Ballet Nights New Year’s Day Concert

Cadogan Hall, London
January 1, 2026

To begin the new year, Ballet Nights presented something a little different in the shape of a concert that mixed dance and music, the latter a little more to the fore. If there were any doubts about people turning out on a chill New Year’s Day evening, they were put aside, ballet and music lovers turning out in numbers for what proved a largely successful and enjoyable programme.

Having already greeted patrons in the foyer as they arrived, the superb Quartet Concrète got the evening proper underway with the a sparkling rendition of the third and fourth movements (Scherzo (Furiant) and Allegro) of Anton Dvořák’s Piano Quintet No.2 in A Major, with the addition of the ever-excellent Viktor Erik Emanuel.

Yasiel Hodelín Bello followed with a variation from Le Corsaire. It’s never easy to perform excerpts like this with no build up, no orchestra and no scenery, on top of which, Bello had to contend with the Cadogan Hall’s small stage. So, that he danced with the stops in is understandable. The steps and gloss were still there, but it struggled to carry across the footlights.

Kenneth Tindall’s Bitter Earth, danced by Minju Kang, Lorenzo Trossello and Kevin Poeung, is an odd, abstract piece. It was interesting to see how Tindall works the trio, but the mostly legato score by Max Richter contrasts awkwardly with the rasping voice of Dinah Washington, the choreography insufficiently interesting to overcome the mis-match.

Viktor Erik Emanuel returned with some of Chopin’s flashiest fireworks with the Étude in C-sharp minor, Op.10, No.4. His fingers were a veritable blur on the piano keyboard. Why red flashing disco-style lights as an accompaniment, though?

In fact, lighting was a bit of an issue throughout. Levels were generally too low, leaving dancers faces unlit and creating distracting shadows beyond the makeshift wings.

Azerbaijani soprano Gulshan Akin made a spectacular entrance in a white dress and blood red cloak to sing the aria ‘Vissi d’arte’ from Giacomo Puccini’s oper Tosca, accompanied by Viktor Erik Emanuel on piano and dancer Liudmila Konovalova. While the aria is a legato piece that calls for classical ports de bras, Sébastien Bertaud’s choreography for Evanescence over uses them, and intersperses them with jerky movements. A floaty dress helped but the work was as wispy as the fabric.

Altogether more successful was Florent Melac’s Moonlight, choreographed to an interesting arrangement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No.14 (aka the ‘Moonlight’) for string quartet. Unfamiliar tones and colour enabled both choreographer and dancers Constance Devernay-Laurence and Gareth Haw to create nuance in a seamless stream of movement.

Quartet Concrète were back to open the second half with Bryce Dessner’s spiky Aheym. Providing contemporary music with an opportunity for an outing harks back to the gesamtkunstwerk championed by Wagner and later practices by Diaghilev, with the arts complementing each other and taking equal billing, and with rare opportunities to hear new music live.

Yasiel Hodelin Bello returned with Basilio’s variation from Don Quixote but ran up against the issues as earlier. It was danced with textbook correctness but lacked much feeling or panache. If nothing else, it proved that the old 19th-century war horses are a challenge that goes well beyond executing the steps correctly.

The musical highlight of the evening was undoubtedly the fourth movement of Paul Hindemith’s Viola Sonata, Op.25, No.1, played by Dominic Stokes. It’s a furious outburst of sound that carries the extraordinary marking ‘Raging tempo. Wild. Beauty of tone is of a secondary consideration.’

At the forefront of the modernist movement, the composer trained as a violinist but was conscripted into the army in World War One, where he played the bass drum and founded a string quartet when not undertaking sentry duty on the front line. Later a prolific composer, his work is perhaps more easily accessible than that of others of his generation but is now seldom performed.

Clinquant was choreographed and performed by EKLEIDO (Hannah Ekholm and Faye Stoeser) to a mix of music by Floating Points, Ela Minus and Stella Mozgawa. Clad in sparkling black, they were at least able to be visible in the dim lighting but choreographically it left me wanting more.

If Hindemith provided the musical highlight of the evening, then the wonderful baritone Patrick Alexander Keefe provided the most outstanding performance with his spirited and witty rendition of ‘Largo Al Factotum’ from Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. He judged the audience and auditorium so perfectly that one felt it might just have been created for the evening. And who needs an orchestra when Quartet Concrète can whip up a handy arrangement, with help from Dominic Stokes.

The concert rounded off in scintillating style with Liudmila Konovalova and Gareth Haw giving a terrific Sleeping Beauty Grand pas de deux.

Jamiel Laurence and Ballet Nights might have been taking a bit of a chance putting on a show on New Year’s Day but the people came, suggesting that there is a demand for similar evenings. That shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, after all, Birmingham Royal Ballet’s not dissimilar annual Evening of Music and Dance has been running successfully for many years. One difference here was that, while there were some tried and tested favourites, Laurence mostly did not play it safe with the musical choices, for which he should be applauded. I do wish he would tone down his introductions, though. While having a MC is a good idea, the game show tone does not match the programme and it really isn’t necessary to shout into the microphone. Sincerity will suffice.