Archive for category: News

The soloist in Firebird’s opening concert of the season on Tuesday 30 September is violinist Matteo Cimatti performing Brahms’ Violin Concerto. Find out more about this fabulous Italian musician…

Matteo was one of the winners at the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) International Final Auditions in May 2025. 

Watch Matteo’s superb YCAT audition piece as he performs Edward Elgar’s Sospiri Op.70 back in May this year…

‘…refined playing and melodious and intense tone…’

(ANSA)

As a soloist he has appeared with several orchestras, including the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra. He has also performed in numerous festivals across Europe and received awards and prizes from many of the continent’s leading competitions.

Having graduated from the Haute École Musique de Lausanne in Switzerland in 2024, Matteo is now based between London and Switzerland.

An enthusiast chamber player from a very young age, Matteo is a founding member of the Wendel Quartet, a piano quartet based in Basel.

Matteo’s upcoming highlights include his debut at the Alte Oper Frankfurt, Internationales Musikfestival Heidelburger Fruhling and a return to the Wigmore Hall for another recital.

This season’s opening concert features Dvořák’s masterpiece From the New World and Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D with Italian violinist Matteo Cimatti.

Dvořák’s New World

St George’s Hanover Square
Tuesday 30 September 2025

London Firebird Orchestra
Conductor George Jackson
Violin Matteo Cimatti

Firebird’s 14th Season features sensational soloists, magnificent music, charismatic conductors with a truly outstanding orchestra…

Dvořák’s New World

The season’s opening concert features Dvořák’smasterpiece From the New World and Brahm’s Violin Concerto in D with Italian violinist Matteo Cimatti.
* St George’s Hanover Square: Tuesday 30 September 2025

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Piano Recital with Marc Corbett-Weaver

Pianist Marc Corbett-Weaver performs a key work of Beethoven’s ‘Heroic’ decade – the Sonata in C Waldstein and Liszt’s Sonata in B minor.
* St George’s Hanover Square: Tuesday 14 October 2025

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Firebird Festival Night

Join London Firebird Orchestra and internationally-acclaimed violinist Yury Revich for a chamber orchestral concert featuring  Beethoven’s epic Kreutzer Sonata for Solo Violin and strings, with a celebrity narrator. Popular show-pieces by Massanet, Sarasate and Revich himself make for a riveting evening.
* St George’s Hanover Square: Tuesday 18 November 2025

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Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations

Beautiful music by Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky and Mozart feature in this concert in which London Firebird are joined by Belarusian cellist Aleksei Kiseliov and soprano Elisabeth Karani.
* St George’s Hanover Square: Tuesday 10 February 2026

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“We are delighted to announce full details of Firebird’s 2025/26 Season, bringing glorious classics to the London stage with fine international soloists of the younger generation. We look forward to welcoming you to the concerts.”
Artistic Director Marc Corbett-Weaver

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Mendelssohn’s Dream

In association with the London Chamber Music Society, this concert features Mendelssohn’s Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no.4 and music by Puccini and Haydn. 
* St John’s Waterloo: Sunday 8 March 2026

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Mozart’s Strassburg

The multi-award-winning violin star Yury Revich returns for our Spring Concert, playing Mozart’s Strassburg Violin Concerto andSaint-Saëns’ Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, beforeBeethoven’s Erioca.
* St George’s Hanover Square: Tuesday 28 April 2026

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Firebird for Schools

Firebird brings the magical world of orchestral music to audiences of local schoolchildren with a celebrity-narrated performance of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf.
* St George’s Hanover Square: Tuesday 12 May 2026

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Tchaikovsky’s First Concerto

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Scan the QR code to download your FREE programme for this fantastic concert on Tuesday 10 June.

We head to Russia for two of the most popular works of all time: a beautiful piano concerto by Rachmaninoff, and an amazing symphony by Tchaikovsky.

Rachmaninoff with… Marc Corbett-Weaver

Tuesday 10 June 2025, 7.30pm
St George’s Hanover Square, London

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No.2 in C minor, Op.18
Tchaikovsky Symphony No.5 in E minor, Op. 64

London Firebird Orchestra
Guest Conductor George Jackson
Piano Marc Corbett-Weaver

For Firebird’s next concert on 10 June we head to Russia for two of the most popular works of all time by Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky…

After the disastrous première of Rachmaninoff’s first symphony, he was determined to create a piece that would achieve success. The result is amongst the most beloved pieces of the entire classical repertoire: his adored Piano Concerto no. 2. 

Tchaikovsky’s Symphony no. 5 was first performed at the Mariinsky in St Petersburg with the composer conducting. Unlike the tragic Symphony no. 6, the fifth is filled with heroic optimism and has become a great favourite.

Our soloist is Firebird’s Artistic Director Marc Corbett-Weaver who has played the concerto around the UK including at London’s Cadogan Hall.

Rachmaninoff with Marc Corbett-Weaver

Tuesday 10 June, 7.30pm
St George’s Hanover Square, Mayfair, London W1S 1FX

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No.2 in C minor, Op.18
Tchaikovsky Symphony No.5 in E minor, Op. 64

London Firebird Orchestra
Principal Guest Conductor George Jackson
Piano Marc Corbett-Weaver

Two fascinating cultures collide as we bring together the glories and grandeur of 18th century Venice with the sophistication and elegance of the Argentinian Belle Epoque…

Without Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) we probably would not have had theclassical three-movement concerto with its fast-slow-fast plan for solo instrument and orchestra.

Of his 300+ concerti, Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons) is easily the best known. Each of the four concerti explores a different season of the year – complete with poems to heighten the descriptive qualities of the music.

Vivaldi was also known as Il Prete Rosso ‘The Red Priest’due to his distinctive red hair which he inherited from his father. But don’t be fooled by the white hair in this painting – the composer was wearing a wig!

By contrast, without Ástor Piazzolla (1921-1992) we would probably not have the Tango as we know it today. The family of the two-year-old Piazzolla left their home in Buenos Aires for Greenwich Village, Manhattan, where Ástor was to grow up in 1930s New York.

Yet his heart never left the Argentinian spirit – in fact he was to revolutionise it with the creation of Nuevo Tango – where he discovered a unique musical voice at the crossroads of classical, tango and jazz.

Piazzolla’s Estaciones Porteñas, or The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, mirrors Vivaldi’s four concerti with a set of four Tangos, each giving an impression of the four seasons in the Argentinian capital of Buenos Aires.

This concert will feature the internationally-celebrated and multi-prize-winning violinist Yury Revich.  A successful composer in his own right, his 2023 his album of music by Chevalier St. Georges was included in the official soundtrack of Netflix series Bridgerton.

‘Full-blooded authority, fleet-fingered dexterity, innate musicality, and substantial accuracy…’ 

The Strad

Vivaldi with Yury Revich

Tuesday 29 April 7.30pm
St George’s Hanover Square, Mayfair, London W1S 1FX

Vivaldi Le Quattro Staggioni
Piazzolla Estaciones Porteñas

London Firebird Orchestra
Principal Guest Conductor Michael Thrift
Violin Yury Revich