fortissimo! Spring 2011

FABER MUSIC NEWS SPRING 2011

fortissimo!

Adès at 40 “…Adès may be the most accomplished overall musician before the public today…”

The New York Times (Tommasini), 21 March 2010

IN THIS ISSUE Thomas Adès at 40, p 2-3

Faber composers tackle world issues, p 4-5 Pascal & Ami Rogé premiere Hindson concerto, p 6 George Benjamin at Auftakt and Klangspuren festivals, p 7 ‘Behind Bars’ now available, p 26 Interview with Carl Vine, p 21

Tuning In • Interview with Carl Vine • Book ‘Behind Bars’ is launched! • New Works • New Publications New Recordings • Media News • Books on Music from Faber & Faber • Music for Now

Thomas Adès at 40 In recent years there have been numerous festivals devoted to the music, conducting and pianistic talents of Thomas Adès all around the world. In 2011, his fortieth year, there are two new works to hear, and two festivals focusing on that rare commodity, a British composer who enjoys an international reputation.

These are the Holland Festival, and ‘Aspects of Adès’ festival in Los Angeles. There are three conducting debuts: with the Concertgebouw, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra of São Paulo; and on home ground he completed a tour with the London Sinfonietta. As pianist he took the solo part in ‘In Seven Days’ with the New York Philharmonic; still to come are appearances as pianist in the Wigmore and Carnegie Halls; his success as all-round musician is unrivalled, and yet he still counts composing as his raison-d’etre. We salute Thomas Adès in this his fortieth year for all his achievements and for the uniquely original and powerful music that has moved and delighted so many.

NEW WORK (i) ‘Polaris’ - Voyage for orchestra Thomas Adès was commissioned by the New World Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas to write a work for the important opening concert of a new concert hall, designed by Frank Gehry. The New World Symphony Concert Hall, Miami Beach, was finished on budget and on time, and the opening concerts (26 and 28 January) attracted attention from all over the US. The synergy between Adès’ music, and Frank Gehry’s architecture became apparent when Gehry invited Adès to give the opening concert in the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion (2007) after they had met in his most famous concert hall, the Walt Disney auditorium in Los Angeles. For the Miami commission the composer was asked to take full advantage of the antiphonal and spatial possibilities inherent in Gehry’s groundbreaking architectural design, which also incorporated ample opportunity for video relay both inside and outside the hall.

Adès’s collaborator for Polaris was 2

PHOTO: (ABOVE) THOMAS ADÈS © BRIAN VOCE, (RIGHT) FRANK GEHRY ARTS CENTER, MIAMI © COURTESY OF GEHRY PARTNERS LLP

Tal Rosner whose site-defined work (beamed onto the sail-like surfaces adorning the Center’s walls), is visually inspired by Rockwell Kent’s Moby Dick illustrations. The images combine directed scenes with live-action and graphic elements, fully utilizing the matrix of possibilities of the five-screen canvas.

More about the work:

It is scored for orchestra including groups of brass instruments which may be isolated from the stage. These instruments always play in canon, once in each of the three sections of the piece, entering in order from the highest (trumpets) to the lowest (bass tuba). Their melody, like all the music in this work, is derived from a magnetic series, a musical device heard here for the first time, in which all twelve notes are gradually presented, but persistently return to an anchoring pitch, as if magnetised. With the first appearance of the twelfth note, marked clearly with the first entrance of the timpani, the poles are reversed.

At the start of the third and final section a third pole is discovered which establishes a stable equilibrium with the first.

The piece is named for Polaris, the North Star, or Pole Star, around which the other stars appear to rotate as if it were itself a magnetic pole, and which has since ancient times been used by seafarers as a navigational tool.

Programme note by Philip Jones, 2010

‘…Strung around the melody are glistening webs of instrumental sounds, reminiscent at times of American minimalism or of Indonesian gamelan music. All the glitter falls away for the final announcement of the theme, low in the strings, with raucous shouts from the rest of the orchestra. It’s a joy to hear a work so elemental, so monolithic and, not least, so gloriously loud.’

The New Yorker (Alex Ross), February 2011

‘Polaris proved an intense and hypnotic experience… The music intensified as more instruments joined in, with sudden breaks in the music matched by changes in the video.

The work built to a big climax and the images vanished, replaced by bubble-like circles.’

Miami Herald (David Fleshler), 26 January 2011

HIGHLIGHTS NEW WORK (ii) ‘The Four Quarters’ commissioned for the Emersons As part of the composer’s relationship with Carnegie Hall in 2007-08, Adès was commissioned to write a quartet for the world-famous Emerson Quartet. The 15-20 minute The Four Quarters is the result, was presented in Carnegie Hall on 12 March and then in Los Angeles on 14 March.

The work is set to go on tour to Freiburg (31 March), Zurich (3 April), Paris (the Louvre, 6 April) and London (Queen Elizabeth Hall on 7 April).

This is the composer’s second quartet following Arcadiana, which has notched up over a hundred performances since its premiere in 1994, and which has been recorded by several different ensembles.

After the world premiere on the East coast, the Emersons will travel cross-continent to Los Angeles to perform ‘The Four Quarters’ at the composer focused festival ‘Aspects of Adès’ which is being showcased at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

‘Aspects of Adès’ festival

2011 began for Adès in New York where he starred as pianist for the first time in his In Seven Days with the New York Philharmonic under Alan Gilbert.

After the triumph in Miami he headed to the UK for Sinfonietta concerts, but by early April he will be on the west coast of the US where the Los Angeles Philharmonic is hosting a dedicated composer festival ‘Aspects of Adès’.

London Sinfonietta tour Adès and Reich concert

Three concerts by the London Sinfonietta featured Thomas Adès’s piano concerto In Seven Days in February 2011, this time under the composer’s baton, and touring to Glasgow (13 February), London (18 February) and Birmingham (11 March).

‘…a feast of teeming voices and ecstatic pulsations, woven like a classic symphonic metamorphosis, surface chorales and volcanic rumbles constantly combusting in a way that drives the material slowly, majestically, inexorably forward.’

Financial Times (Andrew Clark), 15 February 2011

‘Forty this year, Thomas Adès has matured as a composer exactly as one had hoped but didn’t dare to expect. The virtuosic craftsmanship, his way of dipping into music history and coming up with something fresh, his ability to create mysterious aural PHOTO: (LEFT) EMERSON QUARTET © LISA-MARIE MAZZUCCO, (RIGHT) FRANK GEHRY ARTS CENTER, MIAMI © COURTESY OF GEHRY PARTNERS LLP

landscapes that seem to hold a myriad contrasting ideas in equilibrium: all this is still apparent. But now one senses more unbridled passion and bared soul. There is less writing for effect (dazzling though that was); more that seems to come from the heart…

What strikes me as more radical is the leap in Adès’s musical expression: the unselfconscious use of tonality, albeit handled with super-subtle finesse, to build tension; the clarity and ebullience of the contrapuntal writing, evoking muscular Tippett at first, and Britten joyously transfigured later; and the glittering bravura of the piano part, impeccably realised by Nicolas Hodges in this London Sinfonietta performance under the composer’s baton. Adès’s pieces always offered dazzling excursions into startling soundworlds.

But now they seem to be exploring much deeper psychological states as well.

The Times (Richard Morrison) 15 February 2011

Musical America selects Adès as ‘Composer of the Year’ in 2011

As if to confirm the composer’s achievements at forty, Musical America announced in December that Adès is their chosen ‘Composer of the Year’. Six pages of photos and copy are included in this essential US directory for the musical business.

‘Adès has become an international go-to man for major occasions… Such success! Adès turns on audiences like few composers today. His music is grounded in the past, but entirely of the present and full of remarkable invention. Always on to something new, he never repeats himself. Critics take him seriously. Musicians find him a joy to work with.’

Mark Swed (Musical America), 2011

A world vision in music…..

Jonathan Harvey and ‘Weltethos’ When the distinguished Swiss theologian, Hans Kueng decided that music could be a vehicle to purvey his vision of World Global Ethics, he first approached the Berliner Philharmoniker. Hans Kueng, now in his nineties has, throughout his life, espoused a view that the world urgently needs a consensus on ethical matters if the nations of the world are to work constructively together. Most ethical standards are common throughout the many different religions and philosophies. The Global Ethical Foundation was set up to nurture and develop this consensus in an effort to foster peace throughout the world’s communities. Kueng recognises, clearly, that music is a universal language that can reach across the divides between peoples. His approach in 2006 to the Berliner Philharmoniker was to find the right composer to convey the texts he provided, for a work of universal appeal. The Berliner Philarmoniker was very quick to recommend Jonathan Harvey as the composer most suitable to write a large-scale work to realise Kueng’s vision.

This is the background to an extraordinary commission for Weltethos (literally, Global Ethics) – a 90-minute work for speaker, large chorus, children’s choir and large orchestra (3333 - 4431 - perc(6) - cel - cimbalom 2 harp - organ - strings).

The piece is due to be premiered on 13 and 15 October 2011, in the Phiharmonie Berlin by the Berliner Philharmoniker under Sir Simon Rattle, with Simon Halsey’s Berlin Radio Choir. Sir Simon Rattle had previously conducted Madonna of Winter and Spring, and was later entranced by a performance of Messages with his orchestra. Everyone agreed that Harvey’s ability to create a sound world of orchestral radiance found big fans on those occasions: everything pointed to the composer’s ability to rise to this very particular musical challenge.

It was not long after Harvey began to write this work, that the Olympic Committee in the UK – searching for a significant work to begin the Olympic celebrations – identified this as the right piece to present in Symphony Hall Birmingham with Simon Halsey’s other choir, the CBSO Chorus and the CBSO. The UK premiere of Weltethos is therefore scheduled for 21 June 2012 in Symphony Hall, Birmingham, under the baton of Edward Gardner.

…two composers are inspired by their concern for the future safety of the world…

HIGHLIGHTS Peter Sculthorpe a ‘Requiem’ For the 2011 City of London Festival the theme of ecology and sustenance is paramount. It was a golden opportunity to present the London premiere of Peter Sculthorpe’s Requiem. This work dates from 2004 and is the composer’s response to war (in particular the Iraq war) and the ‘present perilous time, when war is waged without sanction or provocation’. In his most recent piece – the String Quartet No 18 and its string orchestra version: String Sonata No 5, Sculthorpe is reacting to climate change and its dangers to the environment. He is a passionate believer in man-made climate change and is keen to publicise his frustration with successive governments that have done next to nothing about it. This piece will also be heard during the festival in a performance on 8 July by the world-class Goldner Quartet, who gave the premiere last year.

About the ‘Requiem’ the composer writes:

“It should be said that I am not a religious composer in any sectarian sense. On the other hand, most of my output is devoted to seeking the sacred in nature, in all things. My Requiem is no exception to this… it was important to me that I should seek to uplift people during the present perilous times….

Sculthorpe at City of London Festival The Times’ 31 December issue identified important arts events for 2011. Richard Morrison flagged up the City of London Festival’s Australian focus and suggested the highlight to be the London premiere of Peter Sculthorpe’s Requiem, with didgeridu, in Southwark Cathedral on 4 July.

City of London Festival focus events NOURLANGIE

REQUIEM FOR CELLO ALONE

This is one of the largest focuses on Peter Sculthorpe ever scheduled in the UK, surely an event not to be missed.

The City of London Festival say:

POSTCARD FROM NOURLANGIE

Our international focus this year is on the creative and cultural riches of Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. Australia’s foremost didgeridoo player, William Barton, joins the Choir of Southwark Cathedral in the European première of a new version of Peter Sculthorpe’s deeply moving Requiem - one of the Festival’s highlights and a truly unique experience.

EARTH CRY (string quartet version)

Other selected forthcoming performances

GRESHAM LECTURE

REQUIEM (London premiere)

Concerto for Piano

STRING QUARTET NO 18 (London premiere)

SHINING ISLAND (European premiere)/SMALL TOWN/DJIJILE/JABIRU DREAMING

From Uluru

15.3.11, Schuster Center, Dayton, OH, USA: cond.

Neal Gittleman/Dayton Philharmonic

(Singapore premiere) 13.3.11, National University of Singapore Cultural Centre, Singapore: National University of Singapore Symphony Orchestra/Lim Soon Lee/Geoffrey Saba

Sun Music III

(Indonesian premiere) *.9.11, Jakarta, Indonesia: Geoffrey Saba/ Nusantara Symphony Orchestra/Edward Van Ness

Beethoven Variations

9, 10.4.11, Pikes Peak Center, Colorado Springs, CO, USA: Colorado Springs Philharmonic/Kynan Johns 9.4.11, Darwin Entertainment Centre, Darwin, Australia: Darwin Symphony Orchestra/William Barton/Leif Sondstrup

FROM SAIBAI/TAILITNAMA SONG

5 PHOTO: (LEFT PAGE) JONATHAN HARVEY © MAURICE FOXALL (THIS PAGE) PETER SCULTHORPE © MAURICE FOXALL

Matthew Hindson’s concerto news Ashkenazy & Sydney SO to premiere Hindson’s concerto for Pascal & Ami Rogé…

How many pianists commission a full-blown concerto to celebrate their wedding anniversary? When Pascal and Ami Rogé decided upon this unusual plan of action, Australian composer Matthew Hindson seemed an obvious choice as composer. Ami Rogé has praised the “visual” character of Hindson’s music and Pascal admires the way it speaks directly to the heart, to listeners.

The new two-movement concerto will be premiered by the Rogés with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Ashkenazy, in Sydney Opera House on 12 and 13 May, along with Rudolf Barshai’s rarely-heard completion of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony.

The two movements of Hindson’s concerto are “Love Song” and “The Two of Us”. The work promises to blend the composer’s effervescent pyrotechnics with his more soulful and lyrical side.

