WHERE TO BEGIN?
FIVE WORLD PREMIERES FROM LPO YOUNG COMPOSERS
THURSDAY 13 JULY 2023 | 7.30PM
SOUTHBANK CENTRE’S QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL
Brett Dean conductor
LPO Foyle Future Firsts
Members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra
WELCOME
PROGRAMME
MODEST MUSSORGSKY ( ARR. JULIAN YU) PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION EXCERPTS
TAYLA-LEIGH PAYNE ‘PICTURE THIS...’ WORLD PREMIERE
JAKOB BRAGG THROUGH GATES UNSEEN WORLD PREMIERE
MATT LONDON THERE MUST BE MORE NATURE WORLD PREMIERE
ZAKIYA LEEMING EAGLE IN THE ROPES WORLD PREMIERE
PHILIP DUTTON ETCHED WORLD PREMIERE
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DRINKS
You are welcome to bring drinks from the venue’s bars and cafés into the Queen Elizabeth Hall to enjoy during tonight’s concert. Please be considerate to fellow audience members by keeping noise during the concert to a minimum, and please take your glasses with you for recycling afterwards. Thank you.
DEBUT SOUNDS
Debut Sounds is an annual celebration of two of the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s flagship Rising Talent schemes: LPO Young Composers and Foyle Future Firsts. This year we have been delighted to work with LPO Composer-in-Residence Brett Dean as Composer Mentor, supporting the five Young Composers in seminars and workshops to develop their new pieces.
For this season’s brief, the composers were invited to create five exciting new compositions inspired by other artforms; from etching to animation, painting to circus arts. Tonight, an ensemble of Foyle Future Firsts and members of the LPO, conducted by Brett Dean, present these five world premieres.
Tonight’s concert will be available to watch again on our YouTube channel at a later date – keep an eye on our social media to find out when it will be released.
THE 2022/23 LPO YOUNG COMPOSERS PROGRAMME IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY ALLIANZ MUSICAL INSURANCE, THE ERNST VON SIEMENS MUSIC FOUNDATION, THE GARRICK CHARITABLE TRUST, THE MARCHUS TRUST AND THE VAUGHAN WILLIAMS FOUNDATION.
THE 2022/23 FOYLE FUTURE FIRSTS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME IS GENEROUSLY FUNDED BY THE FOYLE FOUNDATION WITH ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FROM THE BARBARA WHATMORE CHARITABLE TRUST AND THE THRIPLOW CHARITABLE TRUST.
FOYLE FUTURE FIRSTS
The 16 members of the Foyle Future Firsts programme are talented early-career instrumentalists who aspire to be professional orchestral musicians. As part of our unique programme, members are supported and nurtured to the highest standards, and we are proud to see current and past Foyle Future Firsts consistently taking professional engagements with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and other world-class ensembles.
Across the year, members of the Foyle Future Firsts programme benefit from individual lessons and mentoring from London Philharmonic Orchestra Principals, professional development sessions, mock auditions, and involvement in full orchestral rehearsals. They also take part in high-profile and unique chamber performances, and work alongside London Philharmonic Orchestra musicians on Education & Community projects.
LPO.ORG.UK/ FOYLE-FUTURE-FIRSTS
ON STAGE TONIGHT
FIRST VIOLINS
Kate Oswin† LEADER
LPO CHAIR SUPPORTED BY ERIC TOMSETT
Caroline Heard*
Lasma Taimina†
LPO CHAIR SUPPORTED BY IRINA GOFMAN & MR RODRIK V. G. CAVE
SECOND VIOLINS
Nynke Hijlkema†
Vera Beumer*
VIOLAS
Martin Wray†
Lukas Bowen*
CELLOS
Tom Roff‡ Tabitha Selley*
DOUBLE BASSES
Laura Murphy†
Thea Sayer*
FLUTES
Stewart McIlwham†
Marie Sato*
PICCOLO/ ALTO FLUTE
Stewart McIlwham†
OBOES
Chris Vettraino*
Lydia Griffiths§
COR ANGLAIS
Lydia Griffiths§
CLARINETS
Benjamin Mellefont†
Méline Le Calvez*
BASS CLARINET
Méline Le Calvez*
BASSOONS
Jonathan Davies†
LPO CHAIR SUPPORTED BY SIR SIMON ROBEY Bruce Parris*
* FOYLE FUTURE FIRST 2022/23
§ FOYLE FUTURE FIRST ALUMNUS
† LPO MEMBER
‡ LPO GUEST
CONTRABASSOON
Bruce Parris*
HORNS
John Ryan† Millie Lihoreau*
TRUMPETS
Paul Beniston† Emily Ashby*
TROMBONES
David Whitehouse† Gemma Riley*
TUBA
Alex Miller*
PERCUSSION
Karen Hutt†
LPO CHAIR SUPPORTED BY BEN FAIRHALL Elliott Gaston-Ross*
HARP
Nicolette Chin*
PIANO/CELESTE
Iain Clarke*
BRETT DEAN
LPO COMPOSER-IN-RESIDENCE & COMPOSER MENTOR
Australian composer Brett Dean has been the LPO’s Composer-in-Residence since September 2020. During his three-year residency he has also taken on the role of Composer Mentor to the LPO Young Composers Programme, providing guidance and expertise to the five participants each year, and conducting the annual Debut Sounds showcase. Tonight's concert marks the culmination of his residency, which has been a wonderfully fruitful and mutually enjoyable three years. Dean will be succeeded as Composer-in-Residence and Composer Mentor by Tania León from September 2023.
