麻豆社

From the Royal Opera House in London, Georgia Mann introduces the 麻豆社 World Service New Year鈥檚 Concert featuring three of the 麻豆社's New Generation Artists, a scheme showcasing some of the world鈥檚 most promising young musicians at the start of their international careers.

Prodigiously talented 24-year-old German pianist Elisabeth Brauss performs an Impromptu by Schubert, a dream-like piece portraying the romantic Vienna of the early 19th Century. She also plays a bright, feisty keyboard sonata by the Italian master Domenico Scarlatti, taking us to early 18th-century Spain.

25-year-old virtuoso German trumpeter Simon Hofele plays works by the American composer George Gershwin, who in the early decades of the 20th Century redefined music by mixing the new Afro-American rhythms of jazz with classical music. Accompanied by Richard Uttley at the piano, we hear Simon in one of Gershwin鈥檚 Three Preludes, and he also performs the masterpiece Rhapsody in Blue, in an arrangement for piano and trumpet, bringing to life the party atmosphere of New York in the 1920s.

And there鈥檚 some fantastic jazz made in London to add to this rich mix. The British guitarist Rob Luft, together with his five-piece band, performs his own compositions, some inspired by the rhythms of Africa as seen through his London eyes, in which the electric guitar takes centre stage.

Image: Simon Hofele (Credit: Marco Borggreve)