2013-14 Barbican Concert Series
THE TIMES
”
exhilarating energy and theatricality”
Benjamin Ealovega ©
Benjamin Ealovega ©
Benjamin Ealovega ©
Benjamin Ealovega ©
Benjamin Ealovega ©
Benjamin Ealovega ©
Benjamin Ealovega ©
WWW .Britten Sinfonia .COM
“ It is with great pleasure that we welcome Britten Sinfonia back to
the Barbican in the orchestra’s second season as associate ensemble. 2013-14 is an exciting season for the Barbican as we host an exploration of Benjamin Britten’s music and celebrate the 80th birthday of one of Britain’s most significant contemporary composers, Sir Harrison Birtwistle alongside the opening of Milton Court Concert Hall. Britten Sinfonia is involved in all of these key events demonstrating the rich and diverse nature of our flourishing partnership
”
Angela Dixon, Head of Music, Barbican
In only our second season as the Barbican’s associate ensemble, we are already expanding and diversifying the number and artistic range of our projects, illustrating the blossoming partnership between Britten Sinfonia and the Barbican Centre. One of the most exciting aspects of this new partnership is the Barbican’s wide ranging artistic programme and diversity of performing spaces, which fit so well with our own audacious programming. We’re thrilled this season to be journeying through 500 years of music with over 15 performances across the centre, including the main concert hall, the theatre, St. Giles’ Cripplegate, and, of course, the Guildhall School of Music & Drama’s beautiful new music venue, Milton Court Concert Hall.
We present music ranging from Bach (a Good Friday St John Passion) through to the very latest in new music (commissioned works from Anna Clyne and Mark Simpson). We’ll play a major part in the Barbican’s Britten and Birtwistle celebrations (see pages 3 and 12). Opera and dance will also feature: Britten’s Curlew River (directed by Netia Jones, with Ian Bostridge), Birtwistle’s seminal opera Yan Tan Tethera, and a collaboration with the Richard Alston Dance Company in an all-Britten programme with new dances from one of this country’s most celebrated choreographers. A stellar line-up of collaborators join the orchestra including Imogen Cooper, Iestyn Davies, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Pekka Kuusisto, Paul Lewis, Mark Padmore, King’s College Choir Cambridge and many more. So do join us for what we hope will be a thrilling, illuminating and inspiring season of performances. David Butcher, Chief Executive, Britten Sinfonia
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is in Lewis’s playing “There a strong physicality, a firm
connection between his deep thinking about the music and his articulation of it. This was playing of intellectual rigour and imaginative vigour.
Paul Lewis © Josep Molina
PAUL LEWIS
”
Daily Telegraph
Friday 11 October 2013 7.30pm – Milton Court Concert Hall Paul Lewis piano / director Jacqueline Shave violin / director Nicholas Daniel oboe Stravinsky Three pieces for string quartet Anna Clyne Within Her Arms (London premiere) Mozart Piano Concerto No.12 in A major, K414 Maw Little Concert Haydn Symphony No. 60 “Il distratto”
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Paul Lewis directs Britten Sinfonia in Mozart’s elegant and lyrical Piano Concerto No.12. The classical thread continues through the rest of the programme including Haydn’s inventive and quirky Il distratto symphony. Nicholas Daniel is the soloist in Nicholas Maw’s concert aria for oboe, and Britten Sinfonia give the London premiere of Anna Clyne’s elegy for strings. £30, £20, £10 Part of Britten Sinfonia multibuy Produced by Britten Sinfonia
Benjamin Britten © Hans Wild
Benjamin Britten 1913-1976 By Colin Matthews
Britten’s centenary feels less like a retrospective than a springboard into the future. While many familiar works will be played, there’s the opportunity to look at some of the music which, while hardly neglected, is heard less often than it should be. Britten’s remarkable versatility means that his music works well in unfamiliar contexts and in unexpected company. Britten Sinfonia is an ideal partner, bringing together opera, dance, song, choral music and music for children, performed by an inspiring new generation of musicians. Britten Sinfonia’s programming can be taken for granted. The Serenade is one of Britten’s best-loved and frequently played pieces, but doesn’t very often find itself in the company of 11 pieces chosen to contrast with it and show it off. The wondrous invention of Our Hunting Fathers, written when the composer was only 22, will be heard in the context of the rarely heard but brilliant concertino Young Apollo and
the beautiful Suite ‘A time there was...’ from his last years; with Tippett’s magisterial Corelli Fantasia at the centre (Britten and Tippett were close friends in the 1940s and 50s). Dance did not play a major role in Britten’s output (The Prince of the Pagodas apart) but choreographers have increasingly been drawn to his music, Richard Alston prominent among them. Curlew River’s restrained exoticism is offset by the earthiness of Saint Nicolas: both works have religious themes, but Britten’s attitude to religion was never a conventional one. And he would, I think, have been a little surprised, but wholly approving, of the unconventional approach that this series demonstrates. As he would have thoroughly approved the commissioning of six major works to mark his centenary, a collaboration between the Britten-Pears Foundation and the Royal Philharmonic Society (whose bicentenary it is), represented here by Judith Weir’s new work.
