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New Music Concert Listings - United Kingdom

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2 Feb



United Kingdom
 Saturday, February 2, 2013 at Various Times 
Total Immersion: Sounds from Japan
Barbican Hall, London
Barbican, Silk Street, London EC2
United Kingdom
020 7638 8891
http://www.barbican.org.uk/eticketing

Tickets: Day Pass £35 - 48
Various

Takemitsu was a pivotal figure in opening up an authentic creative dialogue between Western and Japanese music. When he retreated to his mountain villa to write November Steps, significantly, he took Debussy’s Jeux with him. The result was a haunting, twilit masterpiece which employs the shakahuchii and biwa, to be performed here beside works of Takemitsu’s contemporaries (Akira Miyoshi, Toshio Hosokawa) and of the next generation, including Dai Fujikura, who trained almost entirely in the UK and only discovered his native traditional instruments in Europe. His high-octane orchestral writing is both streetwise, humorous and sophisticated, while French-based Misato Mochizuki has devised her Musubi (Knot) from a traditional celebratory dance, but has also utilised techno dance music and gagaku in her work . Film has been an important medium for these composers, and Takemitsu’s film scores are explored in our first event. Don’t miss, too, the rare opportunity to hear a unique Fusion Project, in which traditional Japanese instrumentalists play alongside members of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

More information: http://www.barbican.org.uk/music/series.asp?ID=1068


various composers : Takemitsu, Dai Fujikura etc.

3 Feb 
 
4 Feb



United Kingdom
 Monday, February 4, 2013 at 7.30pm 
Sea Pictures with the BBC Singers
St. Paul's, Knightsbridge
St Paul’s Church, Knightsbridge 32a Wilton Place London SW1X 8SH
United Kingdom
http://www.stpaulsknightsbridge.org

Tickets: Free
BBC Singers
Paul Brough conductor


The BBC Singers conjure up a series of musical seascapes at St Paul's Knightsbridge. Maritime subjects - real and imaginary, triumphant and tragic - have always been a source of fascination for poets and composers, and in this concert the BBC Singers present a programme of sea-themed works from Coleridge-Taylor, Bantock, Richard Rodney Bennett and two Renaissance masters. The tragic Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae by Finnish composer Mantyjarvi was composed after the sinking of the MS Estonia and the loss of over 800 lives at sea in 1994, while Steve Martland's new Sea Songs (here receiving its English premiere) references a range of sea songs and texts.

Admission by free ticket only.


E J MOERAN : The Sailor and Young Nancy
Robert Coleridge : Sea Drift
Orlando Lassus : De profundis clamavi
Richard Rodney Bennett : Sea Change
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina : De profundis clamavi
Jaakko Mantyjarvi : Canticum Calamitatis Maritiamae
Granville Bantock : The Seal-Woman's Croon
Steve Martland : Sea Songs

5 Feb



United Kingdom
 Tuesday, February 5, 2013 at 19:30 
Mark-Anthony Turnage Residency
Barbican Hall, London
Barbican, Silk Street, London EC2
United Kingdom
020 7638 8891
http://www.barbican.org.uk/eticketing

Tickets: £10 £15 £19.50 £27 £36
Daniel Harding conductor
Håkan Hardenberger trumpet
London Symphony Orchestra

The first of three concerts celebrating one of the most admired composers of a generation: Mark Anthony Turnage. 'From the Wreckage' (‘outstanding: the music begins hellishly but gradually picks up a bluesy swing… I was mesmerised.’ The Times) was premiered in 2005; original soloist Håkan Hardenberger returns to reprise the role. Tapiola brings Finnish forest God Tapio to shimmering life while Beethoven’s 'Eroica' dwells in the human realm of roaring victories and crushing defeats.

Jean Sibelius : Tapiola
Mark-Anthony Turnage : Trumpet Concerto ('From the Wreckage')
Ludwig Van Beethoven : Symphony No 3 ('Eroica')

6 Feb 
 
7 Feb



United Kingdom
 Thursday, February 7, 2013 at 7.30pm 
Mark-Anthony Turnage Residency
Barbican Hall, London
Barbican, Silk Street, London EC2
United Kingdom
020 7638 8891
http://www.barbican.org.uk/eticketing

Tickets: £10 £15 £19.50 £27 £36
Daniel Harding conductor
Lars Vogt piano
London Symphony Orchestra

Mark Anthony Turnage’s Speranza (‘Hope’) is a monument to the power of optimism in a bleak world – ‘I started working on the piece while thinking about the absence of hope. I wanted to lift people up.’ Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto offers the composer’s trademark thundering drama juxtaposed with sweet grace. While Tapiola spoke of forest Gods, the rippling Oceanides breathes life into the female water spirits of Greek mythology.

