Tony Cooper enjoys a quartet by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson & an absorbing orchestral programme highlighting Elizabeth Ogonek.

Sphinx Piano Quintet: Nathan Amaral, Elena Urioste, Celia Hatton, Sterling Elliott, Amiri Harewood – Aldeburgh Competition (Photograph: BPA)

Perkinson: String Quartet No.1 ‘Calvary’, Vaughan Williams: Rondo for Piano, Nonetheless: Suite for Cello and Piano, arr. Randall Goosby, Cassie Kinoshi: Songs of Kinship, Bridge: Phantasie Piano Quartet, Worth: Piano Quintet No.1; Sphinx Piano Quintet (Nathan Amaral, Elena Urioste, Celia Hatton, Sterling Elliott, Amiri Harewood); Britten Studio, Snape Maltings

Elizabeth Ogonek: All These Lighted Issues, Ravel: Piano Concerto in G, Ryan Wigglesworth: Piano Concerto, Ravel: La Valse; Steven Osborne, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Ryan Wigglesworth; Snape Maltings Live performance Corridor

Reviewed by Tony Cooper, 14 June 2026 

Within the afternoon on the Aldeburgh Competition, the primary quartet by black American composer, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, proved a revelation notably with its fusion of classical-based music tinged with the style of jazz and blues.  An absorbing and thrilling night programme got here from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra highlighting the music of American modern composer, Elizabeth Ogonek. 

I used to be greater than to study extra about 1932-born black American composer, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, who was on the invoice for the Sphinx Piano Quintet’s live performance on the Britten Studio, Snape Maltings. Particularly named in honour of the celebrated Afro-British composer, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) mirrored his dad and mom’ admiration for black excellence in classical music. 

He wrote a few string quartets in fast succession and his first quartet entitled ‘Calvary’ was the primary merchandise on a superb programme curated by the Sphinx Piano Quintet, a dynamic artist-driven chamber ensemble fashioned below the acclaimed Sphinx Group established in Detroit by Aaron P. Dworkin in 1996. A social justice and academic enterprise, Sphinx is devoted to remodeling lives by means of the facility of range within the arts with a particular mission to champion exceptionally proficient black and Latinx classical musicians. 

Each males have been trailblazers of their day bridging classical music with their respective black heritage. Samuel was a famend composer in late Nineteenth-century London whereas Perkinson was a highly-versatile American composer whose work, though based mostly on the classical idiom, additionally employed the style of jazz and blues. Subsequently, Perkinson’s first quartet, a three-movement work written in 1956, blends a conventional classical-based format with components of jazz, blues and spirituals.  

A poignant, deep and sorrowful tune ‘Calvary’ focuses on the Crucifixion and, due to this fact, is rooted within the expertise of enslaved Afro-People with the tune’s textual content utilizing biblical imagery of Golgotha as a parallel to human struggling in the end emphasizing endurance, religion and salvation. 

This enlightened and absorbing programme by Sphinx continued with a three-minute piece by Vaughan Williams (a uncommon outing, I ought to think about!) entitled Rondo for Piano from Suite of Six Brief Items, loosely styled after early 18th-century English Tudor and Baroque keyboard suites, effortlessly performed by London-based pianist of African descent, Amiri Harewood. 

And with William Grant Nonetheless’s Suite for Cello and Piano, black America was as soon as extra on the forefront of Sphinx’s live performance. A vibrant three-movement work, it’s impressed by the Harlem Renaissance sculptures organized by virtuoso violinist Randall Goosby for cello and piano who expanded its expressive and soulful colors whereas preserving the rhythm of the blues and melodies of the unique composition. 

Damaged into three distinct actions, every one takes its inspiration from a particular sculpture created within the Thirties. Within the first motion ‘African Dancer’ (based mostly on Richmond Barthé’s sculpture) a robust unified opening declamation, tinged with swinging, bluesy, dance-like rhythms, was energetically performed at fast pace by Sterling Elliot, a dynamic cellist who, with Amiri Harewood on piano, really captured the rawness and essence of the composer’s writing. 

The second motion ‘Mom and Youngster’ (based mostly on Sargent Johnson’s sculpture) a young, soulful and lyrical motion, evoked a sense of reverence and heat which slowly gave option to the final motion ‘Gamin’ (based mostly on Augusta Savage’s sculpture) summing up a playful, animated and cheeky character capturing the buoyant spirit of city youth. 

Former pupil of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, Cassie Kinoshi, supplied a few brief items scored for piano quintet to this all-inspiring live performance by Sphinx with ‘stillness’ and ‘two meditations’, receiving their world première. The essence of each works witnessed performers respiration and improvising by means of a sequence of chord progressions with sound, breath and slowness being central to the quietness and the evolution of the piece. 

The second half comprised a few well-loved repertoire works – Frank Bridge’s Phantasie Piano Quartet and Florence Worth’s Piano Quintet No.1 – which really confirmed off the exact, detailed and glorious enjoying by members of the Sphinx Piano Quintet – Nathan Amaral violin, Elena Urioste violin, Celia Hatton viola, Sterling Elliott cello and Amiri Harewood piano. Please take a bow!

Steven Osborne, Ryan Wigglesworth, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra – Aldeburgh Competition (Photograph: Angus Prepare dinner, © BPA)

The night’s present was given over to the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra below Ryan Wigglesworth basking in radiant glory following large success in a few semi-staged performances of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande at Snape Maltings directed by Rory Kinnear [see Tony’s review]. 

