LPO Showcase free performance Friday 16 February 2024 | 6.00pm Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall
Ensemble of LPO Junior Artists, Foyle Future Firsts & LPO musicians Luis Castillo-Briceño conductor Ingeborg Bronsart Judith Margaret Bailey Georges Bizet Tayla-Leigh Payne Béla Bartók
Overture, Jery und Bätely (8’) Trencrom (7’) Carmen Suite No. 1 (excerpts, arr. Kerenyi) (6’) It’s Only a Dream (world premiere) (5’) Transylvanian Dances (5’)
LPO Junior Artists LPO Junior Artists is the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s annual orchestral experience programme for eight talented young musicians from backgrounds currently underrepresented in professional UK orchestras. The programme offers support, advice and professional insight to exceptional players of orchestral instruments aged 15–19 and at a minimum Grade 8 playing standard. Junior Artists become part of the London Philharmonic Orchestra family for a year, getting to know our musicians, staff and artists, as well as members of our Rising Talent schemes. They also take part in events to inspire younger generations of musicians.
This concert showcases the talent and achievement of current and past LPO Junior Artists, performing alongside LPO musicians and members of our Foyle Future Firsts development programme. Tonight’s performance is conducted by Luis Castillo-Briceño, one of our two inaugural LPO Fellow Conductors for 2023/24. Launched in 2023, the LPO Conducting Fellowship supports the development of outstanding early-career conductors from backgrounds currently under-represented in the profession. The Fellow Conductors each spend a season with the LPO, guided by Principal Conductor Edward Gardner. We hope you enjoy this evening’s showcase of some of our most exciting emerging talent!
The LPO Junior Artists Programme is generously funded by the Kirby Laing Foundation, TIOC Foundation and The Radcliffe Trust. The LPO Conducting Fellowship is generously supported by Patricia Haitink with additional support from Gini and Richard Gabbertas.
Programme notes Ingeborg Bronsart (1840–1913) Overture, Jery und Bätely (1871–72)
The violin and cello solos create a warm velvety feel around what the rest of the orchestra is doing. The solos kind of ‘float’ on top of the calm atmosphere. Ivan (cello), LPO Junior Artist
Judith Margaret Bailey (born 1941) Trencrom (1978)
It has great lyrical passages between the wind players. It blends together really nicely. Birce (clarinet), LPO Junior Artist
Ingeborg von Bronsart (née Starck) was born in 1840 to Swedish parents in St Petersburg. After showing talent in piano and composition from an early age she studied with Liszt in Weimar, and in 1861 married fellow pianist and composer Hans Bronsart von Schellendorff, a member of Liszt’s circle. She toured Europe as a concert pianist until 1867, when she was expected to give up work due to her husband’s appointment as general manager of the Royal Theatre in Hanover. However she remained musically active as a composer of opera, chamber and instrumental music, and a large number of songs. Setting a libretto by Goethe, Jery und Bätely is a ‘Singspiel’: a form of musical drama in which spoken dialogue, rather than sung recitatives, links the musical numbers. It tells the story of an unrequited romance between a Swiss milkmaid and a cheesemaker who are brought together by some farcical matchmaking. The Overture is the only extended instrumental passage in the entire opera, and its slow introduction, with stately dotted rhythms, establishes an atmosphere of a majestic courtly processional. At the tempo change to Allegro molto, Bronsart introduces us to her two protagonists. Similar to the characters’ opposing views on marriage, the two themes are harmonic opposites: Jery’s theme is minor, Bätely’s major.
Judith Margaret Bailey is an English clarinettist, composer and conductor. She was born in Camborne, Cornwall, and after training at the Royal Academy of Music spent some 30 years freelancing and was conductor of the Southampton Concert and Petersfield orchestras. In 2001 she returned to her native Cornwall, where she has conducted the Cornwall Chamber Orchestra and the Penzance Orchestral Society. Bailey’s compositions include two symphonies, two string quartets, a clarinet concerto and many other orchestral, chamber and instrumental pieces. She is also a painter. In 2001 she was honoured as an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, and in 2005 as a Bard of the Gorsedh Kernow for her contributions to music in Cornwall. Trencrom is a tone-poem scored for woodwind, two horns, strings and timpani. It was first performed in Petersfield, Hampshire, in 1979. Trencrom is the name of a hill which the composer can see from the window of her house in Cornwall, and the word in Cornish means ‘a crooked or rocky place’.
Programme notes Georges Bizet (1838–75) Carmen Suite No. 1 (1885) (excerpts) arr. Gábor Kerényi 1 2 3
Prélude Entr’acte: Aragonaise Entr’acte: Intermezzo
In the second movement, the tambourine plays a repetitive pattern that underpins the piece. It can be a challenge to play quietly! Yuma (percussion), LPO Junior Artist
Tayla-Leigh Payne (born 1999) LPO Young Composer 2022/23 It’s Only a Dream (world premiere) Commissioned for the LPO Junior Artists
This piece is impressive, and it’s exciting to play in this combination of instruments. It’s been interesting to see how the piece has changed from October to now. Kateryna (viola), LPO Junior Artist
Béla Bartók (1881–1945) Transylvanian Dances (1932) 1 2 3
Allegretto Moderato Allegro vivace
In the first movement the melody bounces around the woodwind section. The beginning is very rustic – I’ve written ‘bagpipes’ on my music! Anton (oboe), LPO Junior Artist
One of the greatest operas of the 19th century, Carmen was French composer Georges Bizet’s 17th and last opera, for which he took inspiration from the popular novella by Prosper Mérimée, which had enticed French readers with exotic tales of Spain. Its heady combination of passion, sensuality and violence initially proved too much for the stage and the opera was a critical failure on its premiere in 1875. Bizet died shortly after, and never learned of the spectacular success Carmen would achieve. The two orchestral Suites were drawn from the opera’s music and compiled posthumously by Bizet’s friend Ernest Guiraud, who also wrote the recitatives for Carmen. The short ‘Prélude’ presents the threatening fate motif that occurs frequently throughout the opera, most significantly at the end. The ‘Aragonaise’ describes the lively street scenes in Seville before the start of the bullfight. The ‘Intermezzo’ is the central point of the opera. Coming before the opening to Act 3, it expresses Don José’s deep love for Carmen in a short moment of calm, and contains one of the most beautiful melodies ever written for the flute.
