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New Music Concert Listings
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1 Sep
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Saturday, September 01, 2012 at 11 am
EIF: Emerson String Quartet
Queens Hall
Edinburgh
Scotland
0131 668 2019
http://www.thequeenshall.net
Tickets: £8 - £29
Emerson String Quartet
The Queen’s Hall Series concludes with one of America’s finest string quartets, famed for its impeccable technique, assured musicality and dramatic spontaneity.
In a wide-ranging programme, the Emerson String Quartet contrasts two late masterpieces from Mozart and Beethoven with a fresh work by one of Britain’s leading composers, Thomas Adès, which the players premiered last year.
Beethoven’s Opus 127 Quartet is the first of his so-called ‘late quartets’, in which the composer explores hitherto uncharted depths of intense spirituality. Its music touches on the profoundest emotions, with melodies of great lyricism and ineffable beauty.
Mozart’s Quartet K575 is a sprightly, glittering piece with a prominent cello part written for the Prussian King Wilhelm Friedrich II to play. The vivid sound pictures of Adès’s The Four Quarters evoke night time, dawn and daytime in virtuosic music, including an unforgettable movement describing a shimmering cascade of raindrops.
‘one of the most impressive of American string quartets.’ (New York Times)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart : String Quartet in D K575
Thomas Ades : The Four Quarters
Ludwig Van Beethoven : String Quartet in E flat Op 127
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1 Sep
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Saturday, September 01, 2012 at 11 am
Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart
Lucerne Festival
Lucerne
Switzerland
http://e.lucernefestival.ch
Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart
“What is eternity?” asks the Silesian Baroque poet Angelus Silesius in one of his mysterious epigrams, only to provide a paradoxical answer: “It is not this, not that, / Not now, not aught, not nothing; it is I know not what.” Heinz Holliger has set ten poems from Angelus Silesius’ “The Cherubic Pilgrim” to music, all of which revolve around metaphysical questions of nothingness, space, time, and the nature of God. The same can be said of the other works on this Sunday matinee program of a cappella music. For example, Michael Jarrell grapples with a fragment of the Greek philosopher Parmenides, while in his musical-dramatic cycle LICHT (“Light”), Karlheinz Stockhausen once again undertook a comprehensive worldview at the end of the 20th century. The Neuen Vocalsolisten Stuttgart will present the concluding text from “Wednesday” in the LICHT cycle—a composition Stockhausen incorporated into the design of his own grave.
Michael Jarrell : “… car le pensé et l'être sont une même chose …”
Heinz Holliger : nicht Ichts – nicht Nichts.
Salvatore Sciarrino : Tre canti senza pietre
Karlheinz Stockhausen : “Menschen, hört” from “Mittwoch aus LICHT”
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1 Sep
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Saturday, September 01, 2012 at 7:30pm - 10:00pm
Cool Fusion
St. Michael's Church Chester Sq, London
Chester Square, Victoria, London, SW1W 9HH
United Kingdom
http://www.stmichaelschurch.org.uk/
Tickets: £12/£10 concessions, from ticketline.co.uk/cool-fusion or 0844 888 9991, booking fee applies
Lambeth Wind Orchestra
Putney Arts Theatre
Coronel Percussion
Cool Fusion Jazz
Cool Fusion Electronica
Mark Pampel (piano)
PIP Theatre Company
Cool Fusion is one of the largest voluntary-arts initiatives in the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. It presents a series of four performances of new music and drama in historic London venues, celebrating the Olympics and Paralympics within London's vibrant culture. It is a partnership of London Composers Forum, Colchester New Music and Putney Writers' Circle.
Developed collaboratively by twelve composers and four writers, Cool Fusion uses wind orchestra, percussion ensemble, electronics and actors to weave a narrative of exceptional human endeavour. The performance is framed by historical episodes, from sandals to scandals, chariots to wheelchairs, outside track to winners’ podium. These are interwoven with works exploring the parallels between music and physical culture, in rhythms of pace, endurance, determination and achievement.
