Tagged with 'London'

A fight for life: Daniel Kidane wrote his new violin concerto Aloud for Julia Fischer. She will premiere it on 16 March 2024 at the Royal Festival Hall in London, accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Edward Gardner.

Julian Anderson's Symphony No. 2, will celebrate its US premiere on December 7, 2023 at Severance Hall in Cleveland, OH. The Cleveland Orchestra will present the piece under the baton of Semyon Bychkov, who conducted the world premiere with the Munich Philharmonic at the beginning of last year. 

Kafka's World of Sound: The BBC Philharmonic, under the baton of John Storgårds, will perform the world premiere of Kafka's Earplugs by Gerald Barry at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms on the 3rd of August 2023.

Harmonising Zen and Sound: Under the baton of Elim Chan, the BBC Symphony Orchestra will deliver the UK premiere of Noriko Koide's Swaddling Silk and Gossamer Rain at the Royal Albert Hall, featured at the BBC Proms on July 25th, 2023.

A concert by and for the LGBTQ+ community: The world premiere of the new orchestral work ECHOES by Julian Anderson will take place on July 07 2023 with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in London. Oliver Zeffman will conduct and Davóne Tines will sing the baritone solo part.

Composed for a birth, performed for a coronation! To celebrate the upcoming inauguration of King Charles III, the London Philharmonic Orchestra will perform Sir Michael Tippett’s Suite in D on 06 May 2023 under the baton of Edward Gardner at London’s Royal Festival Hall.

With 1 October 2022 comes the world premiere of Vijay Iyer’s exciting new concerto for cello and orchestra. Human Archipelago will be performed at London’s Royal Festival Hall by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Inbal Segev, under the baton of Edward Gardner.

The Seven Deadly Sins (Die sieben Todsünden) is one of Kurt Weill’s best-known and most frequently performed works. On 21 September, a new orchestration of the ballet chanté for 15 players will receive its premiere at Beethovenfest Bonn with Ensemble Modern and soloist Sarah Maria Sun conducted by HK Gruber. The new version has been created by Gruber and Christian Muthspiel in collaboration with the Kurt Weill Foundation and Schott Music.

The Brecht text is not a period piece. It is absolutely contemporary. In our day The Seven Deadly Sins is a manifesto against capitalism run amok, and it's a dangerous piece - for the capitalists. Because it lays bare how the world works: if you are honest, you have to pay the price, here, during this life. It is even more timely than it was twenty or thirty years ago.  (HK Gruber)

The Seven Deadly Sins: An Iconic Work in a New Orchestration

Initiated by the Kurt Weill Foundation, the new orchestration of The Seven Deadly Sins will for the first time enable fully staged performances by smaller ensembles, theatres and dance companies. The work has received innumerable successful interpretations and the new version will open up further possibilities for creative productions in even more varied settings. The soprano soloist in Gruber and Muthspiel’s version is accompanied by a male vocal quartet and the following ensemble: 1(pic).0.2.1-1.1.1.0-perc-pno.banjo(gtr)-str(1.1.1.1.1)

HK Gruber is regarded as a leading Weill expert, having frequently conducted, performed and recorded The Seven Deadly Sins and other works throughout his career. This new orchestration is characterised by its high level of fidelity to the original work, retaining Weill's original keys and using the ensemble in innovative ways to match the characteristic timbres of the orchestral version.

Playing on double-standards that are placed on the sisters, Anna 1 and Anna 2, as they make their seven-year journey through different US cities, the highly ironic and satirical work features some of Weill’s most recognisable music. It incorporates numerous popular American musical styles including foxtrot, polka, and barbershop. Despite being sung in German, the work was a success at its premiere performance in 1933 in Paris where Weill was living in exile, and it received a UK premiere at the Savoy Theatre that same year.

• Kurt Weill – composer profile


• Work details and online score (original version)


• Work details and online score (new Gruber/Muthspiel version)


• Ensemble Modern website

photo: Staatstheater Stuttgart / Bernhard Weis

Ryan Wigglesworth will make no fewer than three appearances as a conductor at this year’s BBC Proms, including on 28 August 2019 when he will direct the world premiere of his Piano Concerto with Marc-André Hamelin and Britten Sinfonia. The new work is the result of a joint commission between BBC Radio 3 and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.



From the chorale figures of its opening arioso, to the contrapuntal scherzo and trio and the fugal finale, Wigglesworth’s Piano Concerto is characterised by its incorporation of Classical form and stylistic elements into his own contemporary idiom.

The solo piano part, neither bravura nor particularly virtuosic, often displays a poetic, intimate character. The work’s four movements are studies in character. The first, songlike; the second, a fast scherzo with a gentler central trio; the third, a nocturne based on a folk melody; and finally, a lively contrapuntal Gigue. - Ryan Wigglesworth

The lightly scored Notturno is one of the work’s more intimate moments. The orchestra is reduced to just strings and harp, accompanying the soloist in a small set of variations based on a Polish folk song Wigglesworth first heard around a campfire. His personal association of the melody with night is rendered in the dream-like and occasionally nightmarish quality of this movement.

Ryan Wigglesworth: Piano Concerto – Incorporation of classical form in a contemporary idiom

Audiences will be able to hear Wiggleworth’s Piano Concerto in performances around the world in coming seasons, including on 27, 28 and 29 February 2020 with Seattle Symphony Orchestra.

 

• Ryan Wigglesworth - profile


• Piano Concerto - work details


• BBC Proms

 

Photo: Benjamin Ealovega

On 10 November 2018, the BBC Symphony Orchestra will perform Mark-Anthony Turnage’s opera The Silver Tassie (1997-1999) in concert  as part of their In Remembrance World War I series at the Barbican in London. Ryan Wigglesworth will conduct, with an excellent cast including Sally Matthews, Sir John Tomlinson, Claire Booth, Marcus Farnsworth, Louise Alder, Susan Bickley, and Ashley Riches as Harry, the lead character.

Based on Sean O’Casey’s 1928 play on the futility of war, The Silver Tassie is set in Dublin during World War I. Its title, referring to a footballing trophy, comes from a Scottish song text by Robert Burns “Go fetch to me a pint o’ wine, an’ fill it in a silver tassie; that I may drink before I go, a service to my bonnie lassie”. The opera was co-commissioned by English National Opera whilst Turnage was their Composer in Association, and Dallas Opera.

Mark-Anthony Turnage - The Silver Tassie: the tragedy of war

The story of The Silver Tassie centres around Harry Heagen - a handsome soldier on leave from the Great War, and a renowned footballer. Triumphant after winning the football cup ‘The Silver Tassie’ for his team, Harry leaves his family and girlfriend Jessie for the front. There he is rescued from death by his best friend Barney, but loses the use of his legs and is confined to a wheelchair. Harry then discovers Jessie has deserted him for Barney, and the final act brings a poignant and moving conclusion, as he sets off to face an uncertain future.

It is not only words that come across vividly, but feelings too. The sheer theatricality of the music is dazzling. Turnage knows precisely how to hold the audience's interest and sympathy, timing each scene consummately and providing haunting "tag" tunes and a series of grand operatic gestures. – Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph

Further upcoming performances for Turnage include the staging of his explosive first opera Greek (1986-1988) at New York’s Brooklyn Academy of Music from 5-9 December 2018.

• Mark-Anthony Turnage - profile


• The Silver Tassie - details 


• Barbican Centre

 

© Foto: Keith Saunders