2021/22 SEASON CONCERT PROGRAMME
THEN & NOW Sunday 6 February 2022, 7.45pm Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall
THEN & NOW Sunday 6 February 2022, 7.45pm Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall Luke Lewis The Echoes Return Slow (world premiere) Interval Alicia Jane Turner Tell me when you get home (world premiere) Ella Taylor soprano Sian Edwards conductor Luke Lewis electronics Imogen Knight movement director (Tell me when you get home) Claire Childs lighting designer Phoebe Robinson sound designer Simon Clode video artist (The Echoes Return Slow) Simon Hendry recording engineer London Sinfonietta Michael McCarthy mentor to Luke Lewis Tansy Davies mentor to Alicia Jane Turner Lucy Bailey mentor to Alicia Jane Turner This concert will be preceded by a pre-concert talk with composer Luke Lewis and Michael McCarthy, hosted by Zoë Martlew in the Purcell Room at 7pm. Zoë will also host a post-concert talk with composer Alicia Jane Turner and Liv Wynter after the concert, also in the Purcell Room The London Sinfonietta is grateful to Arts Council England for its generous support of the ensemble, as well as the many other individuals, trusts and businesses who enable us to realise our ambitions. The work of the London Sinfonietta is supported by the John Ellerman Foundation, and the London Sinfonietta's Writing the Future programme is generously supported by Michael and Patricia McLarenTurner, The Boltini Trust, Jerwood Arts, PRS for Music Foundation, The Stanley Thomas Johnson Music Foundation, with the friendly support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. This performance is supported by the Southbank Centre, and Luke Lewis' work is produced in association with Music Theatre Wales.
WELCOME Welcome to tonight’s event and thanks for coming We are proud to be presenting these two new pieces by Luke Lewis and Alicia Jane Turner. Both have gone on a huge journey to make these pieces and it’s been a privilege to share their artistic journey towards tonight. Along side two others (Alex Paxton and Nwando Ebizie), Luke and Alicia are on our Writing the Future programme which offers a chance to make work that extends a composer’s practice and also challenges and extends possibilities for the London Sinfonietta. In the work towards tonight both composers have provoked for us some important conversations within the organisation that will inform our future practice – and I trust and hope that the opportunity we have given to them has supported their growth as artists. I’m grateful to our guest performers tonight – Ella Taylor and Sian Edwards in particular – as well as Simon Clode who has helped with the video in Luke’s piece. In addition the team of mentors and advisors who have given invaluable advice and support to the composers in shaping their work from the start. Making new work in this way is central to the London Sinfonietta’s purpose, and I’m grateful to those individuals and trusts who share that view and have given financial support to this project and our work this season. In addition, as ever, we are hugely grateful to Arts Council for their investment in our organisation. Please consider joining this group – there are many ways to support the London Sinfonietta and the new work we make. Andrew Burke Chief Executive and Artistic Director
Welcome to the Southbank Centre. We hope you enjoy your visit. We have a Duty Manager available at all times. If you have any queries, please ask a member of staff for assistance. Eating, drinking and shopping? Take in the views over food and drinks at the Riverside Terrace Cafe, Level 2, Royal Festival Hall. Visit our shops for products inspired by our great cultural experiences, iconic buildings and central London location. Explore across the site with Beany Green, Côte Brasserie, Foyles, Giraffe, Honest Burger, Las Iguanas, Le Pain Quotidien, Ping Pong, Pret, Strada, Skylon, Slice, Spiritland, wagamama and Wahaca. If you wish to get in touch with us following your visit, please write to the Visit Contact Team at Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX, or email customer@southbankcentre.co.uk We look forward to seeing you again soon. Southbank Centre
Did you enjoy this concert? Let us know by filling in this short survey:
WHAT WE DO NEW MUSIC FOR NEW AUDIENCES The London Sinfonietta always strives to extend its reach to more people with the inspiring sound of new music. This season we are encouraging everyone to Take Your Place back with us in our live and online work. It's a season with a lot of new work - 24 commissions and world premieres - as well as events which celebrate powerful pieces from our past repertoire. The new work includes music from different genres - from contemporary classical to jazz and experimental - and collaborations with different art forms including video, animation, theatre and literature. We will also be releasing new monthly content on our London Sinfonietta Digital Channel including a regular series of performance films, videos about new music and podcasts.
