November 2019: Unusual Classical Music Events
The UK has a wealth of classical music events hosted in informal venues with innovative and relaxed approaches to programming. This month’s treasure trove contains a performance in a hidden concert venue aboard a ship, a street art opera, an augmented reality experience… AND MORE! We post about even more events on social media so follow @alterclassical on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter for more good stuff.
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2, 3 & 7 November, 9pm - 10.45pm, £5
The Rose Hill, Brighton
There are three nights in Brighton when you can go to the pub and hear early classical music. On Saturday there are four short sets from up-and-coming early music groups and on Sunday a jazz trio improvises on famous baroque ground basses. Take your instruments to the Thursday session to join in a live jam on a popular renaissance tune. Also on during the festival is Hildegard Transfigured, a medieval trance for the 21st century with 3D lighting visuals, and the Art of Moog: ‘21st-century hyper-Bach on synthesizers’!
31 October - 10 November, pay what you decide
Various venues, Glasgow
A city-wide experimental festival showcasing all sorts of art and music. In numbers, it’s four world premieres, 13 UK premieres and seven Scottish premieres. If you’ve got time for one thing, make it He Did What?, which mashes street art with opera. Taking opera out on the streets, the story is played out as wall projections in public spaces, while the soundtrack plays through wireless headphones. Our installation pick is Yuri Suzuki’s Furniture Music, inspired by Eric Satie and Brian Eno, which seeks to turn noises that we consider disruptive or distracting into more pleasurable sounds.
Sunday 10 November, 8pm, £15
Cutty Sark, Greenwich
Go below deck on the Cutty Sark to find yourself in a hidden concert space (shh!). The historic ship hosts a series of Lates, including comedy, theatre and music, featuring the BBC Singers with new arrangements for choir, including a choral version of The Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams (which remains pretty constantly at No. 1 in the Classic FM charts) and a reimagining of Byrd’s Ave Verum Corpus by Roderick Williams. Also on in November is DEBUT, with three informal half-hour sets of classical, opera and Broadway tunes.
15-24 November
Various venues, Huddersfield
Over 50 experimental music events for curious ears hosted in an eclectic mix of venues, including a vast industrial mill, churches and bars. Look out for the ice cello which melts as it plays!
9 October - 3 November, 10am & 12pm, free
Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff
Welsh National Opera invites families to ‘follow the vixen’ in an augmented reality experience. A human scale tunnel installation transports you into a pop-up-book-style world where you can be inspired by Janáček’s music and themes around the cycle of life and nature. The music comes from Czech opera, The Cunning Little Vixen, written in the 1920s. Heads up there’s a Snapchat filter 😍
#WNOfollowthevixen
Saturday 2 November, 9.15pm, £9.50
Kings Place, King’s Cross
Lie down on cushions among the musicians in this cosy concert performed in darkness. Aurora Orchestra offers a spellbinding and immersive encounter with the world of European folk music, as heard through the classical lens of 20th-century composers including Bartók, Kodály and Schulhoff. Bar open throughout.
Friday 8 November, 6pm - 2am, £65
Southbank Centre, Waterloo
Southbank Centre hosts the worldwide exclusive of OPIA, the new project from BAFTA-award winning Icelandic composer and producer Ólafur Arnalds. Every hall, nook and cranny will be filled with performances from creative musicians performing across genres, including Poppy Ackroyd, Kiasmos, Grandbrothers and Hania Rani. Festival-style wristbands allow you to move in and out of each space freely.
Wednesday 20 November, 7.30pm, £20 (£5 <25s)
Southwark Cathedral, London Bridge
Roam around the cathedral next to Borough Market to a soundtrack of Benjamin Britten and readings by T.S. Eliot in this collaboration between Faber & Faber and the City of London Sinfonia, celebrating the 90th anniversary of the publisher with whom both Britten and Eliot were linked. There will be cushions! You may want to bring a blanket…
21-30 November, 8pm, £8-£20 (cheaper for <30s)
Nottingham, Liverpool, Manchester, London, Leeds, Salford
Performing in clubs, arts centres and town halls around the country, it’s Manchester Collective with an unholy mashup of Ligeti’s Métamorphosen Nocturnes and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and an elegy for Europe, written by an old, dying man during the last months of the Second World War (Metamorphosen by Richard Strauss).