Tayla-Leigh Payne is a Welsh composer based in Cardiff, where she graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama with First Class Honours in Composition and Creative Technology. During her studies Tayla explored the worlds of notation and electronics, and her works vary greatly from classical contemporary to electronic, hybrid, theatre and audio installations. She was an LPO Young Composer in 2022/23, and her work Picture This… was premiered at the LPO Debut Sounds concert in July 2023. Tonight’s work, It’s Only a Dream, was developed with input from the Junior Artists, who took part in consultation and creative music sessions to devise the piece with Tayla. She writes: ‘Based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, It’s Only a Dream draws influences from the fantasy and the nonsense-like themes presented in the novel. We journey through short bursts of events, starting with an ambient and mysterious opening, sparking curiosity for what’s to come. We eventually tumble and arrive in Wonderland, and the gestures presented before are later juxtaposed, enhancing the themes of fantasy and nonsense. We explore the various dream-like feelings through variations of colour and ambience until we finally arrive at our explosive finale that eventually awakens us out of the fantasies of Wonderland and into the present day.’
Prior to the First World War, Béla Bartók travelled extensively, collecting and arranging folk music. He was spared from service in the Austro-Hungarian Army after failing several medicals, and spent much of the war continuing to collect folksongs, at first from the army’s diverse ranks, later from Slovak villages, Hungarian peasant communities and Romanian-speaking parts of Transylvania. These Transylvanian Dances started life as a sonatina for piano, composed in 1915. Bartók prepared the orchestral version of the sonatina in 1931 and it was premiered in 1932. In the first movement (originally called ‘Bagpipers’ in the sonatina) Bartók links two themes: the first collected and notated in 1913 from a piper he encountered in Hunyad county. This fast circle-dance melody is followed by another bagpipe melody collected in 1910 in Bihar county. The melody of the second movement (originally called ‘Bear Dance’) was played to Bartók in the village of Váncsafalva by a gypsy violinist with an immense repertoire. Bartók wrote: ‘A peasant violinist played me the beardance melody of the second movement on the G and D strings, the bottom two strings, which better resembles the sound of a bear. Generally violinists use the E string.’ The final movement also contains two melodies that the composer heard played by local folk violinists.
On stage tonight First Violins Kate Oswin*
LPO chair supported by Eric Tomsett
Laura Gutierrez Muurisepp† Teagan Craggs‡ Second Violins Camille Buitenhuis# Dahlia Radji‡ Olivia Ziani§ Violas Lucia Ortiz Sauco* Kateryna Holiar† Teresa Ferreira# Cellos Ivan Rodriguez Deb† Francis Bucknall* Double Bass Thea Sayer‡
Flutes Daniel Pengelly‡ Maria Filippova#
Trumpets Joe Skypala† Paul Beniston*
Piccolo Maria Filippova#
Trombones David Whitehouse* Rhodri Thomas#
Oboes Anton Brown† Alice Munday*
Tuba Connor Gingell#
Clarinets Birce Kayhan† Paul Richards*
Percussion Tom Plumridge# Yuma Angius-Thomas†
Bass Clarinet Paul Richards*
Timpani Yuma Angius-Thomas†
Bassoons Nahuel Angius-Thomas† Jonathan Davies*
Harp Jamaal Kashim†
LPO chair supported by Sir Simon Robey
Horns Jake Parker§ Mark Vines*
† LPO Junior Artist 2023/24 ‡ LPO Junior Artist alumni # Foyle Future First 2023/24 § Foyle Future First reserve 2023/24 * LPO member
With thanks to LPO Junior Artist Mentors 2023/24: Kate Oswin (violin), Lucia Ortiz Sauco (viola), Susanna Riddell (cello), Alice Munday (oboe), Thomas Watmough (clarinet), Jonathan Davies (bassoon), Rachel Masters (harp) & Karen Hutt (percussion)
I feel extremely lucky to have benefitted from the mentoring sessions … it’s been a piece of gold dust for my musical development.
I loved being on stage and playing with the LPO to GCSE music students – a great opportunity for us Junior Artists. I hope we encouraged the students to get into music more. Birce (clarinet), LPO Junior Artist
LPO Junior Artists 2024/25: applications opening soon Applications will open in early March for LPO Junior Artists 2024/25, so keep an eye on our website for details. Applicants should be aged 15–18 in September 2024, play an orchestral instrument to Grade 8+ standard, and identify as being from a background currently under-represented in professional UK orchestras. Find out more at lpo.org.uk/juniorartists
Photos (exccept p1 group photo) © Matthew Johnson
Ivan (cello), LPO Junior Artist