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Barbican Britten Phaedra:
Richard Alston Dance Company Alston is one of the “ few real dance makers
in the world and he can show us how, when real dance comes along, it changes everything
”
The Dancing Times
Wednesday 6, Thursday 7 and Saturday 9 November 2013 7.45pm – Barbican Theatre Richard Alston Dance Company Pekka Kuusisto violin / viola / director Allison Cook mezzo-soprano Robin Tritschler tenor Huw Watkins piano Britten Lachrymae Phaedra (New work, Barbican co-commission, world premiere) Sechs Holderlin Fragmente (New work, Barbican co-commission, world premiere) Les Illuminations
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Richard Alston and his dancers have been credited with finding the ultimate synthesis between music and movement. They perform choreography that is as affecting and striking as it is subtle and beautiful. In a must-see collaboration for Britten’s centenary year, they dance four pieces, including two world premieres, set to the composer’s music and performed live by Britten Sinfonia. £35, £26, £16 Produced by the Barbican
Bostridge sings Our Hunting Fathers Friday 8 November 2013 7.30pm – Barbican Hall
Britten Sinfonia once again joins forces with tenor Ian Bostridge in a performance of one of Benjamin Britten’s seminal works, Our Hunting Fathers, as part of Barbican Britten’s centenary celebrations. This visceral song cycle is Britten’s savage view of man’s inhumanity to man and is paired alongside one of his earlier creations, the dazzling and brilliant fanfare Young Apollo. The programme is completed by Britten’s Suite on English Folk Tunes, a touching act of homage to both the country he felt so rooted to and the tradition of folksong to which he owed so much.
Ian Bostridge tenor Lara Melda piano Paul Daniel conductor Purcell arr. Britten Chacony in G minor Britten Young Apollo Tippett Fantasia on a theme of Corelli Britten Our Hunting Fathers Britten Suite on English Folk Tunes – A Time There Was
£35, £25, £20, £15, £10 Produced by the Barbican
Ian Bostridge © Ben Ealovega
Rumours Visions Dancers © Chris Nash
Barbican Britten:
tenor “Ianis asBostridge’s individual and idiosyncratic as Pears’s in its own way.
