Tagged with 'world premiere'

Inspired by the first science fiction film ever made, on 18 February 2023, Andrew Norman’s new arrangement of A Trip to the Moon will excitingly receive its world premiere at the Hamburg State Opera. Now written with German libretto and orchestrated for chamber ensemble, this debut will be conducted by Luiz de Godoy along with imaginative staging by Stephan Witzlinger for the Opera Stabile venue.

On 7 February 2023 under the direction of Paolo Bortolameolli, the LA Phil New Music Group will perform the world premiere of Katherine Balch’s new composition for sixteen instruments, all around the sea blazed gold, at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles.

Audiences can expect a true revelation at the upcoming world premiere of Sebastian Hilli's orchestral work, Miracle. Hilli’s new work bursts with surprising and unconventional ideas and will be boldly taken under the direction of Ryan Bancroft and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra as they embark on the composition’s first live performance on February 1st, 2023 at the Konserthuset Stockholm.

Inaccessible lands: No. 56 (Islands) by Richard Ayres is an ensemble work dedicated to the perpetual mystery that has drawn in explorers for centuries. The world premiere takes place on December 8th at Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw aan't IJ with Clark Rundell conducting the Asko|Schoenberg ensemble, the commissioner of this intriguing composition. 

Genesis – creation is the title of Toshio Hosokawa's new Violin Concerto which he wrote for violinist Veronika Eberle. As part of the International Music Festival Hamburg, the world premiere will take place on 19 May 2021, 8 pm local time (6 pm UTC), after the date had to be postponed multiple times. It will be live streamed on the YouTube channel of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg, Kent Nagano is conducting.

"Veronika Eberle gave birth to a baby last November. I composed the piece as a present for
her and her baby. In the concerto, the soloist represents a human being, while the orchestra is imagined as nature and the universe surrounding him. At the beginning, the orchestra repeats wave motions suggestive of amniotic fluid, then the melodic line of the violin solo (= life) is generated from the inside of ‘cradle’, and is developing while imitating melodies inside the orchestra, then becomes independent of it, conflicts with it, however, finally finds a harmony inside the orchestra and dissolves into it." Toshio Hosokawa

Toshio Hosokawa
Violin Concerto
Genesis · 18’
19 May 2021 | Hamburg (D)
Elbphilharmonie
Veronika Eberle, violin
Philharmonic State Orchestera Hamburg
Kent Nagano, conductor

Commissioned by Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra (SOČR) and Grafenegg Festival

• Toshio Hosokawa – composer profile


• Live Stream on YouTube


• Website of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg

 

On 4 February 2021, 21:05 GMT Konzertmusik for violin and small chamber orchestra by Hans Werner Henze will receive it's world premiere. After several attempts to perform the work had to be cancelled in 2020, the Bavarian Radio will broadcast a studio recording with Peter Tilling and the Ensemble risonanze erranti. This will officially mark the world premiere of the composition.

Konzertmusik is the earliest work composed by Hans Werner Henze and published by Schott: the concerto for violin and small chamber orchestra, written when he was only 17. It was not until the end of World War II that he was able to devote himself intensively to composition: a short time later, he was signed by Schott. The composition reveals its inspiration from Paul Hindemith. In its chamber music structure, a series of instruments from the ensemble including flute, trumpet and the first player of violin I repeatedly take on small solo passages and accompany the solo violin in groups of two or three. In the finale however, a ‘genuine’ virtuoso violin concerto unfolds in miniature.

• Hans Werner Henze – composer profile


• Konzertmusik – Werkdetails und Online-Partitur


• Bavarian Radio Broadcast Site

Porträt Hans Werner Henze: © Schott Music / Hans Kenner

On 18 October at the Donaueschingen Festival, Ensemble Musikfabrik and with conductor Mariano Chiacchiarini will give the world premiere of Gerald Barry's No People. for 13 instruments. The work which has been commissioned by SWR, draws on Barry's earlier work by the same name.

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Please note:
After the publication of this article, the Donaueschingen Festival was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, we would like to invite you to learn about this interesting composition.

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The title, No People. is taken from surrealist Raymond Roussel's 1932 poem New Impressions of Africa for which he commissioned 59 drawings to illustrate the text. The commission was given to the artist via a detective agency - the artist, not knowing who the commissioner was and having never seen the texts, would receive simple instructions such as 'Nocturnal Landscape. Very starry sky with a thin crescent of moon. (No people.)' from which to realize the drawing.

