2016, he offers a masterful interpretation – exemplary in its rendering of shifting atmospheres, marked by rare dynamism and flexibility, and executed with clockwork precision. His meticulous attention to both the singers and each individual instrumentalist is unwavering’ – Forumopera.com reviews Bassem Akiki conducting Sweeney Todd at Opéra du Rhin. ‘In the pit, Richard Farnes directs the BSO with well-judged tempi and an intuitive ear for Verdi’s rich instrumental palette, coaxing detailed accompaniments, memorably so from an eloquent clarinet in “Dammi tu forza, o cielo”’ – Opera Today reviews Richard Farnes conducting La traviata at Grange Festival. ![]() Steven Osborne plays Schubert's Moments musicaux no.3 in F minor, from his new Hyperion album, released on 4 July ![]() MARMEN QUARTET visits this year's West Cork Chamber Music Festival to give masterclasses and concerts(29 June to 4 July). DORIC STRING QUARTET gives several performances and masterclasses at this year's West Cork Chamber Music Festival (2 to 6 July). MIGUEL HARTH-BEDOYA continues his Asia-Pacific tour conducting Seoul Philharmonic in López, Beethoven and Elgar (4 July) and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in López, Chindamo and Dvořák (17, 18 & 19 July). PAUL LEWIS tours South Korea, performing Beethoven's 'Emperor' Concerto with Korean National Symphony Orchestra (5 July) and Beethoven's Fourth Concerto with Busan Philharmonic Orchestra (10 July). ERSAN MONDTAG's Woyzeck opens at Spoleto's Festival dei Due Mondi (5 & 6 July). MAXWELL QUARTET perform Thar Farraige (Over Sea) at Southbank Centre as part of New Music Biennial (6 July) and serve as artistic directors of Mendelssohn on Mull Festival (31 Aug to 4 Sept). CHLOÉ DUFRESNE conducts Orchestra national de Montpellier in a programme of film music for Festival Radio France Occitanie Montpellier (6 July). JACK SHEEN conducts BBC Philharmonic Orchestra in Gipps, Resphigi and Rachmaninoff (8 July) and conducts Morricone's score for The Thing at Bold Tendencies (15 & 16 Aug). PABLO GONZÁLEZ tours Australasia, conducting Queensland Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven and Strauss (11 & 12 July) and Jongen and Saint-Saëns (26 July), Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra in Rachmaninoff, Falla, Venegas and Stravinsky (18 July), and Auckland Philharmonia in Turina, Rodrigo and Falla (31 July). AARON AZUNDA AKUGBO gives a recital with Zeynap Özsuca at Cheltenham Festival (11 July). STEVEN OSBORNE tours the US, performing at Aspen 12 July), Seattle Chamber Music Festival (20 July), La Jolla Sommerfest (26 July) and Grant Park Music Festival (30 July). BASSEM AKIKI conducts Penderecki's St Luke Passion at Baltic Opera Festival (12 July). GEORGE JACKSON conducts the world premiere of Nishat Khan's Taj Mahal at Grange Park Opera (10 & 12 July). JEAN-JACQUES DELMOTTE designs costumes for Santa Fe Opera's Rigoletto (12 July to 20 August). JONIAN ILIAS KADESHA and TRIO GASPARD give several concerts at this year's Kuhmo Festival (16 to 18 July). ILAN VOLKOV conducts Ensemble Musikfabrik in works by Marko Nikodijević at the Salzburg Festival (20 July). ALLAN CLAYTON sings in Mahler's Seventh Symphony with BBC Philharmonic Orchestra at the BBC Proms (21 July) and joins Vienna Philharmonic at Salzburg Festival to sing the title role of Oedipus Rex (27 & 28 July). Maestro Arts tours CHRISTINA PLUHAR AND L'ARPEGGIATA to Les Musicales de la route Cézanne with Mediterraneo (23 July) and to Grafenegg with Wonder Women (24 Aug). JUKKA PEKKA SARASTE AND LEAD! FOUNDATION hold the sixth Fiskars Summers Festival for international participants to meet, network and learn under the guidance of LEAD! mentors (28 July to 2 Aug). ELENA SCHWARZ conducts Swiss National Orchestra in repertoire ranging from Rossini to Honegger (1 Aug). EIVIND AADLAND conducts Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra in five concerts, starting with Mozart, Rossini and Shostakovich (1 Aug) and ending with Schnelzer, Beethoven and Robert Schumann (15 Aug). GRÉGOIRE PONT makes his debut with Hong Kong Sinfonietta, live animating Peter and the Wolf and Mother Goose (2 & 3 Aug). ELENA URIOSTE's Chamber Music by the Sea celebrates its 10th anniversary (10 to 16 Aug). STEFAN JACKIW takes part in three chamber music concerts for Taipei Symphony Orchestra, culminating in Beethoven's 'Triple' Concerto (15 to 22 Aug). JAMES BONAS co-directs Aurora Orchestra's BBC Proms performance of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony (16 & 17 Aug). ALEKSEY SEMENENKO serves as Artistic Director and member of the jury of the Odesa International Violin Competition in Monheim (17 to 24 Aug). LAURENT PELLY brings his production of A Midsummer Night's Dream to the Ozawa Festival (17, 20 & 24 Aug). MARC-ANDRÉ HAMELIN returns to Schubertiade to perform Beethoven, Schubert, Medtner and Rachmaninoff (26 Aug). ![]() ULRICH RASCHE directs a new production of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda at Salzburg Festival (1 to 30 Aug). CHRISTIAN RÄTH directs the world premiere of Toshio Hosokawa's Natasha at New National Theatre, Tokyo, commissioned and conducted by KAZUSHI ONO (11 to 17 August). JAMES BONAS co-creates Scottish Ballet's Mary, Queen of Scots, opening at Edinburgh International Festival (15 to 17 Aug) and then touring Scotland. |