227: Claire Booth
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227: Claire Booth
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About this listen
Sheffield Chamber Music Festival 2026 curator Claire Booth was asked a blunt question when she was invited her to put together this year's programme: why is selling a song recital so difficult? This year's Sheffield is the answer — or rather, her answer, or the argument. Or maybe its her case for it.
Across a week of concerts, she pulls in Ravel's Scheherazade into the orbit of folk tales, positions Judith Weir's King Harald's Saga alongside a repeat performance of Gavin Higgins's Speak of the North, and premieres Julian Philipps's multilingual children's opera Henny Penny. Song sells itself because song tells a story.
Recorded in the Royal Opera House café after a day of rehearsals, Claire talks about the Festival, a planned collaboration with Rufus Norris on Beckett, her 2025 RPS Singer Award, and — briefly, and with more disappointment than heat — Timothy Chalamet.