“together, the ordinary everyday drawings take on a strangeness they might otherwise not have had if the artist had drawn on with the poem's text in front of him. It's the juxtaposition of both unknowns - poem/drawings - that give the final work its strange quality.” - Gerald Barry

No People. will be performed twice at the festival at 11.00 and 15.00 on 18 October allowing for as many attendees as possible to hear the music.

• Gerald Barry: composer profile


• No People.: work details


• Donaueschinger Musiktage

The Staatskappelle Berlin celebrates its impressive history as it marks its 450th anniversary this year. The earliest sources mentioning the orchestra date from 1570. On 11 September, the world premiere of a new work by Jörg Widmann commissioned specially for the occasion, Zeitensprünge (Leaps in time), will be given in a concert conducted by Daniel Barenboim at the Berlin State Opera House. 

The title Zeitensprünge is a pun about musical time-travel and stylistic escapades. Widmann explores the multiple stylistic periods through which the orchestra has lived during its long history, with the opening bars featuring an off-stage ensemble playing renaissance dances. Only when the musicians enter the stage does the idea of conducting start to take form, and a concert of today’s understanding commences. 

Jörg Widmann – Zeitensprünge: A Concerto for Orchestra in a nutshell

Though Zeitensprünge is a condensed 10-minute orchestral work of only 450 bars (one for each year of the Staatskapelle´s history), it nevertheless has everything a full-scale Concerto for Orchestra needs. There are solos from nearly every section of the orchestra, ensembles such as fanfares emerge from the texture, medieval winds and consorts play next to each other, and Widmann uses a variety of musical forms to lead to a brilliant final canon that symbolises many becoming one. 

“When I sit in front of a sheet of manuscript paper, I don’t keep thinking ‘you have to invent something new’. Not at all. My head is full of harmonies, connections and combinations that have never been heard before. My problem is to find forms for them. I am now in a stage of fighting to find these new forms.” - Jörg Widmann 

• Jörg Widmann – composer profile


• Zeitensprünge – work details and online score


• Staatskapelle Berlin
  

Photos:Marco Borggrve, Adobe Stock / spuno

2020 is the 200th anniversary of the Berlin Konzerthaus, a concert hall that started life as a theatre. In celebration of this anniversary as part of Musikfest Berlin, Christian Tetzlaff will perform the world premiere of a new violin concerto by Christian Jost on 6 September. The concerto, entitled Concerto noir redux, will be accompanied by Konzerthausorchester Berlin and conducted by Christoph Eschenbach. 

Concerto noir redux was originally intended to bear the same title as his opera Journey of Hope - Voyage of Despair. However, after the cancellation of the original premiere in March 2020, Jost chose instead to make changes to the music in response to recent events.

Christian Jost – Concerto noir redux: music from the lockdown

The result was not only a smaller orchestra, necessitated by social distancing, but a work that expresses a darker character and soundworld. Concerto noir redux is now one of two versions of the work Concerto noir, each with the same solo part.

Usually, I compose with a clear idea of the musical structure and of the sounds, and therefore of the course of the resulting work. But this time it was different. There was an initial thought for the opening in which the solo violin gradually separates from unison with the first violins. From this starting point the work should virtually compose itself. The resulting single-movement concerto with a single tempo (quarter = 76 espressivo) is driven by rhythmic ‘cells’. I completed the composition more or less simultaneously with the end of the lockdown, and since this had given rise to a work with predominantly dark shades of colour and sound, I considered Concerto noir to be a perfect title. Christian Jost

• Christian Jost – composer profile


• Concerto noir redux – work details and online score


• Konzerthaus Berlin


• Musikfest Berlin

Photos: Adobe Stock / lakkot, Joe Quiao

On 26 August, Arcade, a new 20-minute orchestral work by Akiko Yamane will receive its world premiere at Suntory Hall, Tokyo. The concert, which is part of the 2020 Suntory Summer Festival will be given by the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Yoichi Sugiyama.

Yamane describes Arcade as drawing on the idea of drone music that programmatically expresses a consumerist society where the needs and desires of the people are seemingly under control. Below the surface, however, their internal desires and contradictions become apparent. Arcade has been commissioned by the Suntory Arts Foundation. 

Akiko Yamane – Arcade: State of uncertainty within a fragile society

I seek to depict this idea with a quality of sound that a person can feel on their skin. The sound fluctuates according to subtle changes within the listener’s body, or in accordance with a particular place or space and so on. In this piece, I stop and turn my attention to the various layers of sound and focus on their essence. Akiko Yamane 

• Akiko Yamane – composer profile


• Arcade – work details and online score


• Suntory Summer Festival

Photos: Adobe Stock / topntp, Coco