Tagged with 'Gavin Bryars'

Very rarely do audiences come across new classical works that allows the soloist to improvise on the spot. Gavin Bryars has specifically written notation for keyboardist, Mahan Esfahani (pictured), to play freely beyond the page as he performs the world premiere of Bryars’ Harpsichord Concerto with Andrew Manze and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic on 23 March 2023.

Schott Music wishes composer Gavin Bryars a very happy 80^th birthday! We are immensely proud of our many years working with Gavin and look forward to celebrating this milestone anniversary with a number of events including a new harpsichord concerto for Mahan Esfahani in March with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and a portrait concert at King's Place in November which will coincide with the release of a new book by David Wordsworth, published by Kahn & Averill.

On Sunday 13 October, The Crossing chamber choir conducted by Donald Nally will give the world premiere of Gavin Bryars’ much anticipated choral work, A Native Hill, in its complete version. The work is Bryars’ second collaboration with The Crossing following The Fifth Century in 2014, which won a Grammy Award.

Gavin Bryars – A Native Hill: Political and social implications explored through rural themes

Setting text by American writer and poet Wendell Berry, A Native Hill  is Bryars’ most substantial work for unaccompanied choir to date. His decision to set Berry’s 1968 essay of the same name was influenced by the implicit social and political force that lies behind Berry’s words that, at first appearance, might seem to be purely pastoral descriptions of rural existence.

There’s a kind of breath to it and a sort of universality, which goes way beyond that. So I was struck by the […] profundity that was there by implication; not obviously. – Gavin Bryars

A Native Hill is composed in twelve sections that build to a finale in which the 24 voices of the choir separate into individual parts, forming a rich chromatic cluster. Out of the dense passages, Bryars slowly exposes familiar harmonies and melodic movement.

Later this year, Rondo Vocale will perform Bryars’ The Fifth Century and On Photography in Stuttgart on 17 November. In February 2020, Bryars’ String Quartet No. 4 for the Smith Quartet will receive its world premiere in Pisa, Italy. 

• Gavin Bryars – profile


• The Crossing Choir