"It helped me realise anyone can be a composer – even a pupil!" Pupil response to Sound Out 2019
MUSIC IN SCHOOLS AND THE COMMUNITY The London Sinfonietta was the first ensemble in the UK to launch a dedicated music education programme. This pioneering spirit has continued and flourished ever since, expanding to include regular performances and workshops with members of the public. One such project includes Sound Out, which facilitates groups of young people to enter the fascinating world of new music and learn more about how to compose, putting it into practice by interacting with London Sinfonietta musicians who seek to encourage and inspire the next generation of creative artists. During the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, we developed the programme to work online with a new set of video Composition Challenges. Schools from around the UK have taken part, extending our reach to 12,000 young people.
LONDON SINFONIETTA CHANNEL Experience the best of the London Sinfonietta streamed directly to your device from the London Sinfonietta Channel.
DEVELOPING TALENT The London Sinfonietta supports emerging talent with its year-round programmes for composers, conductors and performers, giving early-career artists the opportunity to develop new skills and contacts as they establish themselves in the professional arena. Our composer development scheme, Writing the Future, seeks to create new pieces of music that expand the chamber music format, and is open to music creators from all cultural and musical backgrounds who are passionate about their art form and would like the opportunity to apply that experience to writing for a contemporary music ensemble. The London Sinfonietta Academy provides sideby-side coaching and performance opportunities to young musicians, culminating in a concert showcase. Find out more and apply online at londonsinfonietta.org.uk/academy
"It’s been very stimulating and I’ve got so much out of it. It’s a privilege to play next to London Sinfonietta players." Academy Participant July 2019
This season we’re bringing you monthly releases of new performance films, celebrating landmark works from the 20th and 21st century, including Tōru Takemitsu’s Rain Coming, Tania León’s Toque, Mica Levi’s Greezy and Steve Reich’s Violin Phase. For podcast lovers, Yet Unheard explores the experiences of black composers, hosted by Jumoké Fashola. Find out more at londonsinfonietta.org.uk/channel
THE ECHOES RETURN SLOW the start It’s little known that the ethnomusicologist and folksong collector Alan Lomax carried out fieldwork in the South Wales valleys. He’s arguably best known for recording the North American folk music that fed the folk revival of the 1960s, yet his interviewing of former miners in Treorchy Miners Club in 1953 offers a remarkable insight into a now extinct way of life. While Lomax has to be commended for saving the stories and songs the miners set down on tape for future generations, a dispiriting absence from the fieldwork is that of women. Of course, when we think of ‘mines’ we think immediately of ‘miners’ who we automatically imagine are men, even though some women did work in the mines. Away from the mining itself, the work done by women on the surface was as vital as that of the workers underground. The work was predominantly unpaid domestic labour – shopping, cooking, laundry, raising the children – with some families managing to supplement household incomes with odd jobs, sewing, or taking on extra laundry. They were not completely disconnected from the subterranean work, however, generally repairing and cleaning the miners’ work clothes, often well into the nights. The need to bring attention to this forgotten workforce was seen by the London Women’s Film Group, whose associates Mary Capps, Margaret Dickinson, Brigid Edwards, Mary Kelly, Esther Ronay, Susan Shapiro and Humphry Trevelyan combined forces to make ‘Women of the Rhondda’ (1973). This 20-minute documentary was among the first feminist films shot in the UK. Where Lomax’s recordings occurred in a noisy drinking hall, the Women of the Rhondda recordings are calmly radical in the uncomplicated way the four subjects are interviewed; in their own homes sitting on floral-
patterned sofas with mantelpieces topped with family photos. They pull no punches, however, being incisively articulate with opinions sharpened by the thinking time that hours and hours of lonely repetitive work in the home allows. It’s worth noting that the loneliness was something that struck me on getting to know these recordings; with children old enough to be in school and men amidst the camaraderie of the mine, women would spend most of the working day alone with perhaps just a radio for company. the middle The way these oral histories relate to The Echoes Return Slow is that everything the ensemble plays is a transcription of song or speech from the two sources. And, on top of this music, we’ll hear the interviews. Whilst musical transcription is a fairly common idea, speech transcription is less common, but essentially the same principle applies where you listen to a passage of speech and write down in musical notation the pitch and rhythmic content, as well