In an industry shaped and dominated by men, their music was sidelined, their careers stifled, and their names overcast by male counterparts.

With this concert, we’re here to amplify the work of women who composed despite the gatekeeping and patriarchal hurdles. These works are not “forgotten gems”, they are acts of resistance and of creative expression, and they will be heard with the volume and visibility they deserve at the RNCM in 2026. What makes this concert even more special is that our soloists, Alexandra Dariescu, Alex Mitchell, and Rachel Clegg, are all Alumni of RNCM.

There will be a pre-concert talk by Leah Broad at 2.15pm, winner of the 2024 RPS Award for her acclaimed book Quartet, which explores how four women changed the musical world, including Doreen Carwithen, whose work we will be performing during this concert.

At the centre of our program is Doreen Carwithen, a pioneering British composer who made her mark as a film composer in the 1940s and ’50s, a time when few women were even allowed in the room. Her Piano Concerto is bold, cinematic, and uncompromising- a declaration of musical power. She was married to composer William Alwyn, whose work we will also be referencing in this concert.

We will perform Carwithen’s work with trailblazing pianist Alexandra Dariescu, our collaborator and friend, who joined us onstage at the Enescu Festival in Romania a few years back. She is a fearless original voice in the international piano scene, making her a perfect collaborator for this work.

Another composer we will be highlighting, amongst others, is Morfydd Owen, who was considered a prodigy from a young age. At the age of four, she played the piano on her own accord, and at six, she began composing. She became one of the most versatile musicians that Wales has ever produced as a composer, singer, pianist and ethnomusicologist, until she married the Freudian psycho-analyst, Ernest Jones. He did not approve of his wife performing in public, so her diary soon dwindled. She served as her husband’s secretary and proofreader until her mysterious death at the age of 26. 

We will be performing her beautiful piece, Beatific Sea.

Our Principal Viola, Alex Mitchell, will be performing Ruth Gipps’ Jane Grey’s Fantasy for Viola and String Orchestra, which is inspired by the short and tragic life of Lady Jane Grey. She was Queen of England for just nine days before being overthrown and executed. This music follows her story, moving from peaceful and gentle moments to darker, more dramatic sections, before returning to a quiet, noble ending. The composer may have felt a connection with Jane Grey and this story, feeling inspired to compose a piece that reflects the hardships she endured as a woman.

(This concert is named after Carwithen’s first major breakthrough, an orchestral Concert Overture named ODTAA (One Damn Thing after Another), composed between 1945 and 1946.)

Programme

• Morfydd Owen Beatific Sea
• Ruth Gipps Jane Grey Fantasy for Viola and String Orchestra
• Elizabeth Maconchy Life Story
• William Alwyn Autumn Legend
• Interval
• Doreen Carwithen Piano Concerto

Performed by

• Conductor John Andrews
• Piano Alexandra Dariescu
• Viola Alex Mitchell
• Cor Anglais Rachael Clegg

This special lunchtime concert is performed by our Camerata 360° Ruth Sutton Fellows. Our ABO award-winning Camerata 360° RUth Sutton Programme is built upon decades of excellence and diverse experience to train the next generation of musicians. We believe in the power of music to change people’s lives, and our fellowship programme gives musicians experience across all aspects of our work and its impact. You can get to know our Fellows here.

Tickets are £10, and concessions are £3 (Under 30s, Students, and Gorton Residents)

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Programme

• Sally Beamish The Flittin’
• Emmy Wegener Suite for String Trio
• Mozart Clarinet Quintet in A Major

Performed by

• Orla McGarrity Violin
• Caterina Bordon Violin
• Rebecca Stubbs Viola
• Nathan Jackson-Turner Cello
• Ben Pinto Clarinet

With over 3 million streams on Spotify, European tours, 5-Star reviews, as well as being made Classic FM’s record of the week numerous times, Mozart and Manchester Camerata are a bit of a ‘thing’ at this point.

Most definitely, it is down to the amazing chemistry we have with our Music Director, Gábor Takács-Nagy. The drama, joy and emotion that Gábor and our musicians get out of Mozart is simply electric – If you haven’t witnessed this first-hand yet, now is your chance.

