Friday NIGHT IS MUSIC NIGHT WITH ERMONELA JAHO
Acclaimed conductor John Andrews appears on BBC Radio 3’s flagship programme Friday Night is Music Night on Friday 6 February 2026, leading a star-studded Silver Anniversary Opera Gala with internationally celebrated soprano Ermonela Jaho, tenor Thomas Elwin, and the BBC Concert Orchestra.
Recorded last summer at West Green House Opera, Hampshire, the concert marks 25 years of West Green Opera and is broadcast at 7.30pm. The programme showcases some of opera’s most emotionally charged and dramatic repertoire, including highlights from Verdi, Donizetti, Bellini, Massenet, Cilea, Giordano, Rossini, Viardot, and Ethel Smyth, with selections ranging from Verdi’s Otello and La Traviata to Smyth’s rarely heard Der Wald.
Avril Coleridge-Taylor
John’s collaboration with Samantha Ege and the BBC Philharmonic on works by Avril Coleridge-Taylor including her Piano Concerto was released in the Autumn on Resonus Classics to huge acclaim. It was Disc of the Week on Essential Classics and spent three weeks in the Classical Charts. John and Samantha will be performing the Piano Concerto together in May with the St Pauls Sinfonia, and reuniting in the studio with the BBC Concert Orchestra for a further disc of concertos in September 2026.
Manchester Camerata 2025-6
John will return to the Manchester Camerata after their 2024 Poulenc collaboration to conduct concerts at the RNCM, Stoller Hall and Kings Place. The first will include Doreen Carwithen’s Concerto for Piano and Strings with Alexandra Dariescu; the second pair will centre on Sir Peter Maxwell-Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King, performed by Idunnu Münch.
FUTURE RECORDINGS
Highlights of 2026 include the Carwithen Piano Concerto with Alexandra Dariescu and the Manchester Camerata for Resonus Classics; the long Covid-postponed premiere of Sullivan’s The Martyr of Antioch with the BBC Symphony Chorus for Dutton; Dyson’s Violin Concerto with Charlie Lovell-Jones and the BBC Concert Orchestra.
A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE
In Autumn 2026, John will conduct the world-premiere of Errollyn Wallen’s new community Opera ‘A Christmas Miracle’ directed by Freddie Wake-Walker opening at Snape Maltings and then travelling to Orkney.
SUMMER 2026
As well as returning to the English music festival with the London Mozart Players, John will conduct Puccini’s early masterpiece Le Willis at West Green Opera, together with a gala concert featuring Jenny Stafford, Katie Bray and the Orchestra of English National Opera.
All information is subject to change. Follow John at @JKAConductor for up to date news.