MOT

Philharmonia Orchestra Music of today A5 season brochure 2012-13 cover

PMS 806

PMS 802

For more information please call the Philharmonia Orchestra on FREEPHONE 0800 652 6717.

New/Inspiring/Free Concert Season 2012/13

Philharmonia Orchestra 6th Floor, The Tower Building 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX Tel 020 7921 3900 Fax 020 7921 3950 www.philharmonia.co.uk @philharmonia Philharmonia Orchestra Philharmonia Orchestra and Southbank Centre are both registered charities. www.southbankcentre.co.uk All the information in this brochure was correct at the time of going to press, but changes may be unavoidable.

Copy: Unsuk Chin Design: www.nedcampbell.co.uk Print: www.cantate.biz

SUPPORTED BY

The Philharmonia Orchestra gratefully acknowledges Esa-Pekka Salonen’s support of Music of Today

Unsuk Chin Artistic Director

SUPPORTED BY

© WOENKI KIM

Thursday 18 October 2012 6pm

Thursday 21 February 2013 6pm

Thursday 6 June 2013 6pm

Royal Festival Hall

Royal Festival Hall

Royal Festival Hall

Nicholas Collon conductor

Matthew Coorey conductor

Dima Slobodeniouk conductor

YORK HÖLLER

JOHN ZORN

JUKKA TIENSUU

German composer York Höller, recipient of the 2010 Grawemeyer Award, manages to touch on fundamental human emotions, while nothing is done simply for show or to shock. His music is a fascinating symbiosis of diverse traditions and a masterful blending of intellect and poetry.

Each piece reveals the touch of a master with a phenomenal ear and great cognitive power, capable of both energetic tensions and sheer sonic beauty. Höller, born in 1944, is a true classic of contemporary music.

We mark the 60th birthday of John Zorn, the all-round musician from New York and classic of musical counterculture. Zorn is one of the rare creative minds who has succeeded in bridging the chasm between various musical genres.

For Your Eyes Only is a frenzied and sarcastic collage piece, in which snippets from all kinds of music – be it classical, klezmer, hardcore punk, cartoon or avant-garde – clash against each other at a manic speed as particles do in an atom smasher. But Zorn is also a composer of meditation and mystery as Angelus Novus reveals.

Jukka Tiensuu from Finland is a fascinating musical thinker and explorer. Versed in various kinds of music and also active as a performing musician specialising in baroque music, contemporary music and free improvisation, Tiensuu is one of the most exciting figures in the musical world today. First and foremost Tiensuu is a master composer of stunning originality and profundity. His output ranges from pieces for baroque ensembles to orchestral works, from works for accordion ensemble or jazz band all the way to electroacoustic music – an inexhaustibly rich journey through a landscape of his own making.

Ex tempore (UK première) Improvisation sur le nom de Pierre Boulez Feuerwerk (UK première)

Join us for another exciting season of Music of Today!

We’ve taken the opportunity to reflect the fascinating variety of new music today with composers from five different countries who are united by their individualism and creativity.

We mark the 60th birthday of John Zorn, the intriguing musical iconoclast. There are portrait concerts of Luke Bedford, one of the most brilliant composers of the younger generation and of the Finn Jukka Tiensuu, a Renaissance man of music, who writes music of inexhaustible fantasy and enthralling originality. We are delighted to revive two hauntingly expressive works of Claude Vivier, including a UK première, commemorating the 30th anniversary of his death. The season opens with the immediately communicative and compelling music of York Höller. Be prepared for a Music of Today season full of surprises and unexpected delights!

UNSUK CHIN Artistic Director Concerts presented by Unsuk Chin with perspectives from composers and performers.

Thursday 6 December 2012 6pm Royal Festival Hall

Angelus Novus For Your Eyes Only

Thursday 2 May 2013 6pm Royal Festival Hall

Peter Hirsch conductor Yun-Kyoung Yi soprano

LUKE BEDFORD

By the Screen in the Sun at the Hill on the Gold Or Voit Tout En Aventure Luke Bedford awakes the imagination through a haunting soundworld, faultless timing and bejeweled precision. By the Screen in the Sun at the Hill on the Gold, composed after a longer stay in Johannesburg as part of a project about megacities, is an astonishing experimental work.

Or Voit Tout En Aventure is an evocative and sensuous setting of texts written in medieval French and Italian. This is fabulously vivid and compelling music from a leading British composer.

JUST TURN UP!

Tango Lunaire nemo (UK première)

Thursday 27 June 2013 6pm Royal Festival Hall

Kwamé Ryan conductor Elizabeth Atherton soprano

CLAUDE VIVIER

Et je reverrai cette ville étrange Trois airs pour un opéra imaginaire (UK première) We commemorate the 30th anniversary of the death of Claude Vivier, who was murdered at age 34, with performances of two major works, including a UK premiere. This visionary FrancoCanadian composer left a unique collection of music which has ensured his growing reputation.

Vivier absorbed influences as diverse as Asian traditional music, Stockhausen and plainchant; his music is ritualistic, hypnotic, hovering and hallucinatory, charged with emotion and seductively colourful.

YOUNG COMPOSERS ACADEMY Rüdiger Bohn conductor

The culmination concert of the Philharmonia Orchestra’s Young Composers Academy, supported by the Royal Philharmonic Society, sees new works from three young composers being performed under the baton of Rüdiger Bohn. Over the course of the year the composers have worked closely with Mr Bohn and other musicians as well as with Unsuk Chin and other visiting composers. This is an exciting opportunity to experience the wide range of musical styles amongst the newest generation of composers today in the UK. With the friendly support of