One of the capital’s most wonderful buildings  The Guardian Concerts & events  calendar FEBRUARY Thursday 23rd February  7.30pm Brandenburg Spring Choral Festival Vivamus Rufus Frowde - conductor A Garland for the Queen Byrd: Mass for Five Voices Cornysh: Magnificat Tickets available through St Martin-in-the-Fields box office 020 7766 1100    www.smitf.org       ________________________________________________________________ Sunday 26th February  4.00pm Sunday Recital Series - Winter Season Karin Thyselius - soprano Melissa Brice - clarinet Michael Brownlee Walker - piano Rarely heard chamber works including Claude Debussy's  Ariettes oubliees and Premiere Rhapsody,  Louis Spohr's Sei still mein Herz and Schubert's Der Hirt auf dem Felsen.   Admission free - suggested donation £5      ________________________________________________________________ MARCH Sunday 4th March  4.00pm Sunday Recital Series - Winter Season A programme of Classical chamber music for winds and strings  W.A. Mozart -  Quartet in D major K.285 for flute, violin, viola and cello W.A. Mozart - Horn Quintet in E flat major K 407 L. v. Beethoven -  Serenade op. 25 for flute, violin and viola Members of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House perform a programme of classical chamber  works. Sarah Brooke - flute Huw Evans -horn Ailsa Hunter - violin Chris Goldscheider - viola Angela Bonetti - viola Naomi Williams - cello    Admission free - suggested donation £5      ________________________________________________________________ Friday 9th March  7.30pm University of London Chamber Choir - Spring Concert Purcell - Jehovah quam multi sunt hostes mei            Monteverdi - Beatus Vir                                                           Howells - Take him earth for cherishing Byrd - Laudibus in sanctis Harris - Faire is the heaven Sumsion - Magnificat and Nunc dimitis Bruckner - Locus iste                         Os Justi                         Christus factus est Tickets available on the door - Adults £9 / Students £4 For more information go to www.ulchamberchoir.co.uk      ________________________________________________________________ Saturday 10th March  7:30pm Songs for Japan: One year after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami  Performers: Saori Nakazawa with Max Pappenheim, Louisa Roberts Lynagh and Michael Dunnigan. Songs for Japan concert is to raise money for Project Next, an organisation based in Tono-city, Iwate. This area was one of the worst hit during the Great East Japan Earthquake and the devastating Tsunami that followed. Project Next provides support and aid to survivors through face-to-face contact by delivering food, supplies, and other necessities directly to those in need. The varied concert programme includes repertoire from traditional Japanese and English folk, pop, rock, opera and musical theatre with compositions by Puccini, J Strauss, The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel and Studio Ghibli. Admission by donation This concert is supported by: International House London www.ihlondon.com Project Next www.project-next.com/projectNext/English.html       ________________________________________________________________ Sunday 11th March  4.00pm Sunday Recital Series - Winter Season Akoka Quartet Olivier Messiaen - Quartet for the End of Time Sarah Masters (clarinet) Simeon Broom (violin) Victoria Simonsen (cello) Rachel Church (piano) Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war   against Germany. He was captured by the German army   during World War II in June 1940 and was imprisoned in   a prisoner-of-war camp. While in transit to the prisoner of   war camp, Messiaen showed the clarinetist Henri Akoka,   also a prisoner, the sketches for what would become one of   the movements of the quartet, Abîme des oiseaux.   Two other professional musicians were also among his fellow prisoners (violinist Jean le Boulaire  and cellist Étienne Pasquier), and after he managed to obtain some paper and a small pencil from a  sympathetic guard, Messiaen wrote a short trio for them; this piece developed into the Quartet for  the End of Time for the same trio with himself at the piano.  The quartet was premiered in Stalag VIII-A in Görlitz, Germany (currently Zgorzelec, Poland)  outside, in the rain, on January 15, 1941, with old, broken instruments, to an audience of about four  hundred fellow prisoners of war and prison guards. Messiaen later recalled of the occasion, "Never  was I listened to with such rapt attention and comprehension." The work has since become  recognised as one of the enduring masterpieces of 20th Century chamber music.  Admission free - suggested donation £5      ________________________________________________________________ Sunday 18th March  4.00pm Sunday Recital Series - Winter Season Chelys Viol Consort Ibi Aziz Jenny Bullock Alison Kinder Fathers of Musick Consorts by William Lawes, John Jenkins and Christopher Simpson, for two trebles and two basses. Chelys was established in 2007 and in the same year   successfully auditioned for the Brighton Early Music   Festival’s Young Artist Scheme, BrEMF Live! All of the members trained at Trinity College of  Music, London, and are now experienced and enthusiastic players and teachers.     Recent performances include Four Funerals and a Wedding (songs and instrumental works from  the Golden Age of consort music), verse anthems with Quattro Correnti chamber choir, and a three-  part programme for the Viola da Gamba Society.     The members of Chelys are active in the Early Music world, playing with leading ensembles such as  the Rose Consort of Viols, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Charivari Agreable. They  teach on courses around the UK and abroad, including the Benslow Trust, NORVIS, the Irish  Recorder and Viol Summer School and the Easter Early Music Course.  