A year-long search for the next BBC Young Musician starts today.

One of the world’s leading competitions of its type, BBC Young Musician has an enviable record of finding new talent. Many previous winners have gone on to forge major international solo and orchestral careers including oboist Nicholas Daniel (1980), clarinettist Emma Johnson (1984), horn player David Pyatt (1988) cellists Natalie Clein and Guy Johnston (1994 and 2004) and violinist Nicola Benedetti (2004). Benedetti, who has become one of the leading violinists of her generation, is to act as ambassador for the 2014 competition.

The current BBC Young Musician, Laura van der Heijden, who won the 2012 competition with a stunning performance of Walton’s Cello Concerto, believes the experience has changed her both as a musician and as a person. She told the BBC ‘Immediately after the final I started to have new expectations of myself, I now am no longer content with playing that may be good for my age. To become the best musician I can be, will of course take a lifetime and more.’

The BBC has also announced a new component to the competition – the BBC Young Musician Jazz Award. Running alongside the established classical music format, the Jazz Award will comprise two audition stages followed by a Final on 8 March 2014, held at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

Starting in September with regional auditions in Cardiff, Manchester, Gateshead, Glasgow, Belfast and London, the competition progresses through category auditions in December, category finals and the semi-final in March 2014, with the final held at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh on 18 May. The BBC is planning extensive coverage across Radio 3 and BBC Four.

For more details and for an entry form, visit the BBC Young Musician website.

A virtuoso accordion player and graduate of London’s Royal Academy of Music has become the first accordionist to secure a contract with Decca, one of the world’s pre-eminent classical labels.

Lithuanian Martynas Levickis won the hearts of his countrymen winning Lithuania’s Got Talent in 2009 while still a student in London. Levickis later revealed that he had only informed his professor of his involvement in the competition once he had reached the later stages. He told London Student “When I told my professor that I was going to Lithuania to participate in a TV show, Lithuania’s Got Talent, he smiled at me and said, ‘It really has! Good luck.’”

Martynas Levickis wants to bring the instrument to a wider audience, an aim which is clear from the programming of his debut Decca album, due for release this summer. Alongside staple classics such as Bach’s Air ‘On a G String’ and Mozart’s ‘Rondo alla Turca’, the 22-year-old also covers chart toppers such as Lady Gaga’s Telephone. Paul Moseley, MD of Decca Classics is passionate about signing an accordionist: ‘Martynas is the master of an instrument lodged deep in most of our musical memories … His unstuffy virtuosity and showmanship are the advocacy this wonderful instrument needs and Decca is delighted to be breaking boundaries with him.’

You can catch this remarkable musician on 27 May at the Bath Music Festival, performing in the world premiere of An Eye for an Eye, David Knotts and Jessica Walker’s gruesome cabaret opera which also plays at the St Magnus Festival on 25 June. He is also appearing at the Spitalfields Music Festival on 10 June and at St John’s Smith Square on 1 July.

Tickets go on sale today for what is set to be the summer’s most talked-about theatrical spectacular, as Los VIVANCOS – seven Spanish siblings – make their London stage debut on Tuesday 9 July at the London Coliseum.

Los VIVANCOS are fast becoming the world’s hottest dance property. Having created aerobic routines as young boys, the brothers went their separate ways after university to study dance around the globe, reuniting in Spain in 2006 to form Los VIVANCOS.

Their stage shows are spectacular and unforgettable, winning the brothers standing ovations from audiences in 73 cities across 34 countries. French dancer and director Patrick Dupond proclaimed ‘their live performances are the apotheoses of dance, music and raw virility. Los VIVANCOS are today’s greatest revelation in the actual Spanish dance panorama.’

The show, Los VIVANCOS: Aeturnum mixes flamenco with martial arts, ballet, tap dance – and a sprinkling of magic. The music in the show – also composed by the brothers, fuses flamenco, rock and classical – is performed by Los VIVANCOS and the seven female musicians of the Maszka Band from Budapest.

Los VIVANCOS: Aeturnum plays for one night only at the London Coliseum, St Martin’s Lane at 8.00pm on Tuesday 9 July.

The play, exploring the rivalry and mutual fascination between Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I, is a murky tale of political and sexual intrigue. Plotting the power politics of Protestant Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen and the French Catholic Mary, the timing of the play’s London season could not be more apposite, with Scottish independence an almost constant feature of daily news. Told with ferocious wit, Mary’s legacy is examined through the eyes of Corbie, a carrion crow who is her unseen attendant through life and death.

Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off is directed by Olivier Award-winning director Robin Norton-Hale (La bohème, The Barber of Seville (or Salisbury), The Taming of the Shrew) and stars Nora Wardell (Seven Jewish Children, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, A Midsummer Night’s Dream) as Mary, Sarah Thom (Claire in the Community, The Count of Monte Cristo, Bette & Joan: The Final Curtain) as Elizabeth, and Shelley Lang, Sean Hart, Jamie Lang, Prentis Hancock and Michael Longhi.

Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off opens at the King’s Head Theatre, Islington on Wednesday 29 May, and runs until Saturday 22 June.

WAG! follows a day in the life of best friends Jenny and Sharron, working-class colleagues on the cosmetics counter of a high-end department store. Jenny, mistress of a premier league superstar longs to escape the hum-drum of working life; while Sharron battles her own forbidden affections towards a new colleague at work. Set against the backdrop of a red-carpet fashion launch extravaganza, the story weaves adultery, scandal and fading dreams as the girls battle to retain their friendship.

Starring alongside Olivier Award-winner Tim Flavin (On Your Toes, My One and Only, Singin’ in the Rain) is Ariadne the Greek Wag, created by Alyssa Kyria who was voted one of The Londonpaper’s Top 10 Funniest People in 2009.

WAG! The Musical is written by Belvedere Pashun (Norma Jean The Musical, Les Dawson The Musical, Shag! The Musical), with music and lyrics by Grant Martin, Thomas Giron-Towers and Tony Bayliss. It opens at the Charing Cross Theatre for strictly limited six-week summer season, from Thursday 18 July to Saturday 24 August.

Talawa, Britain’s foremost Black-led theatre company has announced its 2013/14 season today.

Curated by Artistic Director Michael Buffong, Talawa Firsts is a series of staged readings, discussions and workshops which showcase the best in new Black British writing. Now in its second year, the series returns to the Talawa Studio in Old Street, London, between Monday 3 and Friday 21 June.

From 15 – 17 August, Talawa present TYPT:13 at the Embassy Theatre, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. With a focus this year on gender and sexuality, TYPT:13 is an integrated season for emerging theatre makers leading to a professional production directed by Mojisola Adebeyo.

In a co-production with the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester from 25 September to 26 October, Don Warrington (Death in Paradise) and Doña Croll (Doctors) star in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons. The play, set in 1947, tells the story of successful business man Joe and his wife Kate, whose otherwise contented lives are overshadowed by the fate of their son, missing in action and presumed dead by all but his mother.

Next year, from 2 February to 5 April, Talawa take Errol John’s Moon On A Rainbow Shawl on a UK tour, in association with the National Theatre. Set as returning troops from World War II fill Port of Spain in Trinidad with their raucous celebrations, Moon On A Rainbow Shawl depicts a vibrant, cosmopolitan world which is as harsh as it is filled with colour and warmth. Launching at The New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, on 3 February, the production will visit Leeds, Birmingham, Malvern, Oxford, Cambridge, Richmond, Bath and Nottingham.

For more information on the Talawa Theatre Company, click here to visit their website.

Impressario Bill Kenwright’s major new production of The Governess opens at the Theatre Royal, Windsor later this month.

Written by British dramatist Patrick Hamilton, this forgotten classic was unearthed by theatre critic-turned-playwright Nicholas de Jongh at the British Library.

Kenwright’s production stars Jenny Seagrove (Judge John Deed, The Country Girl), Peter Bowles (To The Manor Born, Hay Fever) and Warren Buchanan (Dalziel & Pascoe, La Ronde) alongside Carolyn Backhouse, Libby Gore, Lydia Orange, Robert Rees, Matthew Rixon and Mary Ryder. The story follows Detective Rough, as he tackles the case of a missing infant following the arrival of a sinister and manipulative governess at the Drew household.

Hamilton wrote The Governess in 1945 as a prequel to his most famous play Gas Light, which, under its US title Angel Street, became one of Broadway’s longest-running plays.

The Governess, directed by Roy Marsden, opens at the Theatre Royal, Windsor (Tuesday 14 – Saturday 25 May) (t: +44 (0)1753 853 888), before moving to the Civic Theatre, Darlington (Monday 3 – Saturday 8 June) (t: +44 (0)1325 486555) and the Richmond Theatre, Richmond upon Thames (Monday 10 – Saturday 15 June) (t: +44 (0)844 871 7651).