… and champion Hindson at Edinburgh Festival The SSO and Ashkenazy presented Energy, the first movement of Hindson’s ballet e=mc2 (commissioned for David Bintley by Birmingham Royal Ballet), at the Edinburgh International Festival on 2 September:

‘…[Energy] more than lived up to its name. Plenty of tremolo strings and rippling harp passages – with the odd flurry of percussion – flung this intensely rhythmic piece forwards with thrilling and unrelenting momentum. Equally energetic on the podium was conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy who ensured his brilliant band never missed a note.’

The Scotsman (Susan Nickalls), 5 September 2010

Lara St John gives US premiere of ‘ Violin Concerto’ Lara St John gave the eagerly-awaited US premiere of Hindson’s Violin Concerto on 17 and 19 February with the Rochester PO under Sarah Ioannides.

‘Lara St. John gave a magnetic, free-wheeling U.S. premiere performance to a triumphant, half-hourlong violin concerto by Australian composer Matthew Hindson… It’s a loaded work, heroic in all it conveys.

It’s modern in techniques, with slides and held notes that droop and melt away, electronic-like string textures and more than just garden variety percussion. Yet its portraits and snapshots of places and events are so strong that this energetic work engages at every turn…

It was enough of a work to satisfy for an entire concert.’

Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Anna Reguero), 19 February 2011

The Canadian virtuoso has already recorded the work with Ioannides and the Royal PO on the Ancalagon label (together with works by Corigliano and Liszt). She also gave the Canadian premiere of Hindson’s concerto last season with the Calgary PO and Pierre Simard.

‘It’s the sort of work that should get audiences running, not walking, back to concert halls on new-music nights…’

Gramophone (Andrew Druckenbrod), October 2008

Hindson also wrote his Maralinga for violin and piano for St John in 2009. She will premiere a new version for violin and string orchestra with the Australian Chamber Orchestra 2 on an eight-date Australian tour in May this year.

6 PHOTOS: PASCAL & AMI ROGÉ

HIGHLIGHTS

Benjamin at Auftakt and Klangspuren festivals An interview with George Benjamin During a very busy composing period when George Benjamin is writing his second opera, he will take a fortnight’s break in September to be in residence at the Klangspuren festival in Schwaz and at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, where he is the featured composer at this year’s Auftakt festival.

You have a close working relationship with Ensemble Modern, who premiered and toured performances of your first opera ‘Into the Little Hill’, and have performed many of your works in the past. Does this close relationship contribute to your future collaborations with them? If so, how?

Many of my most intense musical experiences have been connected to the Ensemble Modern, and I feel immensely grateful for the special relationship we share. Over the last two decades we have toured widely together with an extensive range of repertoire, and my Three Inventions and Into the Little Hill were written for and premiered by them. Whenever my schedule permits, collaboration with them is a priority.

What will be the main highlights of your residencies with Alte Oper Frankfurt and Klangspuren?

Both festivals have programmed works by my former students, something which delights me. I also look forward very much to performing Into the Little Hill with Anu Komsi, Hilary Summers and the Ensemble Modern – and I’m particularly happy that the marvellous Junge Deutsche Philharmonie will present my recent Duet in Frankfurt as part of their autumn 2011 tour.

Beyond performances of your works in the concert halls of the Alte oper, there is also a symposium in Frankfurt.

The festival – which has now reached its 11th edition – features a single composer each year. Recent invitees have included Boulez, Kaija Saariaho and Beat Furrer.

Towards the end of each festival there is a gathering of six or seven musicologists, each of whom gives a short paper on an aspect of the invited composer’s work – quite an intimidating thought!

One of your main roles at the Klangspuren festival is to pass on your wealth of knowledge to the Ensemble Modern’s academy candidates, in a masterclass. What kind of invaluable advice will you be offering to these young musicians?

A group of 20 to 30 young musicians from around the world assemble each year in Schwaz to be tutored exclusively in contemporary repertoire by members of the Ensemble Modern, and I hear that the standard of performing is exceptionally high. As for what my own contribution will be, beyond conducting a few works, it’s difficult for me to say until I get there… though I might add that I love the mountains and the thought of a week in the Alps appeals to me hugely.

Due to its wide appeal, your music is often performed in central European countries – Germany, Austria and Switzerland included, do you feel a close connection to the culture, the people & their musical tastes, both historically and in the world of modern day music?

During my childhood the Austro-Germanic musical tradition was of central importance to me – particularly Beethoven, Schumann, Mahler, Strauss and Berg. Though my connection to French culture – enhanced greatly by my studies in Paris – has also been crucial, when my work is welcomed in the countries you mention it means a lot to me. And I have a few composer colleagues from there whose friendship I greatly value.

George Benjamin on composing…

When you begin a new composition – how do you start the process?

Usually with one simple thing - confusion; the clarity of sound and form I desire can take many months to attain.

What is your most prized musical memory?

There were, of course, numerous musical experiences that made a big impact on me during my childhood: discovering the Beethoven symphonies when I was about seven, and feeling this music was unquestionably the greatest thing in existence; hearing l’Après-Midi d’un Faune at my first ever orchestral concert and sensing the hall change temperature a degree or two; witnessing Ligeti’s music for the first time in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey when it was brand new; seeing Parsifal in Edinburgh during my teens and being haunted for days afterwards by its extraordinary harmony…

When you compose, what other art forms are your main sources for inspiration?

Painting, film and, above all, literature. I devour books while writing. I find that the act of reading in silence nurtures the imagination, and sometimes – out of that silence – ideas can begin to crystallise.

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Selected Forthcoming Performances In Seven Days

Thomas Adès

1, 2, 3.4.11, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Nicolas Hodges/Los Angeles PO/ Thomas Adès

musical language, and so it was with this piece.

For music of such audacious modernism, the overall sound was wondrously strange and somehow elemental. Hints of ancient modal harmony combine with jazzy chords and fractured rhythms. In the final section, “Contemplation,” the theme is presented straightforwardly as the music slowly disperses into silence, to suggest touchingly that the work of creation is done. Now what?’

The Four Quarters

(world premiere) 12.3.11, Carnegie Hall, New York, USA: Emerson String Quartet 14.3.11, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Emerson String Quartet (German premiere) 31.3.11, Freiburg, Germany: Emerson String Quartet

The New York Times (Anthony Tommasini), 7 January 2011

(Swiss premiere) 3.4.11, Zurich, Switzerland: Emerson String Quartet (French premiere) 6.4.11, Auditorium du Louvre, Paris, France: Emerson String Quartet (London premiere) 7.4.11, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, UK: Emerson String Quartet

Three Studies from Couperin 15, 17, 18, 19, 20.3.11, TAP Poitiers, France: Orchestre PoitouCharentes/Arie van Beek

Violin Concerto/ Scenes from The Tempest

25, 26.3.11, Symphony Hall, Boston, MA, USA: Thomas Adès/ Boston SO/Pekka Kuusisto

Violin Concerto

25.3.11, Louise Lykes Ferguson Hall, Tampa, FL, USA: Sarah Shellman/Florida Orchestra/ Alexander Mickelthwate (Netherlands premiere) 17.6.11, Holland Festival, Netherlands: Concertgebouw Orchestra/Thomas Adès

Living Toys

28.3.11, Studio Theatre, River Centre for the Arts, Columbus State University, USA: Columbus State University/Paul Hostetter 6.4.11, The Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto, Canada

Concert Paraphrase on Powder Her Face

5.4.11, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Thomas Adès

Concerto Conciso

7.4.11, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Nicolas Hodges/Los Angeles PO/Adès 8.4.11, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Nicolas Hodges/Los Angeles PO/Thomas Adès

Polaris

9.4.11, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Los Angeles PO (Netherlands premiere) 17.6.11, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Holland Festival, Netherlands: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Adès

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‘Mazurkas’ and ‘Piano Quintet’ at Le Poisson Rouge in Washington DC Le Poisson Rouge is a multimedia art cabaret venue founded by musicians on the site of the historic Village Gate in New York and on 5 January it played host to Gloria Cheng and the Calder Quartet, performing works by Thomas Adès amongst others.

Gloria Cheng performed Mazurkas and was then joined by the Calder Quartet to perform Adès’ much acclaimed Piano Quintet. Critic Harry Rolnick suggested it was the works of Thomas Adès that shone in this unconventional venue:

‘Ms. Cheng and the Calder players united in a dazzling account of Mr. Adès’s Piano Quintet, in which seeming stylistic nods to Brahms, Schubert, Stravinsky and more are transmogrified into a blazing tour de force of impish affection.

Afterward Mr. Adès, in town to perform with the New York Philharmonic, came to the stage to share a final roar of approval. ‘

‘Adès, 39, is quickly becoming the most popular composer of his generation on the symphonyorchestra circuit, just as Adams, 63, is the most popular composer of his…The comparison felt complete when the Philharmonic’s music director, Alan Gilbert, revealed on stage that Adès would be conducting his opera The Tempest in New York in a couple of years; it’s scheduled for the Metropolitan Opera’s 2012-13 season… The music features quieter passages that gradually accumulate into bombastic orchestral explosions, which in turn recede back into quiet; Adès nicely evokes the creation myth’s cycles of activity and reflection. The rhythms are complex, but the overall effect is straightforward and clear; the music is tonal, but never cloying. Considering the portentous subject matter, it’s perhaps most impressive that the piece is as unpretentious as it is.’

The Capital New York (Zachary Woolfe), 7 January 2011

‘…wondrously strange and somehow elemental.’

The New York Times (Steve Smith), 7 January 2011

‘In Seven Days’ New York premiere Thomas Adès starred as pianist in the New York premiere of his piano concerto In Seven Days on 6 January with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Alan Gilbert. This was the first time the composer had the role of pianist, having conducted the work in all previous performances.

‘This riveting, restless and kaleidoscopically colorful 30-minute orchestra piece, written in 2008, incorporates projected videos by Tal Rosner to illustrate the Genesis story through music and imagery… Galumphing basses and low brass evoke the creatures of the land, while twittering flutes and crazed piccolo announce the creatures of the sky. Long episodes evolve in arcs of brilliant piano writing where restless, filigreed, spiralling figures cascade down the keyboard.

Even when the music heaves on the surface, the inner textures and voices are a riot of activity.

It has long been hard to pigeonhole Mr. Adès’s PHOTO: THOMAS ADÈS © MAURICE FOXALL

Adès debuts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra On 25 March the Boston Symphony Orchestra presents a thematic program largely based on music inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Adès will conduct Tchaikovsky’s tone poem named after the play, and Sibelius’ incidental music to the work, alongside scenes from his own opera, as well as his Violin Concerto performed by Anthony Marwood.

‘…riveting, restless and kaleidoscopically colorful…

Galumphing basses and low brass evoke the creatures of the land, while twittering flutes and crazed piccolo announce the creatures of the sky.’

TUNING IN Selected forthcoming performances

Julian Anderson Anderson’s residency with LPO starts with a triumph A Southbank concert on 15 December 2010 was the first of Julian Anderson’s residency with the London Philharmonic Orchestra; Jukka-Pekka Saraste conducted a magisterial performance of his 1998 The Stations of the Sun.

‘You feel something when you hear it; the elaborate orchestral gestures (and you can hear why it wowed the 1998 Prom audience) unlock our imaginations; a beautiful violin melody proliferating into free variations is something you want to go back to. Anderson is the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s new Composer in Residence and this performance under JukkaPekka Saraste will have undoubtedly raised his spirits.’

The Independent (Edward Seckerson), 16 December 2010

See selected forthcoming performances for details of future concerts associated with Anderson’s residency on 19 March 2011 and 3 December 2011.

‘The Comedy of Change’ debuts in New York and Paris The Comedy of Change received its US premiere on 17 & 18 December in performances by selected musicians from the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and their Artistic Director, Alan Gilbert, as part of their contemporary music series CONTACT! Steve Smith from The New York Times had this to say about the work:

‘...Friday’s program brought The Comedy of Change by Julian Anderson, a British composer whose renown abroad has yet to infiltrate New York… Mr. Anderson’s vivid imagination and technical creativity were evident throughout, in effects ranging from elementary (shredded newspaper) to cerebral (a synthesizer pitched at a microtonal variance to the ensemble). The expressiveness of the musical gestures made sense, given that the piece was written on a commission from the Rambert Dance Company.

Hearing it performed with such finesse and assurance made you hope that Mr. Gilbert will come to explore more of Mr. Anderson’s oeuvre in programs to come.’

The Crazed Moon

‘Heaven is shy of Earth’ premiere Julian Anderson’s Heaven is Shy of Earth for mezzo-soprano, SATB choir and orchestra, with poetry by Emily Dickinson was a huge success at its 2006 premiere, with the Sunday Times describing it as ‘a powerful, beautiful and curious work’. The world premiere of the completed version (now including a 6-minute Gloria, bringing the total duration to 40 minutes), was premiered on Friday 26 November 2010 at the Barbican in London.

Mezzo-soprano Susan Bickley sang with the BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus under the baton of Oliver Knussen.

‘[Anderson] now musters such masterly compositional techniques – wonderfully fierce choral writing (sung here by the BBC Symphony Chorus), operatic anguish for a game mezzosoprano (Susan Bickley, very game), a fascinating (and very symbolic) mix of conventional equaltemperament tuning and the natural harmonic series, and the most transcendental use of the flugelhorn since Mahler – that he grips even when he puzzles. Encased in plaster I applauded the radio.’

The Times (Richard Morrison), 29 November 2010

‘…[Anderson] now musters such masterly compositional techniques.’

‘Anderson’s command of the orchestral medium is consistently on display. Layered through with the strands of the choral writing, consummately realised by the BBC Symphony Chorus, the result is a sumptuous and perfectly structured score that is immediate in its impact yet subtle in the fineness of its surface allure. Susan Bickley was the confident soloist, conveying the bulk of the Dickinson extracts with determination.’