WITH THE LPO
The LPO worked closely with Dean on his opera Hamlet, which was premiered at Glyndebourne in 2017, winning both the 2018 South Bank Sky Arts Award and the International Opera Award for Best New Opera. In 2020 the LPO and Vladimir Jurowski gave the UK premiere of The Players for orchestra and accordion, and in 2021 the world premiere of a new version of Notturno inquieto (Rivisitato). In February 2022 the Orchestra performed Dean’s Viola Concerto under Hannu Lintu with soloist Lawrence Power, and in April 2022 gave the UK premiere of his Cello Concerto under Edward Gardner, with soloist Alban Gerhardt. October 2022 saw a performance of Three Memorials under Karina Canellakis, and January 2023 Amphitheatre under Enrique Mazzola. Most recently, in April this year, the Orchestra and Edward Gardner gave the world premiere of In spe contra spem with soprano soloists Emma Bell and Elsa Dreisig.
BACKGROUND
Brett Dean began composing in 1988, initially concentrating on experimental film and radio projects and as an improvising performer. It was through works such as his clarinet concerto Ariel’s Music (1995), which won an award from the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers, and Carlo (1997) for strings, sampler and tape, that he gained international recognition. Today Dean enjoys a busy performing career as violist and conductor, performing his own Viola Concerto with the world’s leading orchestras. He is a natural chamber musician, frequently collaborating with other soloists and ensembles to perform both his own chamber works and standard repertoire.
RECENT HIGHLIGHTS
September 2022 saw the world premiere of In This Brief Moment for double chorus and orchestra at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall. Also this season Dean conducted the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and soprano Jennifer France in two recorded concerts at Örebro Concert Hall, including performances of his own composition And once I played Ophelia Other premieres this season include the Australian premiere of the piano concerto Gneixendorf Music; A Winter’s Journey with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra; the world premiere of a new work for the Bavarian State Orchestra; and the German premiere of In This Brief Moment with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra. Dean’s opera Hamlet also returned for a run of performances at the Bavarian State Opera in June 2023.
PROFILE ©BOOSEY & HAWKES/INTERMUSICA
WHERE TO BEGIN?
BRETT DEAN ON THIS YEAR'S LPO YOUNG COMPOSERS BRIEF
Every artist, whether painter, poet, writer, choreographer or composer, needs an idea, or at least the germ of one, as a starting point. But where does one find these ideas? Can engaging with the output of visual artists, film directors, choreographers and other ‘creatives’ draw us, as composers, beyond our known and potentially comfortable habits or confines and towards new challenges and solutions? What happens when we look for inspiration across art forms?
Creative expression comes in many forms, and yet even seemingly disparate modalities share more common ground than one might think. The terms used to describe attributes in the creation of both music and visual art, for example, are often identical: composition, line, colour, layer, texture, balance, form, accent, etc. And so one modality may find germination in another.
This season, the LPO Young Composers programme has encouraged its participants to probe possibly untried approaches beyond their more familiar, music-based areas of activity in order to find the spark of inspiration. We’ve investigated the creative potential that can be found in exploring the methods and motivations of artists working in areas of cultural endeavour other than music. Together we’ve sought out possible points of intersection and discovered domains that might be shared, with a view to leaning on, and learning from, these different but related pathways, techniques and creative spirits.
Ask five astute young composers for their responses and, happily and of course not surprisingly, you get five very different answers. This evening’s new works take their lead from a multitude of influences, ranging from the 18th-century etchings of Piranesi to experimental animation, via circus arts, architecture and environmental installation. These are ‘pictures at an exhibition’ with a difference … enjoy!