Jean Sibelius : Oceanides
Ludwig Van Beethoven : Piano Concerto No 3
Mark-Anthony Turnage : New work (world premiere, LSO commission)

7 Feb



United Kingdom
 Thursday, February 7, 2013 at 7.30pm 
Farhad Badalbeyli performs Prokofiev
Cadogan Hall
5 Sloane Terrace, London, SW1X 9DQ
United Kingdom
02075898212

Tickets: £40, £32.50, £25, £15
Conductor - Dmitry Yablonsky
Piano - Farhad Badalbeyli
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra


Written in just three days, Shostakovich’s Festive Overture is a dazzling tour de force, demanding breathtaking agility from the whole orchestra. Also written in haste, the Karelia Suite by Sibelius is one of his most popular works, its shimmering textures and bold melodies celebrating the composer’s native Finland. Prokofiev’s dynamic and colourful First Piano Concerto was written when he was a student; Prokofiev premiered the Concerto himself, considering it to be his first mature work. This programme culminates in the grandeur of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition orchestrated by Ravel, each movement vividly conjuring up a different scene.

Box Office: 020 7730 4500



Dmitri Shostakovich : Festive Overture
Jean Sibelius : Karelia Suite
Sergei Prokofiev : Piano Concerto No.1
Modest Mussorgsky : Pictures at an Exhibition

8 Feb



United Kingdom
 Friday, February 8, 2013 at 7pm 
Lulu
Millennium Centre, Cardiff
Cardiff Bay, Cardiff, Wales
United Kingdom

Tickets: £5-40
WNO

Cast includes
Lulu Marie Arnet
Countess Geschwitz Natascha Petrinsky
Wardrobe Mistress/Schoolboy Patricia Orr
Doctor Schön/Jack the Ripper Ashley Holland
Alwa Peter Hoare
Artist/Negro Mark le Brocq
Schigolch Richard Angas
Prince/Manservant/Marquis Alan Oke
Athlete / Acrobat Julian Close

Free Spirits is the first of our themed seasons. It brings together two of the greatest operas of the 20th century, Janáček’s The Cunning little Vixen and Berg’s Lulu. Both pieces pose profound questions about how much freedom we desire and how much we can tolerate and still remain a functioning society.
She is a vision of freedom too pure to be allowed to last.
Everyone is drawn to Lulu, intoxicated by her; those in her thrall are like moths to a flame. Her flame burns bright and fast but sooner or later it will be extinguished by the very things it once fed upon.
Berg’s second and final opera is a masterpiece – total theatre. Anyone wishing to see the greatest works in the repertoire must include Lulu in their list. Few composers invite their audiences unflinchingly to confront humanity’s darkest regions in the way that Berg does here. Lulu promises a shattering but rewarding experience for those who encounter it.

Welsh National Opera has an important association with this great composer’s work: WNO gave the first British performances of Lulu in the 1970s and won acclaim and awards for our 2005 production of Wozzeck. David Pountney is one of the world’s most influential opera directors. This production of Lulu is his first new production in his role as our Chief Executive and Artistic Director.

Supported by the WNO Partnership, the WNO Lulu Circle and The John S Cohen Foundation. Spring 2013 Season supported by a lead gift from the Colwinston Charitable Trust.

Performances also on 16th and 23rd February.


Alban Berg : Lulu

9 Feb



United Kingdom
 Saturday, February 9, 2013 at All day 
Huw Watkins Day
Wigmore Hall, London
36 Wigmore St, London W1
United Kingdom
02079352141
http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk

Various

Whether at work as composer, solo pianist or chamber musician, Huw Watkins is blessed with the unfailing ability to communicate and draw audiences close to the edge of their seats. His chamber compositions, many of them premièred at Wigmore Hall in recent years, have earned critical acclaim and entered the repertoire.

More information on the four concerts available here: http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/series/huwwatkinsday


Huw Watkins : Various

10 Feb 
 
11 Feb 
 
12 Feb 
 
13 Feb 
 
14 Feb 
 
15 Feb



United Kingdom
 Friday, February 15, 2013 at 7pm 
The Tyranny of Fun
CBSO Centre, Birmingham
Berkley Street, Birmingham, B1 2LF
United Kingdom
0121 767 4050
http://www.bcmg.org.uk
info@bcmg.org.uk

Tickets: In advance: £14 full price / £8 concession / £5 under 16s // On the door: £16 full price / £10 conc
Conductor/Piano: Ryan Wigglesworth
Piano: Nicolas Hodges
Electronics: Nye Parry



Richard Baker is one of the foremost composer-conductors of his generation. Commissioned through BCMG’s Sound Investment scheme, Baker’s new work for ensemble and electronics addresses the theme of ‘irrational exuberance’; taking in Ravel’s death-driven waltzes, and the sounds of 80s New York disco; with live electronics that Baker has developed together with his colleague, composer/sound artist Nye Parry.