19.3.11, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK: London PO/Vladimir Jurowski

Khorovod

29.3.11, Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York, USA: University of Rochester/John Liberatore

Bach Machine

29.3.11, “Tinerimea Româna” National Art Centre, Romania

The Comedy of Change

(Austrian premiere) 4.4.11, Tiroler Ensemble für Neue Musik 28.4.11, MuziekGebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Oliver Knussen/Asko/Schoenberg

Alhambra Fantasy

8.4.11, CNSMD de Lyon, France

Fantasias

3.12.11, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK: London PO/Vladimir Jurowski

Past Hymns

13.7.11, The Aylesbury Festival, United Kingdom: The London Sound Ensemble 25.7.11, Slovenian Philharmonic Hall, Slovenia: The London Sound Ensemble 13.4.12, Royal Festival Hall, London, United Kingdom: London Philharmonic Orchestra

New work

(world premiere) 24.3.12, Royal Festival Hall, London, United Kingdom: London Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Mark Elder

The Guardian (George Hall), 29 November 2010

The New York Times (Steve Smith), 20 December 2010

In February at Paris’s Cité de la Musique The Comedy of Change was presented to French audiences for the first time by the Ensemble Intercontemporain and conductor Ludovic Morlot.

Both premieres presage a future relationship: Anderson’s next work for the LPO is cocommissioned by the New York PO and he is writing a violin concerto for the LPO and the Seattle SO (for Carolin Widmann) which will be conducted in Seattle by Ludovic Morlot.

PHOTO: JULIAN ANDERSON © MAURICE FOXALL

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Selected forthcoming performances Symphony No 8

Malcolm Arnold

6.3.11, Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, MI, USA: University of Michigan School of Music/ Anthony Elliot

SYMPHONY PERFORMANCES Symphony No 1 and Symphony No 2

Four Irish Dances

12.3.11, Orpheum Theatre, Sioux City, Iowa, USA: Sioux City Symphony/Ryan Haskins

Introduction with Paul Harris and Robert Hardy

19.3.11, Adrian Boult Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham, UK: Birmingham Schools Symphony Orchestra/ Michael Seal

Symphony No 3

Introduction with Denis Wick

2.4.11, St Paul’s Church, Withington, Manchester, UK: Manchester Universities Orchestral Society/Daniel James

Symphony No 4 Introduction with Humphrey Burton

The Fair Field Overture

30.3.11, Fairfield Concert Hall, Croydon, UK: Croydon Youth Orchestra

Concerto for Clarinet No 2

17.4.11, St Faiths Church, Crosby, Liverpool, UK: Crosby Symphony Orchestra/Neil Carroll/ Edward Peake

Peterloo

11.5.11, Sheldonian Theatre Oxford, UK: Thames Vale Youth Orchestra

Concerto for Two Violins and String Orchestra 15.5.11, Schlosstheater im Neuen Palais Potsdam, Germany: Kammerakademie Potsdam 23.7.11, Saanen Church, Saanen, Gstaad, Switzerland: Valeriy Sokolov/Students of the Yehudi Menuhin School/Charles Siem/Malcolm Singer

The Three Musketeers

19.5.11 & 9.6.11, Estonian National Opera, Tallinn, Estonia: Ballet of the Estonian National Ballet/ch. David Nixon/cond. Jüri Alperten & Mihhail Gerts

Symphony No 5

Sir Malcolm Arnold’s 90th Anniversary celebrations in 2011 2011 brings many a commemorative event for Sir Malcolm Arnold’s music, in celebrating the 90th Anniversary of his birth.

One of the major highlights includes the performances of all nine symphonies over one weekend at the Malcolm Arnold Festival 2011.

Director of the festival Paul Harris introduces this year’s festival.

“The chance to hear all of Sir Malcolm Arnold’s wonderful symphonies in one weekend is probably a never to be repeated opportunity. Not only do these nine masterpieces fascinatingly represent the time in which they were written but they also provide an insight into the mind of one of the twentieth century’s most intriguing composers. Arnold once said ‘All my music is autobiographical’ and no where is this more true than in these nine extraordinary works.

In addition to the symphonies the weekend will be punctuated by many short talks given by those who have a particular connection or interest with each work and performances of many of Sir Malcolm’s shorter and smaller scale works written around the same time as each symphony. The great actor Robert Hardy has agreed to launch the Festival on the Friday evening.’

Paul Harris, Director of the Malcolm Arnold Festival

10 PHOTO: MALCOLM ARNOLD ABOVE: EXCERPT FROM SIR MALCOLM ARNOLD’S ‘SYMPHONY NO 7’ © FABER MUSIC LTD

Introduction with Ben Hoffnung

Symphony No 6

Introduction with John Gibbons

Symphony No 7

Introduction with Timothy Bowers

Symphony No 8

Introduction with Timothy Bowers

Symphony No 9

Introduction with Sheldon Blair

Each performance of each symphony will be preceded with a spoken introduction. See above for more details. In addition, musicians from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music will perform works contemporary to the symphonies. For full information on the events for the Malcolm Arnold Festival in 2011 and any other birthday celebrations, visit: www.malcolmarnoldfestival.com

TUNING IN

Derek Bermel

George Benjamin

Electric Guitar concerto to premiere in Amsterdam Dutch guitarist Wiek Hijmans, is to premiere A Short History of the Universe (as related by Nima ArkaniHamed), a new concerto by the US composer for electric guitar and string orchestra. Hijmans will join forces with the Nederlands Jeugd Strijkorkest under the baton of Bas Wiegers for the premiere in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw on 15 June 2011, with further dates on 18 and 19 June.

Palimpsests

18.3.11, Archipel Festival, Geneva, Switzerland: Contrechamps/Alejo Perez

Into the Little Hill

26, 27.3.11, Hamburg, Germany: Hamburg SO/Jeffrey Tate 7.9.11, Frankfurt: Anu Komsi/ Hilary Summers/Ensemble Modern/Benjamin

US orchestral performances Recent months have seen performances of his orchestral music by the Chicago SO, the Albany SO, and the New England String Orchestra.

The Albany SO and David Alan Miller launched their 2010-11 season on 11 September with a performance of the New York-inspired A Shout, A Whisper, and A Trace, Bermel’s most recent orchestral work, which also takes as its starting point the late American years of Béla Bartók. On 13 December the Chicago SO under Cliff Colnot presented Three Rivers for large ensemble, as part of their MusicNOW series at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance:

9.9.11, Klangspuren Festival: Anu Komsi/Hilary Summers/ Ensemble Modern/Benjamin

At First Light

‘Duet’ tour with Junge Deutsche Philharmonie

Coinciding with Benjamin’s stint at the Klangspuren Festival in September, one of the composer’s favourite orchestras, the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, is taking his Duet around Germany and Italy (Berlin, Frankfurt, Gutersloh, Merano and Locarno). Lothar Zagrosek conducts the Junge ‘Everything is put together with a crafty imagination Deutsche PO with pianist Martin Helmchen, and a that constantly keeps the ear off-guard. This is one recording is planned.

sonic knockout I’d love to hear again.’

Chicago Tribune (John von Rhein), 14 December 2010

Soul Garden is the title track from Bermel’s first CD release and features a gospel-inspired solo viola accompanied by string quintet. Bermel has now enlarged the accompaniment to string orchestra and this new version was taken up by the New England String Orchestra in performances on 4 and 5 December with violist Nadia Sirota.

London Sinfonietta tour ‘At First Light’ to Egypt!

Benjamin’s music has reached most parts of the globe, but it will be new this April to the unchartered territory of Egypt. The London Sinfonietta under Diego Masson is scheduled to travel to Alexandria and Cairo on 26 April with At First Light. We are hoping that the recent political developments in this territory will not cause a postponement, but the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra residency current schedule includes a concert in the Alexandria Bermel is Composer-in-Residence to the Los Angeles Contemporary Music Biennale II followed by one CO for 2010-13. The orchestra has already presented at the Cairo Contemporary Music Days 2011, where there will be a repeat performance at the Ewart the West Coast premiere of A Shout, A Whisper, and Memorial Hall in the American University in Cairo on A Trace under the baton of Music Director Jeffrey 27 April.

Kahane. On 12 February they presented two

movements from Bermel’s Faber Music Millennium Series commission, Natural Selection, for voice and large ensemble. Looking ahead, Bermel is working on a Sound Investment commission Mar de Setembro that the LACO and Luciana Souza (voice) will premiere in Los Angeles on 14 and 15 May.

‘Into the Little Hill’ in Barcelona

Selected forthcoming performances

‘Martin Crimp’s take on the well known story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin is the perfect platform for George Benjamin’s score: the abrupt reactions of the furious populace were as effective as the unreal aura that surrounds the stranger. The repetitive voices of the children who had vanished into the hill were a chilling close to an evening of concentrated beauty.’

A Short History of the Universe (as related by Nima ArkaniHamed)(world premiere) (further perfs in Holland on 18 & 19.6.2011) 15.6.2011, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Wiek Hijmans/Nederlands Jeugd Strijkorkest /Bas Wiegers

PHOTO: (BOTTOM LEFT) DEREK BERMEL, (TOP RIGHT) GEORGE BENJAMIN © MAURICE FOXALL

George Benjamin Selected forthcoming performances

George Benjamin’s opera Into the Little Hill has received almost 50 performances worldwide since its premiere in 2006! One of the most recent performances in Barcelona with the London Sinfonietta, Frank Ollu and singers Rebecca Bottone and Susan Bickley was warmly received:

Opera Magazine (Xavier Cester), March 2011

(Egyptian premiere) 26.4.11, Alexandria Contemporary Music Biennale II, Bibliotheca Alexandria, Egypt: London Sinfonietta/Diego Masson (Egyptian premiere) 27.4.11, Cairo Contemporary Music Days Festival 2011, Egypt: London Sinfonietta/Diego Masson

Three Miniatures for Solo Violin (Israel premiere) 26.4.11, Teiva Theater, Jaffa, Israel: Ensemble Meitar

Upon Silence

7.9.11, Frankfurt: Anu Komsi/ Hilary Summers/Ensemble Modern/Benjamin 9.9.11, Klangspuren Festival: Anu Komsi/Hilary Summers/ Ensemble Modern/Benjamin

Dance Figures

8.9.11, Klangspuren Festival: Tiroler Symphonieorchester Innsbruck/Franck Ollu 9, 10.10.11, Auftakt, Frankfurt: Frankfurter Museumorchester/ Sebastian Weigle

Flight/Three Miniatures for Solo Violin/ Fantasia VII/ Viola, Viola

13.9.11, Klangspuren Festival, Austria

Three Inventions for Chamber Orchestra/ Olicantus

15.9.11, Klangspuren Festival, Austria: Benjamin/International Ensemble Modern Academy

Duet

(5 performances on tour with Junge Deutsche Philharmonie to Germany & Italy) September 2011, Deutsche Philharmonie/Lothar Zagrosek

11

Benjamin Britten - selected forthcoming performances

Benjamin Britten

‘Ballade for cello and orchestra’ premiere

Death In Venice

6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 19.3.11, La Scala, Milan, Italy: dir. Deborah Warner/cond. Edward Gardner/ Peter Coleman-Wright/Iestyn Davies

On 30 April, The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic host the world premiere of Ballade for Cello and Orchestra, specially written by Carl Davis for the RLPO’s terrific Principal Cello, Jonathan Aasgaard.

Movements for a Clarinet Concerto

‘Aladdin’ revisits Tokyo

(Hungarian premiere) 9.3.11, Budapest, Hungary: Liszt Music Academy/Csaba Pálfi

The Burning Fiery Furnace 11, 12.3.11 & 11.5.11, Sirote Theatre, Birmingham, AL, USA: University of AlabamaBirmingham

The Company of Heaven

13.3.11, Collegium Musicum Bergen, Norway: Collegium Musicum Bergen/Haakon Matti Skrede

St John Passion

20.3.11, St Peters Church, London, UK: Skolia Choir and Orchestra/Elizabeth de Lacey

Young Apollo

25, 26.3.11, Meymandi Concert Hall, Raleigh, NC, USA: North Carolina Symphony/ Grant Llewellyn

Phaedra

10.4.11, Yale University, Yale, CT, USA: Yale University/ Michael Sansoni

Suite for Cello/ Second Suite for Cello/Third Suite for Cello

21.6.11, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, UK: Jean-Guihen Queyras

String Quartet No 3

25.6.11, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, UK: Elias String Quartet

Movements for a Clarinet Concerto (US premiere) *.10.11, Marion, Indiana, USA: Alexander Platt

Carl Davis

‘Death in Venice’ at La Scala The critically-acclaimed Deborah Warner production of Death in Venice is to be presented at La Scala between 5 and 19 March.

The stellar cast include John Graham-Hall as Gustav von Aschenbach (replacing Ian Bostridge), Peter Coleman-Wright as Voice of Dionysius and Iestyn Davies as The Voice of Apollo. This production was first seen at English National Opera in May 2007 and has since been shown in Hamburg and Toronto. The premiere in London coincided with the Yoshi Oida production at the Aldeburgh Festival a month later – which has also travelled – but to Bregenz, Prague and Lyon.

Both UK productions were sell-outs and their travels since indicate that the international appetite for the opera that some consider Britten’s finest, appears to have no limits!

‘Movements for a Clarinet Concerto’ premieres in Hungary and US Britten’s unfinished clarinet concerto was given new life by Colin Matthews, who devised the complete work in 2008 and who produced the highly-rated NMC recording featuring Michael Collins. Live performances are now scheduled for 9 March in Hungary with the Liszt Music Academy, and in Marion, Indiana in October 2011 under the baton of Britten enthusiast Alexander Platt.

