My year in live music – opera, jazz, chamber music, indie, folk, all sorts – and forays into the CD/vinyl collections. Four years of listening to music without M, and I still feel it’s somehow a shared thing. I don’t spookily ‘sense his presence’ but what I listen to and how I listen to it is still – and probably always -connected to the way we listened together. That includes embracing new stuff, resisting the tendency to get stuck in a genre or decade, and listening as an active process, not as an ignorable background to whatever else one is doing. This year’s music has been full of moments when I wanted to turn to him and say ‘hey, listen to this bit!’, or ‘doesn’t that remind you of x?’ or just ‘wow!’.

I had a feeling I’d been to more gigs this year than last, and so it proved when I totted them up – 41, plus Tramlines, as against 25 plus Tramlines the previous year. More different venues as well, 17 this year as against 14 last. I decided to list them chronologically rather than grouping them by genre or such like.

The only problem with going to so many gigs is that it’s hard to come up with something to say about each (I find it harder in any case to write about music, other than to splurge a lot of superlatives onto the page, than about books or film or TV). So I’ve commented where there was something particularly notable about the gig or the context, and have hinted at what some of my top gigs were this year, but both the musical genres and the experience of hearing them are so diverse that it makes any kind of Top 3 or Top 10 a bit arbitrary, so I haven’t done that (I make the rules).

Some of these concerts – probably most of the Music in the Round ones – I went to on my own. Somehow sitting in the Crucible Playhouse or in the pews at the Upper Chapel on one’s own seems much less odd than being solo at Crookes Social Club when it’s got cabaret seating, or even at a standing gig. I was and am determined not to miss out on live music just because I can’t find someone to go with, but there is, I acknowledge, a whole other dimension when one is sharing the experience.  I shared the opera with Ruth; the Unthanks in Elmet with Ruth and Aidan; The Midnight Bell with Claire; Sheffield Jazz gigs with Adi, Jennie and Michael; Tramlines with Arthur, Sam, Jane and Richard; Bach solo violin, Schubert & Janacek, and Nigel Kennedy with Arthur and Gabi; various Under the Stars bands with colleagues and participants; Songhoy Blues with Jane, Richard, Jennie & Michael; Gong with Aidan; and Shostakovich and Messiaen with Liz.

January:

Tommy Smith & Gwilym Simcock, Sheffield Jazz (Crucible Playhouse). Smith is a top-notch sax player, and here he was performing with a top-notch pianist, for what the programme described as ‘an acoustic night of intensely musical duets and dazzling improvisation’, bringing together two generations of jazz mastery for ‘an evening of intimate musical brilliance’. Absolutely.

Kurt Weill – Love Life, Opera North (Leeds Grand Theatre) – an opera we didn’t know at all, and which is only rarely performed, for some reason. It opened in 1948, and has been revived a couple of times since, most notably in this production. It’s a product of the study Weill made of American popular song after he arrived in the US as an exile from Nazi Germany, with vaudeville numbers that provide a commentary on the narrative. The story itself is of a married couple who we first meet in 1791, and whose lives we follow through to 1948 – they don’t age but the world changes around them and thus changes them and the nature of their relationship. We loved the concept, the performances, the staging, and above all the songs.

February:

Richard Wagner – The Flying Dutchman, Opera North (Leeds Grand Theatre) – a rare occasion (I think the only one, actually) when we weren’t persuaded by the setting or the concept behind the production. The idea was to link the myth of the Flying Dutchman, constantly moving on, unable to find a home anywhere, with the story of the refugee – certainly an interesting concept, but the narrative of the opera couldn’t really be shoehorned into this without many jarring moments, and some loss of comprehensibility. The music, of course, was magnificent.

Benjamin Nabarro – Bach for Solo Violin: Sonata No. 1 in G minor/Partita No. 1 in B minor, Music in the Round (Upper Chapel). Superb performances from Ben, the lead violinist in Ensemble 360.

Valentine’s Voices – Daisy Daisy, Julian Jones, Sparkle Sistaz, Rye Sisters, PLUC, December Flowers, Banjo Jen, Clubland Detectives (Crookes Social Club – fundraiser for Under the Stars). Sparkle Sistaz and Clubland Detectives are two of the bands formed in the music workshops that Under the Stars run for adults with learning disabilities and/or autism. This event was a brilliant collaboration between our own artists and various local bands and solo performers.