”
Sunday Times
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Netia Jones / Lightmap ©
Barbican Britten:
Curlew river
And if [Netia] Jones’s stagings take “ the breath away, so does the perfection of their meld with the music…” The Independent
Thursday 14 – Saturday 16 November 2013 8pm – St Giles’ Cripplegate Ian Bostridge Madwoman Gwynne Howell Abbot Neal Davies The Traveller Peter Coleman-Wright The Ferryman Netia Jones director William Lacey music director Britten Sinfonia Voices Britten Curlew River
Benjamin Britten and William Plomer’s synthesis of a Noh play and Christian parable set in medieval East Anglia is a unique and extraordinary work – a piece shot through with the strange, exotic sounds of bells, un-tuned drums, organ and chamber ensemble. Taking place in the medieval church of St Giles’ Cripplegate this performance with film and live projection is directed by Netia Jones and features tenor, Ian Bostridge, alongside Britten Sinfonia and the orchestra’s own professional choir, Britten Sinfonia Voices. £40 Produced by the Barbican
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Barbican Britten:
Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings Mark Padmore tenor Pekka Kuusisto violin / director Stephen Bell horn Nico Muhly Three Songs for tenor & violin Bartok Fourth movement from Quartet no. 4 Britten Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal Erkki Sven Tüür Lighthouse Judith Weir I give you the end of a golden string (London premiere) Arne Nordheim Individualisierte Höhemessung der Lagen (from Partita für Paul) Nico Muhly Material in E flat for violin & drone from orchestra Bartok Third movement from Quartet no. 4 Berg arr Schnittke Kanon Arvo Pärt Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten George Crumb God Music from Black Angels Britten Serenade for tenor, horn & strings
Britten Sinfonia’s recent recording of Britten’s Serenade for tenor, horn and strings with Mark Padmore, has been acclaimed worldwide and these artists will perform the work in this fascinating concert. Violinist Pekka Kuusisto directs the orchestra in an illuminating programme of works which also includes the London premiere of a new work by Judith Weir, commissioned by the Britten-Pears Foundation and Royal Philharmonic Society, to celebrate Britten’s centenary. £30, £20, £15 Part of Britten Sinfonia multibuy Produced by Britten Sinfonia
Mark Padmore © Ben Ealovega
Sunday 24 November 2013 7.30pm – Milton Court Concert Hall
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King’s College Choir © Benjamin Ealovega
Saturday 7 December 2013 7.30pm – Barbican Hall Stephen Cleobury conductor James Gilchrist tenor Choir of King’s College, Cambridge Arvo Pärt Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten Britten A Ceremony of Carols Britten Saint Nicolas
Choir of King’s College Cambridge
The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge has become synonymous with Christmas through their annual broadcasts of A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. Getting the festive season underway in this concert they perform two of Britten’s enchanting choral masterpieces. Britten Sinfonia opens the performance with Arvo Pärt’s atmospheric Cantus written in memory of Benjamin Britten. £35, £25, £20, £15, £10 Produced by Britten Sinfonia
Premium Seats priced at £59 each, enjoy the very best seats and a pre-show reception with Britten Sinfonia and guests.
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Imogen Cooper © Sam E Studios
Imogen Cooper The poise of Cooper’s “ playing holds one breathless… Cooper’s sense of rightness of colour and her exquisite balancing of textures fully justify her reputation
”
The Sunday Times
Friday 14 February 2014 7.30pm – Milton Court Concert Hall Imogen Cooper piano / director Mark Simpson New Work (London premiere) Beethoven Quintet in E flat for piano and winds, Op16 Mozart Serenade No. 10 for winds in Bb major, K361 “Gran Partita”
Britten Sinfonia’s celebrated wind section, including oboist Nicholas Daniel, takes centre stage in a concert which includes Mozart’s Gran Partita – a towering masterpiece of the wind repertoire. Pianist Imogen Cooper joins the musicians for Beethoven’s piano and wind quintet alongside BBC Young Musician of the Year and composer, Mark Simpson, who has been specially commissioned to write a new work scored for the same forces as the Gran Partita. £30, £20, £10 Part of Britten Sinfonia multibuy Produced by Britten Sinfonia
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Patricia Kopatchinskaja DIRECTs Thursday 6 March 2014 7.30pm – Milton Court Concert Hall
Patricia Kopatchinskaja © Marco Borggreve
Patricia Kopatchinskaja violin / director
Moldovan “Gifted violinist Patricia
Kopatchinskaja has slimmed her tone to a fragile finesse… the freshness of this interpretation is exhilarating.
”
The Times
Brahms arr. Paul Angerer Chorale Preludes Op. 122 Tigran Mansurian Four Serious Songs after Brahms Bartók Romanian Dances Janácˇek arr. Richard Tognetti String Quartet No. 1 Kreutzer Sonata Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in D minor Explosive, barefoot and unpredictable! It quickly becomes apparent when you hear Moldovan violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja perform that there is only one thing of importance to her: the music. In Patricia’s debut directing Britten Sinfonia she performs a distinctly Eastern European folk-flavoured programme including Bartók’s Romanian folk melodies, string arrangements of Brahms and Janácˇek masterpieces and Tigran Mansurian’s violin concerto inspired by the four biblical songs of Brahms. £30, £20, £10 Part of Britten Sinfonia multibuy Produced by Britten Sinfonia
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Good Friday: Bach St John Passion Composed for Good Friday vespers in 1724 Bach’s masterpiece perfectly balances the theatrical with the devotional. In this performance, which will showcase the technical precision and musical beauty of this sacred oratorio, Britten Sinfonia is joined by a stellar line-up of soloists and its acclaimed professional choir, Britten Sinfonia Voices.
