Christopher Morley looks ahead to a busy weekend in the classical world.
There's a wealth of young talent on display at the Adrian Boult Hall this evening for the latest concert by the Queen's Park Sinfonia, recently heard to favourable effect in Midland Music Makers' production of A Masked Ball at the Crescent Theatre.
Daniele Rosina, one of the most gifted and exciting young conductors around, is on the rostrum, and his programme begins with Purcell's Chacony in G minor, arranged by Benjamin Britten (today is the Britten's birthday, as well as being the name-day of St Cecilia, patron saint of music).
Britten in his own right follows, with the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, featuring exciting soloists Nick Drew and Alison Bach (the latter recently a stalwart of the CBSO Youth Orchestra).
The programme ends with the first complete performance of the Symphony no.1 by Ivor McGregor, a popular figure among the violins of the CBSO, the Orchestra of the Swan and other orchestras in the region, as well as at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
A single movement from the symphony was composed as work-in-progress a year or so ago, and I was mightily impressed with the sensitivity of McGregor's ear for orchestral language.
During the last few years McGregor has been taking occasional lessons in composition with John Joubert, the great Moseley-based composer who is coming to the end of a year which has seen rewarding celebrations of his 80th birthday.
Though there are still some events to come before the year is out, Saturday's concert at Birmingham Cathedral marks the autumn's highlight of a national affirmation of the South African-born composer's music which has been punningly described as a "Joubertiade" (nearly two centuries ago Schubert used to participate in musical evenings devoted to his music known as "Schubertiades").
Centrepiece of the evening is the premiere of a Joubertiade 2007 commission, Five Songs of Incarnation, Joubert's latest work, featuring the choir of New College Oxford and the English Symphony Orchestra, Edward Higginbottom conducting.
This is preceded by Joubert's Temps Perdu, an autobiographical reminiscence for string orchestra conducted by the composer himself. The programme is completed with some more Britten, the exhilarating, audience-involving St Nicolas, with the Stourbridge-born tenor Nathan Vale as soloist.
And there is another concert featuring John Joubert's music before Saturday, when the popular series of Friday lunchtime concerts given by the Midland Chamber Players at the Birmingham & Midland Institute in Margaret Street includes the composer's String Quartet no.4 tomorrow.
Staying with British music, Sunday brings yet more music by Britten in Birmingham Festival Choral Society's programme at the Adrian Boult Hall.
Patrick Larley's programme begins with Britten's Company of Heaven and concludes with his Simple Symphony. Between come Herbert Howells' A Hymn for St Cecilia and the Little Organ Mass by the only "foreigner" in the package, Josef Haydn - though he was almost an honorary Englishman after his two lengthy, hugely successful sojourns in this country during the 1790s.
Another honorary Englishman was Felix Mendelssohn, a favourite at the court of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and the darling of Birmingham Triennial Music Festivals at the Town Hall here, where his Elijah was premiered under the composer's direction in 1846.
On Sunday evening the Sutton Coldfield Choral Society performs the great oratorio, Richard Mason conducting, in Sutton Coldfield Town Hall.
Joining Elijah as the greatest work to be given its first performance (though in this case a disastrous one) at Birmingham Town Hall is Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, happily soon given the acclaim it deserved only a year after its 1901 premiere.
A few years ago the Kidderminster Choral Society gave a tremendous account of Elgar's later oratorio The Kingdom under its conductor Geoffrey Weaver, and on Saturday the same forces perform Gerontius at Kidderminster Town Hall.
Saturday also brings the latest in Birmingham Contemporary Music Group's seemingly endless stream of stimulating programmes at the CBSO Centre, when Oliver Knussen conducts a programme of works by Mark-Anthony Turnage, Julian Anderson (his acclaimed Book of Hours and the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas, who died at the age of 40 in1940.
Finally, to complete this roundup previewing performances of British music around the region during the next few days, Wednesday sees the Orchestra of the Swan, based in Stratford and now resident at Birmingham Town Hall, visiting Redditch with a stimulating programme of comparative rarities conducted by OotS's principal conductor David Curtis.
The British element comes with yet more Britten, this time the incidental music he wrote in 1939 for JB Priestley's morality play Johnson over Jordan.
Opening with Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, the concert also includes Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto. Tasmin Little is the soloist, heralding an exciting relationship with the orchestra which is due to blossom next spring.