For this edition, we perform Mozart’s Arias with one of the most exciting sopranos around. Ying Fang is a principal soprano at the Metropolitan Opera, with The New York Times praising her as  “indispensable at the Met in Mozart”.

The Financial Times has also described her as “a voice that can stop time, pure and rich and open and consummately expressive”.

This concert marks the launch of our next phase of Mozart, Made in Manchester. Over the next three years, we will be performing all of Mozart’s last symphonies, as well as recording some of his Concert Arias with Ying Fang. Much like Mozart’s Piano Concertos, these pieces match the theatre and dramatic energy that our music director, Gabor, embodies.

Don’t miss what is set to be a breathtaking rendition of some of Mozart’s greatest works.

Programme

• Mozart Symphony No. 36 ‘Linz’
• Mozart Symphony No. 40 
• Mozart ‘Al desio, di chi t’adora’
• Mozart ‘Misera, dove son?’

Performed by

• Conductor Gábor Takács-Nagy
• Soprano Ying Fang

Following our ambitious (and ongoing) Mozart, Made in Manchester project – performing and recording all of his piano concertos, we continued our journey with his horn concertos alongside Martin Owen. Soon, we turn to his Concert Arias. But first, enjoy this taster menu of Mozart and his impact on the works of Fanny Mendelssohn and Beethoven. 

At the age of 19, Mozart’s greatest accomplishment was his repertoire of five concertos for violin and orchestra, written in 1775. This was his most prolific year writing for this instrument, resulting in him never writing for the violin again. We will be performing one of these masterpieces – Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 – with our Leader, Caroline Pether, as soloist.

For this concert, we are returning to the RNCM with our Music Director, Gábor Takács-Nagy. If you’ve joined us for previous Mozart performances, you’ll know that no one channels his spirit and energy quite like Gábor.

This programme also shines a light on Fanny Mendelssohn, a remarkable composer of the early 19th century, whose music was shaped by Mozart’s influence. Like her brother Felix, she was taught by a student of Mozart. Though her talent matched her brother’s, her musical aspirations were controlled by societal expectations. At 14, her father wrote to her: “Music will perhaps become his [Felix] profession, whilst for you it can and must only be an ornament, never the root of your being and doing”.

We’ll perform her Overture in C Major, her only orchestral work, which was unpublished in her lifetime.

We will also be performing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2. Deeply inspired by Mozart, Beethoven studied his music meticulously and even hoped to study with him. This symphony, composed in 1802 as Beethoven began to confront his hearing loss, is a powerful work that brims with energy and optimism, despite being written during one of the darkest times in his life.

As Mozart’s legacy echoes these works, so too does it come to life on stage, with RNCM musicians performing side-by-side with Manchester Camerata, learning and growing alongside the very artists who inspire them.

Don’t miss this celebration of Mozart and his boundless influence.

Programme

• Fanny Mendelssohn Overture in C Major
• Mozart Violin Concerto No. 3
• Beethoven Symphony No.2

Performed by

• Conductor Gábor Takács-Nagy
• Violin Caroline Pether
• Professional Experience Scheme (PES) students from RNCM
• Manchester Camerata

‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Join us in the beautiful setting of Gorton Monastery for an afternoon that evokes an emotional journey of grief, beauty, and loving and losing. 

Lost Beauty is a continuous journey through music inspired by love and loss, from Shostakovich’s moving tribute to a lost friend to Strauss’s heart-stopping Metamorphosen, written as a farewell to a world changed forever during the darkest days of World War II. Along the way, Dvořák’s Nocturno and Erkki-Sven Tüür’s powerful Action–Passion–Illusion lead us through moments of tenderness, turbulence and hope.

The concert flows without applause, creating space for the music and the silence between it to speak. A short reading from Tennyson’s In Memoriam A.H.H. opens the performance, which was written over the course of sixteen years, and records the grief that Tennyson felt in response to the sudden death of his close friend, Arthur Henry Hallam.

Set against the calm, breathtaking beauty of The Monastery, Lost Beauty is both performance and contemplation, an invitation to pause, listen and feel.