Friday 18 April 2014 6pm – Barbican Hall Julia Doyle soprano Iestyn Davies counter-tenor Nicholas Mulroy Evangelist Jeremy Budd tenor Matthew Brook bass Eamonn Dougan Pilate / Britten Sinfonia Voices Director Jacqueline Shave violin / director Britten Sinfonia Voices
£35, £25, £20, £15, £10 Produced by Britten Sinfonia
Bach St John Passion
Davies’s voice remains “ true to the English choral tradition, of which he is a product. Its purity is astonishing… it sounded effortless…
Iestyn Davies © Marco Borggreve
Premium Seats priced at £59 each, enjoy the very best seats and a pre-show reception with Britten Sinfonia and guests.
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Financial Times
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Birtwistle at 80
By John Woolrich
great original... “Aone of the most
gifted composers of his generation.
”
The Times
Harrison Birtwistle once described the Lancashire countryside in which he grew up as a kind of Arcady. His continuing interest in the natural world retains the influence of that rural upbringing: one of his most recent pieces, The Moth Requiem, is a setting of the names of extinct English moths. As a student Birtwistle took his music to show Vaughan Williams.‘I had a sort of Vaughan Williams forgery under my arm, (which was my music…) Vaughan Williams was modern music to me when I was a student’. He was very much part of my formative years and my awareness of what creativity was’. Birtwistle has described Melencolia 1, his lament for clarinet and strings, as his Tallis Fantasia. Like Birtwistle, Gustav Holst’s approach to landscape, even in a miniature like his canon The Fields of Sorrow, is the impression it gives
of travelling, and of time and space changing the perspective as the journey unfolds. For both Holst and Birtwistle the interaction of landscape and time has been a compositional preoccupation. Birtwistle, like Vaughan Williams and Holst, uses landscape as a metaphor in his music. It may be a real one, like the mysterious prehistoric hill in Wiltshire that lies behind Silbury Air, or imaginary ones (rather like Holst’s Egdon Heath, another piece that has had a place in Birtwistle’s imagination). Birtwistle has a (Paul Klee-inspired) orchestral piece called An Imaginary Landscape. Another Wiltshire landscape has its own music in Yan Tan Tethera. The mythical story of Yan Tan Tethera is an explanation of the groaning sound made by the wind whistling round some sarsen stones in Wiltshire.
Birtwistle at 80:
Yan Tan Tethera
Thursday 29 May 2014 7.30pm – Barbican Hall Baldur Brönnimann conductor John Lloyd Davies director Claire Booth Hannah Omar Ebrahim Caleb Raven Roderick Williams Alan TBC Piper / Bad ‘un Eamonn Dougan Britten Sinfonia Voices Director Britten Sinfonia Voices Harrison Birtwistle Yan Tan Tethera
A rare chance for audiences to see a semistaged concert performance of Birtwistle’s 1988 opera Yan Tan Tethera – only the second production since its premiere. Described by Birtwistle as a Mechanical Pastoral, this seminal work, with a haunting libretto by poet Tony Harrison, is a supernatural tale of two shepherds, their sheep and the devil. A superb line-up of soloists are directed by John Lloyd Davies and conductor Baldur Brönniman. £25, £17.50, £10 Co-produced by the Barbican and Britten Sinfonia
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Birtwistle at 80:
FIELDS OF SORRoW Maxim Rysanov © Kozhevnikov and Podushko
Rysanov’s tone is full “ and perceptively shaded,
Friday 30 May 2014 7.30pm – Milton Court Concert Hall Baldur Brönnimann conductor Maxim Rysanov viola Eamonn Dougan Britten Sinfonia Voices Director Britten Sinfonia Voices Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis Holst If you love songs Lovely venus David’s Lament for Jonathan The Fields of Sorrow Harrison Birtwistle The Fields of Sorrow Harrison Birtwistle Melencolia I Vaughan Williams Flos Campi
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his ornamentation neat and unobtrusive, his use of the viola’s individual timbre and colouristic spectrum judicious.