For the St Michael's performance, Cool Fusion is joined by the PIP Theatre Company. PIP – Pursuing Independent Paths is a Westminster-based charity for young adults with learning disabilities; the PIP drama students will be presenting the premiere of Journey of the Torch, a music theatre piece presenting their interpretation of the Olympic torch’s journey from Greece to London, across a myriad of different land and seascapes. Showcasing the inimitable talents of PIP Theatre Company members, Journey of the Torch is the culmination of a series of workshops with composer Andy Bungay, writer Linda Redshaw and drama therapists Rebecca Blake and Alison Singleton. The PIP students have played a leading role in collaborative story development, creating a soundtrack and performing original music.
Texts and libretti for musical works are contributed by Rita Adam (Four Minute Mile), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Dorando: An Olympic Tale) and Linda Redshaw (Outside Track, Journey of the Torch). Additional non-musical drama pieces are contributed by Marcia Kelson and Dan Clarke.
This performance and outreach project are supported by Westminster City Council, Vital Regeneration and BNP Paribas, and by public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Mark Garnham : Fanfare for the Olympic Flame (London 2012)
David Arditti : Time and Tide
Cedric Peachey : Gold, Silver & Bronze
Alan Parsons : Fanfare for 2012
Mark Pampel : THE FINAL
PIP Theatre Company : Journey of the Torch
Martin Jones : Four Minute Mile
Phil Baker : Triumphal Laurels – Canzona ii from Canzonae Olympiae for Brass Quartet & Timpani
Luca Tieppo : Dorando: An Olympic Tale
Mark Pampel : Against the Odds
Stuart Russell : Distance/Time
Alan Taylor : Episode I from Five Incomplete Episodes
Andy Bungay : Outside Track
Alan Hilton : Olympic Fanfare
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2 Sep
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Sunday, September 02, 2012 at 7:00 pm
Bridging the Gap
American Islamic College
640 W. Irving Park in Chicago
United States
847-530-4061
http://americanmusicfestivals.com
amusicfest@aol.com
Tickets: $ 25
Lincolnwood Chamber Orchestra and Chicago Syntagma Musicum Chorus
with
Imam Senad Agic, vocal soloist
Rabbi Neil Brief, guest speaker
The Lincolnwood Chamber Orchestra performs a program of Jewish and Muslim music “Celebrating 500 Years of Friendship in Bosnia and Herzegovinaâ€.
Ilya Levinson : Shtetl Scenes
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| 3 Sep |
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4 Sep
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Tuesday, September 04, 2012 at 20:00
Musikfest Berlin
Koninklijk theater Carre
Amsterdam
Netherlands
Sergei Leiferkus speaker
Rundfunkchor Berlin / Simon Halsey coach
Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam
Mariss Jansons conductor
After experiencing the latest trends of his era in Paris and Berlin, a talented young composer left Europe, burning his bridges behind him. He declared his previous music invalid and started from scratch in America. During his search for new horizons, Edgard Varèse moved to the USA in 1915. His emigration was an act of artistic liberation. New York, melting-pot and bubbling cauldron, with the most modern skyscrapers of the day, people from all over the world and a frantically fast pace – all this overwhelmed the young Edgard Varèse on his arrival. He incorporated his impressions of New York and first experiences of life in the USA into his orchestral work Amériques.
Arnold Schoenberg : A Survivor from Warsaw
Igor Stravinsky : Symphonie des Psaumes
Samuel Barber : Adagio
Edgard Varèse : Amériques
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| 5 Sep |
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6 Sep
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7 Sep
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8 Sep
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Saturday, September 08, 2012 at 7:00pm - c. 9:30pm
Morton Feldman's "Triadic Memories"
Schott Recital Room @ Bauer & Hieber
48 Great Marlborough Street, London W1F7BB
United Kingdom
Tickets: £10/£5 concessions
Luke Berryman (piano) www.lukeberryman.com
"Triadic Memories" is a vast single-movement work lasting approximately two hours. Like other compositions of Morton Feldman's final years, it's closely related to the aesthetics of Mark Rothko's paintings, and is characterised by stasis and extremely quiet dynamics. The unusual title refers partly to an attempt to evoke memory itself: listening to this piece is like flicking through an old photograph album. Its delicate, slowly-shifting harmonies reach toward something that was once definite, but is now lost in time. It was perhaps this fragility that led the composer to aptly describe the piece as "the largest butterfly in captivity".