as any interesting features. As you’d imagine, speech is somewhat more complex than music, musically speaking, and so it’s helpful to use computer software to slow down recordings and isolate the particular pitches someone has used on particular syllables and the unique phrasings and inflections of a specific person. It’s worth noting, too, that you often realise someone has been speaking in a musical key, or using only a few intervals, or that one phrase in a sentence is, in its rhythms or pitches, a variation of another. But while it seems something of a clinical, almost scientific, means to get music material, the complexities of the starting material mean it’s very much an art, not a science, and a task where one makes choices about what to prioritise. Quite how detailed you make the transcription is a real question too. You can think of how most folk songs you might buy in a book of ‘traditional tunes’ are written very simply (just
crotchets and quavers, in musical speak) but in reality would never be sung so austerely. My goal in this piece was to bring into the transcription as much detail as possible, yet keeping the notation within the realms of playability – to bring into the composition all the rhythmic details and harmonic inflections (read: the singer being out of tune), the ‘grain of the voice’, if you like. For example, there’s a song (listed as ‘Unidentified Welsh Ballad’ in the Lomax archive) sung by Tom Thomas (according to Lomax’s notes, ‘76, small, bald, rosy, grey-haired’, and the miner you’ll hear first) that the ensemble ‘learns’ through the course of the work. Thomas’s poor intonation is not ignored, but brought right into the harmonic vocabulary of the piece: an F# that’s very often sung flat. the end All this – the music and the speech/singing – comes together to form the work. The various stories of both archives have guided the loose narrative and the transcriptions have given the ensemble its music. There are times when the ensemble is playing music derived entirely from the speech that plays above it, other times when the situation is more complex and layered, where someone is accompanied perhaps by a song we are yet to hear that might chime with the current speech. In all, the men and women talk of good times and bad, characters notable for being ‘friends of the working man’ or in one instance someone who’d be lynched should he visit Tonypandy, of a society split down the middle by gender, of their hopes and dreams, and of arguing for better pay and conditions. In the end, though, these are universal topics. They’re as relevant to South Wales now as they were then. As relevant to South Wales as they are to anywhere in the world. The key thing is that for all their topical differences and a 20-year age gap, the two archives share a huge amount. My work, in the end, is really what happened when I
let them commune with one another, with the hope that perhaps they might together speak to something even greater. overall form PART 1 1. Prologue: 'there was this lovely green...' 2. Tom Thomas fires off 3. Refrain: Benny Baish and the Pitrope 4. John Edwards, from seven till half-past four 5. The Song of Tom Thomas, pt. 1 PART 2 6. The Song of Tom Thomas, pt.2 7. Blacklung 8. Refrain: Railroad and the Chickens PART 3 9. Little Golden Ring 10. Tonypandy 11. Epilogue: The Song of Tom Thomas, pt. 3 acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the kind support of the New College Ludwig Research Fund for the Humanities. Recordings from Alan Lomax Collection at the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. Courtesy of the Association for Cultural Equity. With special thanks to Nathan Salsburg. Recordings from ‘Women of the Rhondda’ (1973) used with permission from Margaret Dickinson, Brigid Edwards, and Humphry Trevelyan, who I thank enormously. Images uses with permission from National Library of Wales and National Museum of Wales. Images used with permission from the University of South Wales. Thank you to Dr Nathan Thomas, Dr David Kidner, and Iain Shewring. Luke Lewis
TELL ME WHEN YOU GET HOME Content warning: discussion of rape culture, sexual violence and misogyny “It is frightening to acknowledge patriarchy’s violence. But until we acknowledge it, we cannot begin to imagine other possibilities. Witches are healers. But we cannot heal our culture unless we admit it’s sick. In her steady gaze toward the darkness, her fearless acknowledgement of life’s pain and terror, the witch’s power is born.” - Jude Doyle, Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers This was a difficult piece to write. But it was something I’ve felt compelled to do for many years after the countless conversations I’ve had with friends of marginalised genders about the fear so many of us have felt walking home alone at night. We shouldn’t have to make fake phone calls, hold our keys between our fingers and ask male friends to come and walk us home, and I wanted to talk about the experiences of living with the ever-present threat of violence openly through my work as a composer. It felt particularly important to write this in the operatic form, a form in which there is rampant misogyny and violence in its