Musicians of Tomorrow

London Sinfonietta The London Sinfonietta’s mission is to place the best contemporary classical music at the heart of today’s culture; engaging and challenging the public through inspiring performances of the highest standard, and taking risks to develop new work and talent. Founded in 1968, the ensemble’s commitment to making new music has seen it commission over 300 works, and premiere many hundreds more. Resident at Southbank Centre with a busy touring schedule across the UK and abroad, its core is 18 Principal Players, representing some of the best solo and ensemble musicians in the world. The group also works with talented emerging players, to ensure the unique expertise of its Principals is passed on to the next generation of performers.

Musicians of Tomorrow London Sinfonietta Academy final performance Platform Theatre, Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design Sunday 13 July 3pm

Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen OG Rune Glerup Divertimento Tansy Davies Iris

Helen Tunstall * harp John Constable * piano

INTERVAL

Philippa Davies flute Gareth Hulse * oboe Joseph Sanders oboe Mark van de Wiel * clarinet John Orford * bassoon Julie Andrews bassoon Simon Haram * saxophone Michael Thompson * horn

Supported by Michael Conroy

Richard Causton Untitled 2014 John Woolrich After the Clock Iannis Xenakis Jalons

Supported by Belinda Matthews

Hal Hutchison Concerts Manager Lesley Wynne Orchestra Personnel Manager Tina Speed Participation and Learning Manager Shoubhik Bandopadhyay Participation and Learning Assistant Mark Prentice-Whitney Projects Assistant

Michael Cox * flute Supported by Michael and Patricia McLaren-Turner

Anna Douglass horn Alistair Mackie * trumpet Byron Fulcher * trombone Douglas Coleman trombone Stephen Bryant violin Joan Atherton * violin Paul Silverthorne * viola Supported by Nick and Claire Prettejohn

Lionel Handy cello Enno Senft * double bass Supported by Anthony Mackintosh

Markus van Horn double bass

Elizabeth Burley piano David Hockings * percussion Sam Walton percussion Serge Vuille percussion

David Rowden Sydney Omega Ensemble Central Saint Martins Team Ged Matthews Ned Lay Maria Kearney Stefan Sloneczny

London Sinfonietta Academy Charlotte Ashton flute/piccolo Helena Gourd flute/piccolo Helen Clinton oboe Gregory Hearle clarinet/bass Elaine Ruby clarinet/bass/contra Sophie Robertshaw bassoon/contra Jemima Oosthuizen bassoon/contra Victoria Puttock saxophone # Jonathan Farey horn Anna Drysdale horn Toby Street trumpet Ryan Hume trombone Ray Hearne tuba

Pierre-André Valade conductor

* London Sinfonietta Principal Player

Zanete Uskane violin Tanya Sweiry violin Alistair Vennart viola Andrew Power cello James Kenny double bass Mary Reid harp Niklas Duckworth piano Daniel Chappell piano/celeste Joe Richards percussion Jude Carlton percussion Kerem Hasan conductor Jack Ridley conductor Oliver Zeffman conductor # solo in Iris by Tansy Davies

The London Sinfonietta performs with the support of Arts Council England, the PRS for Music Foundation and the John Ellerman Foundation, and is grateful for the vision and investment of many other individuals and trusts and foundations who make their work possible. The London Sinfonietta Academy is supported by The Leverhulme Trust’s Arts Scholarships Grant, The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, The Dunard Fund and Help Musicians UK.

The London Sinfonietta Academy is an unparalleled opportunity for emerging players and conductors to train in performing new music with some of the finest contemporary classical musicians. Now in its sixth year, the Academy consists of a week of rehearsals, workshops and masterclasses culminating in a concert performance. The participants work side-by-side with London Sinfonietta Principal Players throughout the week, led by conductor Pierre-André Valade. The Academy is the foremost route into our Emerging Artists Programme – an opportunity for the next generation of exceptional contemporary classical musicians to become part of the working life of the ensemble. Find out more: londonsinfonietta.org.uk/london-sinfonietta-academy

Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen OG OG was composed for the 200th birthday of Søren Kierkegaard in 2013. Kierkegaard’s special interest in the music of Mozart – in particular the opera Don Juan – is reflected in the music of OG. The title refers to S.K’s book entitled Enten Eller (Either Or), a title I initially wanted to comment on by using for my title And Also (or: Both… And I As Well As) – but eventually I found that too “corny” and all that remained was the word OG (“and”). The word “og” is also used in mathematics, in addition, which is one of the principles used in the composition. © Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen A unique personality in Danish musical life and the most grotesquely humorous of the large generation of Danish composers born in the inter-war years, Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (b.1932) was, like his contemporary colleagues, preoccupied at an early stage with Stravinsky, Bartók and Hindemith, but from about 1960 plunged into experiments with serialism. He was among the Danish composers who, at the end of the sixties, rejected the serialist techniques in favour of a "new simplicity". After this, his music was typified by repetitions, not in the minimalist sense, but as absurdist provocation. Some of the many influences in his music that can be mentioned at random are Baroque music, Pygmy music, jazz, plainchant, the sounds of everyday life and sheer noise - and to a very great extent the master of the absurd, the author Samuel Beckett. Gudmundsen-Holmgreen's output is large. Among his orchestral works are the award-winning Symfoni - Antifoni, his Concerto Grosso for string quartet and orchestra, and his Cello Concerto. © Dacapo Records

Rune Glerup Divertimento The title Divertimento is a direct reference to Mozart. That doesn't mean that you should think of Mozart when you hear the music. It's more a personal greeting from me, especially to Mozart's late Divertimento for String Trio (K 563). That work has something paradoxical about it; it's called a Divertimento, and that's something you associate with lightness, something entertaining for a small ensemble. All the same it's a huge work that takes around 45 minutes and it isn't a light work, in fact it's very deep. I like that paradox. It's some of that atmosphere I've brought into my work: there's something light, something playful in it, but at the same time something heavier. In my Divertimento, after all, there are ten instruments, so it's a bit larger – on the other hand it's shorter than Mozart's.

Richard Causton (b.1971) has worked with ensembles such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. His music has been recorded on the NMC, Metier, Delphian and London Sinfonietta labels. In 1997 he was awarded the Mendelssohn Scholarship, which enabled him to study in Milan with Franco Donatoni. Other distinctions include First Prize in the Third International ‘Nuove Sincronie’ Composition Competition and a Royal Philharmonic Society Award. Recent works include his Chamber Symphony, commissioned by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Nocturne for 21 Pianos and Twenty-Seven Heavens, commissioned by the European Union Youth Orchestra as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad and premiered at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw under the direction of Gianandrea Noseda. In October 2012, Causton took up the newly-created post of Lecturer in Composition at the University of Cambridge. He is currently working on a BBC commission for the Nash Ensemble.

© Rune Glerup John Woolrich After the Clock Rune Glerup (b. 1981) has received tuition from a number of composers in both Denmark and abroad, including Walter Zimmermann in Berlin, and Niels Rosing-Schow, Bent Sørensen and Hans Peter Stubbe Teglbjærg as part of the soloist class at the Royal Danish Music Conservatory, from which he made his debut in 2010. He also studied at IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) in Paris from 2010-12. Glerup has participated in masterclasses with Phillippe Leroux, Phillippe Manoury, Hans Peter Kyburz, Dennis Smalley, Ivan Fedele, Adriana Hölszky and Rolf Wallin. His work has been performed at festivals including Printemps des Arts in Monte-Carlo, Nordic Music Days, Young Nordic Music and Pulsar.

After the Clock is (mostly) a fast, virtuosic, black and raucous capriccio. It is written for the edgy, acrid, unblendable, one-ofeverything ensemble often used by the London Sinfonietta and lasts about 12 minutes. The title comes from a poem by the surrealist artist Jean (Hans) Arp. ‘It was in dreams that I learned how to write’, Arp said. His poems are built from precisely described images, juxtaposed in a dream-like structure. In them time looms large: ‘the small red clock that grinds the minutes into grey powder’.