2-3 November, £20-£25
Southbank Centre, Waterloo
A weekend dedicated to dark ambient meditative listening and deep concentration. Slow down time and lose your thoughts in the swell of 16 layered cellos from London Contemporary Orchestra in John Luther Adams’ Canticles of the Sky, and a vast solo piano piece lasting over an hour (Triadic Memories) described by the composer Morton Feldman as the ‘biggest butterfly in captivity’.
Sunday 17 November, 6pm - 10pm, £8
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
The Royal Opera House team lets their wigs down at this after-hours party. There’s something for everyone to watch, make or do at this event filled with music, dance and crafting, plus it’s a gorgeous space to explore, just a couple of minutes’ walk from Covent Garden Tube.
Wednesday 13 November, 7.30pm - 11pm, £13.50
Chats Palace, Homerton
Shards is a new experimental vocal group that aims to bring original choral music to the gig stage, performing as a band. They meld 12 voices, synths and percussion into radical shapes and it’s definitely worth a listen – try their debut album, Find Sound, which was just released in August 2019 on Erased Tapes. Looking forward to hearing more from this band!
Wednesday 13 November, 8pm - 9.30pm, £8-£12
CLF Art Café, Peckham
SOLO showcases unusual works for – you guessed it – solo instruments. For the first time it’s heading to a trendy spot in Peckham, where you’ll find all manner of percussion goodies including a 9ft tall aluminium harp (pictured), ready for the magic hands of Joby Burgess, who has performed on major film scores like Black Panther and Ex Machina, and has collaborated with everyone from Will Gregory (Goldfrapp) to Max Richter. You’ll hear a new gong bath piece written by Alex Groves plus DJ sets, and the bar is open ‘til late.
3, 10, 24 November, 2pm, £12
Boulevard Theatre, Leicester Square
Soho’s newest playhouse showcases exciting and inventive names in classical music in their Sunday afternoon slot. In November you can see the Iyatra Quartet (pictured), who bring a jazz-like approach to classical music, building soundscapes in jam sessions; The Hermes Experiment, a bold quartet presenting groundbreaking music; and Kumori Saxophone Quartet with new arrangements for sax quartet. You can grab food and drink there but it’s a cashless venue.
Thursday 21 November, 8pm - 11pm, £10 (£6 students)
Iklectik, Lambeth North
This evening gives women, non-binary and queer artists a vital space to explore themes surrounding identity, gender and ‘the gaze’. Nonclassical blurs and challenges the notion of a one-directional concert experience, with a collision of music, installations and video in their signature informal style. This performance contains nudity!
Saturday 23 November, 11am, £10-£20
London Coliseum, Charing Cross
A relaxed performance of one of the most famous and best-loved Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. You’re welcome to go in and out of the auditorium as you please and make noise during the show. If you need a break, there will be chill-out areas in the foyer. Perfect for adults and children who might benefit from a more relaxed environment, including those with sensory and communication disorders.
Saturday 2 November, 6.30pm, £15-£36 (£10 <25s)
Milton Court Concert Hall, Barbican
An evening of new music and discussion inspired by the life and work of Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer, performed by Britten Sinfonia. You will also get to hear music created using artificial intelligence, a fusion of human and machine creativity that would make Ada proud.
Hannah Fiddy is a creative entrepreneur, developing new audiences for classical music. She has created and promoted numerous concerts outside of traditional spaces, including warehouses, pubs, clubs, museums, hospitals, prisons and even in Primark. Hannah also hosts monthly drinks for the classical music industry and runs a choir in Stoke Newington. Her alter ego is the Founder of London Flashmob, producing quirky events from wedding proposals to cultural pranks for up to 1,000 people.
Follow Hannah on Twitter @Hannah_Fiddy.