A new year of musical adventures lies ahead. We all know that a crucial element of getting ready for any road trip is making your playlist and here is ours for the first part of 2023 (there will be exciting announcements to come in a few months about next season…)

We start with some of the guest artists joining us. Ian Bostridge joins us in a programme of Handel’s arias (Handel Around the World, 1 February) – here he sings the composer’s Ode to St Cecilia with our friends at the Dunedin Consort directed by the brilliant John Butt. We welcome two of the world’s most exciting cellists to our stage this Spring; Jean-Guihen Queyras to perform work by two of Bach’s most famous sons (Mozart on the Road: Part 2, 18 May) and Steven Isserlis as part of our all-Saint-Saëns concert (26 January). Kristian Bezuidenhout’s latest release is a disc of Mozart’s 9th and 18th piano concertos with the superb Freiburger Barockorchester; we play Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 together just before Easter (Mozart on the Road: Part 1, 5 April). Václav Luks makes his debut with us in March directing Bach’s Mass in B Minor (19 March) – on the playlist, you can hear his recording with Collegium 1704; among the soloists will be the ever-versatile Roderick Williams who is represented by his orchestration of Butterworth’s Six Songs from a Shropshire Lad. John Wilson has built a reputation as a conductor who brings a technicolour quality to pieces often thought of as period curiosities – we close the season with Gilbert & Sullivan’s Princess Ida (7 & 8 June) and there’s a little preview of his magical touch in Eric Coates ‘Knightsbridge’ March.

As with all C90s, we delve back into our own back catalogue. We preface Ian Bostridge’s Handel with some movements from Concerto Grosso Op. 6 No. 3, there’s a bit of Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, and an OAE classic with our recording of CPE Bach’s Symphony in F (Wq 183/3) conducted by Gustav Leonhardt (hear it on 18 May when it will be directed from the violin by Kati Debretzeni).

Happy listening.