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Latest News
Thea joins Chamber Music America in exclusive composer conversation
In celebration of National Chamber Music Month, Chamber Music America is hosting "Unity in Action: The Strength of Working Together" on May 18 in New York City, an afternoon of dialogue, discovery, and community. The event will bring together composers, performers, and industry leaders to exchange ideas, honor a mosaic of artistic perspectives, and explore models of collaboration. Hosted at St Peter’s Church in Midtown Manhattan, you can rsvp for the event at the link below.
The day begins at 1.30pm with a brief welcome, before Thea speaks to Chamber Music America’s CEO Kevin Kwan Loucks for an hour long discussion. The talk will be focussed on Thea’s lifelong career in music and her achievements having composed some of the most significant pieces of contemporary chamber music.
The day continues with several other fascinating talks and a mixer in the evening for the New York based CMA community.
BBC Proms to feature premiere of musgrave’s Bassoon concerto
April 22, 2026
The BBC Proms returns to the UK this summer with as exciting and varied a program as we have come to expect from the festival. Between plenty of the classics, celebrations of musical legends from Marvin Gaye to Morton Feldman, rock highlights from psych- to Turkish-folk-, there is still room for plenty of new BBC commissions, including Thea’s brand new Bassoon Concerto.
On Sunday, August 23rd, conductor Benjamin Marquise Gilmore and the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields spotlight the French horn and bassoon in two concertos: one classic, one contemporary. With virtuoso bassoonist Amy Harman they will perform the World Premiere of Thea’s concerto, programmed alongside Mozart’s good-natured Horn Concerto No. 3, featuring soloist Felix Kleisner, Britten’s playful Simple Symphony, Elgar’s Romance for bassoon and orchestra and finally Mozart’s Symphony No. 35 in D major, ‘Haffner’.
Find out more here and be sure to check out the rest of the festival’s program.
San Francisco Opera announce their 26/27 season…
February 3, 2026
San Francisco Opera recently announced their program for season 2026-27, featuring a new production of Thea’s modern classic Mary, Queen of Scots among several staple works from Tosca and The Marriage of Figaro to Das Rheingold which features as a warm up ahead of the company’s planned performance of Wagner’s full Ring Cycle in 2028. Mary, Queen of Scots will take the stage from Sept. 20–Oct. 4, 2026, conducted by Clelia Cafiero and featuring soprano Heidi Stober, who also starred as the tragic royal figure in the English National Opera’s 2024 production.
Shortly after its composition, Mary, Queen of Scots made its West Coast premiere with San Francisco Opera affiliate Spring Opera Theater, marking the first time the company presented a work by a female composer. Returning now in an updated production, SF Opera’s general director Matthew Shilvock says of the work:
“It is also an extraordinary privilege to present Thea Musgrave’s Mary, Queen of Scots on our mainstage. When I saw this work in London last year, I was awed by the power of Thea’s dramatic writing. She brings the Tudor queen into vivid relief, revealing both the fierce determination and the profound vulnerability of an 18-year-old woman fighting to retain her agency against overwhelming odds.”
“This production updates the action from the Tudor period to contemporary Scotland, in which we feel the tension of sectarian violence playing out in a regular town," Shilvock said. “We are reminded of how sectarian violence can rip apart neighbors, families, communities — and we see Mary’s heroic struggle to hold onto her power amidst the fight for power, faith and identity.”
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