March:

Gareth Lockrane Quintet, Sheffield Jazz (Crookes Social Club). Superb fluting from Lockrane who, according to the publicity material, ‘plays all the flutes’ – he certainly played quite a few over the course of the evening. The other quintet members were Nadim Teimoori on tenor sax, Nick Costley-White on guitar, Oli Hayhurst on bass, and Gene Calderazzo on drums.

Power: Shostakovich (Ensemble 360): Piano Trio No.2 Op.67/Piano Quintet Op.57 (Firth Hall). This was preceded by a fascinating talk about Shostakovich’s precarious position in Stalinist Russia. The music was just stunning.

Hejira, Sheffield Jazz (Crookes Social Club). Hejira perform Joni Mitchell songs – it could just be a top-notch tribute band but it feels like more, they are interpreting the songs rather than trying to replicate Mitchell’s performances. Brilliant.

Classical Sheffield Weekend:

• Ensemble 360 – Beethoven for Flute: Flute Sonata in B flat/Trio for piano, flute and bassoon (Upper Chapel)
• Sounds of Heaven – Sheffield Chamber Choir, Steel City Choristers, Sterndale Singers and Sheffield Chorale, each getting their own spots to perform, with music by Will Todd, Sarah MacDonald, Eriks Esenvalds, Palestrina, Grieg, Parry, Part, Purcell, Rheinberger, Macdonald, arrangements by Vaughan Williams, Donald Cashmore, and Shena Fraser, and then all coming together for a spine-tingling Tavener’s ‘God is with us’. (St Marie’s Cathedral)
• Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus – Fauré – Requiem, Finzi – Lo, the Full, Final Sacrifice, Stephen Johnson – The Miracle Tree/To Wed again/This Going Hence, Thomas Stearn – for music like the sea (Curlew at Redmires) (St Marie’s Cathedral)

April:

Giuseppe Verdi – Simon Boccanegra, Opera North (St George’s Hall, Bradford). Brilliantly stripped-down staging, and the music was wonderful.

May:

Misha Mullov-Abbado, Sheffield Jazz (Crookes Social Club). Lovely stuff  – the music was from their new album Effra, very varied and beautifully played by Misha Mullov-Abbado on bass with James Davison: trumpet & flugelhorn, Tom Smith: alto sax, Sam Rapley: tenor sax, Liam Dunachie: piano and Scott Chapman: drums.

Chamber Music Festival, Music in the Round. This year’s festival was curated by Ensemble 360 to celebrate their 20^th birthday, and I wish I could have gone to more than the five gigs I managed. (all in Crucible Playhouse unless stated otherwise):

• Festival Launch: Huw Watkins – Broken Consort, Aileen Sweeney – Equinox, Schubert – Octet. A great start to the Festival – Aileen Sweeney’s premiere of Equinox was lovely and I want to hear more of her work, and the Schubert Octet is a piece I’ve heard a couple of times from Ensemble 360 and is an absolute joy every time.
• Intimate Letters: Schubert – Quintet in C Major, Janacek – String Quartet no. 2. The Janacek featured an actor reading extracts from the composer’s ‘intimate letters’ to a woman with whom he was obsessed for many years – it gave a whole new dimension to the music, and sometimes a troubling one.
• The Nostalgic Utopian Future Distance: Kaija Saariaho – Petals, Boulez – Dialogue de l’ombre double, Luigi Nono – La lontanaza nostalgica utopica futura (Firth Hall). Ensemble 360 musicians duetting with electronic sounds. Never easy but always fascinating and compelling.
• Sinfonietta: Knussen – Cantata, Ravel – Piano Trio in A Minor, VW – Piano Quintet in C Minor, Britten – Sinfonietta
• Finale: Mozart – Flute Qtet in D, Beethoven – Quintet for Piano & Wind, Elgar – Piano Quintet

Peggy Seeger – First Farewell Tour (Cubley Hall). She’s 90 so took a while to get on and off the stage (assisted by her sons), and the voice is more fragile than it once was, but she’s still got it. She sang ‘The First Time…’ (of course) and told the story of how Ewan MacColl had written it for her (‘at least’, she added wryly, ‘that’s what he told me’).

All the People Festival of Debate. Sparkle Sistaz/Clubland Detectives – (Leadmill). Two Under the Stars groups performed at this event which was all about inclusion and hearing the voices that are so often ignored.