"Triadic Memories" has only been performed a handful of times across the world, and the 25th anniversary of Feldman's death falls in the first week of September. All in all, this concert promises to be a special occasion.
Morton Feldman : Triadic Memories
Karlheinz Stockhausen : Klavierstück IX
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| 9 Sep |
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10 Sep
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Monday, September 10, 2012 at 19.00
John Adams: Nixon in China
Philharmonie Hall, Berlin
Germany
Robert Orth baritone (Richard Nixon, President of USA)
Jessica Rivera soprano (Pat Nixon, his wife)
Gerald Finley baritone (Chou En-lai, Premier of the People’s Republic of China)
Alan Oke tenor (Mao Tse-tung, Chairman of the People’s Republic of China)
James Rutherford bass (Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s advisor)
Kathleen Kim soprano (Chiang Ch’ing, Mao’s wife)
Stephanie Marshall mezzo soprano (Nancy T’sang, first secretary to Mao)
Louise Poole mezzo soprano (second secretary to Mao)
Susan Platts alto (third secretary to Mao)
BBC Singers / Matthew Morley coach
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Mark Grey sound direction
Paul Curran stage director
Murray Hipkin assistant conductor
John Adams conductor
With Nixon in China, American composer John Adams created one of the most successful operas of the 20th century. Following the opera’s first performance in 1987 in Houston, Texas, there have been numerous international productions, with the recording winning a Grammy. Nixon in China is an opera of its time, modern yet also combining elements of historical drama, reportage and documentary.
John Adams : Nixon in China
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| 11 Sep |
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| 12 Sep |
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13 Sep
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13 Sep
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Thursday, September 13, 2012 at 19.00
Fish Music
The Big Screen
The Big Screen, Armada Way, Plymouth
United Kingdom
01752 585050
http://peninsula-arts@plymouth.ac.uk
Tickets: Free
Ten Tors Orchestra Strings
Sam Richards piano
Tim Sayer trumpet
Andy Vissier saxophone
150 with Plymouth University
Fish in an aquarium become musical notes by placing a musical stave in front of them. String players play this mobile score/installation. Improvisers, with their backs to the action, take the string sound as their cue. Fish Music has become an urban legend. Come and see and hear the original, the real thing.
Sam Richards : Fish Music
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14 Sep
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Friday, September 14, 2012 at 4:45PM
Contemporary Classics 2
Kings Place
90 York Way, London, N1 9AG
United Kingdom
020 7520 1440
http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/
info@kingsplace.co.uk
Tickets: £4.50
Mark van de Wiel clarinet
Jonathan Morton violin
Igor Stravinsky’s output varied hugely over his lifetime, and The Soldier’s Tale (1918) dates from the early Russian phase after the composer had made a huge impact with his early ballet scores including Petrushka and The Rite of Spring. The original piece is a musical, narrative and dance composition which tells the story of a solider making a deal with the devil. This arrangement for three instruments was made by Stravinsky in 1919, and includes five numbers from the longer original for seven players.
Stravinsky's Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet also date from the same time, and are dedicated to Werner Reinhart, a supporter and patron of Stravinsky’s and a fine amateur clarinettist. Oliver Knussen’s Secret Psalm was written as a memorial piece to Michael Vyner, the artistic director of the London Sinfonietta until 1989. The concert will be introduced by the players, who will demonstrate how these contemporary classics work.