The live performance opened in a burst of orchestral color with Elizabeth Ogonek’s All These Lighted Issues commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Subtitled ‘Three Brief Dances for Orchestra’, the identify comes from a line by poet/thinker, Thomas Merton, expressing the reduction one feels after the darkness of evening fades and the dawn re-emerges and re-invigorates the world with this considerate and well-perceived work portrayed by means of three contrasting actions totalling slightly below quarter-hour. 

A unbelievable and energetic piece, the primary motion is exuberant, shiny and playful providing a kaleidoscope of textures and tempi whereas constructing a three-dimensional and unbelievable thrilling sound world witnessing the superb gamers of BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra below Ryan Wigglesworth participating in a cacophony of sound propelling energy, magnitude and energy. 

A considerably distorted ambiance lies on the coronary heart of the second motion witnessing the chief of the orchestra carving elegant curves throughout a cavernous vibrating bassline whereas the meditative nature of the motion by no means turns into boring or turgid however gently flows to the final bar whereas the ultimate motion opens with the likes of fairies and wood-sprites, dutifully closing with clumsy and ungainly spirits with heavier footprints.  

However there have been many references to the primary motion not least by the glowing and imaginative percussion staff knocking on the door with every part that they had at hand whereas screaming strings and raging woodwind structured an unlimited musical canvas that made this extremely thrilling and satisfying work tick higher than a grandfather’s clock! For certain, a blazing begin to a blazing live performance with Maestro Wigglesworth utterly unfussed however completely in charge of an orchestral rating seemingly uncontrolled created by Ogonek’s thrilling piece of writing. 

And when the celebrated Scottish pianist, Steven Osborne, appeared on Snape Maltings immortal stage to play Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G, he obtained a hero’s welcome. A superb, light-hearted, three-movement work, Ravel was influenced in its writing by the style of jazz in addition to Basque people music. 

A shock opening comes with a crack of a whip and the work launches right into a set of quick jazz-infused rhythms that set the Snape Maltings alight whereas the gradual second motion centres round a breathtakingly lengthy unbroken piano solo melody earlier than the work ends in a quick, virtuosic and bustling dash to the end line revisiting the energetic rhythms of the primary motion that greater than delighted a packed home and by the seems of his facial features delighted Steven Osborne, too. 

After the break, Osborne (a featured artist at this 12 months’s competition) was again on stage. This time as soloist in Ryan Wigglesworth’s four-movement Piano Concerto relationship from 2019 collectively commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.  

Scored for a full orchestra, the solo piano half is neither bravura nor notably virtuosic and all of the 4 actions are research in character. The opening bars slowly awaken into an intriguing sound world with the piece then revisiting musical historical past with piano and orchestra participating in a quizzical and generally combative dialog on topics similar to folksong, chorales and gigues. 

As an illustration, the primary motion includes a brief, intimate chorale-like piece; the ‘second’, fast-paced with a delicate central trio; the ‘third’, set to variations on a Polish people melody whereas the final motion provides a energetic dance-like finale that encompasses a battle between the piano and orchestra ending in an explosive cadenza during which Osborne took all in his stride. 

Subsequently, if Osborne’s versatile and responsive model was excellent for the Ravel concerto, it was most definitely excellent for Wigglesworth’s Piano Concerto, too. I discovered myself completely absorbed into the piece proper from the beginning with the opening bars commanded and led by woodwind (flutes on the fore) ushering within the pianist enjoying a variety of sporadic and particular person notes earlier than brass and strings take over participating in a satisfying, vibrant and orchestral sound that stamped the credentials of Ryan Wigglesworth not simply being a conductor and a musical servant however a composer of benefit and one to be reckoned with. 

A exceptional performer, Osborne handled the viewers to a jazz-influenced encore earlier than ‘marching’ off stage perhaps going for a cool pint of Adnams on the ‘native’ – the Plough & Sail. Exhibiting his dexterity as a pianist, Osborne carried out a solo jazz gig in a late-night present on the Pump Home – a Fringe occasion that offered out as quick as a pair of silver darlings (herrings) on an ice-cold slab! 

Serving as a truck-driver on the Verdun entrance throughout World Conflict I, Maurice Ravel has the final phrase, although, with Wigglesworth and his ‘Scottish surprise band’ present in full flight delivering a rewarding and polished account of the composer’s sleek and considerate work La Valse which praises the legendary waltz from elegant beginnings to an more and more wild finish.  

The only-movement work creates and builds right into a darkish misty ambiance steadily breaking right into a grand and plush Viennese waltz and because the music progresses grows and grows swirling everywhere in the present whereas devolving right into a dissonant chaos and a screeching metallic destruction discovered within the conventional waltz signifying and extremely suggesting the destruction of Nineteenth-century society following the chaos and influence of the Nice Conflict. 

In actual fact, the sheer scale of the destruction completely altered the cultural, technological and political material of the twentieth century reshaping international society by dissolving 4 huge multi-ethnic empires: German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires with the British empire following of their wake. The ending of the battle additionally established fashionable worldwide relations and accelerated sweeping home modifications similar to expanded labour reforms and voting rights for girls. Give it a whirl, women: ‘Shout, shout, up together with your tune / Cry with the wind for the daybreak is breaking / March, march, swing you alongside / Huge blows our banner and hope is waking.’ Amen!