Brighton Philharmonic/Alexei Watkins Saturday 8th November

Britten’s Serenade: Dowland, Britten and MacMillan

Saturday 8 November 2025

7:30pm

Brighton Dome Corn Exchange

Tickets: £25, £30 / Under 30s £15 / £1 child tickets

Britten Young Apollo

Purcell/Britten Chacony in G minor

Britten Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings

Dowland/MacGregor Mr Dowland’s Midnight

James MacMillan Piano Concerto no. 2

Mark Padmore tenor

Alexei Watkins horn

Joanna MacGregor conductor/piano

Alexei Watkins and tenor Mark Padmore join Brighton Philharmonic Strings for a performance of Britten’s Serenade, alongside jazzy John Dowland and a wild Scottish ceilidh.

Arguably Britten’s greatest work for his life-long companion and muse, Peter Pears, his Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings premiered at London’s Wigmore Hall in 1943. Britten had a superb knowledge and deep love of English poetry, and his settings of Tennyson, Blake, Keats and medieval lyric remain unsurpassed in their drama, insight and intensity. Pears’ tenor part is taken here by the phenomenal Mark Padmore, while the virtuosic horn part, composed for the masterful Dennis Brain, is performed by BPO’s young principal horn Alexei Watkins.

Wrapped around this masterpiece are Britten’s exhilarating Young Apollo, Joanna MacGregor’s dreamy, jazzy arrangements of Dowland, and Britten’s favourite composer, Purcell. To finish, James MacMillan’s concerto for piano and strings: part love letter to Scottish folk music and part satire on political hypocrisy, it ends with the wildest imaginable ceilidh, replete with drumming, stamping and hooting.

For more information visit brightonphil.org.uk. 

Tickets available from brightondome.org. BHS members have been emailed a discount code.