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Programme

• Shostakovich Two Pieces for String Octet, Op. 11: No1. Prelude.
• Dvorak String Quintet in G major, Op. 77, B.49: II. Intermezzo/Nocturno Op. 18 
• Tüür ‘Action-Passion-Illusion’: I. Action
• Tüür ‘Action-Passion-Illusion’: II. Passion
• Strauss Metamorphosen TrV290 (Septet version) 
• Lennon/McCartney arr. Marmen Blackbird

Performed by

• Caroline Pether Director
• Manchester Camerata
• Professional Experience Scheme (PES) students from RNCM

Widely regarded as one of the best Christmas events for the whole family in Manchester, this performance will take you on a musical journey that celebrates the true spirit of Christmas, an event that everyone will love.

‘Warm your soul at this Christmas carol concert with a gospel twist’ —Manchester Evening News

Check out our videos below to get a taster of what to expect at Festive Happening..

This year, we’re also bringing Festive Happening to the Town Hall in Birmingham.

Programme

• A feast of festive gospel favourites

Performed By

• AMC Gospel Choir
• Choir Director Audrey Mattis
• Arrangements Tim Crooks
• Manchester Camerata

Tickets for Birmingham | Town Hall | 13 Dec >

Manchester | Albert Hall | 14 Dec >

Doors for Manchester 2pm, show starts promptly at 3pm.

Handel’s Messiah is a masterpiece and a national treasure- a staple of our Christmas tradition.

Before writing this piece, Handel was broke and on a cold streak. He made the comeback of the century, writing Messiah in just 24 days, turning his career around completely.

We are joining forces with Laurence Cummings for this performance. He is the Music Director of The Academy of Ancient Music, and ranks as one of Handel’s best advocates in the world, matching the Composer’s energy and invention in his interpretations.

Once again, we perform with our artistic partner, Kantos Chamber Choir, whose mesmerising, transcendent voices complement the heavenly tones of our Camerata orchestra.

All of this takes place in the stunning setting of The Great Nave in our home, The Monastery, Manchester.

Band A SOLD OUT >

Band B SOLD OUT >

Band C SOLD OUT >

Band D >

Programme

• Handel Messiah

Performed By

• Director/Harpsichord Laurence Cummings
• Soprano Georgie Malcolm
• Countertenor Dominic Mattos
• Tenor Guy Elliott
• Bass Stuart O’Hara
• Kantos Chamber Choir
• Manchester Camerata

As well as performing a solo piano piece, Ethan joins our wind players in Mozart’s Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat major, K.452, a work Mozart himself called “the best thing I have written in my life”.

This piece gives every instrument a chance to shine, with piano, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon sharing the spotlight equally. At the end of the piece, Mozart replaces the usual single-instrument cadenza with one that involves all five musicians, highlighting the collective rather than the individual. First performed in 1784 with Mozart at the piano, the Quintet still feels fresh today, spirited, inventive, and full of life.

He will also lead our wind players in a rare improvisation, an opportunity to hear something entirely unique created in the moment.

Programme

• Ethan Loch Sounds of the Sea
• 2nd movement: Family of Fishes
• 3rd movement: the Coral Reef
• Improvisation on a theme of Mozart
• Mozart Piano Quintet

Performed by

• Ethan Loch Piano
• Rachael Clegg Oboe
• Kath Lacey Clarinet
• Ben Hudson Bassoon
• Naomi Atherton Horn

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In one of our most ambitious concerts this season, we present the world premiere of a new composition by Laurence Osborn, alongside Mozart’s Divertimento in D and Mozart’s Symphony No. 35 ‘Haffner’. ‘Haffner’ will be performed from memory with our players telling stories through movement and dance alongside Company Chameleon, a world-renowned dance company based in Manchester, whose work has been described as “a brilliant and moving piece of social commentary in the medium of dance”.

The French horn has long been associated with heroism, and, by extension, its connection to various forms of violence. This is the inspiration behind RPS award-winning composer Laurence Osborn’s newest Horn Concerto.

Laurence’s piece has been written especially for horn player Ben Goldscheider, international soloist and BBC Young Musician 2016 Finalist. The Horn Concerto was commissioned by Trinity College Cambridge, where Laurence is Fellow Commoner in the Creative Arts.

