The RNCM unveils a show-stopping Spring season ft. Rossini, Manchester Camerata, Original Voices Festival and more

Staged in keeping with the RNCM’s ongoing annual theme, The Future is Green, Nature on Film invites audiences to experience the timeless environmental documentaries of early cinema like never before, from captivating time-lapse photography reels to original ‘talkies’ life-cycle narrations, with live and brand-new orchestral accompaniments composed and performed by students.

Promising an electrifying evening of innovative musical magic ‘where raw passion meets the edgy spirit of indie rock’, the RNCM Session Orchestra revisits a selection of seminal works from genre-defining artists like Radiohead, Sigur Ros, The National and more, led by guest conductor Robert Ames.

On Fri 1 Mar, the RNCM Symphony Orchestra returns to the stage with a thrilling odyssey across the entire spectrum of musical emotion, shot through with electric energy at every turn.

From the brooding melancholia of Britten’s Sea Interludes to Julia Perry’s bold, buoyant A Short Piece for Orchestra, followed by Keiko Abe’s dazzling Prism Rhapsody for marimba and fittingly finished with Walton’s masterful, viscerally personal ‘symphonic eruption of sorrow’, this breathtaking concert provides a perfect conclusion to the gloomy winter and welcomes spring in soaring style.

Back for another year on Thu 14 Mar, the RNCM’s Original Voices Festival celebrates new perspectives on music by ‘reimagining how we perform and present works from the past’ while exploring the boundless potential of the future through modern conceptions of live performance, from staging to presentation, as they disassemble tradition and transform the concert hall into a new, invigorating experience.

On Thu 14 Mar, RNCM students join Manchester Camerata to whisk audiences on an uplifting journey of endless possibilities, combining music, spoken word, music and improvisation to deliver an immersive evening of positivity and innovation.

On Fri 15 Mar, the RNCM’s International Chair in Violin Henning Kraggerud unites with the Chamber Orchestra to challenge some of the most cherished and enduring narratives in classical music across a wildly exciting evening of orchestral reinvention. Billed as an ‘intriguing’ and ‘extraordinary’ performance, Henning and the orchestra explore the margins for modern imagination in the works of Mendelssohn and Mozart, while also championing ‘flexible scoring’ to examine the environmentally friendly ways in which to enjoy live music.

This year’s Original Voices Festival is part of The Future Is Green, with events curated to focus on how we can re-examine familiar music through the lens of the growing climate crisis and preservation of the natural world.

A warm and wickedly funny blend of humour and romance, Rossini’s delightful one-act opera La scalia di seta brings riotous comedy and memorable melodies to the RNCM this March.

Packed with style, seduction and silk-laden scheming, Rossini’s effervescent masterpiece follows the lovestruck young Giulia, who has been sneaking her secret husband Dorvil into her room every night behind the back of her guardian, Dormont. When the latter reveals his intention to marry her to the wealthy Blansac, Giulia is forced to devise a plot to evade his courtship and keep her true love.