Programming Guides for Centenary The Britten-Pears Foundation, in collaboration with all of Britten’s publishers (Faber Music, Boosey & Hawkes & Chester Novello) have produced useful programming aids for those planning to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Britten’s birth. To receive your copy, contact promotion@fabermusic.com, or call +44 (0)207 908 5311/12.

12 PHOTO: (TOP LEFT) BENJAMIN BRITTEN, (BOTTOM RIGHT) CARL DAVIS © RICHARD CANNON EXCERPT FROM SCORE OF DAVIS’ ‘BALLADE FOR CELLO AND ORCHESTRA’ © FABER MUSIC LTD

David Bintley’s production of Carl Davis’s ballet Aladdin is to be revived at the New National Theatre in Tokyo for a string of performances from 2-8 May 2011. At the 2008 premiere in Tokyo, members of the audience were queuing up afterwards to buy tickets for subsequent performances, such was the excitement generated. The designs were glittering and gorgeous. Plans are underway to bring this – the first product of Bintley’s association with Tokyo as Artistic Director of the New National Ballet – to Birmingham in the 2012/13 season.

‘Phantom of the Opera’ at RFH A very special evening at London’s Royal Festival Hall is coming up on 27 March, with the screening of Rupert Julian’s classic 1925 silent film The Phantom of the Opera, accompanied by Davis’s score, to be performed (live with the film), by the Philharmonia Orchestra with Davis conducting.

The film is notable for its sumptuous scenes, including a masked ball, in which the Phantom appears as the Red Death on the grand stairway.

Please see page 13 (opposite) for Carl Davis’s selected forthcoming performances.

TUNING IN Carl Davis - selected forthcoming performances

Tansy Davies BCMG concert conducted by Chris Austin Davies’ works Falling Angel and Iris stood out from the crowd in a concert performed by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Chris Austin in December 2010. Stephen Walsh from TheArtsDesk reports:

Tansy Davies nominated for South Bank Sky Arts Award in 2011 Tansy Davies proved to be hot property at the start of 2011, with her latest nomination for a South Bank Sky Arts Award. Davies was the only composer nominated in the classical music category, and was in competition for the award alongside the BBC Philharmonic and Hallé in Manchester, and the Liverpool Philharmonic.

It was Davies’ recent work, As with Voices and with Tears, a commission for a Remembrance Day concert from Portsmouth Grammar School which was put forward for the award.

More about ‘As with Voices…’

Portsmouth Grammar School commissioned Davies to write a 23-minute work for SATB choir, string orchestra and electronics, for a Remembrance Sunday commemoration concert. The school’s resident choir coupled with the London Mozart Players and Andrew Cleary to perform the new 23-minute work at Portsmouth Cathedral on Sunday 14 November 2010.

‘...[Tansy Davies] chose the words of Walt Whitman for As with Voices and with Tears, a work for choir, string orchestra and electronics that used the spacious acoustic of Portsmouth Cathedral as an instrument in itself.

Whitman tells a chilling tale of a double grave for a father and son, killed side by side in combat. Davies extracted her music from this moving text using a system that assigned a different pitch to each letter of the alphabet, further moulding or sculpting the notes and enriching the harmonies into tonal clusters, so that the vocal lines are often only a semitone apart – difficult to sing but both arresting and mysterious in effect.While bells, birdsong and footsteps murmur in and out in electronic interjections, singers and orchestra move as separate flocks on the wing, forming and reforming in large shapes that stream across the desolate landscape of the poem.’

The Guardian (Stephen Pritchard), 22 November 2010 PHOTO: TANSY DAVIES © MAURICE FOXALL

‘The double centrepiece, on either side of the interval, was a pair of brilliant works for largeish ensemble by the waifish-looking but hypertalented Tansy Davies. Falling Angel is an ebullient response to the painting of that name by Anselm Kiefer; Iris, which I first heard at the Cheltenham Festival six years ago, is an evocation of the winged messenger goddess of the rainbow. Both are works which react to visual images, but in a way that transmutes those images into sound structures; they are the response of an intensely musical mind and an acute ear to ideas conveyed from a different part of the brain, reinterpreted and then transmitted as pure music. Its energy is infectious, achieved Stravinsky-fashion by insistent repetition, crisp rhythmic unisons and deep, sudden contrasts of perspective.’

Theartsdesk.com (Stephen Walsh), 6 December 2010

‘…Its energy is infectious, achieved Stravinsky-fashion by insistent repetition, crisp rhythmic unisons and deep, sudden contrasts of perspective.’

New disc release!

March saw the alternative ‘Nonclassical’ label releasing a disc featuring Davies’ twisted funk hybrids neon, salt box 2, Dark Ground, and Grind Show (electric), plus the enigmatic troubadour song cycle Women In Love, and remixes of her work by other artists.

The album (launched on 3 March) was recorded by the Azalea Ensemble with Christopher Austin, Anna Snow and Damien Harron during an inspiring Aldeburgh Residency in October. The disc was recorded and produced by Gabriel Prokofiev and Nick Martin.

The Phantom of the Opera

27.3.11, (3pm) Royal Festival Hall, London, UK: Philharmonia Orchestra/Carl Davis (Swedish premiere) 14.4.11, Norrlandsoperan, Umea, Sweden: cond. Carl Davis/ Norrlands Operan

Intolerance

(Luxembourg premiere) 1, 2.4.11, Philharmonie de Luxembourg, Luxembourg: Cinémathèque de la Ville de Luxembourg/Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg/ cond. Carl Davis

Our Hospitality 10.4.11, Luzerner Theater, Switzerland: Luzerner Sinfonieorchester/cond. Rick Stengårds

The Pawnshop/ The Immigrant/ The Cure

17.4.11, Derngate, Northampton, UK: Carl Davis/Royal PO

Ballade for Cello and Orchestra (world premiere) 30.4.11, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, UK: Jonathan Aasgaard/Royal Liverpool PO/ Carl Davis

Aladdin

2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.5.11, New National Theatre, Tokyo, Japan: chor. David Bintley/cond.Paul Murphy/New National Ballet

Champions: Theme and Grand National

8.7.11, Ipswich Corn Exchange, UK: Trianon SO/ Christopher Green

Tansy Davies - selected forthcoming performances grind show (unplugged)

29.3.11, “Tinerimea Româna” National Art Centre, Romania:

Tilting

(Croatian premiere) 12.4.11, ISCM World New Music Days, Zagreb, Croatia: Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra/Dian Čobanov

Destroying Beauty

26.7.11, Dartington International Music Festival, UK: Singers from Arcangelo

13

Selected forthcoming peformances Speakings

Jonathan Harvey

(Swiss premiere) 18.3.11, Geneva, Switzerland: Ensemble Contrechamps

winning NMC disc, but until 13 August 2011 will not have not been programmed together in one concert.

Bhakti

Hyperion choral disc release

24.3.11, Vredenburg Leeuwenberg, Utrecht, Netherlands: Ensemble Insomnio/Ulrich Pohl

The Latvian Radio Choir’s sublime versions of Jonathan Harvey’s choral works are released in a wonderful new anthology on the Hyperion label this Spring. See page 23 for more information.

Works on the disc include: The Angels, Marahi, Ashes Dance Back, and The Summer Cloud’s Awakening.

10.12.11, Jurriaanse Zaal, Netherlands: Doelenensemble

Wheel of Emptiness 25.3.11, Geneva, Switzerland: Ensemble contemporain de la Haute Ecole de la Musique/Jean-Jacques Balet

Messages

Jonathan Harvey will be totally immersed at the Barbican

Death of Light, Light of Death

The Barbican’s ‘Total Immersion’ concert series will showcase the work of Jonathan Harvey in 2012. Over the weekend of 28-29 January, a variety of Harvey’s choral, orchestral and operatic oeuvre will be presented in film and on stage to London audiences. Works featured include the UK premiere of Harvey’s orchestral work Messages, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under the baton of Martyn Brabbins.

(UK premiere) 1.4.11, Huddersfield Town Hall, UK: Martyn Brabbins/Huddersfield Choral Society/Orchestra of Opera North

15, 19.4.11, Centre Pompidou, Grande Salle, Paris, France: Ensemble Intercontemporain

Little Duo

(world premiere) 29.5.11, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, UK: London Sinfonietta/ Nick Collon

...towards a pure land

(Austrian premiere) 9.6.11, Konzerthaus Wien, Austria: The Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna/Peter Eötvös

Ricercare una melodia (cello)/ Little Duo

Harvey’s Piano Music A number of Harvey’s instrumental works were showcased at the Den Bosch November Festival.

Long-time devotee of Harvey, pianist Ralph van Raat, played all six of Harvey’s solo piano works on 11 November, along with the Netherlands premiere of Harvey’s work for flute and piano Run Before Lightning with flautist Ilonka Kolthof. The concerts were repeated in the Sounds of Music Festival in Groningen.

Ralph Van Raat also plans to perform Harvey’s piano music on 20 March at Berlin’s MaerzMusik, and Quatuor Diotima will give String Quartet No 3 on 26 March.

Praise for ‘Speakings’

18.6.11, Aldeburgh Festival, Britten Studio, Snape, UK: Eric-Maria Couturier/Marco Stroppa (Ricercare) & Diego Tosi/Eric-Maria Couturier (Little Duo)

Speakings is set for its Swiss premiere on March 18 at Geneva’s Archipel Festival. In his article in the Glasgow Herald, Michael Tumelty writes about the premiere and recording of this seminal work:

...towards a pure land/ Body Mandala/ Speakings

‘A modern masterpiece is finally set down on disc.

No experience in contemporary music has so bewitched and bewildered me as sitting in Glasgow’s City Hall a few years ago listening, utterly enthralled, as Jonathan Harvey’s Speakings received its Scottish premiere performance. Ilan Volkov conducted the BBC SSO, while the geniuses of Ircam, the renowned French acoustic institute, worked their computerised magic on Harvey’s mesmerising score, giving the orchestra the appearance of near-vocalising.’

13.8.11, Edinburgh Festival, UK: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/

Weltethos

(world premiere) 13, 15.10.11, Berlin, Germany: Berliner Philharmoniker/Sir Simon Rattle

Body Mandala

19.11.11, Grote Zaal, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Codarts Symphony Orchestra/Hans Leenders

On 29 January, Harvey’s Total Immersion will culminate with the UK premiere of his opera Wagner Dream, at the Barbican Hall, London, to be performed by soprano Claire Booth as Prakriti, and baritone Roderick Williams as Buddha alongside the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Martyn Brabbins.

‘Wagner Dream’ must count as one of this British composer’s most self-defining works.’

The Sunday Telegraph

Wagner Dream makes ideal programming for 2013 – the two-hundredth anniversary of Wagner’s birth!

TOTAL IMMERSION performances Tranquil Abiding/Songs of Li Po/ Vers/ Tombeau de Messiaen/ Calling Across Time

Ashes Dance Back/Marahi/Forms of Emptiness/ Come Holy Ghost/How could the soul not take flight

The Glasgow Herald (Michael Tumelty), September 2010

The first of the trilogy …towards a pure land is programmed in Vienna by the Radio Symphony Orchestra under Peter Eötvös on 9 June. Then…

…BBC SSO trilogy perform together for the first time at the EIF

14

… plus Wagner Dream

The triptych of works commissioned by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra between 20062009 will make a debut at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival. …towards a pure land and Body Mandala are recorded together on an awardPHOTO: JONATHAN HARVEY © MAURICE FOXALL

Body Mandala/Messages (UK premiere)/ Madonna of Winter and Spring

Wagner Dream (UK premiere)

TUNING IN

Jonny Greenwood

Matthew Hindson Australia Ensemble premieres Hindson commission Light is both a particle and a wave is a 20-minute work for flute, clarinet, piano and string quartet, commissioned by Justice Jane Mathews OA, for the Australia Ensemble, one of Australia’s longest running and most recognised chamber groups.

It was premiered by them in the Sir John Clancy Auditorium, University of New South Wales, Sydney on 23 October 2010:

Wordless Music Series stages US premiere of ‘Doghouse’ Jonny Greenwood’s latest work, Doghouse (string trio and orchestra) will receive its much-anticipated US premiere on 20 and 21 May this year, courtesy of the go-ahead Wordless Music Series in New York.

Performances take place in the New York Society for Ethical Culture. New music ensemble, Signal, join The Wordless Music Orchestra and conductor Brad Lubman. Wordless Music presented the US premiere performances of Greenwood’s string orchestra piece, Popcorn Superhet Receiver in New York and San Francisco, in 2008.

Greenwood scores film of Murakami’s ‘Norwegian Wood’ The score of Doghouse also informs Greenwood’s latest film score, to Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung’s adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s celebrated novel ‘Norwegian Wood’. The film was released in Japan in October last year following premieres at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals. It comes to the UK in March, along with the haunting soundtrack album, which has been released by Nonesuch Records.

Cheltenham Festival to feature ‘Popcorn Superhet Receiver’ The Cheltenham Festival is to feature Popcorn Superhet Receiver as part of 2011 programme. Neil Thomson conducts the Festival Academy in the performance which takes place in the Town Hall on 1 July.

PHOTO: (TOP LEFT) JONNY GREENWOOD, MATTHEW HINDSON © TONY MOTT EXCERPT FROM SCORE OF HINDSON’S ‘DANGEROUS CREATURES’ © FABER MUSIC LTD

‘It was a fascinating counterpoint to Ligeti’s Bagatelles in terms of its contrasting scoring and dense, rhythmic organisation, commanding attention from the chaotic, energised opening through to the delicate stasis of the second movement.

Hindson’s ideas and his music often unfold at top speed. When he does slow down, there is much to discover. This work is no mere bagatelle.’

