Conductor John Andrews has launched a new opera company to champion unknown and neglected works. It follows the success – including an Editor’s Choice – of his recent recording of Malcolm Arnold’s 1952 comedy The Dancing Master, about which Gramophone critic Richard Bratby wrote: ‘In short, it’s hard to imagine it done better. Arnold’s many admirers should snap it up, as should anyone interested in 20th-century British opera. With luck, this recording will make a staging more likely.’

And indeed, it’s with a production of The Dancing Master, at the 2021 Buxton International Festival, that the company will launch.

'There is such a wealth of wonderful repertoire lying buried in libraries and archives that comes immediately alive on stage', said Andrews. 'It is tragic not to see these gems performed, and this company will bring them to the widest possible audience in collaboration with festivals and theatres.'

Andrews has called his company Red Squirrel – 'itself endangered, digging up long-buried morsels' – and says it aims to co-produce one staged project and one recording each year, researching and uncovering mainly English-language theatre works from the 18th – 20th Centuries with composers such as Thomas Arne, Arthur Sullivan, Malcolm Arnold, Malcolm Williamson, John Joubert and Lennox Berkeley among others.

The Dancing Master is available on Resonus Classics, and the production at Buxton International Festival opens on July 9, 2021 and runs until July 22.