canon written by men, that doesn’t address the trauma of violence. I wanted to write something that reflects on what the processing of trauma is actually like. To externalise something that is so often internalised and held in the body, and release it out into the open through voice. I wrote the libretto in 2020, and in 2021 we saw the heartbreaking deaths of so many women at the hands of violent men in the news. I attended the protests and vigils to pay my respects to those who had lost their lives and to protest against male violence and state violence, and was overcome with emotion seeing a placard at one that said “Text me when you get home”. This is of course tragically, nothing new and something people of marginalised genders have always lived with, particularly for trans people,
Black people, people of colour and LGBTQ+ people who are most at risk of violence. This in an epidemic in our society, that so deeply needs to be addressed and spoken about, and through the bleakness, the sadness, it spurred me on to finish this piece. All the text that forms the first two sections of this piece - the advice given to avoid sexual violence and the street harassment phrases - are taken from real advice given by police and from self defence guides, and the cat-calls I and others have shared online that they’ve experienced. It felt important to me that these sections begin the piece, to firmly draw the links between state violence, street harassment and sexual violence. They are all deeply connected with each other, and I believe to dismantle the epidemic of sexual violence against people of marginalised genders, there has to be acknowledgement from those in positions of power and our wider society overall, that this is not a series of isolated incidents, or the case of “bad apples”. It comes from an environment of toxic rape culture that is in the very rotten core of our society. It’s a stark reality, and I wanted to create something that unflinchingly speaks to this stark reality of what living under this fear is like, in the hope that it can create a space for shared release. To scream out in a shared space as a community of musicians and audience members and exorcise our sadness and our rage, rather than screaming internally, alone, into the void. The second half of this piece was inspired by historical gendered representations of hysterical madness and monstrosity. I wanted to take the monstrous femme figures we find littered throughout mythology and run with it, bringing these figures into the present day as dramatic representations of the fear at the root of patriarchy, its collapse. The character at the centre of this piece manifests the figure of the
witch, a figure that can be both a monster and a healer, a figure of resistance to patriarchal order, and turns the fear we have of walking home alone at night into this fear at the root of patriarchy. Its collapse through our collective power to resist, challenge systems of oppression and enact change. To burn it down to the ground. As a survivor, this piece is the story I want to tell. That is difficult, that is honest, that is challenging, that is messy. Sexual violence and how we process this is so difficult, challenging and messy. But I believe that when, and if we feel able to (as there is never any rush and we must go at our own pace) externalising this and sharing our experiences, our fears, our feelings, our thoughts, can create a space for catharsis, hope and healing. In this piece, the character acknowledges the pain and terror of sexual violence, stares out into the darkness, and finds their power. This piece is dedicated to all survivors of sexual violence. My eternal thanks go to everyone that has supported me along the way whilst writing this piece, Tansy Davies, Lucy Bailey, my collaborators, the team at the London Sinfonietta, Pip Williams and Louise Orwin. Alicia Jane Turner
Helplines & Support: Survivors Network: 01273 203380 Survivors Trust: 08088 010818 Galop: 0800 999 5428 (National LGBT+ Domestic Abuse & Hate Crimes) 020 7704 2040 (LGBT+ Hate Crime Helpline) Rape Crisis: 0808 802 9999 London Survivor’s Gateway: 0808 801 0860 Refuge: 0808 2000 247
WRITING THE FUTURE
Since it was established in 1968, the London Sinfonietta has commissioned over 450 pieces of new music. From working with the best emerging and established composers, to collaborating with artists from other genres and disciplines, and bringing music outside of the concert hall to clubs, art galleries and public spaces, we constantly push the boundaries of what an ensemble can be. Writing the Future is an open-call programme which supports emerging composers and music creators through the process of making new music with the ensemble, using techniques such as immersive staging, speech transcription, and tapestry as compositional inspiration over a two-year period. Our four composers for the current round of Writing The Future (2019-22) are Nwando Ebizie, Luke Lewis, Alex Paxton and Alicia Jane Turner. Join us on Thursday 31 March at the Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall for the premiere of Alex Paxton's kaleidoscopic work Candyfolk SpaceDrum, alongside a new piece by George Lewis.