June:

Songhoy Blues (Sidney & Matilda). I’ve loved these guys ever since we saw them at Tramlines ten years or so ago. This was a very electric – and totally exhilarating – rendition of their latest album, Héritage, which uses a lot more traditional instrumentation. Support was from the very engaging Nfamady Kouyate on balafon.

Dungworth Singers (Old Bandroom, Dungworth). Really interesting repertoire, everything from ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ to ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’ (my two favourites I think) and in between, lots of songs that I’d never heard or heard of, many from Yorkshire, but also from the the Sacred Harp tradition of choral sacred music in the US.

July:

Crosspool Festival: Dungworth Singers (Tapton Hill Congregational Church), Sheffield Folk Chorale (Benty Lane Methodist Church)

Sparkle Sistaz – Sistarz (Crucible Playhouse). A brief, tantalising preview of a musical they’re working on at present, which we hope to see in full next year.

Tramlines (Hillsborough Park): We saw/heard: Natasha Bedingfield, Cliffords, Cloud Canyons, Franz Ferdinand, John Grant, I Monster, Mackenzie, Oracle Sisters, Pulp, Pia Rose, The Second World War, Sherlocks, Heather Small, Spiritualised, Stars Band. Truth be told, being of short stature I did not literally see all of the bands listed above – where they performed on the Main Stage I did at least see the screens either side of the stage – but I heard them, and occasionally managed to manoeuvre myself into a gap that allowed me to glimpse the band for a while. Pulp were the highlight, no question, playing all the tracks you’d expect, and a lot of their fab new album. But I also rated John Grant, I Monster, and Cliffords very highly, and Heather Small’s set was just (as someone behind me in the audience said), made of sunshine. I increasingly have to pace myself very carefully to ensure that I haven’t exhausted my capacity for standing before the bands I most passionately want to see. So I’d been looking forward to Spiritualised, but missed some of their set in order to have a sit down before Pulp. Each year I go I ask myself, is this the last time, but it’s still worth it, even if I don’t clock up quite as many different bands as I used to. I’ve already bought the tickets for next time in any case…

September:

Matthew Bourne – The Midnight Bell (Lyceum Theatre). My first time with Matthew Bourne’s modern ballet, and it will not be my last. The music here is not taken from the ballet repertoire – the soundtrack, by Terry Davies, is modern, quite minimalist, interspersed with songs from the ‘30s (the setting for the piece) to which the performers mime (very Pennies from Heaven). Davies’ music is in contrast to the archive songs, conveying the inner life of the characters, as against the romantic lyrics of the songs.

October:

George Frideric Handel – Susanna, Opera North (Leeds Grand Theatre). Only my second Handel opera (I saw Giulio Cesare with M back before the pandemic). The production is excellent, very powerful, and the singers weave around and are woven around by dancers from the Phoenix Dance Theatre, whose modern dance moves provide telling contrast to the mellifluously formal Handel score.

James Allsopp Quartet, Sheffield Jazz (Crookes Social Club) – tribute to Stan Getz, ranging across his oeuvre, a lovely, warm sound and some gorgeous tunes.

The Pocket Ellington, Sheffield Jazz (Crucible Theatre). The first half was Alex Webb’s arrangement of Ellington big band compositions for four horns and a rhythm section (Alan Barnes baritone & alto sax, clarinet; Robert Fowler tenor sax, Simon Finch trumpet, David Lalljee trombone, Alex Webb piano/MD, Dave Green bass, and Alfonso Vitale drums.) Absolutely fab. See here for Richard Williams’ review of the project and of a performance, with a slightly different line-up, at Soho’s Pizza Express.

Nigel Kennedy: Heart & Soul, with Beata Urbanek-Kalinowksa (cello) – Kennedy, Komeda, Yellow Magic Orchestra Sakamoto, Bach (Crucible Theatre). Nigel is as always irrepressible and impossible to tie down, even to a set list. He borrowed a programme from someone on the front row and said ‘Oh no, it’ll be nothing like that’. In fact it was quite a bit like that, but some of the tracks on the programme never materialised, and others took their place, and there was another violinist on a couple of tracks whose name I never quite caught, a young woman who is clearly massively talented and who I’m sure we will hear of again.

Josephine Davies’ Satori, Sheffield Jazz (Crookes Social Club). Davies on sax, and Alcyona Mick on piano. The material in the first half was from her latest album, Weatherwards, inspired by the landscapes of the Shetlands where she was born, and the sound is quite different from her earlier material which was, I suppose, more immediately accessible. But the new material is definitely worth another listen.

