Writing & Editing
I have edited two books on Benjamin Britten and contributed chapters to several others books on the composer’s life and music. I am the co-editor of the forthcoming Maconchy in Context (CUP, 2025).
I write programme notes for many organisations, including Britten Pears Arts, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, The Wigmore Hall, The Salzburg Festival, English National Opera, the Royal Opera House, London Symphony Orchestra, Edinburgh International Festival, Oxford Lieder, and Glyndebourne. I’ve also edited several exhibition guidebooks.
I have recently written several extended liner notes for Delphian - see below for more details.
Programme and Liner Notes
I have written programme notes on: Britten, Poulenc, Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff, Satie, Stravinsky, Kodaly, Bartok, Schoenberg, Schubert, Elgar, and many others. I write on large-scale orchestral works, chamber music, song, and opera. For a sample of my writing, see below.
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, January 2024: Sibelius, Grieg, Tchaikovsky
Bath Festival Orchestra, December 2023: Ferrenc, Poulenc
Delphian, Our Indifferent Century, released October 2023: scroll down to ‘Album booklet’ for the liner notes
Delphian, dream.risk.sing, released September 2023: scroll down to ‘Album booklet’ for the liner notes
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, September 2023: Ravel, Poulenc, Holmes, Saint-Saens
London Symphony Orchestra, September 2023: Stravinsky, Haydn
Edinburgh International Festival, August 2023: Haydn, Childs, Mendelssohn
Aldeburgh Festival, June 2023: BBC Philharmonic, Falla, Britten, Miller, Sibelius
Aldeburgh Festival, June 2023: BBC Philharmonic, Britten, Thorvaldsdottir, Tchaikovsky
Delphian, Unveiled, released June 2023: scroll down to ‘Album booklet’ for the liner notes
Delphian, Stone Salt Sky, released April 2023: Stone Salt Sky, GAIA
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, February 2023: Rachmaninoff, Brahms
English National Opera, December 2022: It’s a Wonderful Life
Wigmore Hall, December 2022: Huw Watkins, Errollyn Wallen, Deborah Pritchard, Cheryl Frances-Hoad
Aldeburgh Festival, June 2022: An Evening at the Red House
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, February 2022: Debussy, Kodály, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky
Aldeburgh Festival, June 2019: Satie
Royal Opera House, 2014: Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites
From ‘An opera down the line’ on Poulenc’s La Voix humaine for Glyndebourne in 2022.
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Books
I am currently co-editing Maconchy in Context (with Dr Justin Vickers) for CUP (forthcoming, 2025). I have also edited two books on Benjamin Britten - Benjamin Britten: New Perspectives on his Life and Work (Boydell, 2009) and Britten in Pictures (Boydell, 2012).
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Exhibition Catalogues
When working for Britten Pears Arts I edited five catalogues accompanying the annual exhibition: Queer Talk: Homosexuality in Britten’s Britain (2017); Britten in America (2018); Tippett & Britten (2019); Such an Artist to Write For (2020); and Britten & Women (2022)
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Chapters
I have contributed chapters to the following volumes: Benjamin Britten Studies: Essays on An Inexplicit Art (Boydell, 2017); Literary Britten: Words and Music in Benjamin Britten’s Vocal Works (Boydell, 2019); Lives of Houses (Princeton University Press, 2020); and Benjamin Britten in Context (CUP, 2022).