Mauricio Kagel: The Pieces of the Compass Rose

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Mauricio Kagel: The Pieces of the Compass Rose Saturday 1 June 7.30pm Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London Mauricio Kagel

The Pieces of the Compass Rose East South South-West North Interval North-West South-East North-East West

Thierry Fischer conductor

This concert will be broadcast in BBC Radio 3 Hear and Now on Saturday 20 July 2013 at 10.30pm

The London Sinfonietta is grateful to Arts Council England and the PRS for Music Foundation for their generous support of the ensemble’s Music Programme 12/13 and to the John Ellerman Foundation for their support of the ensemble.

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Welcome Welcome to tonight’s concert.

Mauricio Kagel’s The Pieces of the Compass Rose is one of the classic pieces of contemporary repertoire of the latter part of the 20th Century. A hugely engaging and stimulating musical travelogue written from the perspective of the composer’s native Argentina, with cultural references of other countries filtered through Kagel’s unique compositional mind, and expressed through the sound world of a small salon orchestra.

It’s an honour to have Thierry Fischer back with us to conduct this performance. He has the deep and sincere respect of the musicians of the London Sinfonietta for his ability to make excellent music with them, and this promises to be a very special performance as a result.

This project is the last of our performances at the Southbank Centre this season, and I want to thank you for your support throughout it. We have had amazing audiences for our Landmarks series, and our UK tour of the new Steve Reich commission, Radio Rewrite. We are also very proud of our recent portrait concert of Luke Bedford, as well as the

We hope you enjoy your visit to Southbank Centre.

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association with the Southbank Centre’s The Rest is Noise series that continues into next season.

Our next projects this summer include our London Sinfonietta Academy week conducted by George Benjamin, when a group of emerging musicians recruited by audition across the country will form a Sinfonietta sized ensemble and rehearse for a week and perform at LSO St Luke’s on Sunday 14 July.

The programme of works includes a new piece especially commissioned from Steve Potter. The project, now in its fifth year, is one of the many ways we support emerging players, composers and conductors for new music.

We already have concerts on sale for the autumn, with more to be announced for spring/summer 2014. Please stay in touch over the summer through our mailing list, website and social media channels.

Andrew Burke Chief Executive londonsinfonietta.org.uk @Ldn_Sinfonietta facebook.com/londonsinfonietta

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Photo: Mauricio Kagel © Philippe Gras

Mauricio Kagel

composer (1931–2008)

‘As a composer, I feel more and more committed to non-sounding materials.

I do not regard them as substitutes for composition proper – on the contrary…

Word, light and movement are articulated similarly to tones, timbres and tempi; the sense and nonsense of any event on stage fail to make any impact without musicality.’

Eccentric, witty and unconventional, Mauricio Kagel’s music is difficult to tie to any particular school or movement. Born in Buenos Aires to a family with German origins, he began to teach himself composition at the age of 19, beginning with a series of works that rebelled against Argentina’s self-imposed neoclassical musical style.

It was at this time, while reading music, literature and philosophy at the University of Buenos Aires that Kagel began to develop an interest in music as a multi-dimensional product, one that incorporates theatrical as well as philosophical impulses, challenging traditional perceptions of musical

thinking. While this often involves the use of exotic instruments, everyday objects and electronic sound sources, it also extends to the use of visual stimuli and theatrical practices, entering into a world beyond the traditional concert platform.

For Kagel, a piece of music is fundamentally tied to the art of performance. Keen to explore the fine line between ‘sense and nonsense’, Kagel’s concert works are as overtly theatrical as those that he wrote for the stage, and often ask the performers to act, speak, perform and even dress in ways more befitting of a dramatic piece. Some works, such as Con Voce (1972), contain no ‘music’ at all, instead calling upon the performers to mime playing their instruments, while Hallelujah (1968) is ‘scored’ on a series of separate cards describing particular actions which can be ordered in any number of ways to create the piece. Often deliberately absurd with an underlying element of mockery, Kagel’s music is nevertheless far less frivolous than these unusual works might suggest. A true pioneer who created his own unique artistic sphere, Kagel encouraged a whole new wave of composers to bring their imagination to the concert hall and to revaluate the concept of performance. © Jo Kirkbride 3

Notes on the programme

The Pieces of the Compass Rose

1. East

(1988–94)

(1988–9)

While sketching the works in this cycle, I had already made up my mind that I would frequently change the geographical vantage point of my musical observations. Maybe this has something to do with my having been born in the southern hemisphere. When one has spent the first, most impressionable part of one’s life there, the four cardinal points evoke particular experiences, desires and schematic views of things which are exactly contrary to the corresponding emotional world of Europeans.