Giacomo Puccini – La Bohème, Opera North (Leeds Grand Theatre). This is the same production that I’d seen twice before but with different casts each time. I felt Rodolfo had been a tad under-powered the second time I’d seen it, but no such problems here, and I found myself more moved by the ending than I’ve ever been before. Of course, that may be because since I last saw it, I’ve lost my brother, my husband, my dad…

The Unthanks, Elmet (Bradford, The Loading Bay). The wonderful Unthanks were performing live as part of this drama premiere for Bradford 2025, a dark and brooding play by Bradford writer/director Javaad Alipoor, about ‘family, revenge and the ultimate price of freedom’.

Bach & the American Minimalists – Shani Diluka: J S Bach, C P E Bach, Philip Glass, Keith Jarrett, John Cage, Bill Evans, Moondog, Meredith Monk (Crucible Playhouse). This was a brilliant concept, beautifully performed and presented by Diluka on piano. The programme interspersed pieces by Bach(s) with pieces by various minimalist composers, following on from one another so that we heard and felt the resonances between them.

November:

Quartet for the End of Time – Ensemble 360: Gideon Klein – String Trio, Leo Smit – Trio for Clarinet, Viola & Piano, Messiaen – Quartet for the End of Time (Crucible Playhouse). I can’t hear the Messiaen too often – it never feels familiar, and never fails to compel absolute attention. The story of the first performance is unforgettable too – a freezing January night in a POW camp in 1941, with the score scribbled on scrap paper scrounged from a friendly guard, and with instruments that were poor to begin with and hadn’t been looked after. And yet, and yet, the extraordinary music was extraordinary even in those circumstances. The Klein and Smit pieces are both small victories over Nazi brutality – their composers were murdered, and so we were deprived of all the music they would have written (Klein, especially, who was only 25 when they killed him), but we have these pieces, which weren’t meant to survive. But here they are.

Julian Jones (Cerrones). A nice deal: lunch at Cerrones (Italian restaurant), followed by a gig from Julian, playing guitar and keyboards, performing almost exclusively his own compositions apart from two covers (James Taylor and Neil Young).

Ravel & Glass: Cinematic Quartets – Piatti Quartet: Bernard Hermann – Suite from Psycho, Jonny Greenwood – The Prospector’s Quartet, Philip Glass – String Quartet no. 3 ‘Mishima’, Maurice Ravel, Quartet in F Major (Crucible Playhouse). A fascinating selection of pieces. Hermann’s Psycho Suite is stunning, absolutely riveting, and I was convinced when I heard the Ravel that he might have been influenced by it – can’t prove it, obviously, but I relistened to both at home a few days later, and felt the same, so that’s my theory that is mine.

Laura Jurd Quintet, Sheffield Jazz (Crookes Social Club). The gig of the year from Sheffield Jazz, and one of the top few overall. An intriguing line-up – Laura on trumpet, obviously, and Corrie Dick on percussion, plus Ultan O’Brien on viola, Martin Green on accordion and Ruth Goller on electric bass. O’Brien and Green gave the music a folky feel, with a strong klezmer element at times, and I felt very strong Third Ear Band vibes. The Quintet were performing material from the latest album, Rites & Revelations, which I bought on vinyl after the gig, as I was so blown away by the music.

Gong (Crookes Social Club) – Gong are still here, undiminished in spirit if not in terms of the personnel who made those early albums. A lot of this is down to Kavus Torabi, who Daevid Allen specifically proposed as his successor to lead the band, and who makes a charming and charismatic front man, and a fine musician. (I already knew of Torabi through the delightful book he co-wrote with Steve Davies (yes, the snooker player), Medical Grade Music.) Long live Gong.

Death & the Maiden – Dudok Quartet: Saariaho – Terra Memoria, Gesualdo – Moro, lasso al mio diolo, Mussorgsky – Songs & Dances of Death, Liszt – Via Crucis, Schubert – Death & the Maiden (Upper Chapel). The Gesualdo, Mussorgsky and Liszt pieces were arranged for string quartet by the Dudoks. An uplifting evening of music about mortality. One of the musicians said at the start, that when we write or talk about death, we’re always really talking about life, and that makes sense to me. Certainly these pieces were poignant, moving, but never just heavy or dark – there was light, always light.

