Have you booked for 11th December?
An ‘expanded’ London Chamber Ensemble playing Brahms’ wonderful sextet no.2 in G and a movement from Schubert’s Cello Quintet in C major. Supper and wine to follow.
If you haven’t, book here.
Calling all lovers of Handel’s music!
How do you fancy being able to go to ALL of the 2026 London Handel Festival concerts – for FREE?….
Despite its fantastic achievements and mighty ambitions, the London Handel Festival is run by a very small team supported by an equally small group of volunteers who ‘steward’ the concerts. And… we are looking for more volunteers.
Volunteering is not an onerous task. You need to arrive an hour or so before the concert to help set out seat numbers. Once the doors open you need to check tickets and direct people to their seats, and once the concert is over you need to collect seat tickets and any rubbish left behind. And in return you get to enjoy the concert for free. Even the ones that are already booked out!
You also get to go to some delightful venues: the Charterhouse, the Handel Hendrix House, the Foundling Museum, Shoreditch Town Hall and, of course, St George’s Hanover Square, Handel’s very own church.
No knowledge of Handel’s music is necessary. All that is required is that you are pleasant, polite and helpful – and dress in suitable black! You can sign up for as few or as many concerts as your schedule allows – you will be offered the festival schedule in advance. The only request is that if you do volunteer you commit for at least a year. Hopefully (we are a nice friendly bunch) you will enjoy it so much that you will want to stay with us for a second year, and maybe even a third!
The 2026 Festival starts on 18th February with Handel’s mighty oratorio Saul and then works its way through 19 different events ending with Bach’s St John Passion on Good Friday, April 3rd in St George’s Hanover Square. All details here.
If you are interested in becoming a volunteer steward, contact Andrea Lee for more information.
Britten Sinfonia’s Surround Sound Playlist
Some of you may have noticed that last week I was talking about Britten Sinfonia’s young composer programmes, Opus 1 & Magnum Opus. Hot on the heels of that concert arrived a flyer, as part of their Big Give Christmas Campaign, with details of their Surround Sound Playlists for which they are specifically asking for donations.
The Surround Sound Playlists are informal concerts given in their ‘local’ cathedrals. Audience members (over 30% of whom noted that this was their first classical concert) sit or lie on mats and cushions surrounding the orchestra. And the orchestra plays an unbroken sequence of short works of all kinds – much of it music from film and TV – each transition accompanied by a dramatic change of lighting.
From the 19th to the 22nd March 2025, they invited one of the world’s best chamber choirs, Tenebrae, star soloists Amy Dickson (saxophone) and Joseph Tawadros (oud), and local choirs and brass bands to join a tour of Chelmsford, Ely and Peterborough cathedrals. You can check in here to read what some audience members thought about the experience – and watch the video below to decide for yourself. And, if you like what you hear, and are feeling generous (depending on how Rachel Reeves has treated you) you could even contribute to their fund.
The Stopgap Dance Company
Some time in the mid ’90s I sweet-talked my partner and my mother into getting into a car on a cold November evening and driving at least 30 miles outside London to see a group of disabled dancers. We went to a lot of dance at that time and I presume I must have read about them in some programme. The company were as far as I can remember, around half and half disabled and able bodied.
The majority of the programme was very pleasant, relatively low key dances which involved the wheelchair users and others but at the end there was one piece which the disabled group had choreographed for themselves. It was electric. So electric that 30 years later I can still see it as though it was yesterday. They threw their chairs around the stage at breakneck speed, tangled with each other, piled onto each other, separated sped off again, right way up, upside down. Completely breathtaking.
So when I saw a poster for the Stopgap Dance Company at the Arts Depot in Finchley, I remembered my 30 year old experience and booked. Quite by chance I got to chat to the executive producer in the interval and mentioned by 30 year old experience. And yes, it was the same company 30 years on – identified by my description of the most extraordinary of their dancers. He did not exist from the hips down but was the most athletic, the most charismatic, the most moving dancer of them all – and, it turned out, was one of the earliest members of the group: Dave Toole.
Stopgap 2025 was very different but equally memorable. To really understand their approach you need to study their website but it is based on total inclusivity. The choreography is developed by the team themslevses so as to represent everyone’s viewpoint – disabled, able bodied, hearing or visually challenged, neurodiverse etc. To include the audience in this inclusivity, the movements are described, sometimes by the dancers themselves, sometimes by a ‘translator’ and also printed on a moving screen.
Two wheelchair dancers do indeed whirl and spin their chairs; other dancers, whirl, spin and shake their bodies – or roll them gently across the stage in dream like sequences. It was still absolutely compelling.
If you want to know more about their future programmes – next summer outdoors – check in to their website.
Meanwhile, upcoming concerts at Hampstead Lane:
Thursday 11th December – London Chamber Ensemble
The ensemble are joined by Kirsten Jenson and Dorothea Vogel for Brahm’s Sextet No. 2 and Schubert’s Cello Quintet.
For more details and to book, go here.
Thursday 15th January – The Bellot Ensemble.
Lucine Musaelian – Voice & Viola da gamba, Edmund Taylor – Violin and Daniel Murphy – Theorbo & Lute – will play us music from 17th century Venice and London
For more details and to book, go here.
Sunday 18th January – Highgate Society Sunday Lunchtime concert.
Catriona Bourne (jazz harp) and Francis Tulip (guitar) will play some numbers from Cat’s new album, tunes by her favourite jazz harpists and some jazz classics.
To book, go here.
Thursday 26th February – Hampstead Lane
Nathaniel Mander and La Pompadour return to Hampstead Lane with a programme of music that might have been played at the court of the King Louis XV.
Go here for more details and to book.
Wednesday 11th March – Hampstead Lane
Joana Ly, Kirsten Jenson and Dorothea Vogel play Beethoven string trios – followed by buffet supper and wine.
Go here for more details and to book.
Monday 23rd March – Hampstead Lane
An hour with Noel Coward. William Godfree will be bringing ‘the Master’ to life with his songs and tales from his star spangled life.
Go here for more details and to book.
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