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New Music Concert Listings
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19 Apr
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Tuesday, May 19, 2015 at 8pm
Prague Philharmonic Choir
Church of St Simon and St Jude
Prague
Czech Republic
Prague Philharmonic Choir
The concert of the Prague Philharmonic Choir will present four extraordinarily fine works of enormous musical diversity.
The sacred music of John Tavener (1944 – 2013) is comparable to the works of Arvo Pärt and Henryk Gorecki. In the 1960s, he succeeded at ingeniously combining classical music with the current wave of popular music. In 1968, it was John Lennon who saw to the release of a recording of Taverner’s cantata The Whale, in which the composer combined electronic tape, electrically amplified percussion instruments, and choir using a megaphone. From the 1970s, John Tavener turned his attention to the East, taking inspiration from sources including India’s sacred texts, Islamic mysticism, and especially Easter Orthodoxy. “The text [for the composition Svyati – O Holy One] is used at almost every Russian Orthodox service, perhaps most poignantly after the congregation have kissed the body in an open coffin at an Orthodox funeral. The choir sings as the coffin is closed and borne out of the church, followed by the mourners with lighted candles. The cello represents the priest or icon of Christ. As in Greek drama, the choir and priest are in dialogue with each other.” (John Tavener)
Concerning Veljo Tormis (*1930), The Daily Telegraph wrote: “After Arvo Pärt, Tormis is probably Estonia’s most important living composer.” His works have been commissioned and performed by such ensembles as the King’s Singers and the Hilliard Ensemble, which is well known to the Prague public. He writes almost exclusively for choirs, and the number of his choral works is in excess of 500. The vast majority of his music is based on old Estonian folk songs.
Cloudburst is one of Whitacre’s most spectacular works. Eric Whitacre (*1970) composed it at the age of 22 for eight-part chorus, piano, and percussion. The first part of the composition effectively combines clusters with spoken or sung solos. The second part, from which the work takes its name, actually evokes the feeling of an impending storm, not only thanks to the addition of instruments, but also because of the singers’ handclapping, finger snapping, and thigh slapping that are intended to make the effect of raindrops. In 2007, a recording of Cloudburst and other works by Whitacre was nominated for a Grammy in the category for “Best Choral Performance”.
John Tavener : Svyati for mixed choir and cello
Arvo Pärt : Seven Magnificat Antiphons for mixed choir
Veljo Tormis : Livonian Heritage for solos and mixed choir
Eric Whitacre : Cloudburst for mixed choir, percussion and piano
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19 Apr
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Tuesday, May 19, 2015 at 7pm
ĽUBICA ČEKOVSKÁ: DORIAN GRAY
Prague National Theatre
Czech Republic
http://www.narodni-divadlo.cz/en
Sybil Vane: Helena Becse-Szabó
Paní Leafová Mrs Leaf: Terézia Kružliaková
Bordelmama: Denisa Hamarová
Dorian: Eamon Mulhall
Alan Campbell: Martin Gyimesi
James Vane: Ján Ďurčo
Basil: Martin Malachovský
Lord Henry: Aleš Jenis
Musical preparation and Conductor: Christopher Ward
Stage director: Nicola Raab
Set design and costumes: Alix Burgstaller, Anne Marie Legenstein
Ľubica Čekovská : Dorian Gray
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| 20 Apr |
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21 Apr
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Thursday, May 21, 2015 at 8pm
Rautavaara, Hanuš, Mahler
Municipal House Smetana Hall
Obecní dům, a.s. nám. Republiky 5 110 21 Prague 1
Czech Republic
(+420) 222 002 101
PRAGUE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
The Finnish conductor Pietari Inkinen is well known to the Prague public primarily because of his collaborations with the Prague Symphony Orchestra, with which he made his first appearance back in 2007. Pietari Inkinen’s Prague Spring debut will be, at the same time, his inaugural concert as the principal conductor of the Prague Symphony Orchestra.
The first work on the programme will be A Relay Race Op. 63 by the Czech composer Jan Hanuš – in 2015 we shall be commemorating the hundredth anniversary of his birth. The composer dedicated this symphonic allegro, written in 1968, “To the Czech Radio announcers and technicians in May of 1945 and August of 1968”. Next will be the Czech premiere of the final movement (Apotheosis) from the Symphony No. 6 “Vincentiana” by the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara. In his music, he combines elements of modernism and ‘mystical romanticism’, and he finds inspiration mainly in the area of metaphysics and religion. The music of the composer’s Symphony No. 6 “Vincentiana” is taken from his opera Vincent, which deals with the life of the painter Vincent van Gogh. In it, Rautavaara uses tonal music as well as elements of serialism, and he is a master of orchestration, as is excellently demonstrated by the symphony’s final movement that we will be hearing. The evening will end with Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor with its famous Adagietto, which Mahler is said to have composed as a profession of his love for his wife Alma.
Jan Hanuš : A Relay Race op. 63
Einojuhani Rautavaara : Apotheosis from Symphony No. 6 “Vincentiana”
Gustav Mahler : Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor
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