December:

Viennese Masterworks – Tim Horton: Haydn – Piano Sonata in E flat, Brahms – Four Ballades, Schoenberg – Suite Op. 25, Beethoven – Piano Sonata in D (Crucible Playhouse). This concert is part of a series that explores the connections between the First Viennese School (e.g. Haydn & Beethoven) and the Second (most notably Schoenberg, but also Berg & Webern). Here Brahms forms a kind of bridge between the two Schools. Schoenberg’s Suite is a Baroque suite, with a Brahmsian Intermezzo – clearly, as Tim pointed out in his pre-gig talk, the creation of twelve tone/serialism was not some scorched earth iconoclasm, but a development of this great musical history.

Together in Winter Harmony – Carfield Community Choir, One World Choir, Sparkle Sistaz (Upper Chapel)

Lovely festive choral concert. One World Choir brought us songs in various languages, Arabic, Ukrainian and a number of African languages, some explicitly Christmassy, others more tangential but uplifting. I was there primarily for the Sparkle Sistaz, who were magnificent, doing two of their own songs (I noted they didn’t do ‘the one about people who piss us off’ or ‘Bad Boyfriend’ which was probably for the best, as they’re feisty rather than festive) and some standards – notably a rambunctious version of Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer (a song all about difference, bullying and inclusion, is it not?), and performed with their usual sass and panache, and got a rapturous response.

Pass the Spoon – Opera North (Howard Assembly Room)

Absolutely bonkers comic sort-of-opera set on a TV cookery show, created by artist David Shrigley with music by David Fennessy (using lots of percussion, a nod to Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho score, and a quick burst of Für Elise, amongst other musical references). I wasn’t sure at first how much I was going to enjoy it, but it got darker and funnier and more and more bonkers as it went on – surreal, scatological and unhinged. Excellent fun.

Radio

I’m a Radio 3 sort of a chap. I know other radio stations are available, and always mean to put on Radio 6, but somehow haven’t got round to it. I know it’s an old person thing to grumble about schedule changes but I do still miss Saturday afternoons on R3, with Sound of Cinema, Music Planet, and Jess Gillam’s This Classical Life taking us nicely into the evening. Only the first of those is still on in the mid-afternoon slot and so despite best intentions (see above) I find I don’t catch up on Sounds with the other programmes very often. Similarly, the demise of J to Z has lessened my listening to jazz on R3, since its replacement is ‘Round Midnight which is on, as one might expect, around midnight, and thus way past my bedtime. I do have Jazz Record Requests on a Sunday afternoon and remain a loyal listener – there are always some tracks by artists I know and love, and some by artists I don’t know yet and would like to. And, each year since 2021, Alyn Shipton has played a request in memory of M (so far, Miles, Mingus, Holiday, Cobham, Peterson & Young for me, and John Marshall for M’s brother).

An innovation this year is my discovery of Radio 3 Unwind which, played through a pillow speaker, has been remarkably helpful in allowing me to get off to sleep and, particularly, to get back to sleep more easily if I wake during the night. M was always a bit scathing about the use of music to relax (he used to rant about Classic FM’s emphasis on this role for music), and he could not use music as background (thus on long drives he preferred R4, because he could more easily filter words out than music, whilst I’m the other way around). For me, the mix of ambient sounds, the shipping forecast and tranquil music allows me to filter out the endless whittling and catastrophising that my brain insists on, especially at 3 a.m. It works, anyway, and I’m most grateful for it.

Music Nights

As usual, what I choose to grab from the collection is either random, or prompted by something I hear or read. This year, I also had a batch of vinyl rescued from obscurity and mould in the cellar, amongst which were many things that we’d never replaced with CD and which I was hearing for the first time in more than 40 years.

Those departed artists who were honoured through inclusion in my music nights include Brian Wilson, Gilson Lavis (Squeeze), Jack DeJohnette, Terry Reid, Ozzie Osbourne, Rick Buckler (Jam), Cleo Laine, Danny Thompson, Garth Hudson (The Band), Mani (Stone Roses), Steve Cropper (Booker T & the MGs) and Dave Ball (Soft Cell). And I marked the 25th anniversary of the death of the marvellous Kirsty MacColl with an evening of her music.

