Events
Please find below a selection of concerts around the country, and sometimes beyond, featuring woodwind instruments. If you have a concert that you think might be relevant for listing on our page, please ‘Get in Touch’ with the details and a link to the booking page.
Emmanuel Pahud and the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
April 30th 2025 at 19:30
Ravel – Le Tombeau de Couperin
Ibert – Flute Concerto
Debussy – Jeux
Debussy – La Mer
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Emmanuel Pahud – flute
János Kovács – conductor
Ravel, Ibert, Debussy – János Kovács will be conducting works by all three of these great French composers at the helm of the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. The soloist for the evening is Swiss flautist Emmanuel Pahud, an established star of the international music scene. His concerts in Hungary always draw great interest. As a soloist, chamber musician and orchestra member, he ranks among the very top players of his instrument. One of the gems of his repertoire is Jacques Ibert’s Flute Concerto, which he also recorded two decades ago.
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Nielsen Flute Concerto – Ting-Wei Chen
08/05/2025 7:00 pm
Oslo Concert Hall, Munkedamsveien 14, 0115 Oslo, Norway
Nielsen Flute Concerto – Ting-Wei Chen
May 8th 2025 at 19:00
Richard Strauss – Till Eulenspiegel
Carl Nielsen – Flute Concerto
Tchaikovsky – Sleeping Beauty: Suite
Oslo Philharmonic
Ting-Wei Chen – flute
Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider – conductor
Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider conducts music based on legends and fairytales: Richard Strauss’ tone poem Till Eulenspiegel and Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty Suite. Ting-Wei Chen is the soloist in Carl Nielsen’s Flute Concerto.
According to legend, the charming swindler and prankster Till Eulenspiegel lived in the 14th century and is the hero of almost a hundred folk tales. In the tone poem Till Eulenspiegel from 1896, Richard Strauss (1864-1949) cheerfully portrays him with horn and clarinet.
Till Eulenspiegel is one of Strauss’ most humorous works, as full of inventions and surprises as the main character. Till dresses up, flirts with the ladies and makes fun of the scholars before he is put on trial and sentenced to death. The ending is ambiguous – does he manage to escape?
In 1921, Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) was captivated by a concert with the Copenhagen Wind Quintet. He knew the musicians, and wrote a piece for the quiet in which each one is described with music. He wanted to write one solo concerto for each – he managed two and started with the flutist.
“Eventually, the orchestral movement also becomes fuller and more moving, but this does not last long, because the flute cannot deny its nature (…) the composer must therefore adapt to its gentle nature,” Nielsen wrote about the Flute Concerto from 1926, a gentle and cheerful work in which there is a storm in between.
“The music from this ballet will become one of my best works. The subject is so poetic, so well suited to music, that I was entirely engrossed in composing it, and wrote with an ardor and passion which always results,” wrote Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1841-1893) during the work with Sleeping Beauty.
With Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker, Tchaikovsky set a completely new standard for the ballet genre and greatly raised the status of ballet music. Sleeping Beauty premiered in 1890. The Sleeping Beauty Suite, composed after his death, features five orchestral excerpts from the ballet.
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Lumas Winds
May 12th 2025 at 20:00
Programme
Mikhail Glinka – Overture from Ruslan and Lyudmila arr. B Hartnell-Booth
Oliver Knussen – Three Little Fantasies Op.6A
Valerie Coleman – Afro-Cuban Concerto
Luciano Berio – Opus Number Zoo
Archie John – Fanfare: Branches of Joy
Gavin Higgins – After Fallout
Amy Beach Pastorale for Wind Quintet Op.151
Endre Szervánszky Wind Quintet No.1
Lalo Schifrin La Nouvelle Orleans
Lumas Winds
Beth Stone – flute
Christopher Vettraino – oboe
Rennie Sutherland – clarinet
Florence Plane – bassoon
Benjamin Hartnell-Booth – horn
In this programme, Lumas Winds present the wind quintet in a kaleidoscopic light with music crossing various styles and forms. Works linked by narration and poetry; the exploration of Hungarian folk tunes; jazz from New Orleans; the landscape of New Hampshire; and Afro-Cuban rhythms. Featuring recent works by Gavin Higgins, Valerie Coleman and Archie John.
