Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto – Jonathan Leibovitz

May 21st 2025 at 19:00 – 20:40

Programme
Mendelssohn | Hebrides Overture
Mozart | Clarinet Concerto
Mozart | Overture to Lo Sposo Deluso
Louise Farrenc | Symphony No. 3

Sinfonia Viva
Olivia Clarke | conductor
Jonathan Leibovitz | clarinet

If the Classic FM Hall of Fame is anything to go by, then Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto is the most popular work by arguably history’s greatest composer. This is a rare chance to hear this warm and instantly engaging music in Derby, performed by international prize-winning clarinettist Jonathan Leibovitz.

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Jonathan Leibovitz – Sonatas for Clarinet

May 22nd 2025 at 19:30 – 21:00

Programme

Claude Debussy – Première Rhapsodie, L. 116 (1909-10)
Edison Denisov – Sonata for solo clarinet (1972)
Johannes Brahms – Clarinet Sonata in E-flat, Op. 120 No. 2 (1894)
Francis Poulenc – Sonate pour clarinette et piano, FP. 184 (1962)

Jonathan Leibovitz – clarinet
Jo Havlat – piano

Jonathan Leibovitz is an award-winning clarinettist and, over the past two seasons, has been announced as a prize-winner at the Young Classical Artists Trust and Concert Artists Guild International Auditions, a 2022 Classic FM ‘Rising Star’, a winner of the prestigious Arthur Waser Foundation and Lucerne Symphony Orchestra Award, and was announced as a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship Artist 2024.

As well as recitals across Europe – including at the Alte Oper Frankfurt, Konzerthaus Berlin, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, and Wigmore Hall – Jonathan’s debut album Eastern Reflections was released in August on Delphian Records.

His accompanist (both in the recording and in this programme) is pianist Joseph Havlat. Joseph is a pianist, composer, and leading interpreter of new music, having collaborated with such composers as Hans Abrahamsen, John Adams, Thomas Adès, Gerald Barry, Brett Dean, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Michael Finnissy, and Thomas Larcher. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music, where he is now a tutor.

Recent highlights include playing Adès’ In Seven Days with the LSO under the baton of the composer, as well as the premiere of his Növények at Wigmore Hall. In late 2021 he appeared with the BBC Philharmonic giving the premiere of Robert Laidlow’s piano concerto Warp, broadcast on BBC Radio 3, and in 2023 he made his solo recital debuts at King’s Place and Wigmore Hall in London, where he appeared five times in last year’s season.

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May 23rd 2025 at 12:15 – 13:00

Programme

Fauré – Pavane, version for clarinet and piano
Fauré – Berceuse, version for clarinet and piano
Fauré – Après un rêve, version for cello and piano arr. Pablo Casals
Fauré – Sicilienne for cello and piano
Fauré – Trio in d minor op 120

Johan Fransén – clarinet
Mikael Sjögren – cello
Stefan Lindgren – piano

French composer Gabriel Fauré’s music shines with melodic charm, sprinkled with a touch of nostalgia. In small pieces like Après un rêve (After a Dream) and Sicilienne for cello and piano, it’s easy to imagine a Paris bathed in romantic glow. Exquisitely beautiful is Pavane opus 50, one of Fauré’s most beloved pieces often performed in its orchestrated version.

Johan Fransén, alternate section leader in the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s clarinet section, along with Mikael Sjögren, alternate section leader in the cello section, and the orchestra’s pianist Stefan Lindgren, form a trio in a program entirely dedicated to Gabriel Fauré.

As a concluding highlight, we hear Fauré’s exquisite piano trio from 1923. In the first movement, there is a thoughtfulness bordering on melancholy, yet it is not sorrowful music. The second movement is dreamy and heartfelt, while the third is full of energy and strong contrasts. By around 1910, Fauré had begun to experience hearing problems, and when he composed this piano trio – one of his last completed works – he was likely completely deaf.

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