Alsop’s biography is compelling  - a protégée of Leonard Bernstein, she was Music Director of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra  from 1993 to  2005 and Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra between 2002 and 2008. She is currently Music Director of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra and Principal Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and has also been instrumental in developing an audience for new music in California through her stewardship of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music.

Leading the Last Night of the Proms is a daunting prospect for any conductor. Broadcast around the globe, the concert is seen by an audience in the hundreds of millions. ‘The whole world is watching you, you’re addressing the biggest audience of your career,” Alsop says. “It’s the nearest a classical musician gets to an acceptance speech at the Oscars.”

The BBC Proms run from 12 July – 7 September. Marin Alsop will be joined at the Last Night by Nigel Kennedy, leading US mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and the BBC Symphony Orchestra performing a typically eclectic programme from Wagner’s prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg to Harold Arlen’s ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ from The Wizard of Oz. And, of course the traditional Last Night pomp and circumstance of Elgar, Parry and Arne. Marin Alsop conducts earlier in the season, on Saturday 17 August, leading the period-instruments of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in a programme of Schumann and Brahms, culminating in a performance of the powerful German Requiem.

You can read more about Marin Alsop at marinalsop.com

Alison Balsom has become one of the world’s foremost trumpet virtuosos, and one of EMI’s best-selling classical artists over the past decade. Balsom, who performed Haydn’s Trumpet Concert at the Last Night in 2009, returns to the Proms in the more intimate surroundings of Cadogan Hall in Chelsea, where she will join Camerata Ireland and conductor/pianist Barry Douglas in a performance of Shostakovich’s Concerto for Trumpet and Piano on Saturday 10 August.

Tine-Thing Helseth is at the beginning of her international career, but has already caught the attention of audiences and critics alike. Jonathan Freeman-Atwood – Principal of London’s Royal Academy of Music , fellow trumpeter and Gramophone critic – recently enthused : ‘[Helseth’s] soulful – dare one say brooding, Nordic – approach to phrasing, quite astonishingly outstanding intonation and a sound which is open and honest, even and focused in all registers’.

A fellow EMI artist, Helseth has released three albums to date the latest of which features her remarkable all-female ensemble tenThing. It is with this ten-piece ensemble which Helesth makes her Proms debut, on Monday 5 August at Cadogan Hall in an unmissable programme of tangos, seguidillas, habaneras and serenades.

Visit bbc.co.uk/proms for more details on this summer’s season.

Although Sarah Neufeld has played violin for over a decade with a number of highly acclaimed bands—notably Arcade Fire, Bell Orchestre, and The Luyas—it is surprising to learn that writing the score for Scalpel/Stradivarius marked her first professional foray into solo composition and performance. The skill and fervour with which she plays this piece is not only the mark of a seasoned performer but also suggests that this is not a mere side project to exist on the periphery of what has already been a rather illustrious music career for Neufeld. It is perhaps for this reason that she has decided to more seriously explore her place as a solo violinist.

With a solo album yet to be released and with little of her music having been made available online, Neufeld’s reputation as a musician seems to precede herself as she has recently announced an ambitious tour across North American and Europe, including a performance in London at Bush Hall on May 26th this year. Partner and avant-garde bass saxophonist Colin Stetson joins Sarah on the bill for a handful of these performances. Through his incredible skill in circular breathing, Stetson’s music comes out like a kaleidoscope of smouldering sounds that seem humanly impossible for one man to produce without the aid of pre-recorded tracks or loops. Given that the two have commented on how they frequently share and critique each other’s musical explorations, it is likely that we can expect similar experimentation from Neufeld’s own music.

Produced by contemporary classical composer and pianist Nils Frahm, Neufeld’s debut solo album entitled Hero Brother is set to be released later this year. A small number of live recordings of tracks from her forthcoming album can be found with a bit of online sleuthing, revealing a musical style devoid of conventionality but without failing to retain its accessibility. While some pieces maintain the vivacity and vigour of her score for Scalpel/Stradivarius, others expose a subtler side to her music such as ‘They Live On’ which finds Sarah cradling her violin as she accompanies the entirely plucked piece with few atmospheric ‘oooos’. Given her extensive experience performing with a diverse range of bands over the last decade, we can anticipate that Neufeld’s venture into solo violin composition and performance will be a skilful, affecting and dynamic endeavour.

Click here to see Sarah on Vimeo, or watch her on YouTube by clicking here.

Sarah Neufeld’s performance at Bush Hall on May 26^th is presented by Parallel Lines.
Tickets can be purchased here: https://parallellines.ticketabc.com/events/sarah-neuf/.
For more information on Parallel Lines and other concert listings, please visit their website.