PROGRAMME NOTES
MODEST MUSSORGSKY 1839–81
ARR. JULIAN YU BORN 1957
PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION (EXCERPTS)
PROMENADE 1
GNOMUS
PROMENADE 2
IL VECCHIO CASTELLO (THE OLD CASTLE)
In the 1850s a wave of nationalism swept through St Petersburg’s creative community, and Modest Mussorgsky was one of its key musical exponents. His friend, the artist and architect Victor Hartmann, had been a part of it, too, until his premature death aged 39 shocked the city’s artistic world. An exhibition of Hartmann’s works was organised in the artist’s memory in February 1874. That summer, Mussorgsky set about depicting a series of the exhibited pictures in a collection of individual movements for piano. ‘I can hardly manage to put the ideas and melodies down on paper fast enough’, he wrote in June as the task proceeded fruitfully.
Mussorgsky used a recurring ‘promenading’ theme to link his separate pianistic pictures, suggesting a walk through a gallery or exhibition space. Hartmann’s imaginative, fantastical works were ripe for orchestral depiction, and many composers took up the gauntlet in orchestrating Mussorgsky’s piano works. Tonight we hear the first four movements from a particularly elegant arrangement for small orchestra by the Chinese-Australian composer Julian Yu. The arrangement is notable for its echoing of traditional Chinese music, and Mussorgsky’s theme is itself rooted in the pentatonic scale – the series of notes on which indigenous Chinese music is built.
Yu deals skilfully with the solo instruments that provide most of his pictorial character, often casting single instruments as the protagonists and using instrumental doubling to create artificial echoes. His arrangement revels in the curious character of Hartmann’s pictures. In a sense that sums up Yu’s approach: it’s his myriad effects and details that make his version so fascinating, rather than the sense of grandeur – perhaps a misleading grandeur – that has long been associated with Mussorgsky’s Pictures
PROGRAMME NOTES
TAYLA-LEIGH PAYNE BORN 1999 ‘PICTURE THIS...’ WORLD PREMIERE
‘Picture This...’ draws inspiration from abstract animations by Norman McLaren and Stan Brakhage: Pas de Deux (1968), Begone Dull Care (1949) and The Dante Quartet (1987). This piece not only draws on the visual elements of these animations, but also on the characteristics of the visuals and their associated techniques that both McLaren and Brakhage used to devise these works. These approaches include drawing and scratching directly on to the film and creating a stroboscopic effect within their visuals. Throughout the piece, you will explore and indulge in various colours and textures, a moment to experience and pay homage to short excerpts from each of these animations, from the cacophonous and dense textures of Brakhage to the luscious and white-noise quality film of McLaren. TP
WATCH THE ANIMATIONS THAT INSPIRED TAYLA:
MCLAREN’S PAS DE DEUX AND BEGONE DULL CARE
TAYLA-LEIGH PAYNE is a Welsh composer based in Cardiff, where she recently graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama with a First Class Honours degree in Composition and Creative Technology under Mark David Boden, Dr Owen Lloyd, Ceri Tippetts and Joseph Davies. 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.
Tayla’s most recent achievements and commissions include being selected for BBC NOW’s Composition: Wales scheme and Tŷ Cerdd’s CoDI Move and CoDI Lead schemes (in association with Hijinx Theatre and Paraorchestra), Green Space Dark Skies and NightMusic (performed by organist James McVinnie). She was also assistant composer for Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru’s Anfamol production, and premiered her interactive audio installation MIXTAPE at the RWCMD’s Atmospheres festival.
Tayla’s works have been performed in Cardiff venues such as BBC Hoddinott Hall, St David’s Hall, g39 and SHIFT, and a television premiere on BBC One Wales. Additionally, her creative practice includes community music, working with organisations such as Mess Up The Mess (Fi, Ti a Ni, Bloedd and Ice Spy) and Operasonic (Folks of the Footbridge, Sonic Singalong and The Riverfront Project).
BRAKHAGE’S THE DANTE QUARTET
PROGRAMME NOTES
JAKOB BRAGG BORN 1990
THROUGH GATES UNSEEN WORLD PREMIERE
A ceremony, a passage, a rite.
The ‘staff’, violently shaken, raised, swayed and slammed back down provides the catalyst for much of the activities enacted by this vast congregation. Low drones smear and collide with each other, brass choirs amplify the entrance of towering blocks, drums with harp and oboe awkwardly dance, the viola laments, the cello responds, echoes of bassoons and bass clarinets shadow the intensity while the ‘staff’ reasserts itself for a final solo of ecstasy.
