Our spring 2018 season concludes with Director of Music Simon Callaghan performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3 with members of the London Mozart Players and more - free entry for under 26s, courtesy of the Cavatina Chamber Music Trust.
Founded by Harry Blech in 1949 as the UK’s first chamber orchestra, the London Mozart Players (LMP) has achieved international renown for its outstanding live performances and CD recordings of the core Classical repertoire. Music Directors have included Gérard Korsten, Andrew Parrott, Matthias Bamert and Jane Glover, who grew and developed the orchestras strong classical tradition. They enjoy connections with Hilary Davan Wetton as Associate Conductor, and Howard Shelley as Conductor Laureate, and continues to work closely with many of the world’s finest conductors and soloists, including Tasmin Little and Anthony Marwood. In 2015 the LMP appointed cellist Laura van der Heijden as its first Young Artist in Residence. London Mozart Players also plays an active part in contemporary music, giving many world premières and commissioning new works, in recent years by composers including Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Tarik O’Regan, Sally Beamish, Cecilia McDowall, Lynne Plowman, Fraser Trainer and Jonathan Dove. In March 2011 the LMP appointed Roxanna Panufnik as Associate Composer.
Touring is a major part of the orchestra’s schedule, with regular appearances at festivals and concert series throughout the UK and abroad. Recording has played a major part in the orchestra’s life for many years. A long relationship with Chandos includes many recordings of works by Haydn and Mozart and an acclaimed Contemporaries of Mozart series numbers over 20 CDs. New Naxos release Flowers of the Field in collaboration with City of London Choir, Roderick Williams and Hilary Davan Wetton reached No 1 in the Classical Album Charts. For an Unknown Soldier, a 2014 commission for choir, children’s choir and orchestra by Jonathan Dove marking the centenary of the start of World War I was released by Signum Records in October 2016.
London Mozart Players has been committed to providing a platform for sharing the creative arts with schools and communities for over 25 years. LMP Voyager is London Mozart Players's education and community arm which allows music to inspire, educate and enrich communities through an extensive programme of work across the UK. In July 2016, the orchestra started a new exciting phase in their history as an orchestra managed by the players, relocating their offices to the Church of St John the Evangelist, Upper Norwood and embedding themselves within a community in the north of the Croydon borough. The orchestra’s inaugural concert at St John the Evangelist was held in October 2016. LMP Voyager covers a vast programme of work including visiting schools and care homes to providing community concerts for elderly and disabled people.
London Mozart Players enjoys the patronage of HRH The Earl of Wessex.
Steinway Artist Simon Callaghan performs internationally as a soloist and chamber musician. His recent tours have taken him to Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, throughout Europe and on two occasions to the Banff Centre in Canada. He has performed at all of the UK’s major concert halls including Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Birmingham Symphony Hall, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, St David’s Hall Cardiff and Manchester’s Bridgewater and Stoller Halls.
Simon’s interest in rarely performed works has led to invitations to perform concerti by Françaix and Tippett, and to give the first UK performance since 1946 of Medtner’s 3rd Concerto, which he will perform again in 2018. His rapidly-expanding discography includes solo works by Sterndale Bennett, Parry, Sacheverell Coke, chamber music by Brahms, Schumann, Chopin, and two volumes of Delius with Parnassius Duo partner, Hiro Takenouchi (on Somm). In 2017 he released his debut CD for Hyperion’s lauded Romantic Piano Concerto series: the first recordings of Roger Sacheverell Coke’s Concerti with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Martyn Brabbins. The disc reached No.3 in the specialist classical charts, the top ten in the Classic FM chart and garnered enthusiastic reviews across the press.
Festival invitations have included Highgate, Husum, Whittington and Cervo Chamber Music. Callaghan has also performed frequently on BBC radio and television. In chamber music he has collaborated with Ning Feng, Jack Liebeck, Giovanni Guzzo, Tim Hugh, Thomas Gould, Raphael Wallfisch and the actors Timothy and Samuel West, and Prunella Scales. His extensive repertoire has included complete cycles of Beethoven and Brahms chamber works, and a three-concert residency at St John’s Smith Square in London, exploring the piano quartet medium. Contemporary music performances have included works by Joseph Phibbs, Julian Anderson and Kenneth Hesketh, and he was invited by the Royal College of Music to play Boulez’s ‘Dérive II’ as part of their ‘Variable Geometry’ series. His world premiere recording of Paul Patterson’s ‘Allusions’ for two violins and piano (with Midori Komachi and Sophie Rosa) was released in 2017.
In 2018 Simon will release two further recordings on Hyperion, return to the Husum Festival of Piano Rarities in North Germany, present a series of Schubert chamber music in London and perform a programme of American music for two pianos for the Americana Festival at St John’s Smith Square, including the European premiere of Irving Fine’s Toccata Concertante. He has also signed with Lyrita Recordings, for whom he will make three recordings in 2018 with Raphael and Simon Wallfisch, Hiro Takenouchi and others.
Simon puts great value on teaching and this season will give masterclasses, lead a course at Benslow Music and continue his work as Head of Piano at the Ingenium Academy (Winchester). In addition to his performing schedule, Callaghan is Director of Music at Conway Hall, where he oversees the longest-running chamber music series in Europe. He is also a PhD Researcher at the Royal Northern College of Music, working to bring the oeuvre of Roger Sacheverell Coke into the public domain.