The Sydney Morning Herald (Harriet Cunningham), 26 October 2010

Selected forthcoming performances An Infernal Machine

(UK premiere) 25.3.11, Kendal Leisure Centre, UK: Westmorland Youth Orchestra/Noel Bertram

Maralinga

(world premiere of version for violin and string orchestra) (Australian tour by Lara St John & Australian Chamber Orchestra 2) 1.4.11, Warrnambool, VIC; 2.4, Mount Gambier, SA; 5.4, Horsham, VIC; 6.4, Castlemaine, VIC; 7.4, Mildura, VIC; 9.4, Renmark, SA; 12.4, Noarlunga, SA; 13.4, Melbourne, VIC

LiteSPEED

(US premiere) 3.4.11, Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor, MI, USA: Michigan Pops Orchestra/Yaniv Segal

RPM

9 & 10.4.11, Dewan Filharmonik Petronas, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Malaysian PO/ Kevin Field

‘Dangerous Creatures’: a highlight for Sydney Symphony’s schools programme

Crime & Punishment

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s education department gave over 50 performances of excerpts from Hindson’s Dangerous Creatures suite from June to November last year. Richard Gill conducted.

New work

(European premiere) 15.4.11, ISCM World New Music Days, Museum Mimara, Zagreb, Croatia: Zagreb Soloists (world premiere) 12 & 13.5.11, Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House, Sydney, NSW, Australia: Pascal Rogé/ Ami Rogé/Sydney Symphony Orchestra/Vladimir Ashkenazy

The Rave and the Nightingale 17 & 18.8.11, Llewellyn Hall, Canberra, ACT, Australia: Goldner String Quartet/Canberra Symphony Orchestra/Stanley Dodds

Jonny Greenwood: Selected forthcoming performances Popcorn Superhet Receiver 14.4.11, Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, UK: sinfonia ViVA/ André de Ridder

1.7.11, Cheltenham Festival, Cheltenham Town Hall, UK: Festival Academy/Neil Thomson

Doghouse

(North American premiere) 20 & 21, 5, 11, Wordless Music Series, New York Society for Ethical Culture, NY, USA: The Wordless Music Orchestra/Brad Lubman

15

Selected forthcoming performances Requiem

Oliver Knussen

13.3.11, CBSO Centre Birmingham, UK: Birmingham Contemporary Music Group/Oliver Knussen/Claire Booth

conducted by Julian Kuerti for the performance on 9 April at the David H. Koch Theater at the Lincoln Center in New York.

This presentation also features a cast comprised of talented Vocal Fellows from the Tanglewood Music Center directed by acclaimed choreographer Sean Curran. Artwork specifically created for the performance by children from City Opera’s education programs will be projected above the singers.

Where the Wild Things Are

5 & 9.4.11, New York, USA: New York City Opera/Juilian Kuerti

Requiem

27, 28.4.11, Arnhem, Netherlands: Claire Booth/Asko/ Schönberg/Oliver Knussen

Ophelia’s Last Dance

Celebrating Sixty!

It is Oliver Knussen’s 60th birthday on 12 June 2012. If you would like to celebrate the works of Oliver Knussen, please contact us on promotion@ fabermusic.com.

5.5.11, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK: Huw Watkins 14.6.11, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, UK: Kirill Gerstein 7.9.11, Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival, YMCA, Jerusalem, Israel: Kirill Gerstein 4.6.12, Wigmore Hall, London, UK: Kirill Gerstein 7.9.11, Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival, YMCA, Jerusalem, Israel: Kirill Gerstein

Flourish with Fireworks/The Way to Castle Yonder/Horn Concerto

22.5.11, Madrid, Spain: Martin Owen/Orquesta Nacionales de Espana/Oliver Knussen

Cantata

23.6.11, Aldeburgh Festival, Aldeburgh Church, UK: Melinda Maxwell

Variations

30.5.11, Wigmore Hall, London, United Kingdom: Shai Wosner

Elegiac Arabesques/ Sonya’s Lullaby

14.8.11, Dartington International Music Festival, UK: Nicholas Daniel/Duncan Prescott/Helen Reid

Three Little Fantasies

15.8.11, Dartington International Music Festival, UK: Gallimaufry Ensemble

Ophelia’s Last Dance/Requiem

18.8.11, Dartington International Music Festival, UK: Huw Watkins & Juliet Fraser/Ensemble/Oliver Knussen

Hums and Songs of Winnie the Pooh 8.10.11, Arts Centre, Bridport, UK: Kokoro

16

Gerstein tours ‘Ophelia’s Last Dance’ Ophelia’s Last Dance travels far and wide with pianist Kirill Gerstein this year, around the UK, and also to the Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival in Israel. In an interview for Gramophone Magazine, Gerstein described the work as “wonderfully, intricately wrought, and very tender.”

Gerstein made the premiere recording of Ophelia’s Last Dance which was released in Autumn 2010. The disc has received wonderful reviews:

‘[Kirill Gerstein] holds attention throughout his world-premiere recording of Oliver Knussen’s Ophelia’s Last Dance by differentiating the composer’s almost impressionistic melodic and accompanimental components with a wide scope of dynamics and colours, jabbing the solitary sforzando high notes with stinging impact.’

Music Maestro receives Honours Oliver Knussen received an honorary doctoral degree from Birmingham City University in February in recognition of his distinguished achievements as composer.

His award was conferred at 10.45am on Tuesday 8 February at the Awards Congregation ceremony which celebrates the work and achievements of students graduating from Birmingham Institute of Art and Design (BIAD) and the Faculty of Performance, Media and English.

Gramophone (Jed Distler), March 2011

New York City Opera presents ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ to family audiences Immersing families and young people into the world of opera can be quite a challenge, but this April the New York City Opera is making new efforts to break down barriers, by bringing the imaginary world of Max and the Wild Things to audiences in a special concert performance. Based on the beloved children’s book by Maurice Sendak, this is a story dear to both children and adults.

The lead role of Max is played by Danya Katok, and the New York City Opera Orchestra is

‘You did not have to search for things to love about Mr. Knussen’s ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ … every bar is vividly drawn and full of energy.’

The New York Times PHOTO: OLIVER KNUSSEN © MAURICE FOXALL. IMAGE (RIGHT): EXCERPT FROM THE SCORE OF ‘WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE’ © FABER MUSIC LTD

TUNING IN Selected forthcoming performances

Colin Matthews

Movements for a Clarinet Concerto

Colin Matthews: New Year’s Honour Faber Music is delighted to congratulate Colin Matthews on his OBE, awarded to him for services to music, and announced in the January 2011 New Year’s Honours List.

The honour was undoubtedly not only a recognition of his international reputation as composer, but also for his tireless behind-thescenes work on behalf of other composers.

He is active as an administrator of the Holst Foundation, Chairman of the Britten Estate and Trustee of the Britten-Pears Foundation. He was a member of the Council of the SPNM for 20 years, was a director of the PRS from 1992 to 1995, and a Council Member of the RPS since 2005. He is founder and Executive Producer of NMC Recordings.

He is advisor to the LSO on its programme for young composers, and teaches every year at the Aldeburgh Composer’s Course at the Red House. He has had a long-term relationship with the Hallé Orchestra both as an advisor and as composer in association. There are many other ways in which his selfless generosity has helped others, especially composer colleagues and young emerging composers. This honour is much deserved.

(Hungarian premiere) 9.3.11, Budapest, Hungary: Liszt Music Academy/Csaba Pálfi (US premiere) October 2011, Marion, Indiana, USA: Alexander Platt

“Nicht zu schnell” from Piano Quartet

Fauré song arrangements for Scottish Chamber Orchestra Ever alive to the interest deriving from orchestrating significant repertoire, Matthews took on a commission from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Robin Ticciati to arrange a set of seven Fauré songs, to be premiered by soprano Sally Matthews on 9 February 2011 at St Andrews University.

Sarah Unwin Jones from The Times describes how Matthews captured the intimacy of Fauré’s works for voice and piano combining a delicate mix of 19th and 21st centuries:

‘Opening this selection of seven songs, Fleur-Jeté reworked the insistent piano in the horn section in an urgent concatenation of emotions. A wash of Matthews’s Debussy Préludes in Boston delicately plucked strings and bubbling woodwind British conductor Sir Mark Elder recently occasionally doubled Sally Matthews’s lovely conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra in five sound… [Les Berceaux] expanded Fauré’s simple performances which included two of Matthews’s fine piano into a rippling sea of orchestration… a fine orchestrations of Debussy Préludes alongside their complement to the original settings.’ piano originals. These performances at the BSO’s home in Symphony Hall, Boston, attracted rave reviews from the critics:

‘Orchestrations of various sorts make their way onto programs with some frequency, but one seldom has the opportunity to hear them in such close proximity to their originals. And Matthews has done an excellent job in imagining how Debussy might have heard these Préludes reborn as works for large orchestra.

In the ensemble’s Feuilles Mortes, the subtle harmonic tints of the original as well as its air of wistfulness were played out to wonderful coloristic effect. And the drama, violence, and sheer dynamism of Ce qu’a vu le Vent d’ouest also scaled up naturally to a vast orchestral canvas.’

The Times (Sarah Urwin Jones), 15 February 2011

New commissions The feast of arrangements has not been stemming the composer’s own compositional flow, however: coming up is Matthews’s long-awaited commission from the London Sinfonietta which appears in a programme at the QEH on 29 May conducted by Nicholas Collon. Night Rides is scored for 18 players and lasts 14 minutes.

Next, a commission from the renowned Gewandhaus Orchestra who will tour with their Principal Conductor Riccardo Chailly, a short orchestral companion to Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony throughout October, beginning 14 October in Leipzig and going on to Vienna, Paris and London.

17, 18.3.11, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam & 20.3.11, Geert Grotekerk, Utrecht, Netherlands: Concertgebouworkest/David Zinman 23.4.11, Beurs van Berlage, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Het Orkest

Dowlandia

24.5.11, Carnegie Hall, New York, NY, USA: Ensemble ACJW

Night Rides

(commission from the London Sinfonietta - world premiere) 29.5.11, UK: London Sinfonietta

New work

(City of London Sinfonia commission - world premiere) 21.8.11, London, UK: Ian Bostridge/Roderick Williams/ City of London Sinfonia/Stephen Layton

New work

(Gewandhaus commission - world premiere, Austrian premiere, French premiere & UK premiere) 11, 14.10.11, Gewandhaus, Leipzig, Germany & 18.10.11, Vienna, Austria & 29.10.11, Paris, France & 1.11.11, London, UK: Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig/Riccardo Chailly

The Boston Glove (Jeremy Eichler), 15 January 2011

‘...The full, darkly luminous orchestrations were irresistible… Spanking new transcriptions of this delicacy and richness are uncommon… The Matthews transcriptions are magnificent new gems.

They also hew closely and with audible deference to the architecture and affect of their models. I can’t wait to encounter the remaining twenty-two of them.’

The Boston Musical Intelligencer (Greenleaf), 19 January 2011

A spectacular number of conductors have taken up these arrangements – among them: PHOTO: COLIN MATTHEWS © MAURICE FOXALL

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Selected forthcoming performances Actaeon

David Matthews

17.3.11, Norden Farm Centre for the Arts, Maidenhead, UK: Counterpoise Ensemble

Coming after the Second Symphony, the first Violin Concerto (1982) consolidated Matthews’s standing in large-scale orchestral works.

Although its two movements emerged separately, their interdependence is hardly in doubt: the Allegro moderato being a leisurely sonata movement with evocative writing for woodwind, then a vivacissimo whose interplay of sonata and rondo procedures builds cumulatively on its predecessor and takes in an arresting ‘break’ for violin and piano. Neo-romantic violin concertos were numerous in this period but the Matthews is one of the few that can be said to have ‘improved with age’.

14.5.11, Cookham Festival, UK: Counterpoise Ensemble 9.7.11, Cheltenham Festival, UK: Counterpoise Ensemble 11.10.11, Little Missenden Festival, UK: Counterpoise Ensemble

String Quartet No 12

21.3.11, University College, Falmouth, UK: Kreutzer Quartet

Horn Quintet

(world premiere) 23.3.11, Wigmore Hall, London, UK: Nash Ensemble/Richard Watkins

String Quartet No 10

26.3.11, Days of Macedonian Music, Skopje, Macedonia (FYR): Kreutzer Quartet

Band of Angels

7.4.11, St John’s, Smith Square, London, UK: Christian Wilson

Voyages

1.5.11, Winchester Discovery Centre, Winchester, UK: London Bridge Ensemble/Ivan Ludlow

The Bartered Bride Overture

6.5.11, Music in the Round, Crucible Studio, Sheffield, UK: Music in the Round - Ensemble

Journeying Songs

1.7.11, Cheltenham Festival, UK: Gemma Rosefield

Plaudits abound for another orchestral recording from David Matthews The latest Matthews Dutton release (the two Violin Concertos, Oboe Concerto, and After Sunrise) has received a warm critical reception.

BBC Music Magazine’s Calum MacDonald clearly enjoyed it:

‘Three admirable concertos, two of them (Violin Concerto No 2 and the Oboe Concerto) performed by their dedicatees. David Matthews characterizes himself as a composer who thinks primarily in terms of melody, and it’s certainly the melodic aspects of concerto form – the solo voice against the collective – that seem to be the imaginative spur in all these works. They’re also all intimate in tone, and scored for smallish ensembles, so there’s plenty of give-and-take and textural interweaving to beguile the ear.

The first Violin Concerto (1980-82) is perhaps the most intriguing, with its twomovement form and an inspiration partly autobiographical, partly derived from an atmospheric Dostoevsky story. The extensive Vivacissimo finale, added two years later to the original one-movement design, provides the most breathtaking bravura on the disc, superbly negotiated by Philippe Graffin, whose beauty of tone in the slower, gentler sections is also a thing to marvel at.’

