Elgar, Mozart, McDowall & Britten at St Martin-in-the-Fields
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Friday 24 May, 7:30 pm

Elgar, Mozart, McDowall & Britten at St Martin-in-the-Fields

Elgar Introduction and Allegro
Mozart Concerto for Horn No.4 in E flat, K.495
Cecilia McDowall Off the Ground
Britten Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings

London Mozart Players
James Gilchrist tenor
Ben Goldscheider horn
Simon Blendis director

LMP’s concert at SMITF in May is simply a ‘must-see’. Dazzling young horn virtuoso Ben Goldscheider performs two giant works in the repertoire, Mozart’s best loved Horn Concerto, the No. 4, and Britten’s expressive and beautiful Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, in which he is joined by tenor James Gilchrist. When Benjamin Britten combined a tenor voice, a string orchestra and a horn in the raw; he discovered a fantastic new world – where old poems surge and toss on fresh sea breezes, and distant music echoes and rustles through the night. With sublime works by Elgar and Cecilia MacDowall also on the programme, this really is the dream ticket.

Please note that this performance will last approximately 75 minutes without interval.

James Gilchrist began his working life as a doctor, turning to a full-time career in music in 1996. His musical interest was fired at a young age, singing first as a chorister in the choir of New College, Oxford, and later as a choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge. A prolific and versatile recitalist, James enjoys imaginative and varied programming in collaborations with pianists Anna Tilbrook and Julius Drake, and harpist Alison Nicholls. Recent appearances include a Schubertiade weekend at St John Smith Square and Schwanengesang coupled with Beethoven An die Ferne Geliebte at the Wigmore Hall. James recently returned to the Wigmore Hall to begin his project with Anna Tilbrook, Schumann and the English Romantics, pairing Schumann song cycles with new commissions from leading composers, Sally Beamish, Julian Philips and Jonathan Dove, setting English poetry of the Romantic period.

Nominated by the Barbican as an ECHO Rising Star, during the 2021/22 season Ben Goldscheider gives recitals at major concert halls including the Concertgebouw, Musikverein, Elbphilharmonie and Köln Philharmonie, including an especially commissioned new work by Mark Simpson. At the age of 18 Ben was a Concerto Finalist in the 2016 BBC Young Musician Competition. Since then he has made his debut at the BBC Proms, and appeared as soloist with the Mozarteum Orchestra in Salzburg, the Aurora, Britten Sinfonia, English Chamber, Royal Philharmonic, London Mozart Players, Lucerne Symphony, Manchester Camerata, Prague Philharmonia and Sinfonie Orchester Berlin. He has worked with conductors James Gaffigan, Nicholas Collon, Mark Wigglesworth, Kristiina Poska, Radek Baborak, Andrew Gourlay and Jessica Cottis, and recorded the solo horn call from Wagner’s Siegfried with the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder.

Born in London, in 2020 Ben completed his studies with honours at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin with Radek Baborák. He was a prize-winner at the 2019 YCAT International Auditions.

St. Martin-in-the-Fields