TELL ME WHEN YOU GET HOME Libretto Alicia Jane Turner Part 1. The Night Time Make sure your phone is easily accessible Avoid dimly lit places Exercise situational awareness Carry a small noisemaker Try not to leave your drink unattended Take responsibility for your safety Take a self defence course Be hyper vigilant of your surroundings Being intoxicated never helps Walk confidently Pay attention Take your headphones out Do not go out at night unless absolutely necessary, and only if accompanied by a man you know Taking a risk when it comes to walking alone at night is not one of those things we should be doing Women who walk alone especially at night are at risk of harassment Don’t make them wrong, don’t disrespect them, don’t challenge them, don’t try to control them, don’t threaten them, don’t fight them Your violence of action has to be more than the violence of action coming at you So ask yourself What am I willing and capable of doing with my hands? Am I going to rip out eyeballs? Am I going to strike the throat? Do I have my keys? How am I going to hold those keys? Have I ever hit anything with my keys before? Hello darling Sweetheart
Beautiful You’re looking lovely tonight You are a pretty girl aren’t you What’s under that dress? I’d take you home in a heartbeat Come on, smile Turn around, I’m talking to you What’s the matter? I don’t bite I just want to talk to you Don’t you think you owe me something? You should feel special Why don’t you look at me? I could watch you all day You’re a screamer aren’t you? That must be a pretty picture You dropping to your knees Bet you’re tight aren’t you? Come on give us a show You’re just asking for it, aren’t you? I’d break you in half I’d split you sideways You got a boyfriend? Come here Come look at this view When do your legs open? The things I’d do to you You’re into freaky stuff aren’t you? God what I’d do to get a bite FUCK YOU you’re not that pretty I know your type You think you’re the hottest shit around Conceited slut You think you’re something special? Don’t wear it if you don’t want me to look Hey bitch I’m talking to you Come on, you know you want to Where are you trying to go today? It isn’t safe for you to be going home alone You’re too hot to be walking alone What, you don’t see me? Why are you walking away? Get back here
No need to run Careful, never know who’s out at night What are you afraid of? What am I willing and capable of doing with my hands? It’s dark tonight Isn’t it In here Out there They always say Try to Remember It’s dark tonight Isn’t it A vibration, a message “Tell me when you get home.” I lost track of time I always do You look down, it’s past midnight Polluted light faded Air thick with navy The wine warms my veins Swirling in my belly It was nice to see them, wasn’t it We do have our fun, don’t we Step Step Step I hope I wasn’t embarrassing Step Step Step Maybe I shouldn’t have said that Step Step Step Probably drank too much wine Step Step Step Then an echo
A shadow That must be me? Step Step Step An echo You sense it then Right in the pit of your belly Heart slamming your ribs Breath quickening Racing Racing Go with your gut Go with it Cross the street The echo crosses with you Don’t turn around Do I have my keys? How am I going to hold those keys? Have I ever hit anything with my keys before? Step Step Step Don’t turn around Don’t… I feel something touch my hair Is it the wind or… No that’s, that’s… An untold hand A fist pulling My legs crumble Bones creaking And I fall down The ground is rough and wet Concrete sandpaper Scratching my cheeks Grazing my knees I reach out to hold it Hold onto it This slippery pavement Hold onto it
And I slip away Slip across the sandpaper Laddering my tights I turn on my side And watch the parked cars sat still As I am in motion Just the wheels in my vision Arm sockets freed I lie still What am I willing and capable of doing with my hands? Am I going to rip out eyeballs? Am I going to strike the throat? Am I? I… Play dead Dead behind the eyes Don’t fight it Don’t make them wrong Just stare at the wheels Just think about the ground Don’t fight it Don’t disrespect them That flat mass holding you in this moment Don’t fight it Don’t challenge them How shiny are the wheels How much dirt is splashed across them Don’t fight it Don’t try to control them I wonder who this car belongs to I’ve never owned a car Don’t fight it Don’t threaten them It’s really too expensive in the city Don’t think about…. I’ve never driven a car anyway Don’t think about…. Maybe I should have learnt to drive Don’t think about… I’m probably too old to learn now Don’t think about…
Don’t think about… Don’t fight it Don’t fight it Don’t… Don’t… Just be still Still Silent Play dead Play dead As the night closes in Drowning me in TV static Sift through it Swim into a place I do not know Sink into the blank Guts spilling over It twists and shakes Shaking Shaking Float Float After All of it I open my eyes I watch the figure with no face Pour liquid all over me Thick and dark Chemical omens Pulling at the hairs on my arms The stench filling my nostrils Trickling into the corners of my mouth And then The strike of a match But the fire never comes Something has changed Shifted Shaking Float Float