Which East? Neither the Near not the Far one, but the diffuse region ante portas, which starts around the rivers Oder and Nysa, and ends… where?

For me, even nowadays, South is still synonymous not with heat but cold; with Patagonia, the Tierra del Fuego and Antarctica. The North, on the other hand, is anything but cold; merciless sun and sharply etched shadows, sweltering humidity, desert landscape and barrenness. And though the term ‘Near East’ implies an Eastern culture for many people, for those who live in the Far East it evokes precisely the opposite. Here our ideas tend to be simplistic; they are a composite of fleeting or enduring travel memories, of lectures and things we know, of likes and dislikes. If, after even a few bars, one feels one has been transported to the geographical point indicated, then perhaps we as listeners can enrich the atmosphere of the piece with fragments of our musical memories or experience.

One might interpret the locations of these salon pieces as compositum sui generis, where analysis and synthesis meet with caution, so as to emphasise the relativity of the cardinal points. One shouldn’t assume that the 32 divisions of the compass are going to inspire me to write that number of pieces, but at any rate, I’d like to write eight items. Any single point in the four quadrants – North, East, South and West – calls for a more complicated survey. And a constant challenge in realising the cycle is to achieve all this while always using the same instrumentation of clarinet, piano, harmonium, two violins, viola, cello and double bass, with only the percussionist changing instruments from piece to piece.

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If I may treat geographical fact with a fairly broad brush, then the scenario for this piece is located somewhere between Trans-Carpathia and the Gulf of Finland: I am sitting in a third class coach in one of those legendary trains which run back and forth between Kishinev and Ivano-Frankovsk, Balassagyarmat and Hódmezövasárhely, Kamenets Podolskiy and Piotrkow Trybunalski. The other travellers include a group of musicians who look as if they have just jumped out of a gilded photo album. They start playing for me. The rolling landscape calls for appropriate performance practice; the melodic fragments and typical rhythms change even quicker than the villages that jerkily flash by.

For sure, in my private musical cosmology, the East always scores a bonus.

2. South (1989) From a central European point of view, the sub-alpine South is often thought of in terms of a synthetic image, dominated by bright skies and lots of time to relax. But the warm period of the year always brings with it the worry that the idyllic model might be further removed from reality than ever. That kind of conjecture frankly leaves very little time for the music of the South Mediterranean.

That’s why, in this piece, the rhythms are confronted all the more decisively by melodies stemming from different regions, and whose character is such that they can be regarded as acoustic anecdotes. Here tempo is used consciously as a possible means of effecting transformations of freely invented folk music. Hence the ambiguous tarantella at the beginning of the piece, which loses its dancing verve simply by being slowed down, but reveals many hidden facets in the process. Tempi

can show almost effortlessly how fluid the boundaries are between frenzy and melancholy, and between hilarity and gloom. The same music, presented at different tempi, changes dramatically – it may even be distorted beyond recognition, but then flourishes effortlessly in a completely opposite atmosphere. So the things one can communicate with music are as numerous as the nuances of verbal language. But luckily, one can change their nature at any instant.

3. South-West (1992–3) In this piece my journey begins on the West coast of Mexico and finishes in New Zealand. The Society and Fiji Islands, Western Samoa, New Caledonian and Tuvalu are all on the way. It is these regions with which I am not yet familiar and which especially attract me since, in terms of music, they are still full of secrets. And one more reason; to put into music the fascination with distance, even from a distance. In the percussion instruments, above all, the characteristic sounds of this region can be heard: log drums, conch trumpet, tamtam and gongs, bull roarer as well as other sounds made by instruments which are difficult to describe. The aim is to let oneself be inspired by this region of the world and convert it into music. The listener can judge whether this has been successful, whether his own fantasy is set in motion.