Tansy Davies Iris The role of the soloist in Iris is like that of a shaman, or ‘one who walks between the worlds’. A shaman must travel through ‘lower’ and ‘higher’ realms of subconscious reality in order to perform his or her work. The saxophone is linked with percussion which is largely used to signal change. Percussion instruments (in particular the rattle) are used in shamanic practise to create a transition from one level of reality to another; it serves as a bridge between worlds. There are a great many cultures where the bridge symbolises a transformation from one state to another – or change or the desire for change. The Greeks had Iris, the winged goddess of the rainbow who delivered messages between the heavens and earth. Travelling with the speed of the wind, she could go from one end of the earth to the other, to the bottom of the sea or to the depths of the underworld, leaving a rainbow in her wake. Iris was created through the London Sinfonietta's Blue Touch Paper programme, supported by the Gulbenkian Foundation, and first performed at the Cheltenham Festival on 4 July 2004. © Tansy Davies Tansy Davies (b. 1973) studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Royal Holloway. Her work has found an accommodation between the worlds of the avant-garde and experimental rock, between – in the words of one critic – Xenakis and Prince. She has been commissioned by numerous world-class ensembles and orchestras, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, BCMG and the choir of King’s College Cambridge. Two critically-acclaimed albums of her music have been released on Nonclassical and NMC record labels. Current projects include an opera, Between Worlds, for ENO.

John Woolrich (b.1954) studied English at university before embarking on a life in music. A number of preoccupations thread their way through his varied output: the art of creative transcription and a fascination with mechanical processes and the ticking and whirring of machinery. A string of orchestral commissions in the 1990s produced celebrated concertos for viola, oboe and cello. Recent pieces include Between the Hammer and the Anvil for the London Sinfonietta, and further concertos for violin and contra-bassoon. An ingenious concert programmer, Woolrich founded the Composers Ensemble and has held positions at the Aldeburgh Festival and Dartington International Summer School.

Iannis Xenakis Jalons The Ensemble Intercontemporain commissioned Jalons in 1986 for their tenth anniversary, and it was first performed the following January under the baton of Pierre Boulez. The work is written for 15 players, with the flute doubling on the piccolo; oboe, clarinet, bass clarinet (doubling on contrabass clarinet), horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, harp and strings, to the exclusion of all percussion. © Bruno Serrou Iannis Xenakis (b.1922) initially trained as a civil engineer. In 1947, after three years spent fighting in the Greek resistance against the Nazi occupation, during which time he was very badly injured (losing the sight of an eye), he escaped a death sentence and fled to France where he was first active as an architect. In 1952 he attended composition classes with Olivier Messiaen, who suggested that Xenakis apply his scientific training to music. The resulting style, based on procedures derived from mathematics, architectural principles and game theory, catapulted Xenakis to the front ranks of the avant garde. Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes

Richard Causton Untitled 2014 Untitled 2014 is a brief, exploratory work centred on speech and utterance. Two cyclical sections at the start and end of the piece frame a ritualistic central episode in which, progressively, windows are opened that allow for the emergence of almost vocal utterances from the back of the ensemble. Biography overleaf

Pierre-André Valade (b.1959) was born in Corrèze, France. In 1991 he co-founded Ensemble Court-Circuit of which he was Music Director until January 2008. He was Principal Conductor of Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen from 2009-2014, and was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain in 2013. He is especially well known and admired for his performances of repertoire from the 20th and 21st centuries, regularly conducting the music of composers including George Benjamin, Luciano Berio and Sir Harrison Birtwistle as well as composers of the French Spectralist School such as Hugues Dufourt, Gérard Grisey and Tristan Murail. Orchestras he has worked with include the BBC Symphony, Philharmonia, Orchestre de Paris, Britten Sinfonia and Ensemble Modern, to name but a few. He made his debut at the BBC Proms in 2001 and has appeared at the Aldeburgh, Bath, Holland, Strasbourg, Oslo, Monte Carlo, Nice, Perth and Sydney festivals. In 2001 he was awarded Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.