Part 2. The Witch Play fucking dead And the witch speaks Did you really think you could burn me? Terror belongs to me Because you know so well I am willing I am capable I can rip out eyeballs I can strike the throat You’re just asking for it, aren’t you? Come now darling, what are you afraid of? That we’ll seek revenge? Hunt you down Drop the match at your feet Turn the tables til they disintegrate to dust What are you afraid of? Afraid of chaos Afraid we’ll make too much noise The threat of exposure Feasting on your downfall Unmasked, humiliated Shattering shame A savage witch hunt She’s a LIAR She’s a LIAR LOCK HER UP She’s a monster She’s a monster I can be whoever you want me to be I can be your monster The monster on stage tonight A nasty woman Inside and out I’d break you in half Take responsibility for your safety I can be your banshee You’re a screamer aren’t you? Carry a small noisemaker I can be your ghost
Hiding in dark corners Avoid dimly lit places I can be your vampire A hideous hunger What’s the matter? I don’t bite I can be your carnivorous mermaid Stripping flesh from bones I’d split you sideways Take a self defence course I can be your reckoning The abominations of the earth Be hyper vigilant of your surroundings Why does she keep interrupting everybody? I can be your end of days Drunk with blood and lust You’re into freaky stuff aren’t you? Exercise situational awareness I can shut my legs I can spread them wide When do your legs open? I can spread them really fucking wide Do not go out at night unless absolutely necessary I can be your virgin I’ve been waiting for you She’s asking for it I can be your temptress Don’t dress like a slut Get out of her before she gets you Your violence of action has to be more than the violence of action coming at you What, you don’t see me? Why are you walking away? Get back here No need to run Careful, never know who’s out at night What are you afraid of? “Thanks for a lovely evening, I’m home now.”
BIOGRAPHIES
LUKE LEWIS
ALICIA JANE TURNER
Luke Lewis is a composer, arranger and conductor.
Alicia Jane Turner is a composer, sound designer and performance artist whose work spans contemporary theatre, live art and new classical music.
Mainly instrumental, sometimes electronic, and occasionally both, his music has been performed and commissioned internationally by ensembles such as the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, London Sinfonietta, Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen, Esbjerg Ensemble and Orkest de Ereprijs. As an arranger and orchestrator in the pop world he's worked with artists like Gaz Coombes, Clean Bandit, Jane Weaver and Richard Walters in collaboration with everything from bespoke chamber ensembles to the BBC Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestras. He studied composition at the University of Salford under Joe Duddell and later with Hans Abrahamsen at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. He also holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford where he was funded by the AHRC. For a time mentored by the late Steve Martland, he made the composer the focus of his doctoral work. Alongside this he is Stipendiary Lecturer in Music at New College, University of Oxford teaching primarily composition, orchestration and music analysis. In his spare time he plays jazz guitar in a couple of bands and tends to the garden.
Their practice focuses on the raw, visceral affectivity of sound in interdisciplinary performance, specialising in live scoring contemporary and experimental theatre productions. They create and collaborate on provocative, political and fiercely vulnerable projects through an intersectional feminist, queer lens. Both guttural and ethereal, their compositions fuse the textures of noise and ambient music through classical instrumentation and electronics to create intricately layered, multi-sensory pieces. In their research they interrogate the relationship between sound, affect and gender, and how sound and light works to generate atmospheres in sensorial encounters with contemporary theatre. They are a PhD candidate researching sound design, lighting design and gender in contemporary theatre and performance at Queen Mary University of London.
SIAN EDWARDS
ELLA TAYLOR
conductor
soprano
Sian Edwards studied at the RNCM and with Professor A.I. Musin at the Leningrad Conservatoire. She is Head of Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music. She has worked with many of the world’s leading orchestras including Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland, Orchestre de Paris, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Berlin Symphony, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, MDR Leipzig, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Royal Flanders Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, the Hallé, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. She has a close relationship with Ensemble Modern in Germany.
Winner of Second Prize at the 2020 Kathleen Ferrier Awards, Ella Taylor is a soprano with a passion for performing contemporary music and works by women and gender non-conforming artists. A former BBC Chorister of the Year, they graduated from the Royal Academy of Music, where they gained Distinction in MA Performance, a DipRAM for an outstanding final recital and the Charles Norman Prize. During 2019 / 2020, they were a member of London’s National Opera Studio.