BCMG premiered Causton’s Chamber Symphony in 2009 and this performance will be the Group’s first since Causton revised the piece following its premiere.

Giving context to these works are three pieces from the 1940s and 50s. Scored for unorthodox percussion instruments, John Cage’s Second Construction is one of a series of three works composed between 1939-42, while Cage was touring the west coast of America with a percussion ensemble.

Oiseaux exotiques (Exotic Birds), for piano and an orchestra of winds and percussion, is an enchanting sound fantasy containing imitations of no fewer than 40 different birdsongs or calls. Pianist Nicolas Hodges, the soloist for the Messiaen, is joined by Ryan Wigglesworth to open the concert with Igor Stravinsky’s Sonata for Two Pianos.

There will be a free pre-concert talk from 6-6.30pm with Richard Baker, open to all ticket holders.



Igor Stravinsky : Sonata for 2 pianos
John Cage : Second Construction
Richard Baker : The Tyranny of Fun
Richard Causton : Chamber Sypmhony
Olivier Messiaen : Oiseaux Exotiques

15 Feb



United Kingdom
 Friday, February 15, 2013 at 7pm 
The Tyranny of Fun
CBSO Centre, Birmingham
Berkley Street, Birmingham
United Kingdom

Tickets: £5-16
Conductor/Piano: Ryan Wigglesworth
Piano: Nicolas Hodges
Electronics: Nye Parry

Richard Baker is one of the foremost composer-conductors of his generation. Commissioned through BCMG’s Sound Investment scheme, Baker’s new work for ensemble and electronics addresses the theme of ‘irrational exuberance’; taking in Ravel’s death-driven waltzes, and the sounds of 80s New York disco; with live electronics that Baker has developed together with his colleague, composer/sound artist Nye Parry.

BCMG premiered Causton’s Chamber Symphony in 2009 and this performance will be the Group’s first since Causton revised the piece following its premiere.

Giving context to these works are three pieces from the 1940s and 50s. Scored for unorthodox percussion instruments, John Cage’s Second Construction is one of a series of three works composed between 1939-42, while Cage was touring the west coast of America with a percussion ensemble.

Oiseaux exotiques (Exotic Birds), for piano and an orchestra of winds and percussion, is an enchanting sound fantasy containing imitations of no fewer than 40 different birdsongs or calls. Pianist Nicolas Hodges, the soloist for the Messiaen, is joined by Ryan Wigglesworth to open the concert with Igor Stravinsky’s Sonata for Two Pianos.

There will be a free pre-concert talk from 6-6.30pm with Richard Baker, open to all ticket holders.


Igor Stravinsky : Sonata for 2 pianos
John Cage : Second Construction
Richard Baker : The Tyranny of Fun ~ (BCMG Sound Investment commission / world premiere)
Richard Causton : Chamber Symphony (BCMG Sound Investment commission 2009)
Olivier Messiaen : Oiseaux Exotiques

15 Feb



United Kingdom
 Friday, February 15, 2013 at 7.30pm 
BBC Symphony Orchestra / Volkov
Barbican Hall, London
Barbican, Silk Street, London EC2
United Kingdom
020 7638 8891
http://www.barbican.org.uk/eticketing

Tickets: £10 – 30
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Ilan Volkov conductor
Christine Rice mezzo soprano
Marcus Farnsworth baritone

Theatre is at the heart of David Sawer’s incisive and original music, and his new commission Flesh and Blood is a dramatic scena, with words by Howard Barker, featuring star soloists Christine Rice and Marcus Farnsworth. Dieter Schnebel’s Schubert-Fantasia recalls dreamlike fragments from Schubert’s G major Piano Sonata refracted through a shimmering haze of dissonant harmonies. 150 years earlier, Schubert wrote his ‘Great’ Ninth Symphony, a powerful feat of sustained momentum, driven by buoyant rhythms, explosive emotions and vast, inexorable climaxes which Ilan Volkov will no doubt shape with his characteristically dynamic vision.