Igor Stravinsky : Three pieces for solo clarinet
Oliver Knussen : Secret Psalm for unaccompanied violin
Igor Stravinsky : The Soldier's Tale (1919, trio version)
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14 Sep
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Friday, September 14, 2012 at 3:30PM
Contemporary Classics 1
Kings Place
90 York Way, London, N1 9AG
United Kingdom
020 7520 1440
http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/
info@kingsplace.co.uk
Tickets: £4.50
Mark van de Wiel clarinet
London Sinfonietta
This concert combines a 20th century chamber music classic along with other contrasting and complementary chamber pieces.
Bartók’s Contrasts was written in 1938, commissioned by jazz clarinettist Benny Goodman and incorporates a number of Hungarian and Rumanian folk melodies. Lutoslawski’s Dance Preludes for clarinet and piano is similarly based on folk melodies, this time from the north of his native Poland. London-based composer Simon Holt’s Brief Candles is an evocative set of eight miniatures for solo clarinet. London Sinfonietta Principal clarinet Mark van de Wiel features as soloist.
Simon Holt : Brief Candles (for solo clarinet)
Witold Lutoslawski : Dance Preludes
Béla Bartók : Contrasts
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| 15 Sep |
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16 Sep
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Sunday, September 16, 2012 at 7:15PM
Minimal Materials 1
Kings Place
90 York Way, London, N1 9AG
United Kingdom
020 7520 1440
http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/
info@kingsplace.co.uk
Tickets: £4.50
London Sinfonietta
London Sinfonietta Academy Ensemble
The first of two concerts that explore how the repetition of minimal amounts of musical material make for a compelling listen.
Laurence Crane’s music is hauntingly beautiful in its stillness. Crafted with immense care, and a careful choice of consonant harmonies, his Trio and Riis both date from 1996.
Graham Fitkin was a pupil of Louis Andriessen, and while studying with him evolved his own highly tonal and often piano based version of minimal composition. His early piano piece, The Cone Gatherers (1987) helped establish his reputation and the concert also features his high energy Flak for two pianos and eight hands and a new arrangement for ensemble of Compel.
In this concert, London Sinfonietta musicians perform side-by-side with members of the London Sinfonietta Academy Ensemble.
Graham Fitkin : The Cone Gatherers
Laurence Crane : Trio
Graham Fitkin : Flak
Laurence Crane : Riis
Graham Fitkin : Compel
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16 Sep
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Sunday, September 16, 2012 at 8:45PM
Minimal Materials 2
Kings Place
90 York Way, London, N1 9AG
United Kingdom
020 7520 1440
http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/
info@kingsplace.co.uk
Tickets: £4.50
Sound Intermedia
London Sinfonietta
Steve Reich first developed his Counterpoint pieces in the 1980s, using in distilled form some of the compositional techniques he had developed from as early as the late 1960s.
While these pieces can be performed live, using many instrumentalists, the idea of one live musician performing against a recording of themselves came from Reich’s earlier experiments that developed such techniques as phasing (a musical pattern shifting inexorably forward against a steady version of itself).
The Counterpoints use short melodic phrases which are mostly played in canon, repeated at a fixed distance from each other. Each piece progresses through the differently paced sections by adding layer upon layer of interlocking ideas.
While it’s possible to hear the musical evolution of each piece as the fragments build up, the listener can eventually just revel in the fascinating and energetic textures, picking out new melodic patterns that emerge, guided sometimes by the soloist who also layers these on top.
Steve Reich : Vermont Counterpoint
Steve Reich : New York Counterpoint
Steve Reich : Cello Counterpoint
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17 Sep
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Monday, September 17, 2012 at 19:30
The Necks
Barbican Hall, London
Barbican, Silk Street, London EC2
United Kingdom
020 7638 8891
http://www.barbican.org.uk/eticketing
Tickets: £15.50
The Necks
Together for 25 years the Australian cult trio, The Necks, enthral audiences worldwide with their compelling style of improvisation.
