For the second year running, a Samling Artist led the festivities at the BBC Last Night of the Proms, with Nicky Spence OBE bringing his unique flair and musicality to proceedings with a selection of music that reflected his passions for Czech opera, musical theatre and Scottish folk music. Nicky also took some time out from his preparations on the day to record a video from his dressing room for our 30 Voices of Samling series, talking about what being a Samling Artist means to him.
Photo: (c) Chris Christodoulou / BBC Proms
Awards
The full list of singers selected for this year’s Neue Stimmen finals has been announced with Samling Artists Louisa Stuart-Smith and Dafydd Jones selected for this major global competition. The finals will be held over the first ten days of October.
Lousie Alder MBE has been shortlisted in the Female Singer category for the International Opera Awards. The results will be announced at a gala evening at MusikTheater an der Wien on 21 November.
Opera and Concert News
Wigmore Hall have announced their Spring 2026/27 season. James Newby continues his residency season in a collaboration with Apartment House ensemble on 15 January that explores the theme of Agnosticism. James is also part of the line-up for a Mahler recital along with Joseph Middleton on 11 February.
There are recitals by Samling Artist duos Benjamin Appl and James Baillieu (4 January) and Rowan Hellier and Jonathan Ware (8 March) and George Herbert, Georgie Malcolm and Marie Lys also appear in concerts across the season.
wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/series/202627-season-january-march
Cláudia Ribas has an exciting season coming up. She makes her role debut as Angelina La Cenerentola for Festival de Ópera de Óbidos and joins the ensemble at Oper Frankfurt where she’ll make her role debut in the title role of Handel’s Flavio and as Princess Clarisse The Love of Three Oranges.
Cláudia also makes her debut at Wigmore Hall in our 30th anniversary Samling Artist Showcase on 6 November.
oper-frankfurt.de/en/ensemble/opera-studio
Hugo Brady made his Paris debut this month at Opéra Comique in a Mozart pastiche Zaïde or The Path to Light with Raphaël Pichon and Pygmalion.
opera-comique.com/en/shows/zaide-or-path-light
Maryam Wocial makes her role debut as Drusilla L’incoronazione di Poppea with performances at the Barbican and in Venice, with the Academy of Ancient Music alongside Ed Lyon (Nerone) and Stuart Jackson (Arnalta).
aam.co.uk/concerts/lincoronazione-di-poppea/aam.co.uk
Melissa Gregory makes her company debut with Scottish Opera as Hänsel Hänsel und Gretel and also makes her principal role debut at Glyndebourne as Mercédès Carmen.
Catriona Morison makes two significant Wagner role debuts this season. In March she sings Fricka Die Walküre with Kiril Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic at the Salzburg Easter Festival alongside Christopher Maltman as Wotan and in the summer she is Adriano in Rienzi at Semperoper Dresden.
Dominic Sedgwick makes his role debut as Traveller (plus other roles) alongside Toby Spence as Aschenbach in Death in Venice in a new production beginning in Teatro Grande di Brescia and touring across Italy.
Alexandra Achillea presents MOURN at Stone Nest in the West End, a programme that she has devised and directed, bringing together Balkan and Baroque lament traditions, performed by her vocal trio Alkanna Graeca and FIGURE Ensemble.
stonenest.org/events/mourn-oct-2026
Kieran Rayner and Gamal Khamis give two performances at the Bloomsbury Festival of ‘What If’, an interactive combination of song and story that they developed with support from Samling and Song.
bloomsburyfestival.org.uk/whats-on/what-if
Agent signings
Olivia Warburton has signed to Keynote Artist Management and Bethan Langford joins Stephen Swales Artist Management.
Recordings
Nick Pritchard and Ian Tindale have released their second album together. ‘The Dance Continued’ is a recital of songs by Gerald Finzi including his Hardy cycle A Young Man’s Exhortation and the first recordings of five unpublished songs recently discovered in the Bodleian library. You can read more about this project in an interview that Nick and Ian gave with Presto Classical.
prestomusic.com/classical/articles/7382–interview-nick-pritchard-and-ian-tindale-on-gerald-finzi
The English Concert with Harry Bicket continue their series of Handel opera recordings with Giulio Cesare, starring Louise Alder as Cleopatra, Beth Taylor as Cornelia and Morgan Pearse as Achilla.
Kitty Whately and William Vann have released a new album of song by Vaughan Williams and some of the key women composers and poets in his musical life, including songs by Elizabeth Maconchy, the first recording of Billows of the Sea by Grace Williams and Vaughan Williams’ Four Last Songs setting poetry by his wife Ursula Vaughan Williams.
rvwsociety.com/product/mentor-and-muse/
Lucy Crowe OBE appears in a new live concert recording of Janáček’s eccentric satirical opera The Excursions of Mr Brouček with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.
lsolive.lso.co.uk/products/lso0915-janacek
Alexandra Lowe joins The Mozartists on volume 4 of their ‘Sturm und Drang’ series, singing arias by Mozart and other composers from the era.
mozartists.com/product/sturm-und-drang-volume-4/