Dieter Schnebel : Schubert-Phantasie (UK premiere)
David Sawer : Flesh and Blood (BBC commission: World premiere)
Franz Schubert : Symphony No 9 in C major, ‘Great’

16 Feb 
 
17 Feb 
 
18 Feb 
 
19 Feb



United Kingdom
 Tuesday, February 19, 2013 at 8pm 
Mark-Anthony Turnage
Jerwood Hall
London
United Kingdom

Tickets: £10-22
Gwilym Simcock piano
John Patitucci double bass/bass guitar
LSO String Orchestra


A self-confessed jazz addict, Mark Anthony Turnage allows the presence of Miles Davis and others to infuse his work. For this late-night gig, LSO St Luke’s will be transformed into a jazz den of dizzying talent featuring Grammy-winning double bass and fusion electric bass player John Patitucci, and the first ever jazz musician to be selected for the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme, Gwilym Simcock.

Mark-Anthony Turnage : A Prayer out of Stillness
Gwilym Simcock : New work for piano and strings

19 Feb



United Kingdom
 Tuesday, February 19, 2013 at 1.05pm-2.00pm 
Lunchtime Recital
Wesley's Chapel and Leysian Mission, London
49 City Road, EC1Y 1AU
United Kingdom

Tickets: Free Entrance
Felicity Vincent, Cello
Richard Black, Piano



David Dubery : Sonata for Cello and Piano

20 Feb 
 
21 Feb



United Kingdom
 Thursday, February 21, 2013 at Various times 
Contemporary Music Festival
University of Plymouth - England
University of Plymouth, Drakes Circus
United Kingdom
http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/view.asp?page=37709

Tickets: Various
Festival Directors:
Simon Ible, Director of Music, Peninsula Arts, Plymouth University
Eduardo R. Miranda, Professor of Computer Music, Plymouth University

Thursday 21 – Sunday 24 February

As well as creating a platform for music emerging from research, this year’s festival will explore the theme of memory as a virtual sixth sense - through inward journeys of the human brain and the pursuit of lost memories of childhood, forgotten ancestors and global connections.

Drawing on both classical and electronic music Sensing Memory will implement innovative research into computer music and engage with classic orchestral experiences to reveal new sound worlds to the audience. The theme of Sensing Memory is allied to a new four-year ICCMR research project being funded by EPSRC entitled Brain-Computer Interface for Monitoring and Inducing Affective States led by Prof Eduardo R Miranda and Dr Slawomir J. Nasuto at the University of Reading’s Cybernetics Research Group. This project aims to create an intelligent musical computer that can help someone adjust their emotions when they are depressed or stressed. The computer will play music, analysing the person’s brain activity as they do so, allowing it to select what sounds to generate based on how close the person is to feeling the way they want. This research will impact on the health and entertainment industries such as the gaming industry.


various composers : For more details: http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/view.asp?page=39702

21 Feb



United Kingdom
 Thursday, February 21, 2013 at 7.30pm 
Looking to the Heavens
Dora Stoutzker Hall
Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, Castle Grounds, Cathays Park, Cardiff CF10 3ER
United Kingdom
02920 391391
http://www.rwcmd.ac.uk
boxoffice@rwcmd.ac.uk

Tickets: £12
Soprano: Claire Booth *
Flute: Marie-Christine Zupancic
Clarinet: Timothy Lines
Piano: Malcolm Wilson
Violin/Viola: Laurence Jackson
Cello: Ulrich Heinen

Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire was premiered at the Berlin Choralion-Saal on 16 October 1912. The small mixed ensemble that Schoenberg invented for this masterpiece of early atonal music has over the last 100 years become a ‘standard ensemble’, spawning a large repertoire for this grouping of instruments by subsequent composers.

Pierrot Lunaire is a three-part work that sets German translations of poems by Albert Giraud. The eight instruments played by five performers are arranged differently in every number and produce an amazing variety of sound. A striking feature of the work is the vocalist’s Sprechstimme (speech-singing), an eerie declamation between song and speech, where the pitch is sounded but not held; instead, the vocalist immediately leaves the note, falling or rising to the next.

Olivier Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the end of time) was first heard on a brutally cold January night in 1941, at the Stalag VIIIA prisoner-of-war camp, in Görlitz, Germany. The title does not exaggerate the ambitions of the piece. An inscription in the score supplies a catastrophic image from the Book of Revelation: ‘In homage to the Angel of the Apocalypse, who lifts his hand toward heaven, saying, “There shall be time no longer”.

The Quartet is however, the gentlest apocalypse imaginable. There are no roaring sound-masses of doom, but instead fiercely elegant dances, whose rhythms swing along in intricate patterns without ever obeying a regular beat - episodes of transfixing serenity, to which words fail to do justice. That Messiaen’s apocalypse has little to do with history and catastrophe, but instead records the rebirth of an ordinary soul in the grip of extraordinary emotion, is why the Quartet remains as overpowering today as it was on that frigid night in 1941.