Through Gates Unseen takes Australian artist and descendent of the Yawuru people Robert Andrew’s Tracing inscriptions (2020) as a departure point to explore the dialogue between control and decay. Andrew’s work uses suspended charcoal, branches, ochre and stones, each connected to a moving plotting machine at the far end of the gallery space. Over time, the plotting machine and suspended strings gradually move each piece of organic matter, slowly marking the white wall behind, smearing, decaying, breaking apart and bumping into each other.
Through Gates Unseen translates the plotting machine into a custom-built percussion ‘staff’ as a force that dictates the unfolding of music activity. Sheer blocks of sound echo the separated but interdependent panels of charcoal and branches that gradually erode over time, while the smearing of line and ornamentation resemble the blurred black and ochre shadow left by the organic material upon the white gallery wall behind.
JB
JAKOB BRAGG has developed a compositional practice that engages in unconventional approaches to acoustic instruments, nurtures ongoing artistic relationships, and navigates the exploratory and ritualised. Based in Huddersfield, Jakob works primarily with new music specialists in which ideas of virtuosity, ornamentation, multiculturalism and drama are explored. Recent works include the political “At least so far…” for voice +, harnessing the use and misuse of language by politicians; the exploratory Subdue for solo clarinet, an intense exploration of timbre through decoupled instrumental technique; and a host of works composed for somewhat unusual instruments including the Uilleann pipes and recorders, doublebell trombone and ondomo, Productions Totem Contemporain’s Babel Table, and objects such as bearing balls, saucepans and vibrators. His works have been performed across Europe, Asia, Australia and America by artists including ELISION (Australia), International Contemporary Ensemble (US), Arditti Quartet and Zöllner-Roche Duo (UK), Cikada (Norway), Quatuor Tana (France), Meitar Ensemble (Israel), BRON (Netherlands), and orchestras including the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Australian Youth Orchestra.
Jakob is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Huddersfield studying under Bryn Harrison and Mary Bellamy, with previous mentors including Aaron Cassidy, Liza Lim, Elliott Gyger (University of Melbourne) and Gerard Brophy (Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University).
PROGRAMME NOTES
MATT LONDON BORN 1985 THERE MUST BE MORE NATURE WORLD PREMIERE
Inspired by the artist and eco-warrior Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928–2000), there must be more nature is a reflection upon his work and life. Dazzled by his use of luminous colour and organic form, paired with a constant message of deep respect and love for all nature, I have attempted to channel his unique visual language and important guiding beliefs into the orchestra.
Developed upon my own abstract language scoring approach, the orchestra is challenged to conjure and create through simple improvisatory techniques an ecosystem of flora and fauna, with the alto flute as a guiding elemental spirit. As this spirit develops, it begins to contemplate the impact and conflict of man towards a point of no return, before a reconciliation and catharsis washed away by the elements.
ML
‘The tree is the best investment for the future. Anyplace where the tree is removed from the centre of life and thought, so too have people’s lives perished. Anyplace where the tree lives with us as people’s partner, so too are people’s lives improved.’
FRIEDENSREICH HUNDERTWASSERMATT LONDON is a free-improvising saxophonist and composer. As a creative music practitioner he aspires to channel the spirit of the impromptu through promoting the creative voices of others into a collaborative experience. His group Ensemble Entropy explores the space between the free and composed, with guests that include the improvising piano maverick Matthew Bourne and the fearless avant-garde mezzo-soprano Loré Lixenberg. His piece elemental utterances for Lixenberg was shortlisted for a 2020 Ivors Composer Award, and his extended work Rituals, for Orchestra Entropy, was shortlisted for a 2018 BASCA British Composer Award in the Jazz Composition for Large Ensemble category. Rituals was later recorded and released on the Discus Music label supported by LSO Soundhub.
Matt recently completed his PhD – ‘Points for Departures: Composing for Improvisers’ – at Brunel University London under the supervision of Colin Riley and Christopher Fox. He is also a graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music (MMus Distinction, Saxophone).
DISCOVER MORE ON THE FRIEDENSREICH HUNDERTWASSER FOUNDATION WEBSITE
PROGRAMME NOTES
ZAKIYA LEEMING BORN 1984 EAGLE IN THE ROPES WORLD PREMIERE
When the LPO announced the brief for this concert – works of art, or other art forms that we respond to creatively – I immediately knew what my topic would be. Aerial arts, a subset of circus arts, was recommended to support ongoing rehabilitation and strengthening needed due to my medical condition, and this performance art captured my interest from the very first trapeze session. Although I will certainly not be flying to the heights some achieve, I was able to feel some of the freedom of movement, thrill and skill acquisition I used to enjoy in arts and sports I can no longer access. I was captivated by the rich history of the medium in all its forms, as well as all that professional aerial artists are creating today.