4. North (1993–3) It is not by chance that The Pieces of the Compass Rose finishes with this piece. Even if there is no predetermined performance order for the eight pieces, I was not indifferent to the sequence of the compass points as I composed. Sometimes my tonal fantasy would simply combust and ideas appeared thick and fast. Some of the regions of this musicalgeographical cycle offered a welcome reason for tracking down the obvious but puzzling acoustic counterparts which bind cultures and continents.

white eternity, persistent wind and a total absence of humanity. Due to my dislike of mild winters, I welcomed the idea of an expedition to the polar cap. Starting out in Mongolian Siberia, I should reach the Inuit Eskimos by the end of this winter journey, in time to join a ritual ceremony at the Canadian Hudson Bay. However, each time I was in Canada determined to fly to the most northern station, I was forced by unanticipated rehearsal dates and meetings, or by dreadful weather, to postpone my plans.

The real reason for wanting to fulfil this wish, however, was a different one. Whilst attending an historical religious seminar over 40 years ago, I read an article on Siberian myths on the origins of the shaman, the symbolism of their costume and the transcendental role of the ever-present enchanted drum. Above all, the role of music within mystical healing stayed with me. Unfortunately, after such a long time, I had forgotten the author and the title of the work. So I decided to pursue a completely different direction, to travel via my own self.

Instead of attempting to pursue my theme via actual experience, I decided to put into music my impressions of the article as I had imagined them at that time, without having ever heard a single note of the original music.

The music has no connection to a physical experience or a recording, and therefore makes no demands on authenticity. Even so, with the percussion for example, the listener recognises instruments and items which belong to the real elements of the region: animal skins, stones, wind, fire, water, the crunching of snow, the cracking of ice, expressed actually or imitated to produce a sound which is often more life-like than the real thing.

I had almost finished the composition when I noticed the title of a book in a bookshop which lay on a table with the others. I somehow recognised it and – imagine – I had found the source of my imagination once again. Since I do not believe in chance, I celebrated the rediscovery of the book as a friendly gesture of a kindly spirit, whose resurrection was just a little late.

But at the most northern point – and equally at the most southern point – comparisons are uncertain and lead only to questionable ciphers. Here, when in every respect a plain rien-ne-va-plus dominates, one does not think immediately of music but of the

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5. North-West

6. South-East

(1991)

(1991)

In this piece, for the first time, I engaged directly with the indigenous music of the South American Andes, which I had often heard over there – and likewise in Europe – at first, second and even, so to speak, third hand. That this happens through the medium of an ensemble whose instrumentation is far removed from that of the authentic sources strikes me as entirely appropriate at a time when fusion and reciprocal influence have become key concepts in looking at musical languages and cultures. On the other hand, illusion and evocation have always been part and parcel of salon music.

Pursuing my plan to frequently change the location of my acoustic observations, here I am in Cuba, gazing into the Caribbean in the chosen direction.

This region, which begins in Columbia and extends via Venezuela, Surinam and the Guyanas to the Amazon, is bubbling over with folk music and popular music from a huge variety of cultural sources. They seem to coexist alongside one another, but in actual fact they exercise all sorts of reciprocal influence, fusing into unique mixes and forming currents which sometimes last a long while, but can also be quickly forgotten. Afro-American dance rhythms and melodic traits from the Spanish tradition, creole dialects and sharply emphatic percussion instruments, subversive transformations of pious ceremonies, and 16th century European ballads in the Indian language; which of these ingredients can stand its ground on a stage which is constantly being changed by inventiveness and usage?

I was more than a little surprised when, not so long ago I read a musicological treatise on the ‘Kultrún’, a single-skinned shaman’s drum with a semicircular resonator, used by the Machis from the South Chilean Araucan/Mapuche cultures. Maria Ester Grebe describes the instrument’s symbolic microcosm, which represents ‘both the universe of this indigenous people, and their transcendental functions.’ The colours and drawings on the skin’s outer surface ‘symbolise the four levels of their vertical image of the world and the four cardinal points of the horizontal gradations between good and evil.’

The result is a theoretical flat-surface version of the Earth. What specifically fascinated me about this conceptual world was its ‘vertical image of the world’. It’s precisely this aspect that is significant in my salon pieces. That is, my starting point was that the various cardinal points were on a map standing upright in front of us, North at the top, East to the right, South at the bottom and West to the left.