She has worked at all the major UK opera houses and made her operatic debut in 1986 conducting Weill’s Mahagonny for Scottish Opera and her ROH debut in 1988 with Tippett’s The Knot Garden. From 1993 to 1995 she was Music Director of ENO for whom her repertoire included Khovanshchina, Jenufa, Queen of Spades and Blond Eckbert. Other operatic engagements include Munich, Opéra Comique, Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Vienna and Aspen.
Recent engagements have included Sparrow in Rylan Gleave’s Powder Down for Shadwell Opera’s Digital Commission Series, Josquin des Prez: Mille Regretz for English Touring Opera’s Spring 2021 Digital Season, Pierrot Lunaire with The Façade Ensemble and Momentum: Our Future, Now Recitals with Roderick Williams for the 2021 Brighton Festival and at Vinehall School. Engagements during 2021 / 2022 include Paris Paride ed Elena for Bampton Classical Opera, The Cock / Mrs Pasek The Cunning Little Vixen on tour with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Gerda in the première of Errolyn Wallen’s The Paradis Files for Graeae, Mozart Mass in C Minor with Opus 48 and Songs of Travel for Oxford Lieder. This is their debut with the London Sinfonietta.
LONDON SINFONIETTA The London Sinfonietta is one of the world’s leading contemporary music ensembles. Formed in 1968, our commitment to making new music has seen us commission over 450 works and premiere many hundreds more. Our ethos today is to constantly experiment with the art form, working with the best composers and performers and collaborating with artists from alternative genres and disciplines. We commit to challenging perceptions, provoking new possibilities and stretching our audiences’ imaginations, often working closely with them as creators, performers and curators of the events we stage. Resident at Southbank Centre and Artistic Associate at Kings Place, with a busy touring schedule, the London Sinfonietta’s core 18 Principal Players are some of the finest musicians in the world. As well as our commitment to reaching new audiences with world-class performances of new music, the organisation holds a leading position in education
work. We believe that arts participation is transformational to individuals and communities, and that new music is relevant to all our lives. These values are enacted through primary and secondary school concerts across the UK, interactive family events, and the annual London Sinfonietta Academy; an unparalleled opportunity for young performers and conductors to train with us. We have also broken new ground by launching a new digital Channel, featuring video programmes and podcasts about new music. Our Steve Reich’s Clapping Music App for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, a participatory rhythm game that has been downloaded over 500,000 times worldwide and is still inspiring users in places as far away as China and Japan. Adding to a significant back-catalogue of recordings dating back over 50 years, recent recordings include Ryan Latimer's NMC Debut Disc Antiarkie (NMC; 2021), Josep Maria Guix's Images of Broken Light (Neu Records; 2020), and Marius Neset’s Viaduct (ACT; 2019).
TONIGHT’S PLAYERS Karen Jones flute/alto flute Melinda Maxwell oboe Katie Lockhart clarinet/bass clarinet Zoë Tweed french horn Christian Barraclough flugelhorn Jonathan Morton* violin Jacqueline Shave violin Elizabeth Wexler violin Paul Silverthorne* viola Sally Pendlebury cello Clíodna Shanahan piano *London Sinfonietta Principal Player
STAY IN TOUCH Whatever your interest in new music – as a composer, performer, teacher, student, amateur musician, or as an audience member interested in contemporary arts – we welcome you to our community. Sign up to our mailing list to receive: • A fortnightly newsletter with concert information, announcements and digital content • Open calls for composers, musicians and public participants • Advance news of projects, recording releases and commissions To stay in touch, please sign up to our e-list: londonsinfonietta.org.uk/sign-up Or find us on social media by searching London Sinfonietta
SUPPORT US
We inspire audiences and involve the public in exciting sounds and performances. We spark imaginations and develop young people’s creativity. We train the next generation of performers and composers. We tell people’s stories. We make new music. By making a donation to the London Sinfonietta, you can help create world-class new music projects both onstage and online for audiences to enjoy all around the world. You can help us reach thousands of young people each year through our composition programmes in schools, and you can enable us to provide world-class training to the next generation of performers, composers and conductors. Fundraising accounts for 32% of our annual income. Without the generous support of individuals, sponsors and charitable trusts, we simply would not be able to achieve the scale of work that we are able to deliver with your help – inspiring a wide audience around the UK and internationally with the best music of today.