BBC Music Magazine (Calum MacDonald), February 2011

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‘Having recorded five of his (to date) seven symphonies, Dutton now turns to David Matthews’s concertos for violin and oboe, which, along with an autonomous orchestral piece, provide a not inconsiderable overview of his compositional maturity.

PHOTO: DAVID MATTHEWS © MAURICE FOXALL

… Matthews can write ‘catchy’ music with the best of them…

Nicholas Daniel and Philippe Graffin were the dedicatees of these latter concertos, so it comes as no surprise to find them at one with their respective works, while Graffin’s identity with the First Violin Concerto ought to win this piece new friends. George Vass, himself no stranger to the Matthews idiom, secures stylish and sensitive playing here and in the ‘tone-poem’ After Sunrise (2001), its fusion of song and dance achieved with a telling understatement. Spacious yet detailed sound, along with the composer’s thoughtful booklet note, enhance a further desirable release.’

International Record Review (Richard Whitehouse), February 2011

70th Birthday celebrations in 2013 It’s David Matthews’s 70th birthday in 2013 – if you would like to celebrate this coming of age, please write to promotion@fabermusic.com for more details or programming ideas.

New string quartet for Kreutzer’s David Matthews has a natural affinity with the string quartet idiom, and the Kreutzers began their 2011 concert series by welcoming the latest addition into their repertoire. Matthews’s String Quartet No 12 lasts 40 minutes and was written to compliment the fantastic acoustic and atmosphere of London’s historic venue, Wilton’s Music Hall. The new quartet was first performed on 24 February.

Bavarian festival welcomes David Matthews in 2011 The Fürstensaal Classix festival in Kempten (Allgäu) a region in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany is featuring David Matthews as their composer-inresidence this Autumn from 21 to 25 September.

Matthews will be present for the many performances of his chamber and ensemble repertoire, scheduled to be performed at the festival. More details to follow in the next issue.

TUNING IN Torsten Rasch - selected forthcoming performances

Torsten Rasch

‘Duchess of Malfi’ – Timeout’s number 1!

In the four orchestral pieces the basic idea of Wouivres is represented by one harmonic progression which is presented, after going through numerous variations in every piece at the point of culmination in a new musical context and a different surrounding - a diverse meaning of the very same progression.

Principally it arrives at its new meaning through the use of 1 tone row which is but a little bit altered in every piece and the constant introduction of new material which is combined with it.

Formally we have 4 movements in an almost symphonic design. While the 1st movement is introductory, the 2nd and 3rd are slow and fast respectively. The 4th movement recapitulates the former 3 in retrograde fashion and so gives another meaning to the ever present idea of changing but still being the same.

Time Out’s chief classical and opera critic Jonathan Lennie, headed his list of Time Out’s top five events of 2010 with Punchdrunk’s Duchess of Malfi:

Residency at Moritzburg Festival 2011

‘English National Opera demonstrated what it does best – taking bold risks with contemporary opera through interesting collaborations and venues. It’s most impressive production, though was in July, when the company, in partnership with leading site-specific theatre company Punchdrunk, took over a former office block in east London’s docks to produce a stunning, unpredictable and memorable experiment in modern opera. The music was by Torsten Rasch, who turned his talents to the bloody seventeenth-century tragedy of love, incest and murder by John Webster. Orchestral ensembles of varying sizes accompanied the singers, who included Richard Burkhard, as the assassin, and game countertenor Andrew Watts who wandered around naked.’

Time Out Guide (Jonathan Lennie), 16-19 December 2010

String Quartet No. 1

15.8.11, Moritzburg, Germany

Die Träumenden Knaben (German premiere) 17.8.11, Moritzburg, Germany

Wouivres

(world premiere) 12, 13.10.11, Chemnitz, Germany: Robert Schumann Philharmonie Chemnitz/Frank Beermann

© Torsten Rasch 2011

Torsten Rasch takes up the post of composer-inresidence at Moritzburg Festival in Dresden.

A selection of his works will be performed at the festival, including his String Quartet No 1 on 15 August, and the German premiere of his expressionist melodrama Die Träumenden Knaben on 17 August. Rasch will be present at the festival to give pre-concert talks and introductions to his music.

World premiere of ‘Le Serpent Rouge’ André de Ridder gave a mesmerizing performance of Le Serpent Rouge – a passionate and absorbing 50 minute song cycle with the BBC SO in November 2010. Korean soprano Yeree Suh gave the soaring melodic line total commitment. Movements from the work can be extracted to suit programming requirements.

‘…a stunning, unpredictable and memorable experiment in modern opera.’

‘Wouivres’ to receive world premiere Frank Beermann conducts the Schumann Philharmonie for the world premiere performance of Rasch’s orchestral work Wouivres in Chemnitz on 12 & 13 October 2011.

Rasch provides an insight to the inspiration and structure of the work below: Wouivre is a celtic expression which has 4 (possibly more) meanings: 1) snake that glides 2) river that snakes through the landscape 3) telluric current that snakes underground and fructifies earth and men and finally 4) currents that are termed cosmic or magnetic encompassing everything.

PHOTO: TORSTEN RASCH © MAURICE FOXALL EXCERPT FROM THE SCORE OF RASCH’S ‘LE SERPENT ROUGE’ © FABER MUSIC LTD

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Selected forthcoming performances Capriccio

John Woolrich

(Brazilian premiere) 17.3.11, Teatro Castro Alves in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil: Markus Däunert/Orchestra Sinfonica Bahia

‘…it was clear the Sinfonia wanted to push the boundaries, and in the second half they did, with acts of homage to Purcell by John Woolrich which really made one stop and think. If Woolrich’s ‘Another Staircase Overture’ answered Purcell’s ‘Staircase Overture’ with a cod-Purcellian jeu, his settings of Tippett’s arrangements of three of the Elizabethan master’s best-known songs – ably delivered by Padmore – threw out a provocative challenge to the loyal Purcellian listener. With ‘Music for a while’ the accompaniment was mischievously pulled about, and ‘If music be the food of love’ had an infectiously lively momentum.’

26.6.11, Armadale, Isle of Skye, UK: Scottish Ensemble 30.6.11, Kings Place, London, UK: Scottish Ensemble 9.8.11, Dartington International Music Festival, UK: Aisha Orazbayeva/Ensemble/John Lubbock

Pianobook I-XII

5.5.11, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK: Huw Watkins

Ulysses Awakes

26.6.11, Armadale, Isle of Skye, UK: Scottish Ensemble 30.6.11, Kings Place, London, UK: Scottish Ensemble 13.7.11, Aylesbury Festival, UK: Eniko Magyar/London Sound Ensemble/Richard Heason 25.7.11, Ljubljana Festival, Slovenia: Eniko Magyar/London Sound Ensemble/Richard Heason

The Independent (Michael Church), 11 February 2011

Woolrich launches Dartington International Summer School with fresh spirit

Italian Songs

Woolrich’s first year of programming as Artistic Director at Dartington International Summer School presents young musicians and audiences with a fresh look at a range of musical eras, from early music, to modern day repertoire. A selection of Woolrich’s own music will also be performed by students at the Summer School.

30.6.11, Kings Place, London, UK: Scottish Ensemble

John Woolrich introduces the events at Dartington in 2011

11.8.11, Dartington International Music Festival, UK: Eniko Magyar/string ensemble/Leo Hussain 26.6.11, Armadale, Isle of Skye, UK: Scottish Ensemble

The Night will not draw on/ A Presence of Departed Acts 1.7.11, Kings Place, London, UK: London Sinfonietta

Quiddities

2.7.11, Kings Place, London, UK: Britten Sinfonia

Pianobook VI

31.7.11, Dartington International Music Festival, UK: Martino Tirimo

‘I’m very excited by the creative challenges my new role has given me. I’m new to this job, but not to Dartington. In fact, I’ve been teaching at the Summer School for over twenty five years.

This year features the mix of old and new which has always characterised Dartington. The structure of days and weeks stays the same: the first two weeks will have a focus on early music, and as usual the Festival Orchestra will be with us for the last three weeks. Opera is still here, but moves to the beginning of the Summer School with a production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.

There will be more talks, and also interviews with some of our special visitors. I hope we can find out from Betsy Jolas what it was like to accompany James Joyce in his song recitals, or what Stravinsky talked about when she, as a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl, had lunch with him.

Or, perhaps the cellist Rohan de Saram can tell us about his teachers, Gaspar Cassado and Pablo Casals, and what it was like to work with Poulenc, Kodaly, Walton and Shostakovich.’ © John Woolrich

‘Capriccio’ in Brazil!

Woolrich’s animated work for solo violin and string ensemble will travel with violinist Markus Daunert to Bahia in Brazil, for its Brazilian premiere with members of the Orchestra Sinfonica Bahia on 17 March 2011.

Woolrich at Kings Place in Summer 2011 Woolrich is invited by Kings Place to curate three concerts this summer, built around his music. The concerts will involve musicians and ensembles that Woolrich has worked closely with, providing a retrospective of his music.

The theme for the concerts has an Austro-German twist, plus music by friends of Woolrich.

Kings Place concerts 30 June 2011

Performed by Scottish Ensemble

1 July 2011

Performed by London Sinfonietta

2 July 2011

‘Another Staircase Overture’ toured by Britten Sinfonia

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Another Staircase Overture, originally a celebratory piece for a Purcell anniversary in 2005 was toured by the Britten Sinfonia at the start of the year. Also in their programme of string music, were other arrangements of works by Purcell, crafted by Woolrich.

PHOTO: JOHN WOOLRICH © MAURICE FOXALL

Performed by Britten Sinfonia

COMPOSER TUNING INTERVIEW IN

An interview with Carl Vine This summer, Carl Vine delivers a brand new violin concerto to Australian audiences. The new work will be premiered on 20 and 21 July at the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House, in a performance given by esteemed violinist Dene Olding alongside the Australian Youth Orchestra and conductor Thomas Dausgaard.

The Violin Concerto will be performed as part of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s ‘Meet The Music’ series. Each concert in this series presents something new from the finest of today’s Australian composers.

Carl Vine discusses his composing with us, in the lead up to the exciting premiere of his latest work:

surprise in the concert hall. I work on these fragments independently, within the logistical confines of the current project, until each starts to develop a distinct character and their potential begins to expand. At this point they begin to borrow from each other and often develop unexpected relationships that lead towards a larger whole.

But all rules are made to be broken, and the second movement of the concerto, which I’d always thought should be a ‘fast’ movement with a languid pool at its centre, was written mostly in exact consecutive order from start to finish.

The Australian Youth Orchestra has gained a reputation as one of the most prestigious What is your most important musical training organisations for young prememory? professional musicians. How will the new violin concerto reflect their talents?

The important memories are marked

Selected forthcoming performances V

24.3.11, Griffith Regional Theatre, NSW, Australia: Sydney Sinfonia 25.3.11, Wagga Wagga Civic Theatre, NSW, Australia: Sydney Sinfonia 26.3.11, Albury Entertainment Centre, Australia: Sydney Sinfonia

Inner World

30.6.11, Girdlers’ Hall, City of London Festival, UK: Alexander Ivaskin

String Quartet No 4

30.6.11, City of London Festival, St Lawrence Jewry, London, UK: Elias String Quartet

String Quartet No 3

3.7.11, Adelaide, Australia: TinAlley Quartet 4, 5.7.11, Melbourne, Australia:

TinAlley Quartet by moments of spine-tingling musical Although I didn’t set out with this explicit intention, 6.7.11, City of London Festival, transcendence. One day as an adolescent the work has emerged as something of a concerto ‘for UK: Goldner String Quartet I was playing the pipe organ in the school orchestra’ as well as for solo violin. It contains tricky 10.7.11, Canberra, Australia: chapel, and the sequence of chords wafting TinAlley Quartet solos for almost every instrument in the band, with the around the ceiling touched, just for a 11.7.11, Sydney, Australia: only real exceptions being trombone, tuba and contramoment, something undefinable and sublime TinAlley Quartet bassoon - though they make great contributions to at my experiential core. It was sensate but Concerto sonic texture. Ironically, if I’d written the work for a not sensual, neurological but not intellectual Violin (world premiere) professional orchestra that is likely to give a new work - a vital sensation that defied analysis and 20, 21.7.11, Concert Hall, a couple of ‘half ’ rehearsal calls before the premiere, I Sydney Opera House, Sydney, that nothing other than music will ever would probably have reduced the technical demands on Australia: Dene Olding/Australian evince. Since then I have had dozens of the players. But my past experience with youth orchestras similar musical experiences, and they are the Youth Orchestra/Thomas Dausgaard suggests that the boundless energy and enthusiasm of reason that I compose. I don’t want to sound young musicians is a formidable force, and a great ally to pompous or specious, but such a powerful living composers. force linked so closely to the essence of the human

With the AYO, as the premiere performance experience surely demands our most devoted attention. training facility in this country, the benefits multiply When you compose, what inspires you? exponentially. The standard of young performers emerging from its training programs, particularly in the When I hear a piece of music is inspired by a painting last decade, has been truly exceptional. or poem, I always prefer to cut out the middle-man and What were the main challenges for you when go to experience the original work of art. What inspires writing a new violin concerto? me about music is its ability to make us think and feel things that have no parallel in any other form, and can I have played a number of musical instruments, but often not even be explained by a deeply affected listener never any stringed ones. I have a decent grasp of bowing, immediately after the event. Why would I want to take finger placement, double-stopping and other extended this magical, amorphous power and straightjacket it techniques, but without an intrinsic physical connection by sensations that are better seen or read in another to the process I have always found it challenging to medium? I thought of subtitling my Violin Concerto produce string parts that are going to feel ‘natural’ to the “Algorithms of Love and player. A composer’s greatest sin, in my book, is to write Loss”. Although undefinable, music that is impossible to play but sounds like it should magical and amorphous, be easy. I always aim for the obverse. the effect that music has on us is still bounded by When you begin a new composition – how do the human condition, you start the process? and nothing affects our being more than Over the last decade I’ve evolved a method that love and loss. So starts with collecting small musical ideas - a simple the subtitle would combination of rhythm and harmony, for instance, or a also be true of just germinal notion of sound texture implied by an interplay about every piece of between different instruments. These can come from music I write. But, as I anywhere: a couple of chords overheard on background said just before, “I don’t music in a restaurant, a moment of particular emotional want to sound pompous or effect on a film soundtrack, or a moment of genuine specious”.

