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Happy New Year! Submitted on: 05 January 2012 We would like to wish everyone a very happy new year! We are excited as 2012 looks set to be a great year for us. After making a terrific DVD recording of Handel's Acis and Galatea in the first week of January (with Raymond Leppard conducting, Ana Maria Labin as Galatea, Ed Lyon as Acis, Joao Fernandes as Polyphemus, Richard Edgar-Wilson as Damon and Dame Janet Baker as our narrator) we continue the year in style with violinist Tasmin Little playing Mozart with us in Hereford on January 22, then off to the brand new Butterworth Hall at the Warwick Arts Centre on February 4 to perform with pianist Derek Han in an exciting programme of J.S Bach and Philip Glass. We make two visits to our London home Cadogan Hall in February and March, the first with Derek Han who will play Chopin's 1st Piano Concerto and also featuring the Tchaikovsky Serenade. Our March concert at Cadogan Hall features a welcome return for the clarinettist Anna Hashimoto who will perform the Mozart Clarinet Quintet and the Weber Clarinet Concerto No.1 with our Principal Conductor Paul Watkins at the helm. We have two concerts in Canterbury Cathedral later in the Spring, and some further UK concerts which you will find detailed on our website once they go on sale. During the summer we make our annual pilgrimage to the Hampshire countryside for Grange Park Opera where we will be performing Puccini's Madam Butterfly and Mozart's Idomeneo. Our schedule of foreign tours includes Turkey, Bulgaria, France and Finland; not forgetting our annual Music Cruise from October 13 - 20 from Turkey to Greece which features a star-studded lineup including soprano Dame Kiri te Kanawa, violist Laurence Power and violinists Jack Liebeck and Maxim Vengerov. We are also planning a special celebration concert at the Royal Festival Hall on October 1 with Maxim Venergov so do please keep that date free and we let you know when this concert is on sale! All in all this should be a fantastic year for the ECO and we hope you can share it with us! |

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The London Festival of Bulgarian Culture Submitted on: 16 December 2011 As 2011 draws to a close our final concert of the year is Sunday 18 December at Cadogan Hall for the London Festival of Bulgarian Culture. The concert will feature both a UK and a World Premiere performance of pieces by celebrated Bulgarian composers. The concert will also feature arrangements of traditional Bulgarian folk songs, coupled with Mozart's Symphony No.29 and the Albinoni Concerto for two Oboes. At the helm is Yordan Kamdzhalov (who will be making his debut with the ECO) and the Stankov Ensemble. Click here for more information for what should be a fantastic concert to see out 2011! |

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Paul Watkins and Igor Levit playing Beethoven, Wagner and Britten Submitted on: 30 November 2011 After a busy November we begin December in the same vein with a superb concert at Cadogan Hall on December 1, featuring pianist Igor Levit who will perform Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto and rarely heard Young Apollo (for piano and strings) by Britten. The concert will also features Wagner's beautiful Siegfried Idyll and Beethoven's Second Symphony. Do join us at Cadogan Hall if you can as it should be wonderful evening, click here for more information and to book tickets. |

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ECO making its debut appearance in Qatar Submitted on: 16 November 2011 We are delighted to announce our first ever trip to Doha in Qatar from November 20-24. The trip, which is sponsored by Shell and in association with the Katara Opera House, will also see ECO musicians take part in workshops with children from local schools. We will give two short concerts for the children, a private concert for an invited audience and also an public concert in the wonderful Katara Opera House. We are very excited to be a part of this brand new project arranged by Qatar Music and Arts, which will feature performances of David Heath's Piano Concerto "El Hedeiya" with Egyptian pianist Amira Fouad. Amira will be joined by soprano Mary Bevan in "Mozart's Ch'io mi scordi di te" and Mary will also sing two arias from The Marriage of Figaro. The two evening concerts will be conducted by Jaime Martin who will be making his ECO conducting debut. There will be be tweets and blogs from this trip so do keep following us for news and pictures... |

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Raymond Leppard conducts Acis & Galatea with a stellar cast and a very special guest... Submitted on: 11 November 2011 We are thrilled to welcome back Raymond Leppard who has been associated with the English Chamber Orchestra since its inception half a century ago, and has made many celebrated recordings with the Orchestra. Even after relocating to the USA, he has returned to conduct the ECO at regular intervals. Our highly talented team of soloists comprises Ruby Hughes, Ed Lyon, João Fernandes and Richard Edgar-Wilson, and the Choir of the 21st Century makes a welcome return visit. Our special guest for this performance is Dame Janet Baker, who has also had a long history of collaboration with the ECO, and we are delighted that she has agreed to make a return visit to the concert platform to narrate Raymond Leppard's specially written text for Acis and Galatea. She was of course an internationally acclaimed soloist for over thirty years, in a career which spanned the stage, concert platform and recording studio. She is still very active in coaching young singers but rarely takes to the concert platform, so we are especially privileged to welcome her back. |