Chris Abrahams (piano), Tony Buck (drums), and Lloyd Swanton (bass) conjure a chemistry together that defies orthodox description. Not entirely avant-garde, nor minimalist, nor ambient, nor jazz, their music is regularly described internationally as, simply, unique.
The deceptive simplicity of their music throws forth new charms on each hearing. Featuring lengthy pieces of long-form development, which build in a mesmerizing, epic fashion frequently underpinned by an insistent deep groove, their performances are never less than phenomenal.
Village Underground in Shoreditch will play host to this great cult band of Australia as part of our Transcender festival.
'One of the most extraordinary groups on the planet... sonic experience that has few parallels or rivals.' Guardian
The Necks : Various
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17 Sep
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Monday, September 17, 2012 at 19.30
Julietta
English National Opera
London Coliseum
United Kingdom
Tickets: £12-83
ENO
Michel arrives in a small town, intent on finding the unknown girl he once heard singing at an open window. But is he the only sane man in a world where everyone else has lost their memory, or a madman trapped in a recurring dream from which there is no escape?
Based on a 1930s French surrealist play set in a poetical no-man’s-land poised between dreams and reality, Julietta is the operatic masterpiece of Martinu, the finest Czech composer in the generation following Janácek. ENO’s new production of this poignant work is directed by Richard Jones, whose inspired staging of The Tales of Hoffmann – ‘a potent cocktail of image and reality, illusions and fantasies’ (Evening Standard) – was one of last season’s five-star hits. Edward Gardner, ENO’s award-winning Music Director, conducts a large cast led by tenor Peter Hoare, star of A Dog’s Heart and The Damnation of Faust, and ENO Harewood Artist Julia Sporsén as Julietta, the girl of his dreams.
Mon 17 Sep 2012
Sat 22 Sep 2012
Thu 27 Sep 2012
Sat 29 Sep 2012
Tue 02 Oct 2012
Wed 03 Oct 2012
Bohuslav Martinù : Julietta
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18 Sep
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Tuesday, September 18, 2012 at 7.30pm
Jack Liebeck performs Sibelius
Cadogan Hall
5 Sloane Terrace, London, SW1X 9DQ
United Kingdom
02075898212
Tickets: £40, £32.50, £25, £15
Conductor - Enrique Batiz
Violin - Jack Liebeck
A brand-new season of orchestral masterpieces gets off to a dramatic start with Wagner's exhilarating Overture to The Flying Dutchman, one of his earliest operas. The Violin Concerto by Sibelius is among his best-loved works, combining passionate lyricism with dazzling display. The Concerto finds an exciting exponent in violinist Jack Liebeck, winner of the 2010 Classical BRIT Award for 'Young British Performer of the Year'.
Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony is one of his most powerful works, charting an intense struggle against the caprices of Fate, culminating in an electrifying finale in which the battle seems to have been won.
Richard Wagner : The Flying Dutchman Overture
Jean Sibelius : Violin Concerto
Pyotr Tchaikovsky : Symphony No.4
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| 19 Sep |
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| 20 Sep |
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21 Sep
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22 Sep
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23 Sep
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24 Sep
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25 Sep
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Tuesday, September 25, 2012 at 7.30pm
Dmitry Yablonsky conducts Amirov and Stravinsky
Cadogan Hall
5 Sloane Terrace, London, SW1X 9DQ
United Kingdom
02075898212
Tickets: £40, £32.50, £25, £15
Conductor - Dmitry Yablonsky
Piano - Farhad Badalbeyli
AMIROV Azerbaijan Capriccio
AMIROV Piano Concerto after Arabian Themes
STRAVINSKY Petrushka (1947)
A colourful programme featuring two rare gems from Azerbaijani composer Fikret Amirov. Overlooking the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan is a cultural melting pot bubbling with influences from Eastern Europe, Western Asia and the Middle East. Fusing Azerbaijani folkmusic with powerful orchestration, Amirov transports us to his homeland in the mysterious Azerbaijan Capriccio and exotic Piano Concerto, which was influenced by Arabic music. The piano is also featured in Stravinsky’s ballet Petrushka, a mesmerising depiction of an unfortunate Russian puppet. Written early in the twentieth century and revised in 1947, this is a masterpiece full of intricate rhythms and inventive orchestration.