PHOTO: CARL VINE © KAREN STEAINS

NEW WORKS ORCHESTRAL Thomas Adès Polaris (2010) Voyage for orchestra. Duration 14 minutes. 3(II=picc.III=picc+afl).3.3 in A (III=bcl).2.contraforte(or cbsn with low A) - 4.4(I=picc.tpt).3.1 (optional additional 4 hn.2 tpt) - timp - perc(6): mar/vib/glsp/t. bells/crot/wood chimes/shell chimes/tam-t/BD - 2 hp - pno(=cel) - organ (optional) – strings. FP: 26.1.2011, New World Symphony Concert Hall, Miami, FL, USA: New World Symphony/Michael Tilson Thomas. Please contact promotion@fabermusic.com for information

Carl Davis Ballade for Cello and Orchestra (2011) cello and orchestra. Duration 18 minutes. FP 30.4.2011, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, UK: Jonathan Aasgaard/Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Carl Davis. 2(II=picc).1.ca.2.2 - 4230 - timp perc(2):vib/glsp/t.bells/sups.cym/crash.cyms/finger.cyms/tgl/SD/TD/BD/tam-t - harp – strings. Score and parts for hire

Fauré, orch. Colin Matthews Seven Songs (2010) voice and orchestra. Duration 17 minutes. 2(II=picc).2.2 Bb+A (II=bcl).2 - 2.2 in C.0.0 - timp(+crot ad lib) - harp – strings. FP: 9.2.2011, Younger Hall, St Andrews, UK: Sally Matthews/Scottish Chamber Orchestra/Robin Ticciati. Exclusive to the Scottish Chamber Orchestra until 09/02/2012. Score and parts for hire

Howard Goodall Autumn/Winter (2009) from The Seasons. Cello and orchestra. Duration 17 minutes. 2221 - 2121 - timp - cel - harp – strings.

FP: 16.12.2010, Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, UK: Bozidar Vukotic/Oxford Philomusica/Howard Goodall.

Score and parts for hire

Kenneth Hesketh Rumpole and Father Christmas (2010) after the short story by John Mortimer. Narrator (male or female) and orchestra. Duration 10 minutes.

2222 - 2.2.1.btrbn.1 - timp - perc(2): sleigh bells/xyl/lion’s roar/tgl/tam-t/susp.cym/ t.bells/wdbl/TD/ glsp/BD/egg shaker/tamb - harp - harpsichord/synth (=cel) – strings. Text: John Mortimer (English).

FP: 17.12.2010, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, UK: Lesley Garrett (narrator)/Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Ian Tracey (with 5 further perfs, 18-23 Dec). Full score, narrator’s score (male and female versions) and parts for hire

CHORAL Howard Goodall Psalm 122 Rogate Pacem - O Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem/Psalm 137 Super Flumina - By the Waters of Babylon (2010) upper voices and chamber orchestra. Duration 5 minutes. FP: 16.12.2010, Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, UK: Enchanted Voices/Oxford Philomusica/Howard Goodall. flute - harp - pno - strings. Text: Psalm 122 (vv vi-viii) (English). Full score and parts for hire, vocal score on special sale (hire@fabermusic.com), or for hire

Stella, quam viderant Magi The Wise Men and the Star (2010) upper voices and chamber orchestra. Duration 4 minutes. FP: 16.12.2010, Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, UK: Enchanted Voices/Bozidar Vukotic (solo vlc)/Oxford Philomusica/Howard Goodall. flute - harp perc(2): tgl/glsp - cel - org - solo vlc - strings. Text: Anon (Latin). Vocal score 0-571-53561-5 on sale (or as a download), full score and parts for hire

The Angel Gabriel (2010) upper voices and chamber orchestra. Duration 4 minutes. FP: 16.12.2010, Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, UK: Enchanted Voices/Bozidar Vukotic (solo vlc)/Oxford Philomusica/Howard Goodall. perc(1): glsp - cel org - solo vlc – strings. Text: Sabine Baring-Gould (English). Vocal score 0-571-53561-5 on sale (or as a download), full score and parts for hire

Jonathan Harvey Song of June (1960) for Martin Neary on his 70th birthday. unaccompanied SATB chorus. Duration c. 5 minutes. Text: Wilfred Owen - Song of June (English). FP: 28.3.2010, Martin Neary 70th Birthday Concert,St John’s, Smith Square, London, UK:The English Chamber Singers/Martin Neary. Score on special sale

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Peter Sculthorpe After Night (2010) treble voices and strings. Duration 6 minutes. FP: 25.9.2010, Barcelona Cathedral, Spain: MLC Tour Choir and String Ensemble. Text Peter Sculthorpe (English). Score, vocal score and parts in preparation

CHAMBER ENSEMBLE Matthew Hindson Light is both a particle and a wave (2010) chamber ensemble of 7 players. Duration 20 minutes. fl.cl in A - pno - 2 vln.vla.vlc. FP: 23.10.2010, Sir John Clancy Auditorium, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia: Australia Ensemble. Score and parts for hire

Colin Matthews LXX (2010) 12 players. Duration 3 minutes. fl.ob.cl.bsn - hn - hp - pno - 2 vln.vla.vlc.db. FP: 21.11.2010, Amelia Freedman’s 70th Birthday Concert, Wigmore Hall, London, UK: Nash Ensemble. Score and parts for hire

David Matthews Horn Quintet (2011) horn and string quartet. Duration 12 minutes. FP: 23.3.2011, Wigmore Hall, London: Richard Watkins/ Nash Ensemble. Score and parts on special sale from the Hire Library

STRING ORCHESTRA Peter Sculthorpe String Sonata No 5 (2010) Based upon String Quartet No 18. string orchestra. Duration 21 minutes. FP: 29.10.2010, Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney, Australia: Students and Staff of the Conservatorium of Music/Imre Pallo. Score and parts for hire

Carl Vine Tribe’s Desire (2010) an arrangement of String Quartet no 5 for string orchestra. Duration 21 minutes. FP: 23.7.10, Theatre Royal, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia: Players from the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. Score and parts for hire

STRING QUARTET David Matthews String Quartet No 12 (2011) string quartet. Duration 40 minutes. FP: 24.2.2011, Wilton’s Music Hall, London, UK: Kreutzer Quartet.

Score and parts on special sale from the Hire Library

SILENT FILM SCORE Carl Davis Godless Girl (2006) silent film score. Duration 120 minutes. 1(=picc).1(=ca).1(=bcl).1 - 2210 - perc(2): xyl/glsp/vib/t. bells/2 timp/drum kit/wdbl/tgl/tamb/2 susp.cym/sizz.cym/crash.cym/2 tam-t/SD/TD/BD/2 gongs/tam-t 2 pno – strings. Score and parts for hire

INSTRUMENTAL Matthew Hindson Shakedown (2008) amplified shakuhachi and CD, Duration 11 mintues Commissioned by Riley Lee, for the Sydney World Shakuhachi Festival 2008, with assistance from the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. Score and CD on special sale from the Hire Library (hire@fabermusic.com)

NEW PUBLICATIONS AND RECORDINGS NEW PUBLICATIONS Elaine Gould Behind Bars: Guide To Music Notation

Book 0-571-51456-1 £65.00

George Benjamin Duet (for piano and orchestra)

Full score 0-571-53469-4 £16.99

Jonathan Harvey Tendril

Full score 0-571-51342-5 £29.99

Colin Matthews/Claude Debussy Brouillards (Prelude 10)

Full score 0-571-53009-5 £7.99 Danseuses de Delphes (Prelude 9)

Full score 0-571-53008-7 £7.99 General Lavine - eccentric (Prelude 20)

Full score 0-571-53019-2 £7.99 Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir (Prelude 15)

Full score 0-571-53014-1 £7.99 Ondine (Prelude 21)

Full score 0-571-53020-6 £7.99

David Matthews Concerto in Azzurro

Full score 0-571-52029-4 £29.99

NEW RECORDINGS Anthony Bolton A Garland of Carols/Cycle of 5 Songs “Black Sea”/Improptu for Harp/My Beloved Guild: GMCD 7335

Vladimír Godár Dormi, Jesu & Ecce Puer The Hildegard Choir & Guests/Emily van Evera/Gulliver Ralston: Somm Recordings SOMMCD 0102

Howard Goodall Love Story (premiere recording) Emma Williams/Michael Xavier/Peter Polycarpou/ Original London cast: Faber Music Ltd 0-571-53604-2

Tansy Davies ‘Troubairitz’: neon/salt box/ grind show inside out 2/Greenhouses Non-classical Azalea Ensemble/Chris Austin/Anna Snow/Damien Harron

Jonny Greenwood Norwegian Wood (original soundtrack) BBC Concert Orchestra/Robert Ziegler/The Emperor Quartet/CAN: Nonesuch 526880-2

Jonathan Harvey The Angels/Ashes Dance Back/Marahi/ The Summer Cloud’s Awakening Hyperion CDA67835 Latvian Radio Choir/Kaspar Putnins (cond)/James Wood (cond)/Jonathan Harvey/Carl Faia (elec)/Clive Williamson (synth)/ Ilona Meija (fl)/Arne Deforce (vlc)

Matthew Hindson The Metallic Violins Tall Poppies: TP207 James Cuddeford/Natsuko Yoshimoto

NEW CHORAL PUBLICATIONS David Bednall O Praise God in His Holiness SATB/org. 0-571-53550-X £2.99

Hail, Gladdening Light SSAATTBB unacc. 0-571-53551-8 £2.99

The Souls of the Righteous SATB/org. 0-571-53552-6 £2.99

If Ye Love Me SATB unacc. 0-571-53553-4 £2.99

Margaret Rizza Ave Maria SATB unacc. 0-571-53540-2 £2.99

Mary Slept SATB unacc. 0-571-53541-0 £2.99

O Sapientia SATB unacc. 0-571-53542-9 £2.99

Veni Jesu SATB, organ and cello. 0-571-53543-7 £2.99

Oliver Knussen Ophelia’s Last Dance Myrios Classics: LC 19355. Kirill Gerstein

Nishat Khan Yeh Saali Zindagi (original soundtrack) Shilpa Rao/Javed Ali/Sukhwinder Singh/Sunidhi Chauhan/Kunal Ganjawala/ Abhishek Ray. T-Series

David Matthews Violin Concerto No 1/Violin Concerto No 2/ Oboe Concerto/After Sunrise Dutton: CDLX 7261 Bournemouth SO/Orchestra Nova/George Vass (cond) Philippe Graffin (vln)/Nicholas Daniel (ob)

23

National Youth Orchestra to champion Gabriel Prokofiev’s Turntables Concerto

Howard Goodall: Selected forthcoming performances Eternal Light: A Requiem

The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain is to perform Gabriel Prokofiev’s witty Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra as part of their 2011 summer programme. Under the baton of Vladimir Jurowski, NYOGB will perform the work in Symphony Hall, Birmingham on 3 August, with other dates to be announced. They will be joined

by DJ Switch (DMC World Battle Champion 2008 & 2009), who has already performed the work with The Heritage Orchestra, and the BBC Concert Orchestra. For their performances Prokofiev will enlarge the instrumentation, creating a version for DJ and large orchestra.

2.4.11, St Anne’s Anglican Church, Toronto, Canada: Orpheus Choir of Toronto/Robert Cooper

CBE for Howard Goodall

New work

We warmly congratulate Howard Goodall on his CBE awarded in the New Years Honours list 2011, given in recognition of his services to Music Education. Howard has worked tirelessly over the years to raise the profile of music and singing as a right for all young people – most recently in his role as National Singing Ambassador. Since 2007, Howard has led and inspired the national singing programme, Sing Up, for primary-aged children (Sing Up is run by a Consortium of partners, of which Faber Music are the resource partner). Through his inspiring work, Howard has truly transformed lives by giving people the chance to experience, understand, share and enjoy music. He is a national treasure and this award is richly deserved.

Howard Goodall’s ‘Love Story’ – CD release & West End stage reviews The musical Love Story (by Howard Goodall and Stephen Clark) opened in London’s Duchess Theatre on 6 December, having transferred from the Chichester Festival Theatre where it was greatly praised last summer. Based on the novel by Erich Segal and starring Emma Williams, Michael Xavier and Peter Polycarpou, the show has been received with critical acclaim:

‘It’s an unlikely success that I know 24 will repay familiarity. Indeed it could well be the surprise sleeper that the West End needs right now – a small PHOTO: (TOP LEFT) GABRIEL PROKOFIEV, (MIDDLE) HOWARD GOODALL

3.4.11, Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Gainesville, FL, USA: The Holy Trinity Choir/John T Lowe Jr 9.4.11, Holy Trinity Church, Guildford, UK: Blackheath & Bramley Choral Society/Richard Nicholson 16.4.11, St Paul’s Episcopal Church, Alexandria, VA, USA: Ars Choralis/Douglas A Beck 17.4.11, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, UK: Salford Choral Society/Matthew Hamilton 22.4.11, Hurst, TX, USA: Chapel & Chancel Choirs of First United Methodist Church/Greg Shapley 14.5.11, Ulster Hall, Belfast, UK: Belfast Philharmonic Choir & Orchestra 20.5.11, Lylesland Church, Paisley, UK: The Arkleston Singers & Chamber Ensemble/Ken Paterson 5.6.11, Dewsbury Town Hall, UK: Glorious Voices/Anne Levitt 2.7.11, Ladywood ARC, Five Ways, Birmingham, UK: Phoenix Singers/Midlands Hospitals’ Choir

The Kissing-Dance

22.3-23.4.11 (34 perfs), Jermyn Street Theatre, London, UK: cond. Tom Attwood; dir. Lotte Wakeham; prod. Charlotte Staynings

Eternal Light: A Requiem; Love Divine & The Lord is My Shepherd 10.4.11, First-St Andrew’s United Church, London, ON, Canada: The Choir of First-St Andrew’s United Church & Soloists/Paul Merritt

Girlfriends

April 2011 (4 perfs), Alexandra Theatre, University of Chichester, Bognor Regis, UK: student performers (world premiere) 12.6.11, Truro Cathedral, UK: Cornwall Junior Choir/Cornwall Youth Choir/Choir of Truro Cathedral/St Mary’s Singers/Christopher Gray

show with a really big heart.’