When I sat down to write the very first sketches, I started at the beginning: the fundamentals of movement and balance. What is now the opening of the work considered micro-adjustments of muscles in either direction needed to stay balanced. This led to consideration of other movements: swinging, tumbling, plunging and spiralling, all of which were explored. The structure is loosely based on the idea of a circus performance, with acts coming and going. As I continued writing I found myself increasingly drawn to explore the images, sounds and sensations imagined in my daydream circus, curated from all my favourite performances. With this, the piece began looking ever more outward –at the history, iconography and playful character of this long-practised and -appreciated art form.
ZL
Manchester-based ZAKIYA LEEMING is a postdoctoral composer at the Royal Northern College of Music and a member of PRiSM (Centre for Practice & Research in Science & Music). Born in Australia, her artistic research often involves interdisciplinary collaborations in the fields of science and medicine. Recent commissions include the Royal Philharmonic Society, Riot Ensemble, Ensemble Recherche, Future Music Festival, Explore Ensemble and Psappha. Zakiya has devised and directed a number of artistic events, including #MusicSaysDataSavesLives with Connected Health Cities (CHC), pairing four composers with health data scientists in a sold-out concert at the Manchester Museum, and Dawn, on the Morning After the Storm for Professor Calum Semple OBE and members of ISARIC4C, an international consortium of researchers and doctors whose outputs informed the UK government on COVID-19.
In her undergraduate degree at the University of Tasmania, Zakiya received the Examiner Newspaper Scholarship and the Dean’s Award for Excellence with Honours, and she has been awarded the Soroptimists International Manchester Award in Composition, the Edward Hecht Prize, and a Gold Medal in composition at the Royal Northern College of Music. Zakiya is founding co-director of experimental composer collective Incógnito, and has received a Wellcome Grant to develop a chamber opera with Oxford University Sidney Truelove Professor Paul Klenerman on the science and history of vaccines.
Zakiya was selected for the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Composer Programme 2021/22, and her work has been featured by The Guardian and on BBC Radio 4.
PROGRAMME NOTES
PHILIP DUTTON BORN 1992 ETCHED WORLD PREMIERE
In November 2022, I visited the National Museum in Oslo and saw an exhibition dedicated to Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–78). I was immediately struck by the sheer imagination and craftsmanship in his etchings, depicting fantastical buildings, vertiginous staircases and crumbling ruins commandeered by nature. I was amazed!
I later discovered that I owned a book of Piranesi’s complete etchings. When studying the book, with the ability to take time and revisit images, I fully appreciated just how detailed they are, creating the illusion that they are alive and moving. This feeling of movement and having the freedom to look through the book and revisit etchings at different speeds greatly influenced the piece. Etched is fast-paced, changing characters rapidly, as if flicking, stopping, observing, revisiting, pausing and moving through a book of Piranesi etchings.
The etchings that particularly influenced this piece were: Antiquus bivii viarum appiae at ardeatinae... (View of the junction of the Apoian and Ardeatine ways); Carcere VII: The Drawbridge (2nd state); Carcere XIV: The Gothic Arch (2nd state); and Veduta interna del Tempio della Tosse... (Interior View of the Temple of Cough...).
PD
PHILIP DUTTON is a British-Czech composer based in London. As well as an LPO Young Composer, during the 2022/23 season he is also a Britten Pears Young Artist and a Royal Philharmonic Society Composer. His music aims to express his love for storytelling and curiosity by writing music that is direct and vivid. He often draws upon his cultural heritage for inspiration.
Philip’s works have been performed by groups such as the BBC Singers, Engegård Quartet, EXAUDI and the Britten Pears Contemporary Ensemble, across the UK and Europe in venues including the Barbican, Cadogan Hall, Milton Court and Wigmore Hall. Philip was recently invited to participate in Creative Dialogue France, for which he wrote his string trio Ring Out!.
Philip previously studied at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama (supported by the Guildhall Trust), The Purcell School and Wells Cathedral School (supported by the Government’s Music and Dance Scheme). His teachers and mentors have included Julian Anderson, Richard Causton, Brett Dean, Matthew King, Joseph Phibbs, Magnus Lindberg and Simon Speare.
EXPLORE THE EXHIBITION THAT INSPIRED PHILIP, ‘PIRANESI AND THE MODERN’ AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM IN OSLO, INCLUDING A 3D WALKTHROUGH
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The right is reserved to substitute artists and to vary the programme if necessary.
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