”
The Telegraph
A fascinating programme of music which traces three major English composers’ responses to landscape and national identity. Vaughan Williams’ unique pastoral elegy Flos Campi (Flower of the Field) explores a landscape of physical and spiritual longing, whilst Holst’s Fields of Sorrow is a cold and bleak emotional journey. Using the same Ausonius text as Holst, Harrison Birtwistle demonstrates a highly individual continuation of the English pastoral tradition that has its roots in the rediscovery of landscape as a creative force. £30, £20, £10 Part of Britten Sinfonia multibuy Produced by Britten Sinfonia
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booking Information Tickets Please see individual concerts for ticket prices. Milton Court Concerts Multibuy Discount* • Book all five Britten Sinfonia concerts in Milton Court Concert Hall and save 20% Milton Court Concerts • Paul Lewis / 11 Oct 13 / page 2 • Serenade for tenor, horn and strings / 24 Nov 13 / page 7 • Imogen Cooper /14 Feb 14 / page 9 • Patricia Kopatchinskaja directs / 6 Mar 14 / page 10 • Fields of Sorrow / 30 May 14 / page 14
Premium Seats Premium seats are available for concerts on 7 Dec 2013 and 18 Apr 2014. Premium seat ticket holders will be invited to a private reception hosted by Britten Sinfonia. Strictly limited and only available by phone bookings. Concessions Under 18s and students all tickets £5 (students must have a valid NUS card; one concession per customer.) Groups of 10 or more Receive a 20% discount when booking 10 or more tickets for one concert. Disabled visitors Disabled visitors who have joined the Barbican Access Membership scheme can inform the Barbican of their access requirements, receive information in alternative formats and may be eligible
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for reductions on tickets. Any available discounted tickets are limited in number and subject to availability – please book early to avoid disappointment . Full details are available online at www.barbican.org.uk/ access and will be sent with your membership information. Ticket Exchange Tickets can be exchanged for another Britten Sinfonia performance or for credit vouchers valid for six months provided that you return your tickets at least 24 hours prior to the performance. Tickets received within 24 hours of the performance may be offered for re-sale. An administration fee applies for these services. Full conditions of sale are available at www.barbican.org.uk How to Book • Online www.barbican.org.uk £2 booking fee per transaction • By phone 020 7638 8891 Monday – Saturday 10am-8pm Sunday and Bank Holidays 11am-8pm £3.50 booking fee per transaction • In person at the Advance Box Office Monday – Saturday 10am-9pm 12noon-9pm – Sundays and Bank Holidays
All information correct at time of going to press. Please visit www.brittensinfonia.com for changes and additional concerts. Britten Sinfonia reserves the right to substitute repertoire and artists as necessary.
Benjamin Ealovega Š
CALL FOR RESEARCH VOLUNTEERS Composers, Performers and their Audiences: exploring dialogue and interaction We are seeking a group of volunteers who will be attending the concerts at Milton Court Concert Hall on Sunday 24 November 2013 and Friday 14 February 2014 to take part in a research project to examine how audience members experience new music. You will be invited to a series of discussions and rehearsals where you will have a chance to meet Britten Sinfonia musicians and composers. There will also be an opportunity to attend a one-day symposium on Saturday 1 March 2014 at the end of the research project. To register your interest in taking part please email research@gsmd.ac.uk This research project is a collaboration between the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, the AHRC Research Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice (CMPCP), the Barbican Centre and Britten Sinfonia.
Design: carly.merrydew@gmail.com
Britten Sinfonia 13 Sturton Street Cambridge CB1 2SN Telephone: 01223 300795 Fax: 01223 302092 Email: info@brittensinfonia.com www.brittensinfonia.com Chief Executive: David Butcher Chairman: Stephen Bourne Registered Charity No. 291245
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