By Kathleen McGowan with contributions from Liane Curtis
Yvonne Loriod ©akg-images / Marion Kalter
After lingering in historical obscurity for far too long, composer Yvonne Loriod’s (1924 – 2010) highly expressive orchestral music will finally get a contemporary hearing, performed by the WDR Sinfonieorchester under the direction of Kent Nagano. The orchestra will perform the world premiere of Loriod’s La Sainte Face, an extraordinary cantata for soprano and orchestra in fifteen movements. Soprano Sarah Aristidou will perform the solo role for the world premiere. A note included the score in the composer’s hand offers some insight in to the work’s inspiration: the 1944 liberation of Paris after four years of Nazi occupation; and her memory of Jean-Claude Touche, a fellow composer, gifted organist, and student compatriot of Loriod’s at the Paris Conservatoire who was fatally injured by a German bullet while serving as a medic.
Loriot was an exceptional pianist and recording artist, a legendary piano professor, and heretofore unrecognized composer of orchestral music. She was famous during her life as a performer and champion of music by Olivier Messiaen, whom she married in 1961; according to Paul Griffiths (Grove Music Online), her support of Messiaen’s music was so complete that he reportedly wrote much more freely and “eccentrically” for the piano knowing that she would be able to master whatever he came up with.
The WDR Sinfonieorchester will perform Loriod’s La Sainte Face live on September 5th, 2026. A radio broadcast of the performance will be available on September 8th (Radio broadcast link on 8 September 2026, 20:00 local time), and a recording of the performance will be available in the BerlinerFestspiele media library from 6 September to 6 October 2026.
From 2–4 September the Royal Academy of Music will host its Women and Musical Histories, 1789–1914 conference at the Royal Academy of Music in London. The conference brings performers and scholars together to explore the musical lives and historical legacies of nineteenth-century women composers.
The Pacific Symphony Orchestra will open its 2026–27 season with a celebratory concert of music by American composers. It will include Jessie Montgomery’s Banner (2014), Joan Tower’s classic Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, and Florence Price’s Andante Moderato for string orchestra (1929). Montgomery’s Banner for string quartet and orchestra was commissioned in 2014 to celebrate the bicentenary of The Star-Spangled Banner.
Sarah Gibson, composer
Photo Credit: https://www.sarahgibson-music.com/photos
Sarah Gibson’s piece beyond the beyond (2024, completed 2025) will enjoy its US premiere by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the direction of Anja Bihlmeier at the Walt Disney Concert hall on September 1. The piece’s original premise was planned for 2024 at the BBC Proms, but Gibson tragically passed away from colon cancer before she could finish the work. Thomas Kotcheff, her piano duo partner, has completed it in her name. The Proms initially substituted her piece warp & weft for the 2024 Proms, andbeyond the beyond premiered in Manchester in 2025 with the BBC Philharmonic.
Announced on August 30th, renowned German soprano Anja Silja will be honored with the 2026 Austrian Music Theater Lifetime Achievement Award. Silja has spent her 70-year career performing on the world’s top stages and singing with a slate of opera orchestras across Europe and the United States. She made her operatic debut in 1956 as Rosina in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville at the Braunschweig State Theatre, and beginning in 1960 appeared for the first time at the Bayreuth Festival as Senta in Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman. She had a ten-year tenure at Bayreuth, and has made regular appearances at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, the Paris Opera, and the Vienna State Opera. Her lifetime achievement award commemorates the long and storied career of a musician with a vast and stylistically expansive repertoire.
Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, composer
On September 3, the Oslo Symphony will perform Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Archora for orchestra, conducted by Dalia Stasevska alongside works by Sibelius and Mendelssohn. Archora is a work for large orchestra with an optional organ part, originally commissioned by the BBC Proms and co-commissioned by the LA Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Iceland Symphony Orchestra and Klangspuren Schwaz. It premiered at the 2022 BBC Proms with Eva Ollikainen directing the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. (The prospect of a Proms premiere at the Royal Albert Hall perhaps inspired the composer’s enthusiasm for a grand organ part, but also the note that the organ part should be included “only where a grand organ is available at the venue. It is not to be substituted by chamber organ or another keyboard instrument.” Having heard the Albert Hall’s organ, not other keyboard could substitute.
Below is a 2026 recording of Archora, made by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony orchestra, conducted by Tabita Berglund.
Composer Carmel Smickersgill will have the world premiere of A Brick Thrown with Love performed on September 4 alongside works by Vaughan Williams and Britten. The work is a BBC co-commission, and explores resilience in the face of tragedy. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic will perform the premiere under the direction of Andrew Manze.
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