After the first part of North-West, in which an imaginary procession of Andean Indians slowly approaches the audience, there is a final dance which, paying homage to a tonal system that is certainly alien to us, I wrote in an unblemished multipentatonic style. May the gods who gave wings to the portrayal of the Kultrún forgive me for this strange music.

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When writing my piece, the desire to imitate this kind of multiplicity was far from my mind. So I concentrated on two essential features. One of them is presented right at the start, and is based on a typical accompaniment figure which, accompanied by a second figure, becomes the main idea. A bit later, another motive crops up; like the diatonic balafon and sansa melodies in some regions of Africa, it revolves around the repetition of a single interval, and has a descending tendency which always ends up on the same tonic note. Both thematic elements are embedded in a dense polyphony. In the course of the piece, one of the motives becomes ever more autonomous, until all that remains is rhythmic variations of a single series of notes. The melody – always the same one – gives rise to a parallel polyphony; South-East has drifted across the Atlantic to its ethnic origins in Africa, and it is these, ultimately, that systematically weave beneath the surface of the score.

7. North-East

8. West

(1990)

(1993–4)

Since moving to Germany, my sense of direction has been a little disorientated. Often, as I stand on the banks of a river, I make a mistake: my spontaneous assumption about the way the river is flowing is wrong. In South America, with the Andes in the West, water normally flows to the East or the South (though admittedly to the East of the Andes, the reverse is often true). It’s the same with the notion of ‘North-East’. In terms of central Europe, it’s hard to define precisely what region it should refer to.

One could call this direction typically vague. But in southern Argentina, it can only refer to the legendary ‘Nordeste’ of Brazil. I am glad that while I was there I got to know such a great richness of rhythms and melodic formulae, but what would this music amount to without its perpetual mixture of melancholy and vivacity, of flightiness and sorrow?

If there were a point on the compass that read Weast or Ewast then I would have chosen it for the title of this piece. The compass does not point to a single point which is arrived at along one regular course; it acts as a wayfarer which, like a Janus head, looks in opposite directions. The theme of this composition is the respective give and take of two musical cultures which can be seen in the farreaching Africanisation of North America and later, but only to a partial and lesser extent, in the Americanisation of the music of Africa. Music of Blacks? Of Whites? Of Blhites?

This item in the cycle is dedicated to a Cuban writer whom I found extremely stimulating, and who waited an eternity for me to fulfil my promise to compose a musical reflection on South America.

And so, in memory of him: ‘por fin: para Alejo Carpentier’.

Perhaps it is an irony of an avenging god that, in musical terms, the African slaves made a primitive people out of the Americans. Measured in the long term, the Blacks did in fact colonise the Whites.

I have always found this interesting, perhaps because the accent on purity in connection with the concepts of culture has always appeared questionable to me. I began to be aware of the fundamental significance of the obvious and the hidden influences which can be seen and heard.

West, commissioned by the West Deutsche Rundfunk, is dedicated to my friend and editor Klaus Schöning, from whom I have observed with joy, during the many years of our collaboration, that the art of the acoustician really can help you hear the grass grow.

Mauricio Kagel

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Photo: Thierry Fischer © Scott Jarvie

Thierry Fischer conductor

Swiss conductor Thierry Fischer recently renewed his contract as Music Director of the Utah Symphony Orchestra. Fischer has given many world premieres, and has instigated a major commissioning programme in Utah, starting in Spring 2012 with a cello concerto for Jean-Luc Queyras composed by Michel Jarrell, which he will also conduct with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in 2014.

Fischer was Principal Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales from 2006–2012 and will return as a guest in 2013. Highlights of his tenure included the orchestra’s first tour to China as well as to prestigious venues in Europe and the USA, annual visits to the BBC Proms, major celebrations of Messiaen and Dutilleux, and acclaimed recordings of Stravinsky, Honegger and Frank Martin.

A busy guesting career has taken him to orchestras as diverse as the Philharmonia, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Czech Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Lyon, WDR Cologne, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, and Cincinatti Symphony Orchestras to name just a few. He has

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also collaborated regularly with leading chamber orchestras such as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia and Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra.

In 2012, Fischer’s recording for Hyperion of Frank Martin’s opera Der Sturm (‘The Tempest’) with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus live from the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, was awarded the International Classical Music Award in the opera category.

Fischer has also recorded for ASV and Chandos, and his recording on Deutsche Grammophon of Frank Martin with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe was nominated for a Gramophone Award.