Arnold Schoenberg : Pierrot Lunaire
Olivier Messiaen : Quatuor pour la fin du temps

22 Feb 
 
23 Feb 
 
24 Feb 
 
25 Feb



United Kingdom
 Monday, February 25, 2013 at 8pm 
Noisy Nights #21
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
10 Cambridge Street Edinburgh EH1 2ED
United Kingdom
0131 228 1404
http://www.traverse.co.uk/

Ruth Morley - Flute
Mark O'Keeffe - Trumpet
Robert Irvine - 'Cello
John Harris - Conductor



Martin Gaughan : 'Fanfares for the Loch Ness Monster'

26 Feb



United Kingdom
 Tuesday, February 26, 2013 at 7.45pm 
Repeating Patterns: the start of U.S. minimalism
Purcell Room, Southbank Centre
SE1 8XX
United Kingdom
0844 875 0073
http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/

Tickets: £12
Presented by the London Sinfonietta.

This concert is also performed on:
27 February, Southbank Centre, London
28 February, Turner Sims, Southampton

An introduction to the world of minimalism, tracing its origins in 1960s New York loft apartments and art-galleries to a cult musical movement in the '70s and beyond. This concert continues London Sinfonietta's new Landmark series, with a video and audio narrative created by Netia Jones / Lightmap.

La Monte Young : Composition 1960 #7
La Monte Young : X for Henry Flynt
Terry Riley : In C
Steve Reich : It's Gonna Rain
Steve Reich : Clapping Music
Steve Reich : Violin Phase
Philip Glass : 1+1
Philip Glass : Knee Play 2

26 Feb



United Kingdom
 Tuesday, February 26, 2013 at 20:00 
Bingham String Quartet - Benslow Music International Recital Series
Benslow Music Trust
Peter Morrison Hall, Hitchin, Hertfordshire. SG4 9RB
United Kingdom
01462 459446
http://www.benslow.org
info@benslow.org

Tickets: £10 (free entry for all 8 - 25yr olds)
Bingham String Quartet:
Steve Bingham - violin Marina Gillam - violin Brenda Stewart - viola James Halsey - cello





Wolfgang Mozart : String Quartet in D, K575
Leos Janacek : Strig Quartet No 1 "Kreutzer Sonata"
Arnold Schonberg : Verklarte Nacht

27 Feb



United Kingdom
 Wednesday, February 27, 2013 at 7.30pm 
Baltic Nights
Barbican Hall, London
Barbican, Silk Street, London EC2
United Kingdom
020 7638 8891
http://www.barbican.org.uk/eticketing

Tickets: £8-32
Britten Sinfonia
Alina Ibragimova violin
Britten Sinfonia Voices

Acclaimed violinist Alina Ibragimova joins Britten Sinfonia in a programme journeying through 400 years of music. Demonstrating her skills at both contemporary and early repertoire, Alina performs Peteris Vasks’ Violin Concerto ‘Distant Light’ and one of only two surviving violin concertos by Bach. Britten Sinfonia’s professional choir, Britten Sinfonia Voices, interweave music from Perotin and Bach, and Eriks Esenvalds brings the themes of the programme together in a new commission for strings and voices.

. Perotin : Viderunt omnes
J.S. Bach : Violin Concerto in A minor
Eriks Esenvalds : New work (world premiere)
J.S. Bach : Komm Jesu, komm

28 Feb



United Kingdom
 Thursday, February 28, 2013 at 8pm 
Repeating Patterns: the start of U.S. minimalism
Turner Sims, Southampton

United Kingdom

Tickets: tbc
London Sinfonietta

An introduction to the world of minimalism, tracing its origins in 1960s New York loft apartments and art-galleries to a cult musical movement in the '70s and beyond. This concert continues London Sinfonietta's new Landmark series, with a video and audio narrative created by Netia Jones / Lightmap.

La Monte Young : Composition 1960 #7
La Monte Young : X for Henry Flynt
Terry Riley : In C
Steve Reich : It's Gonna Rain
Steve Reich : Clapping Music
Steve Reich : Violin Phase
Philip Glass : 1+1
Philip Glass : Knee Play 2

28 Feb



United Kingdom
 Thursday, February 28, 2013 at 1.00 pm 
Music for Trumpet and Organ
St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol

United Kingdom

Tickets: Free
Colin Bloch (trumpet)
Andrew Kirk (organ)

Lunchtime Recital

Jonathan Palmer : Doom Triptych

29 Feb 
 
1 Mar 
 
2 Mar 
 
3 Mar 
 

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