Piano Suite No.7 in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in May
The large scale six movement Piano Suite No.7 will be played by Ronald Brautigam at a chamber concert in the concert hall in Rotterdam's De Doelen centre at 11:00 on Sunday 18 May 2008. Other composers include Bach, Handel, Britten and Berio. Tickets: €33 and concessions.
Variations on an Original Theme in Cheltenham, UK in June
Acclaimed Vietnamese pianist Tra Nguyen will play the large-scale solo piano piece Variations on an Original Theme op.179 at a recital in Cheltenham, United Kingdom on Sunday 1 June. The venue is Park House, Thirlestaine Road in Cheltenham. More details once they are available.
Octet in Colorado Springs, USA in June 
The Octet will feature in a chamber concert in the Colorado College Summer Music Festival series at 3 pm on Sunday 15 June at the Packard Hall, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO. Tickets will be available from 1 June onwards from the College's Worner Campus Center or call (719)389-6607 in the USA. The concert will also feature works by Bax, Ginastera, Bartók and Schumann.
Suite for Piano & Orchestra in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in August
Tra Nguyen will follow up her exciting 2007 performance of the Piano Concerto in Ho Chi Minh City's Opera House in 2007, by playing the five movement Suite for Piano and Orchestra there this August during the city's Autumn Festival on 17August. This must be the Raff concert of the year!
Ein feste Burg Overture in France, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria in August & September
The Kammerorchester Basel under the baton of Paul McCreesh are giving a series of concerts in France, the Netherlands, Germany and Austriain August and Septemmber 2008. The concert programme will feature Raff's Overture Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, together with Haydn's Cello Concerto and Brahms' First Symphony.
- The famed Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Netherlands, is the venue at 8:00 pm on Tuesday 19 August 2008. More details when they are available.
- The next performance will be at a concert in the La Chaise-Dieu Festival in La Chaise-Dieu, near Saint-Etienne in France at 2:30 pm on Thursday 21 August. More details when they are available.
- The magnificently restored Frauenkirche in Dresden, Germany is the venue for the concert on Saturday 23 August 2008 at 8:00pm. Tickets from the Stiftung Frauenkirche Dresden.
- The final performance will be in Eisenstadt, Austria at 7:00 pm on Sunday 7 September 2008. More details when they are available.
Ein feste Burg Overture in Switzerland, Serbia, Croatia and Germany in 2009
The Kammerorchester Basel will also be programming the work at some or all of the following concerts in February and March 2009:
- Tuesday 17 February 2009 - Stadthaussaal, Zofingen, Switzerland
- Tuesday 3 March 2009 - Belgrade, Serbia
- Wednesday 4 March 2009 - Zagreb, Croatia
- Saturday 7 March 2009 - Frankfurt, Germany
- Monday 9 March 2009 - Stadtcasino, Basel, Switzerland
- Tuesday 10 March 2009 - La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland
- Wednesday 11 March 2009 - Olten, Switzerland
- Thursday 12 March 2009 - Casino, Bern, Switzerland
- Saturday 14 March 2009 - Philharmonie, Essen, Germany
- Sunday 15 March 2009 - Philharmonie, Köln, Germany
More details as soon as they are available. Also featured will be works by Mendelssohn, Mozart and Stravimsky.
"Lost" Violin Concerto No.1 found and published
It had been thought that the original orchestral score of Raff's Violin Concerto No.1 had been lost. Despite an exhaustive search made when Tudor were preparing their ground-breaking CD recording [review], the only versions which could be located were Raff's piano reduction and an arrangement by the work's dedicatee Wilhelmj. Comparison between the two made it clear that Wilhelmj's alterations to the structure, orchestration and harmony were so major that his version could not be regarded as a Raff composition.
In 2003, three years after the CD's release, Raff Forum correspondent Mark Stackpole remembered seeing a manuscript of the work in the Eastman School of Music, Rochester University, USA. Volker Tosta, publisher of the acclaimed Edition Nordstern series of modern definitive Raff scores, established that this manuscript is not only a full orchestral score of the Raff original, but that it is in Raff's own hand. Autograph scores by Raff are very rare; once he had completed a work and handed it over to his publisher, he does not seem to have been concerned about the autograph's fate.
A definitive Edition Nordstern issue of the original orchestral score has now been published, along with Raff's own reduction for violin and piano.