Fischer started out as Principal Flute in Hamburg and at the Zurich Opera. His conducting career began in his 30s when he replaced an ailing colleague, subsequently directing his first few concerts with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe where he was Principal Flute under Claudio Abbado.

He spent his apprentice years in Holland, and became Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Ulster Orchestra 2001–6. He was Chief Conductor of the Nagoya Philharmonic 2008–2011, making his Suntory Hall debut in Tokyo in May 2010, and is now Honorary Guest Conductor.

Tonight’s Players Mark van de Wiel*

Steve Burnard

Andrew Zolinsky

clarinet

viola

piano

Alexandra Wood

Caroline Dearnley

Iain Farrington

violin

cello

harmonium

Joan Atherton*

Enno Senft*

David Hockings*

violin

bass

percussion

supported by Anthony Mackintosh *London Sinfonietta Principal Players

The London Sinfonietta is grateful to Justin Cockett from the Bromley and District Amateur Radio Society for providing the radio used on stage in this evening’s performance.

London Sinfonietta making new music The London Sinfonietta is one of the world’s leading contemporary music ensembles with a reputation built on the virtuosity of its performances and ambitious programming. It is committed to placing new music at the heart of contemporary culture and continually pushing boundaries, regularly undertaking projects with choreographers, video artists, film-makers, electronica artists, jazz and folk musicians. The ensemble is Resident Orchestra at Southbank Centre with its headquarters at Kings Place.

The London Sinfonietta’s pioneering young artist programmes include Blue Touch Paper, a scheme which promotes the next generation of partnerships across a variety of artistic disciplines; Writing the Future, a programme which enables young composers to work with London Sinfonietta musicians as they make new music; and the London Sinfonietta Academy, which gives the UK’s finest young musicians the opportunity to come together to further their performance experience and training in an intensive week-long course.

Famed for its commitment to the creation of new music, the London Sinfonietta has commissioned over 300 works since its foundation in 1968, and premiered many hundreds more. World and UK premieres in 2012/13 include, among others, Steve Reich’s Radio Rewrite (a London Sinfonietta cocommission), David Fennessy’s 13 Factories (UK premiere), Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen’s Run (world-premiere) and Renewal by Luke Bedford (London Sinfonietta commission).

The London Sinfonietta Label and releases on NMC Recordings and Signum Records present a recordings catalogue of the finest new music performed by the London Sinfonietta. The latest releases include the New Music Show, Thomas Adès: In Seven Days, Jonathan Harvey: Bird Concerto with Pianosong and Louis Andriessen: Anaïs Nin/De Staat.

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Photo: © Briony Campbell

Photo: © Briony Campbell

The London Sinfonietta Academy is central to the London Sinfonietta’s commitment to working with young musicians. A week-long summer course enables 30 students and three conductors from across the UK to learn skills specific to performing new music from the ensemble’s Principal Players. The London Sinfonietta Academy 2013 will be conducted by world-renowned composer, conductor and performer George Benjamin, and culminate in a public performance on Sunday 14 July. Keep an eye on our website and social media channels to find out how to reserve tickets.

Photo: © Briony Campbell

Now in its third year, the London Sinfonietta’s Writing the Future scheme continues to pair composers with London Sinfonietta Principal Players to develop new chamber compositions, as well as encouraging creative cross-artform collaborations with students at Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design.

An open call has just been announced for this year’s scheme which will focus on The New Music Show on Sunday 8 December, London Sinfonietta’s festival-in-a-day featuring live performances, installations, talks and opportunities for audiences to get involved. For more information, visit londonsinfonietta.org.uk/writing-future or email now@londonsinfonietta.org.uk

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The ground-breaking Blue Touch Paper programme continues into another round of developing inventive cross-artform work. This year, composer Edward Jessen worked with director Joseph Alford, composer Luke Carver Goss worked with writer Jacob Polley, and composer Dan Stern worked with set designer Aurelian Koch. Their works received their preview performance on Tuesday 14 May at Village Underground in London.

Visit londonsinfonietta.org.uk/blue-touch-paper for more information.

Get closer to the London Sinfonietta and contemporary classical music with activities that give you the opportunity to create, curate and perform with a world-class ensemble. The KX Collective, a dynamic group of young people from Kings Cross and surrounding areas, continue to create and perform new music, collaborate with professional musicians, produce events and find out about music being made today.