Admission free - suggested donation £5      ________________________________________________________________ Saturday 24th March  7.30pm London Gay Symphonic Winds Prom-Tastic! A Celebration of British Music LGSW will take you on a musical nostalgia trip via Folksongs, The Beatles, and Freddie Mercury and then round things off with the famous Fantasia on British Sea Songs, seen at the Royal Albert Hall every year. So bring your union jacks and get ready for a pink-hued slice of pomp and circumstance. Tickets are £5 in advance and can be purchased through our website lgsw.org.uk, or £7 at the door.       ________________________________________________________________ Sunday 25th March  4.00pm Sunday Recital Series - Winter Season Misa Yamamoto - piano Kaleidoscopic Debussy   Selections from Preludes Book 1 Des pas sur la neige Ce qu'a vu le vent d'Ouest Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir Les collines d’Anacapri Selections from Preludes Book 2 Feuilles mortes Ondine Élégie L’isle joyeuse Japanese-born pianist Misa Yamamoto has performed throughout Australia, where she spent her childhood and received her musical training. Misa was a finalist in the prestigious 2007 Symphony Australia Young Performers Awards, performing the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No.2 with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra under conductor Nicholas Braithwaite. Misa holds a Bachelor of Music in Performance with Honours from the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University (Australia), where she studied under Leah Horwitz. Misa was the recipient of the Conservatorium Medal and the University Medal as the highest achieving graduate in 2002. Misa’s academic interests led her to pursue a PhD in Performance from the Elder Conservatorium, University of Adelaide, where she held the Australian Postgraduate Award, researching Russian piano music of the 1920s. From 2003-2005, Misa was a full scholarship holder at the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne, where she received lessons and masterclasses with distinguished pianists and pedagogues including Geoffrey Tozer, Frank Wibaut, Max Olding, Piers Lane and John Perry. Misa is a passionate chamber musician and has collaborated with the Henschel Quartet, Alexander Baillie, Mats Lidström, Caroline Henbest, John Harding and Members of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. She has also appeared in chamber music concerts at the 2005 Melbourne International Arts Festival and her performances are regularly heard on the ABC Classic FM.  Misa is currently based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with her violinist husband Graeme Norris and many cats! Admission free - suggested donation £5       ________________________________________________________________ Friday 30th March 7.30pm Londinium Conductor: Andrew Griffiths Hidden Voices: the World of Johannes Brahms With the exception of the German Requiem, Brahms' choral music has never attained the renown of his beloved symphonies, concertos and chamber works.  Yet his choral writing is masterful, full of insight into his musical personality and his wide-ranging interests and influences.  Londinium explores this unfairly neglected body of music - including the exquisite, elusive Fünf Gesänge op.104 and the virtuosic Fest- und Gedenksprüche - alongside music from his personal library, by Gabrieli, Eccard, and Schütz, and works by Brahms' close friend Robert Schumann, and his contemporary Peter Cornelius.  Londinium will also give the first performance of a new work by Timothy Burke, Distanz und ein bestimmtes Licht (‘Distance and a Certain Light’), which was inspired by Fünf Gesänge and written especially for this concert. Further information: www.londinium-voices.org.uk Tickets: £10 (advance discount price) from http://www.londinium-voices.org.uk/tickets.html  until Tuesday 27th March; £14 (concessions £10) on the door.      ________________________________________________________________ APRIL Sunday 1st April  4.00pm Sunday Recital Series - Winter Season Ailsa Hunter - violin Mark Packwood - piano Herbert Howells - Sonata no 1 op.18  Gabriel Faure - 2nd Sonata in E minor op.108.  A native of western Canada, Ailsa Hunter's teachers included Sydney Humphreys in Victoria and  Albert Pratz at the NYO. Her early studies in Vancouver and the Banff Center included  masterclasses with Josef Gingold, Menahem Pressler, Steven Staryk, Lorand Fenyves and Sidney  Harth. Before leaving Canada, she broadcast solo and chamber recitals on CBC Radio. After coming  to the U.K. for postgraduate studies with Lydia Mordkovich at RNCM, Ailsa spent several years  with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. She has freelanced widely and has been a member of the  Orchestra of the Royal Opera House since 1991.   Mark Packwood was educated in Worcestershire and North Wales, studying piano with Patricia  Freeman and composition with William Mathias. He has worked as repetiteur and chorus master  with Glyndebourne, Chatelet, Opera North and Welsh National Opera companies. Mark is on the  music staff of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.  Admission free - suggested donation £5       ________________________________________________________________ Friday 27th April  7.30pm Bloomsbury Woodwind Ensemble Conductor: Shea Lolin   In Retrospect The Bloomsbury Music Group have commissioned 100 bespoke arrangements for the ensemble since 2005. In Retrospect looks back over some of the highlights with music from miniatures to full scale opera scores. Tickets £10 (£8 Concessions) Available from events.bloomsburywoodwind@gmail.com or on the door.      ________________________________________________________________