News

The Sixteen and Britten Sinfonia give the world premiere of James MacMillan’s new Genesis Foundation commission, Angels Unawares, in the Sistine Chapel on 22 March. The UK premiere with the same forces conducted by Harry Christophers follows at Cadogan Hall in London on 2 June.

The BBVA Foundation has announced that its Frontiers of Knowledge Award has gone to South Korean composer Unsuk Chin. The citation praised how her distinctive voice has resonated throughout the contemporary music world, distinguished by its instrumental virtuosity and a boundless imagination.

Festen, the acclaimed new opera by composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and librettist Lee Hall, has won the Royal Phiharmonic Society’s Large-Scale Composition Award. Premiered at The Royal Opera in London in February 2025, the production by Richard Jones travels to the Finnish National Opera, opening in Helsinki on 27 March.

HM King Charles III has approved the award of the 2025 King’s Gold Medal for Music to James MacMillan - composer, conductor, and the founder of The Cumnock Tryst annual music festival.

Britten Sinfonia gives the London premiere of Gregor A Mayrhofer’s Recycling Concerto at a Barbican concert on 12 March, with percussionist Vivi Vassileva and the composer on the rostrum.

Sokolovic’s Clown(s) has been met with sweeping critical acclaim following its world premiere at Opéra de Montréal, with critics hailing the work as a landmark achievement in contemporary opera.

Cuadros del Sur, a new orchestral suite drawn from La Pasión según San Marcos by Osvaldo Golijov, receives its world premiere with Daniil Trifonov and the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo.

Boosey & Hawkes launches its new video series created in collaboration with the Britten Pears Archive, based in the composer’s home town of Aldeburgh. The web documentary films, presented by the archive team and examining sources linked to the history of key Britten works, are released throughout 2026, the 50th year since the composer’s death.

International opera productions, concerts, and academic initiatives mark the composer’s 100th birthday, including a landmark Carnegie Hall celebration starring Gabriella Reyes, Ryan McKinny, Edward Nelson and Reginald Smith Jr. conducted by Christopher James Ray on June 20.

Two major works by HK Gruber appear on disc for the first time in a new Capriccio recording by the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the composer. Frank Dupree is soloist in the Piano Concerto which grew from the cabaret nightclub scene in Gruber’s Tales from the Vienna Woods, also heard on this recording in his orchestral suite from the opera, Short Stories.

Gabriela Ortiz’s Yanga on Platoon won multiple honors at the 68th GRAMMY® Awards, including Best Contemporary Classical Composition for Dzonot—making Ortiz the only composer to win this category in consecutive years.

Budapest plays host to an extensive festival feature for György Kurtág whose 100th birthday is celebrated on 19 February, including the world premiere of his new one-act monodrama Die Stechardin. Centenary events in the UK include a Birmingham collaboration between CBSO and BCMG and a London concert by Víkingur Ólafsson and the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Music from Christopher Tin’s critically-acclaimed completion of Giacomo Puccini’s final opera Turandot has received an all-star cast recording, released 100 years after the opera’s first performance in Milan. It is heard again in the city and around the world during the 2026 Olympic Games this month, accompanying the free routine by leading men’s figure skater Yuma Kagiyama.

The focus on Mark Simpson’s music in Liverpool this season culminates in a performance of his acclaimed oratorio The Immortal, exploring paranormal events in Victorian times. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is joined on 26 March by Exaudi and baritone Rory Musgrave conducted by Daniela Candillari.

Leading pianist Víkingur Ólafsson gives the UK premiere of John Adams’s concerto After the Fall, following 17 international performances. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the work with the Philharmonia Orchestra on 25 February at the Royal Festival Hall in London.

This March, Grace-Evangeline Mason’s new work for orchestra, An Everywhere of Silver, premieres with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Jonathon Heyward.

In his new film opera, Theory of Flames, Michel van der Aa examines how conspiracy theories and disinformation can threaten our human lives. The stage premiere at Dutch National Opera, opening on 6 March, will be followed by future performances at Norwegian National Opera and the Bregenz Festival.

Julia Kerr (1898–1965) was not only the wife of Berlin's leading critic Alfred Kerr – she was also a successful composer. Her daughter Judith recounted the family's exile in her book When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. Among their belongings was the unfinished manuscript of the Zeitoper Der Chronoplan, in which the Kerrs send the great Albert Einstein on a journey through time.

The world’s leading classical music publisher Boosey & Hawkes announces that Emma Kerr is promoted to Senior Vice President, heading up the Promotion teams in the London and New York offices.

In November, Gabriela Ortiz’s Revolución diamantina won Best Classical Contemporary Composition at the 2025 Latin GRAMMY® Awards. The Recording Academy also announced nominations for the 2026 GRAMMY Awards, with Gabriela Ortiz and Jeanine Tesori among the nominees.