Here is what Laurence has to say about the work:

“I’ve been wanting to write [this piece] for the last five years, since first meeting Ben Goldscheider back in 2020, and I’ve always known how the first movement was going to start – as a kind of musical knot, made of different military marches at different speeds, which gradually unravels and falls apart.

The second movement is a retelling of the woodland scene in Siegfried, in which the eponymous hero is devoured by a flock of birds before his horn calls can wake the dragon.

The third movement imagines another mononymous hero — Elvis [Presley] — recording the soundtrack Blue Hawaii in the early sixties, while high-altitude nuclear tests are detonated over the Pacific Ocean”..

Our ongoing collaboration with Company Chameleon explores how physicality and musical interpretation can merge into one. In this performance, Mozart’s Haffner Symphony becomes a living, breathing story—performed not just as music, but as motion and collective expression, giving new life to a work premiered in 1783.

Ambitious, bold and risk-taking – get inspired with this unmissable concert.

Manchester Camerata and Company Chameleon are proud to be collaborating with MA Dance students and BA Costume Design from the University of Salford on this performance.

Programme

• Mozart Divertimento in D
• Laurence Osborn Horn Concerto (World Premiere)
• Mozart Symphony No. 35 ‘Haffner’

Performed by

• Karel Deseure Conductor
• Ben Goldscheider Horn
• Manchester Camerata
• Company Chameleon
• University of Salford MA Dance students 

In Ravel’s ‘Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé’, a delicate, ethereal song is woven from the words of the Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé. Stravinsky’s ‘Three Japanese Lyrics’ is a musical haiku, written just before The Rite of Spring. Delage’s ‘Quatre poèmes hindous’ (Four Hindu Poems) is one of the first Western classical works inspired by Indian culture, filtered through a French, impressionistic lens. Together, these works form a tapestry that is drawn together by our friend and long-term collaborator, Jack Sheen.

Manchester-born and based conductor and composer Jack Sheen is among the most exciting individuals in contemporary classical music. His work has taken him from the Royal Opera House to the Venice Biennale, and includes co-directing the ‘vastly ambitious and massively popular’ (The Daily Telegraph) London Contemporary Music Festival. Camerata has known Jack for many years, first commissioning him back in 2015 to write for us. We are delighted to be working with Jack again.

Alongside Stravinsky, Delage & Ravel, Jack has chosen two other pieces for our concert, both receiving their UK premières. His own work, Hollow propranolol séance (II) stretches out panels of sound, each one attempting to conjure – however fleetingly or ambiguously – some kind of presence out of the fragile whirring that we hear in our empty rooms. A heart-rate slowing hum.

Isabella Gellis‘ I wish I could speak to you is a setting of part of “Mouths Dry with Hatred” by Romanian poet Dan Sociu. A pure soprano line floats amongst a cascading scalic wash in a shimmering, quietly aching dreamlike stasis.

Joining us for this concert is Soprano Eleonore Cockerham. She began performing internationally as a soloist from the age of 12, studying at the Royal Northern College of Music and going on to tour across the globe as a member of VOCES8. Based in Manchester, she regularly tours across the UK and the USA, and can be seen performing with our Artistic Partner, Kantos Chamber Choir. You may have heard her as a soprano soloist on the soundtrack to the feature film ‘The Last Duel’, and in season 4 of the Netflix series, ‘The Crown’. 

Together, these works invite us to linger in moments of delicate beauty and cultural refraction — whispers and glimpses that transcend time and place. 

Our Manchester performance is free, no ticket required. For more information on the venue, please click the links below.

Programme

• Igor Stravinsky Three Japanese lyrics
• Isabella Gellis I wish I could speak to you
• Maurice Delage Quatre poèmes hindous
• Jack Sheen Hollow propranolol séance (II)
• Maurice Ravel 3 Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé

Performed by

• Jack Sheen Conductor
• Eleonore Cockerham Soprano
• Manchester Camerata

Manchester | Martin Harris Centre – University of Manchester | 16 October, 1.10pm >

London | Wigmore Hall | 18 October, 1pm >