As part of the Steve Reich: Radio Rewrite tour in March 2013, the London Sinfonietta presented a Repeating Patterns Schools Concert, produced by, and for, young people. With nearly 2000 pupils at the Royal Festival Hall, the KX Collective performed their new composition ReReich, inspired by the music of Steve Reich. Members of the London Sinfonietta performed other works by Reich including Electric Counterpoint, which features on the GCSE curriculum.

For further details of future opportunities, visit londonsinfonietta.org.uk/together or email together@londonsinfonietta.org.uk

On Sunday 15 September, the London Sinfonietta performs James Tenney’s Postal Pieces at Kings Place Festival and we’re inviting you to be a part of the concert. Tenney’s pieces consist of notated music or simple text instructions on individual postcards. Now it’s your turn to be inspired. RSVP with your own idea on a postcard, we’ll select the most promising pieces and premiere them alongside our performance of Tenney’s Postal Pieces that evening.

Find out more and RSVP at londonsinfonietta.org.uk/rsvp

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The London Sinfonietta is a registered charity and relies on the considerable generosity of many trusts, foundations and individuals to continue to create and perform outstanding new music.

A gift of £1,000 and above per year will support one of our world-class Principal Players for a season and give you a close connection with the performing ensemble.

London Sinfonietta Pioneers

Your support, at any level, is enormously valuable to the London Sinfonietta and all Pioneers enjoy an engaging relationship with the ensemble, with regular opportunities to meet our players and attend specific supporters’ events.

Do you share our passion for new music?

Join the London Sinfonietta Pioneers and you will play a crucial role in making new music happen. Membership starts from just £35 per year (less than £3 per month) and will support all areas of the London Sinfonietta’s new musicmaking and help us to remain at the forefront of contemporary classical music.

Photos: © Kevin Leighton

You might like to direct your support to a major new commission with an annual gift of £200 and above and gain an insight into the creative commissioning process. Recent Pioneer supported commissions have included In Broken Images by Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Radio Rewrite by Steve Reich.

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Help us continue to lead the way, sparking the greatest innovations in music and nurturing the best musical talent as we go. Become a Pioneer today and help us make new music happen.

Find out more by contacting our Development team on 020 7329 9340, by emailing pioneers@londonsinfonietta.org.uk or visiting londonsinfonietta.org.uk/pioneers

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London Sinfonietta Patrons and Pioneers Honorary Patrons John Bird Sir Harrison Birtwistle Alfred Brendel KBE Sir George Christie CH

Lead Pioneers Sir Richard Arnold Trevor Cook Susan Grollet in memory of Mark Grollet Leo and Regina Hepner Penny Jonas Anthony Mackintosh Belinda Matthews Robert & Nicola McFarland Michael & Patricia McLaren-Turner Sir Stephen Oliver QC

Nick & Claire Prettejohn Richard Thomas & Caroline Cowie Paul & Sybella Zisman

Creative Pioneers Ian Baker Andrew Burke Robert Clark Jeremy & Yvonne Clarke Rachel Coldicutt Susan Costello Anton Cox Dennis Davis Deborah Golden Patrick Hall Nicolas Hodgson Andrew Hunt Maurice & Jean Jacobs Frank & Linda Jeffs Alana Lowe-Petraske

Jane McAusland Stephen Morris Julie Nicholls Simon Osborne Patricia O’Sullivan Geoff Peace Ruth Rattenbury Dennis Stevenson Iain Stewart Anne Stoddart Sally Taylor Barry Tennison David & Jenni Wake Walker Estela Welldon John Wheatley Jane Williams Stephen Williamson Michelle Wright Plus those generous Pioneers who prefer to remain anonymous

London Sinfonietta is immensely grateful to the following trusts and foundations for their support: Arts Council England The Aaron Copland Fund for Music The Angus Allnatt Charitable Trust The Boltini Trust The British Council The Britten Pears Foundation The Derek Butler Trust The City of London Corporation’s City Bridge Trust Columbia Foundation Fund of the London Community Foundation The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust Fidelio Charitable Trust The Goldsmith’s Company Charity The John Ellerman Foundation