I post about what I’m listening to on BlueSky these days (I still have a look on X but I don’t feel I want to engage there, other than with Radio 3 and particularly Jazz Record Requests, who are still using the Musk place) and sometimes on Instagram/Facebook too. This makes me feel less like I’m listening alone. It is rare that someone doesn’t like and/or comment on my music posts – thank you to all who do so. I’m sharing the music I’ve chosen and it’s lovely to find that someone somewhere is nodding or smiling at my choices, or suggesting other things I might like, or reminiscing about what that track or album means to them. The other reason I share it is that M taught me to listen mindfully (though he wouldn’t have used that word) – not just to passively let the music play but to be aware of it, focus on it, think about what it’s doing and how. I found it hard at first to do that without him, but I’m getting the hang of things now.

I’ve also got some pretty hefty Spotify playlists, most notably the 13+ hour selection we put together for M’s wake, which features at least a smattering of the music we listened to together over 47 years. I play that one on our wedding anniversary, on the anniversary of his death, on his birthday, or whenever, really, because the music is absolutely bloody marvellous. It’s not ‘wallowing in misery’ when, even if one track makes me cry, the next makes me smile or forces me to have a bit of an awkward dance around the living room. It’s honouring him and our life together, triggering so many memories, and reminding me of other music I want to hear again, including new music that I’ve discovered or acquired since he died. There’s another playlist for Christmas (as free as possible of the usual suspects), and one for New Year featuring a selection of tracks that have some connection to events in the year, the one I made for my Dad’s funeral that never got played at the reception because I was having a massive dizzy spell just when I should have been loading up Spotify, and the one I made for a reunion with people who were at college with M that didn’t work on the night…

All of the artists below found their way on to my CD player or turntable, or I watched them live on TV, or listened on Spotify (but inclusion means that it was more than one or two random tracks).

Yazz Ahmed, Jan Akkerman, Allegri,  Amadou & Maryam, Amaarae, Multatu Astatke, J S Bach, Badfinger, Chet Baker, the Band, Bartok, Beababadoobee, Beach Boys, Beatles, Beethoven, Black Sabbath, Black Uhuru, Booker T & the MGs, Bowie, Brahms, Bruch, Kate Bush, David Byrne, Camel, Brandi Carlisle, Chakra, Chitinous Ensemble, Chopin, Gary Clark Jr, Coltrane & Duke, Corelli, Cymande, Delius, Corrie Dick, Elgar, Ellington, Empirical, En Vogue, Ezra Collective, Donald Fagen, de Falla, George Fenton, Ibrahim Ferrer, Ella Fitzgerald, Fripp Keeling & Singleton, Gateway, The Gentlemen, Stan Getz, Egberto Gismonti, Philip Glass, Global Village Trucking Company, Gong, Grande Familia, John Grant, Stephane Grappelli, Grieg, Haim, Handel, Hatfield & the North, Haydn, Hendrix, Henry Cow, Bernard Herrmann, Highlife, Steve Hillage, Zakir Hussain, Indigo Girls, John Ireland, The Jam, Etta James, Keith Jarrett & Jack DeJohnette, Keith Jarrett Trio, Laura Jurd, Villem Kapp, Seckou Keita & Catrin Finch, Graham Kendrick, Nigel Kennedy & the Kroke Band, King Crimson, Tony Kofi & Alina Bzhezhinska, Cleo Laine, Led Zeppelin, Michel Legrand, Jon Leifs, Libertines, Charles Lloyd, The Long Blondes, Baaba Maal, Kirsty MacColl, Madness, Manhattan Brothers, Bob Marley, Winton Marsalis, Mendelssohn, E T Mensah, Mingus, Joni Mitchell, Monochrome Set, Moondog, Christy Moore, Alanis Morissette, Mozart, Jalen N’dongo, Youssou N’dour, New Jazz Orchestra, New York Dolls, Newstead Abbey Singers, Paganini, Palestrina, Part, Pentangle, Esther Phillips, Plastic Ono Band, Pulp, Guto Puw, Ravel, Raye, Terry Reid, Django Reinhardt, Max Roach, Rodgers & Hammerstein, St Vincent, Satie, Schoenberg, Schubert, Schumann, Scissor Sisters, Self Esteem, Shaboozey, Caroline Shaw, Shostakovich, Sly & the Family Stone, Soft Cell, Songhoy Blues, Fela Sowande, Springsteen, Sprints, Squeeze, Steel Pulse, Stone Roses, Sugababes, Summers & Fripp, Swingle Singers, Tchaikovsky, Troubadours du roi Baudouin, Eduard Tubin, Vaughan Williams, Vivaldi, Walton, Marcin Wasilewski Trio, Debbie Wiseman, Working Week, Robert Wyatt, Neil Young