Free for all concert ticket holders: The Mountains of Gabala; a 30-minute film documenting the city of Gabala and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s residency at the Gabala International Music Festival, featuring conductor Dmitry Yablonsky and pianist Farhad Badalbeyli, Artistic Directors of Gabala Festival. Main auditorium 6.15pm.
Box Office: 020 7730 4500
Fikret Amirov : Azerbaijan Capriccio
Fikret Amirov : Piano Concerto after Arabian Themes
Igor Stravinsky : Petrushka (1947)
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| 26 Sep |
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27 Sep
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Thursday, September 27, 2012 at 7.45 pm
In the Locked Room
Lindbury Studio
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
United Kingdom
http://www.roh.org.uk
Royal Opera House Associate Company Music Theatre Wales, and Scottish Opera
This one-act opera, an adaptation of a short story by Thomas Hardy, explores the power of the imagination and the boundaries between reality and fantasy.
Huw Watkins is admired across the UK for his work as a composer and pianist, and has an impressive body of orchestra, chamber and vocal works. For In the Locked Room, he teams up with poet and librettist David Harsent, with whom he previously collaborated in 2009 on the chamber opera Crime Fiction. Harsent’s work in opera also includes his libretto for Harrison Birtwistle’s The Minotaur, which was given its premiere at the Royal Opera House in 2008.
In the Locked Room is brought to the Linbury Studio Theatre by Music Theatre Wales in collaboration with Scottish Opera. The production is directed by Michael McCarthy and Matthew Richardson.
PERFORMANCES ALSO ON 28TH AND 29TH SEPTEMBER
Huw Watkins : In the Locked Room
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| 28 Sep |
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29 Sep
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29 Sep
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30 Sep
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30 Sep
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Sunday, September 30, 2012 at 7.30pm
The Fathers are Watching
CBSO Centre, Birmingham
Berkley Street, Birmingham
United Kingdom
Tickets: In advance: £14 full price / £8 concession / £5 under 16s
Conductor: Oliver Knussen
Tenor: Andrew Staples
Members of CBSO Youth Chorus
This concert marks the start of BCMG’s 25th anniversary season, a landmark we will be celebrating throughout 2012/13.
A substantial new work for tenor, ensemble and girls choir - the world premiere of Alexander Goehr’s Sound Investment commission To These Dark Steps – is the main feature of the programme. To These Dark Steps sets a series of striking poems and prose commentary by Gabriel Levin, written in the shadow of Israel’s bombardment and incursion into Gaza in 2008. The texts view the depredations of war through the prism of music by Webern, Messiaen, Bartók and Ligeti - all favourite composers of Alexander Goehr. This provides the context for the other pieces in the programme.
A late work by French composer Olivier Messiaen opens the concert. This three minute, marvellously incisive tribute to the publisher Alfred Schlee has at its heart a piano solo based on the song of the Garden Warbler, one of Messiaen’s favourite birds.
Following this opening are Webern’s Six Pieces for Orchestra in his arrangement for chamber ensemble; Goehr’s recent violin duos, behind which hovers the ghost of Bartók; and György Ligeti’s 12-minute Melodien, which superimposes waves of melody in a piece rich in allusions to Ives, Mahler and Brahms.
There will be a free pre-concert talk from 6.30-7pm with Alexander Goehr and Gabriel Levin, open to all ticket holders.
Olivier Messiaen : Pièce pour piano et quatuor à cordes
Anton Webern : Six Pieces for Orchestra
Alexander Goehr : Duos (for two violins)
Gyorgy Ligeti : Melodien
Alexander Goehr : To These Dark Steps
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| 1 Oct |
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Nick Elias