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Beethoven, Fauré and Dutilleux
01/06/2025 9:45 am
Greniers Saint-Jean, Pl. du Tertre Saint-Laurent, 49000 Angers, France
Beethoven, Fauré and Dutilleux
June 1st 2025 at 09:45 – 10:45
An exceptional instrumental ensemble, the flute, bassoon, and piano trio offers a unique sonic richness with the ability to explore a wide range of musical styles. Taking pride of place in this concert: Beethoven’s Trio for Flute, Bassoon, and Piano, one of the most important works for this ensemble! Composed at the age of just 15, it demonstrates the composer’s freedom in his search for himself and the immense field of experimentation he opened up. Thus, from Schubert’s Impromptu to Dutilleux’s wartime work, reliable repertoire values and rarer pieces intertwine and respond to Beethoven’s masterpiece. Gaëlle Habert and Gilles Bréda, both musicians of the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, with the help of pianist Lise Khatib, offer us a captivating and unforgettable musical experience here, in trio, duo, or solo.
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Takemitsu’s I Hear Water Dreaming – Marie-Christine Zupancic
04/06/2025 7:30 pm
Symphony Hall, Birmingham, Broad St, Birmingham B1 2EA
Takemitsu’s I Hear Water Dreaming – Marie-Christine Zupancic
June 4th 2025 at 19:30
Berlioz, Le Corsaire Overture
Takemitsu, I Hear Water Dreaming
Respighi, Fountains of Rome
Saint-Saëns, Symphony No.3 (Organ)
Kazuki Yamada – Conductor
Sebastian Heindl – Organ
Marie-Christine Zupancic – Flute
Berlioz dreams of pirates, Takemitsu of water and Respighi of fountains: three brilliant landscapes inspired by poems, paintings and Rome. Saint-Saëns is simply epic in his ‘Organ’ Symphony, its big moment provided by “miracle musician” Sebastian Heindl. The CBSO’s Marie-Christine Zupancic delights in the Takemitsu with its stunning solo for flute.
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The African Concert Series – Tunde Jegede
19/07/2025 11:30 am
Wigmore Hall, 36 Wigmore St, London W1U 2BP
The African Concert Series
Music by Tunde Jegede
July 19th 2025 at 11:30
Programme
Still Moment
Layline Ripples
Reflections/By The Will
Shuna
Moon Waters
All Our Yesterdays
Songs of the Eternal
3 Mandé Songs
The Elements
Tunde Jegede – kora
Jan Hendrickse – flute
Vincent Ademola Haastrup – violin
Deep knowledge of western classical composition and the timeless oral tradition rooted in Malian culture have nourished the music of composer, producer, cellist and kora virtuoso Tunde Jegede. Having journeyed from his native London to Gambia during childhood, he absorbed the ancient griot tradition of West Africa and continues to develop its legacy in compositions that speak to the heart.
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Lowell Liebermann’s Flute Concerto No 2 – Gareth Davies
26/03/2026 7:00 pm
Barbican Centre, Silk St, City of London, London EC2Y 8DS
Lowell Liebermann Flute Concerto No 2 – Gareth Davies
March 26th 2026 at 19:30
Bernstein – Symphonic Dances from ‘West Side Story’
Lowell Liebermann – Flute Concerto No 2 (European premiere)
Dvořák – Symphony No 9, ‘From the New World’
London Symphony Orchestra
Anja Bihlmaier – conductor
Gareth Davies – Flute
An American dream: Dvořák’s ode to the US and Bernstein’s gritty portrait of New York frame a new concerto.
The Symphonic Dances from West Side Story are Bernstein’s own exhilarating whistle-stop tour through his greatest musical, with every great moment given a dazzling orchestral make-over with moments of heart-stopping beauty.
We turn next to New York-born composer Lowell Liebermann, whose 2023 Flute Concerto No 2 has been lauded for its tunefulness and fizzing energy, and finally Dvořák and his epic hymn to the vast and infinite beauty of rural America.
Gareth Davies, the LSO’s Principal Flute, takes to the stage for Liebermann’s concerto, all conducted by one of today’s most dynamic and engaging conductors, Anja Bihlmaier.
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