City News

Composer's Contribution to Music in Birmingham Marked

• Thomas Trotter, Organ Concert, Mon 9 February (1pm)

• Nash Ensemble, Tues 10 February (7.30pm)

• BBC 2 and BBC Radio 3 programming

Town Hall, Birmingham

The composer Felix Mendelssohn's immense contribution to music in Birmingham is to be recognised at Town Hall in February. As part of nationwide celebrations for the 200th anniversary of the German composer's birth, Birmingham City Organist Thomas Trotter will devote his lunchtime recital on Mon 9 February to Mendelssohn's organ music, playing the instrument which the composer himself played. The following day (Tues 10 February), the Nash Ensemble will perform one of his finest works, the Octet, written when he was just 16, and a free pre-concert talk the same evening by Lyndon Jenkins will recall Mendelssohn's contribution to music in Birmingham.

A great 'celebrity' of his time, Mendelssohn's several visits to Birmingham - playing the organ and the piano, and conducting his own works at three successive Triennial Musical Festivals - secured the city's place on the international musical map. Of the works he composed especially for Birmingham, his oratorio Elijah remains the most well-known. A popular, as well as revered, performer, on one occasion when he played the organ at the Town Hall the audience "waved their handkerchiefs and flourished their hats".

Meanwhile, BBC Radio 3 launches its Mendelssohn weekend on 8 May with a live broadcast of the station's drivetime programme In Tune (5pm) from the Town Hall. Later the same evening (7pm), listeners can enjoy a performance of Elijah. In this spring, BBC Two broadcasts a four-part series The Birth of British Music, the final episode of which focuses on Mendelssohn and will in part explore his relationship with Birmingham.