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Esmée Fairbairn Foundation Fenton Arts Trust The Holst Foundation Jerwood Charitable Foundation The Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation The Leche Trust The Leverhulme Trust The Marple Charitable Trust Musicians Benevolent Fund PRS for Music Foundation RVW Trust The Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation Youth Music

London Sinfonietta Board of Directors

Administration

Paul Zisman

Andrew Burke

Chairman

Chief Executive

Andrew Burke Rachel Coldicutt Ian Dearden David Hockings Penny Jonas Alana Lowe-Petraske Belinda Matthews Philip Meaden Sir Stephen Oliver QC Matthew Pike Paul Silverthorne Sally Taylor

Sarah Tennant Head of Concert Production

Natalie Marchant

Freelance and Consultant Staff Hal Hutchison Concerts Manager

Lesley Wynne Orchestra Personnel Manager

Concerts & Touring Administrator

Julie Nicholls

Tina Speed

Michelle Wright for Cause4

Participation and Learning Manager

Fundraising Consultant

Shoubhik Bandopadhyay

Public Relations

Consultant Accountant

sounduk

Participation and Learning Assistant

Claire Barton Development Manager

Amy Forshaw Senior Marketing Officer

Claire Lampon

London Sinfonietta is grateful to its accountants: Martin Greene Ravden LLP and its auditors MGR Audit Limited for their ongoing support.

Marketing & Development Assistant

Elizabeth Davies Head of Administration and Finance

Viktoria Mark Finance Assistant

James Joslin Administrative Assistant

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Stockhausen: Gruppen

Darkness and Light: Haas’ in vain

The New Music Show 2013

Sunday 6 October 6pm Royal Festival Hall

Friday 6 December 8pm Queen Elizabeth Hall

Sunday 8 December from 12pm Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room

Leading exponents of the Darmstadt School from the early 1950s–1960s, Stockhausen and Nono were influenced at that time by the uncompromising serial techniques of the Second Viennese School.

Both, however, were of a generation that strived to reshape their musical world after the horrors of the Second World War.

Georg Friedrich Haas’ in vain, written in 2000, is an exploration of a musical sound outside the standard tonal system of composition, and an adventure for the listener. As well as the microtonal harmonic soundworld that pervades the work, the normal concert experience is altered for the audience and the performers, as parts of the performance are given in pitchblack, according to a series of carefully planned lighting changes that alter and heighten the listener’s senses. This extraordinary work has been performed many times in Europe and now has its much awaited premiere in London.

Whilst Nono’s technique was combined with an impassioned political ideology following his alliance with the Italian Communist Party, Stockhausen’s Gruppen is a masterpiece of musical imagination inspired by the rise and fall of the Graubünder Alps, visible from his window. An intensely original soundworld, the piece features three independent orchestras each with their own conductor, who pass swarms of sound between them in a thrilling concert experience.

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Photo: © Kevin Leighton

Photo: © Kevin Leighton

Photo: © Briony Campbell

Upcoming London Sinfonietta concerts at Southbank Centre

As part of the culmination of Southbank Centre’s year-long The Rest Is Noise series, we bring the music bang up to date with our festival-in-a-day featuring world, UK and London premieres from composers including Francisco Coll and Edmund Finnis.

Hidden returns – a series of intimate solo performances in secret spaces around the site – and the day will also feature two discussions curated by the Royal Philharmonic Society, focusing on the future of contemporary classical music. Speakers include Charlotte Higgins, chief arts writer for The Guardian, composer George Benjamin and writer Tom Service.

Presented by the London Sinfonietta as part of Southbank Centre’s The Rest is Noise, inspired by Alex Ross’ book The Rest is Noise.

Presented by the London Sinfonietta as part of Southbank Centre’s The Rest is Noise, inspired by Alex Ross’ book The Rest is Noise.

Presented by the London Sinfonietta as part of Southbank Centre’s The Rest is Noise, inspired by Alex Ross’ book The Rest is Noise.

£15, £25 (£4.50 students, £6.50 U26)

£10, £20 (£4.50 students, £6.50 U26)

£20 day ticket (£4.50 students, £6.50 U26)

Phone 0844 847 9940 Online southbankcentre.co.uk

Phone 0844 847 9940 Online southbankcentre.co.uk

Phone 0844 847 9940 Online southbankcentre.co.uk

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