** Positive Points about Selected Concerts **
Season - 2026/2027
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31st Oct 2026 - 13:00 hrs - East Devon Rock Choir
(director: Carey Camel)
Sidmouth Parish Church, Sidmouth, Devon
A concert in aid of the charity CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young), a cause very dear to Marion Hayman, one of the East Devon Rock Choir Members. A good audience and a good two sets of songs. Balance and sound in this attractive venue were excellent. Carey had his singers on top form. A really positive and joyful occasion.
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St Andrews Church, Colyton, Devon
A very good match of sound from this Somerset based quartet (Rowan Patterson, Polly Orr-Ewing (violins), Alexandra Chivers (viola), Ruth Wakefield ('cello)). They got some really good "bounce" into the joyful last movement of Haydn's Op33 No.3 "The Bird" (a piece with a typically humorous Haydn ending).
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22nd Oct 2026 - 19:30 hrs - Stephen Beville (piano, composer)
The Gateway Theatre, Seaton, Devon
Presented by "Seaton Music" as the second of this season's classical concerts this event proved to be a far from typical Seaton Music performance.
Following on from two "Constellations" by Diana Burrell we were treated to a substantial work, "Shards and Shimmers", composed by Stephen Beville (over an extended period from 2010 onwards). It was very refreshing to find a contemporary composer not yielding to the audience friendly (but generally unoriginal and uninteresting) temptation of conventional tonality. Here were spikey jabbing tone clusters, the odd bit of extended piano technique, hints at picks chipping rock (in "The Quarry") and drips from stalactites echoing in the caves ("Icicles"). All performed with an exciting conviction that so often occurs when a composer plays his own work.
It must also be recorded that Stephen Beville's second half performance of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata (Op 106) was equally untypical for Seaton Music. Heavy handed and unrhythmical this was an under-practiced unbalanced rendering with no overall picture of the piece.
The programme notes provided by the performer were excellent. No sign of any AI generated extended ramblings here, rather an informative and passionate essay about each work.
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18th Oct 2026 - 15:00 hrs - Axe Vale Orchestra - Walter Brewster - Jane Bultz (violin)
The Feoffee's Hall, Colyton, Devon
Roger Swann = horn
Strings sounded great in the suite of good tunes that is Delibes "Le roi s'amuse" and coping well with the challenges of Mozart's great G minor Symphony No. 40.
The audience were genuninely appreciative of both the overall standard of the performance and also of the large range of quality cakes served immediately after the final bars....
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Sidmouth Parish Church, Sidmouth, Devon
Roger Swann = horn
British-Polish pianist Lucas Krupinski has got to be the right person to play Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 (Op 11). He has an obvious empathy for his fellow countryman's music and a lightness of touch perfectly suited to Chopin's writing.
The almost sell-out audience were also treated to two of the great "threes" in the classical cannon: Beethoven's Leonora No. 3 (surely the composer's greatest overture) and Brahms Symohony No. 3 (Op 90) which is your reviewer's favourite of the four symphonies. Lovely first horn playing by Chris Mayhew in the Romanze movement.
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11th Oct 2026 - 15:00 hrs - Parsifal - Conductor: Jakub Hrůša
Wagner's final opera contains some of his most sublime music and the orchestral playing from all sections was awe inspiringly beautiful. Jakub Hrůša allows the orchestra to really "go for it" at key moments but also draws some wonderfully controlled pianissimo playing too.
The singing was the usual top class standard too: Great chorus singing from the males (on stage) and ladies and children (off stage) backing the universally excellent Stanislas de Barbeyrac (Parsifal), Ekaterina Gubanova (Kundry), Christian Gerhaher (Amfortas) and Brindley Sherratt (Gurnemanz).
Parsifal is not the easiest of Wagner's operas to interpret below the obvious surface statement involving the Christian faith offering redemption. This grey miserable production by Evgeny Titov had little to offer in terms of insight. The absence of a visible holy grail rather jarred with Wagner's libretto and the squalid conditions of the home of the king, Titular, and Amfortas seemed equally unhelpful.
But if you just closed your eyes and basked in the sound.......
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20th Sept 2026 - 15:00 hrs - Oxana Militsina (violin) - Antony Clements (piano)
Sidmouth Parish Church, Sidmouth, Devon
These two key members of the ISCA Ensemble are developing as a performing duo (following their first outing in December last year). Again presenting a full concert programme starting with Bach, this time they also included Edvard Grieg's second sonata (very much based on Norwegian folk dances and here given great swing and enjoyable gusto).
The concert ended with Brahms' Scherzo from the FAE sonata. Your reviewer can't help observing how similar this main theme is to that used in the scherzo of the horn trio written twelve years later.
Roger Hendy organised this enjoyable concert asking for donations on the way out in aid of Red Cross.
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St Andrew's Church, Colyton, Devon
The first concert of the classical season for "Seaton Music" was billed as "A Thousand Flexible Ways" and performed exquisitely by three members of the Monteverdi String Band: Oliver Webber (violin), Hannah Ely (soprano) and Toby Carr (lute and theorbo)
The whole programme felt compact, clean and modestly persuasive. The perfect tuning between all three performers (and some beautiful almost flippent decorations added on the baroque violin) was made to look effortless (and most definitely is not so!). It all happens at such a gentle dynamic (giving way at times to interruptions from the automatic clock chiming bell in the tower of St Andrew's) yet you leave the venue feeling thoroughly refreshed.
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16th Sep 2026 - 19:00 hrs - The Flying Dutchman
St James the Greater Church, Leicester
What a great way to start a new season of concerts! Wagner's spirited opera presented in a semi-staged version by Knighton Opera
Musical director Paul Jenkins has been working on this project for more than the seven years that the Dutchman has at sea between calls into port so it is a tremendous achievement to finally get this performance (one of three) to the Leicester audience.
A semi-staged production in a church faces many limitations but stage director Stephen Bruce found neat creative solutions. With the Dutchman's red sails (and red neckerchief) contrasting with the Norwegian sailor's white sails it was, for example, a neat touch to have Senta's first appearance with a red skirt and a white top (whilst she is still with suitor Erik yet besotted by the Dutchman) replaced by her wearing a complete red outfit once she commits herself entirely to the Dutchman.
Singer's Debbie Dubberly (Senta) and SJ Senanayake (Erik) stole the show, both delivering vocals and acting of true Wagnerian intensity. The portrayal (and singing) of Chris Stocker as the steersman was also worthy of note.
The odd bump along the way is to be expected in such a complex work as this but overall it was an absorbing and at times exciting evening. Paul Jenkins and all his team should be very proud of their presentation of Wagner's great work.
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