The Independent (Edward Seckerson)

‘I’ve fallen in love with Love Story. An intimate and heartbreaking musical… Howard Goodall’s new musical is a cause for celebration. A finely wrought mood piece that pulses with sensitivity… the gorgeous wash of Goodall’s magnificent melodies.’

The Sunday Express (Mark Shenton)

Faber Music is delighted to announce its release of the original cast recording of Love Story. The CD demonstrates Howard Goodall’s songwriting craft at its very best, and is available direct from our store,

‘An intimate and heartbreaking musical…’ fabermusicstore.com, or from Amazon, iTunes and other major outlets.

Kenneth Hesketh’s ‘Rumpole and Father Christmas’ Kenneth Hesketh’s Rumpole and Father Christmas is a ten-minute work for narrator and orchestra that breathes new life into John Mortimer’s heart-warming seasonal short story. It’s a witty setting that brings grouchy, fictional barrister, Horace Rumpole, lumbering into the concert hall.

Soprano Lesley Garrett premiered the work (there are versions for male and female narrator), giving six performances with the Royal Liverpool PO and Ian Tracey from 17-23 December in Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall.

Rumpole and Father Christmas is available to other orchestras and promoters for Christmas 2011.

Contact musicfornow@fabermusic.com for perusal materials.

Vladimír Godár scoops International Visegrad Prize Vladimír Godár has been awarded the International Visegrad Prize for 2009, following a proposal from the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic. The prize will be awarded on 7 April, when a concert of his music takes place in Bratislava under the baton of Peter Breiner. It includes the Concerto Grosso and a new version of Little Suite for Little David. The Prize is awarded on an annual basis in appreciation of support rendered to and the development of cultural cooperation of the Visegrad Group (or V4) countries (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia).

Godár’s oratorio ‘Querela pacis’ to be released on CD Inspired by the writings of Erasmus, Querela pacis is an oratorio for soloists, SATB choir and chamber orchestra, sure to be of interest to fans of Godár’s haunting “Mater” album (released by ECM Records to tremendous acclaim in 2006). Querela pacis will be released on Pavian Records, with Andrew Parrott conducting the Cathedral Choir of St Martin (director Dušan Bill), Solamente naturali (leader Miloš Valent) and soloists Emily Van Evera (soprano), Petra Noskaiová (alto) and Tomáš Šelc (tenor).

Nigel Hess’s ‘A Christmas Overture’ travels A Christmas Overture is rapidly becoming one of Nigel Hess’s most performed orchestral works, with over 20 performances over the holiday season in the UK, USA, Canada, Austria and The Netherlands.

In addition to the orchestral version, there is also now a version for wind band, available on sale from Faber Music Ltd.

Nishat Khan scores Bollywood hit ‘ Yeh Saali Zindagi’ Indian sitar master Nishat Khan has scored his first feature film. Yeh Saali Zindagi is a Bollywood romantic thriller directed by acclaimed director Sudhir Mishra (who also provided the story and the screenplay), and starring Irrfan Khan, Arunoday Singh and Chitrangda Singh. Nishat Khan has written all the music, to lyrics by Swanand Kirkire.

The soundtrack album was released on the T-Series label in January, with the film premiere following a few weeks later:

‘The music intermeshes with the large character of the film so seamlessly that we enjoy every bit of it and want to just go home and listen to the whole album. Nishat Khan has done complete justice to Yeh saali Zindagi and a large part of the credit for what the film has actually turned out to be goes to him and his music.’

Alpha.newsx.com ( Nishtha Bhatnagar), February 2011 PHOTO: (TOP LEFT) VLADIMIR GODAR, (BOTTOM RIGHT) NISHAT KHAN

‘… a fantastic score that complements various moods of Saali.’

The Times of India (Blessy Chettiar), 3 February 2011

‘… it’s hard to ignore another important facet of the film: the music. Swanand Kirkire’s lyrics and Nishat Khan’s music is not only a constant refrain, it adds leverage too.’

The Times of India (Nikhat Kazmi), 3 February 2011

‘… a fantastic score that complements various moods of Saali.’

Zimbe! on the move Zimbe!, Alexander L’Estrange’s African choral extravaganza for children’s choir, SATB choir and jazz quintet continues to gain followers worldwide. There have now been over 50 performances, with recent dates including the US and New Zealand premieres (the latter a fundraising event for victims of the Christchurch earthquake). Highlights going forward include performances at the Guildford International Music Festival (26 March), St David’s Cathedral Festival (27 May), at St Martin-in-the-Fields with The London Chorus and Ron Corp (14 June), Carlisle Festival (9 July) and two performances at Snape Maltings.

More info and CD ordering at zimbe.net

‘BEHIND BARS’ BY ELAINE GOULD Unanimous praise for ‘Behind Bars’ We are proud to announce the publication of Behind Bars

by Faber’s own Senior New Music Editor, Elaine Gould.

Probably the most painstakingly-researched book on notation ever written, it has been a momentous project, 20 years in the making and is anticipated to become an indispensably authoritative guide to musical notation.

5***** review in BBC Music Magazine ‘In sheer practical terms, this book’s authority is inarguable. It’s surely destined to join those other perennial guides to good practice… this book offers something more than utility. As you turn the pages, the tiny practical details compose themselves into something majestic.

Notation, like language, embodies a ‘wisdom of the ages’. It is a mysterious compound of practical usefulness, logical consistency and odd conventions, which can embrace many innovations without losing its essence.

The fact that this quality emerges so vividly is a tribute to the author. It is truly a mighty labour Gould has accomplished, which as well as the patience of Job and a taxonomist’s orderly mind also reveals a humane good sense.’

BBC Music Magazine (Ivan Hewett), March 2011

‘…this book expounds an alchemical formula for musical communication. Gould’s book shows composers how to ensure that the magical transfer of musical ideas from their imaginations to their scores, from their performers to their audiences, is as seamless as possible. Behind Bars is a practical revelation of the poetics of musical communication.’

The Guardian (Tom Service), 12 January 2011

‘Not even Gould can teach you how to compose a good work, of course: but her book is a matchless source of practical advice, all geared to the wryly understated observation that “players will tend to be well disposed towards a work whose instrumental parts are carefully prepared”.

Notation can never be so rigidly “definitive” that it leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination of interpreters: but Gould’s guide is as good a source as you can get for how to ensure that your score and parts 26

PHOTO: ELAINE GOULD

are approached in a positive spirit by those contracted to realize them as living sound.’

Gramophone Magazine (Arnold Whittall), February 2011

‘Any spare moments these past few weeks, I have been dipping into an advance copy of Behind Bars, a new book by a desk editor at Faber Music demonstrating the principles of correct notation…

If you are a composer or a copyist, you cannot live without this book. If you are a conductor, it is equally enlightening and indispensable. Simon Rattle thinks it ought to be Holy Writ for every baton wielder.’ www.artsjournal.com (Norman Lebrecht), 25 January 2011

Behind Bars is the ultimate reference book for composers, arrangers, teachers and students of composition, editors, and music processors. The author’s understanding of, and passion for, her subject has resulted in a book that is not only practical but also compellingly readable.

Those in full time education are eligible to buy Behind Bars at a special discounted price of £45 including p&p (£50 if overseas).

Telephone Enquiries: Call our sales team on +44 (0)1279 82 89 82

Discount for Students!

BOOKS ON MUSIC FROM FABER & FABER

The Everyday Dancer

by Deborah Bull October 2011: Hardback £16.99 with black-and-white line drawings 978-0-571-23892-7

‘The weightless sweep of the thick velvet curtains drawing up into the proscenium arch is the sound of the dancer’s deadline, and there is no deadline in the world deadlier than this. Now, in front of perhaps two thousand people, the dancer must draw on years of classes and months of rehearsals to simultaneously create and deliver the perfect performance.’

The Everyday Dancer is a new and honest account of the business of dancing from a writer with first hand experience of a dancer’s career: avoiding the sensational headlines and the ‘chocolate box’ gloss, the book focusses instead on the real human stories of extraordinary dedication, triumph, some tragedy and plenty of humour.

Structured around a dancer’s daily timetable, The Everyday Dancer goes behind the velvet curtain, the glamour and the gilt to uncover the everyday realities of a career in dance. Starting out with the obligatory ‘class’, the book progresses through the repetition of daily rehearsals, the excitement of creating new work, the nervous tension of the half hour call, the thrill of performance and the anti climax of curtain down.

In this vivid portrait of what a dancer does every day, Deborah Bull reveals the arc of a dancer’s life: from the seven year old’s very first ballet class, to company life, up through the ranks from corps de ballet to principal and then, not thirty years after it all began, to retirement and the inevitable sense of loss which comes with saying goodbye to your childhood dreams.

A unique perspective from behind the footlights, The Everyday Dancer is a vibrant and compelling picture of a life in the day of a dancer.

Deborah Bull was a Principal Dancer with The Royal Ballet, noted for her performances in the works of Forsythe and MacMillan. She is now Creative Director of the Royal Opera House as well as a writer and broadcaster.

She has written and presented several programmes for BBC TV and radio, including the award-winning ‘The Dancer’s Body’. She is the author of The Vitality Plan (1998), Dancing Away (1998) and (with Luke Jennings) The Faber Pocket Guide to Ballet (2004).

WWW.FABER.CO.UK

PHOTO © LAURIE LEWIS

27

MEDIA MUSIC NEWS

Head Office

Faber Music Ltd

Bloomsbury House 74–77 Great Russell St London WC1B 3DA Tel: +44(0)207 908 5310 Fax: +44(0)207 908 5339

Dan Jones

Media Music Academy

Dan Jones composed the original music for Channel 4’s very well-received dramatization of William Boyd’s best-selling novel Any Human Heart, broadcast as four episodes during November and December last year. Starring Jim Broadbent, Matthew Macfadyen and Sam Claflin with a script

by Boyd himself, this was an ambitious and moving adaptation of a novel that explores one man’s journey through the twentieth century, with the three stars playing different periods in the hero’s life. Dan is extremely active in the theatre these days, and immediately after Any Human Heart went on to work on the National Theatre production Greenland.

One of Faber & Faber’s most notable achievements over the last few years has been its Faber Academy, a series of hugely-successful training courses for aspiring novelists, poets, biographers and other writers. As a first step in seeking to emulate this success, Faber Music is proud to announce the launch of its Media Music Academy. Aimed at composers who aspire to write for film and television, or working composers who simply want to increase their contacts, knowledge and experience, the course will run over four Tuesday evenings and a Saturday morning commencing on June 14th. Led by Faber Music Media composer Philip Sheppard, this is essentially a very practical course that deals with very practical issues at the ‘business’ end of things – how to ‘network and get work’, how to manage spotting and recording sessions, how to protect your rights and earn a living - and offers participants the chance to meet key industry figures including a director, film editor, music editor and others. Participants will also be given the opportunity to work on one of a choice of short film clips and get their score recorded in a live studio with musicians.

For more information go to www. fabermusic.com/Media-Music-Academy.aspx or call Richard Paine on 020 7908 5322. The closing date for applications is April 15th (although some leeway will be allowed to readers of Fortissimo).

information@fabermusic.com www.fabermusic.com Promotion tel: +44(0)207 908 5311/2 promotion@fabermusic.com

Distribution Centre

FM Distribution Burnt Mill Elizabeth Way Harlow, Essex CM20 2HX

Tel: +44(0)1279 82 89 89 Fax: +44(0)1279 82 89 01 trade@fabermusic.com Hire tel: +44(0)1279 82 89 07/8 Hire fax: +44(0)1279 82 89 02 hire@fabermusic.com

USA/Canada

Schott Music Corp & European American Music Dist LLC 254 West 31st Street, 15th Floor New York, NY 10001 Promotion tel: (212) 4616940 Promotion fax: (212) 8104565 Rental tel: (212) 4616940 Rental fax: (212) 8104565

Cover photo credit: Thomas Adès © Brian Voce Back page photo credit: (left) ‘Any Human Heart’ publicity photo © Carnival Films (right) Philip Sheppard Designed and edited

by Lis Lomas

Philip Sheppard 2010 was an exceptionally busy year for Philip Sheppard. He wrote the music for the BBC documentary Little Ships, broadcast on BBC2 on 3rd June to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Dunkirk evacuation. He also worked on a number of productions made on the other side of the Atlantic, including WGBH’s epic series God in America (broadcast in October on PBS), a documentary film for National Geographic entitled Inside the Milky Way, and Bobby Fischer: Madman Genius, a film about the late chess champion. Philip’s music for the film The Tillman Story, made by the Weinstein Company and released last August, was released on Lakeshore Records, whilst his score for God in America has been released digitally via i-Tunes.

Philip also collaborated with Evelyn Glennie in creating a library album for KPM, to be released this year. This is the second library album to be released in a Faber/KPM collaboration.

WWW.FABERMUSIC.COM