BECOME A PIONEER London Sinfonietta Pioneers provide a bedrock of support for all the work that we do – supporting all areas of the London Sinfonietta’s new music-making, and enabling us to reach an ever-wider audience with the music of today. And you'll gain a closer insight into our work, with access to open rehearsals and exclusive behind-the-scenes updates. London Sinfonietta Pioneer membership starts from just £50. Visit our website to find out more and join us in pioneering new music today. londonsinfonietta.org.uk/support-us
CURRENT SUPPORTERS London Sinfonietta would like to thank the following organisations and individuals for their support: TRUSTS AND FOUNDATIONS Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne, Aspinwall Educational Trust, Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust, Boltini Trust, Britten Pears Foundation (now Britten Pears Arts), Cockayne - Grants for the Arts, The D'Oyly Carte Charitable Trust, Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, Fenton Arts Trust, The Fidelio Charitable Trust, Garfield Weston Foundation, Golsoncott Foundation, The Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation, Hodge Foundation, Jerwood Arts, John Ellerman Foundation, The Leche Trust, Leverhulme Trust, The Lord and Lady Lurgan Trust, Lucille Graham Trust, The Marchus Trust, Michael Tippett Musical Foundation, The Nugee Foundation, PRS for Music Foundation, Rainbow Dickinson Trust, RVW Trust, Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation, Steven R. Gerber Trust, Summerfield Charitable Trust, UK Antarctic Heritage Trust HONORARY PATRONS David Atherton OBE John Bird Sir Harrison Birtwistle Alfred Brendel KBE Gillian Moore MBE Nicholas Snowman OBE ENTREPRENEURS Mark & Grace Benson Sir Vernon Ellis Annabel Graham Paul Penny Jonas Anthony Mackintosh Robert McFarland Michael & Patricia McLaren-Turner Stephen & Dawn Oliver Matthew Pike Nick & Claire Prettejohn Paul & Sybella Zisman The London Sinfonietta Council SINFONIETTA CIRCLE Andrew Burke Susan Costello Dennis Davis Regis Gautier-Cochefert Susan Grollet John Hodgson Charlotte Morgan Diane V. Silverthorne Andy Spiceley
Fiona Thompson Paul & Sybella Zisman ARTISTIC PIONEERS Sharon Ament Anton Cox Nicholas Hodgson Philip Meaden Simon Osborne CREATIVE PIONEERS Ian Baker Ariane Bankes Frances Bryant Andrew Burke Jeremy & Yvonne Clarke Dennis Davis Richard & Carole Fries John Goodier Patrick Hall Chris Heathcote Simon Heilbron Andrew Hunt Frank & Linda Jeffs Walter A. Marlowe Belinda Matthews Stephen Morris Andrew Nash Julie Nicholls Richard Price Malcolm Reddihough Iain Stewart Susan Sturrock Mark Thomas Fenella Warden Jane Williams Plus those generous Lead, Artistic and Creative Pioneers who prefer to remain anonymous, as well as our loyal group of Pioneers. PRINCIPAL PLAYERS Michael Cox flute (supported by Michael and Patricia McLaren-Turner) Gareth Hulse oboe (supported by John Hodgson) Mark van de Wiel clarinet (supported by Regis Gautier-Cochefert) Simon Haram saxophone Byron Fulcher trombone Jonathan Morton first violin (supported by Paul and Sybella Zisman) Paul Silverthorne viola (supported by Nick & Claire Prettejohn) Tim Gill cello (supported by Sir Stephen Oliver QC) Enno Senft double bass (supported by Anthony Mackintosh)
Helen Tunstall harp (supported by Charlotte Morgan) David Hockings percussion (supported by Andy Spiceley) LONDON SINFONIETTA COUNCIL Fiona Thompson chair Sud Basu Andrew Burke Tim Gill (principal player) Annabel Graham Paul Kathryn Knight Charlotte Morgan Jonathan Morton (principal player) Paul Silverthorne (principal player) James Thomas Ben Weston LONDON SINFONIETTA STAFF Andrew Burke Chief Executive & Artistic Director Frances Bryant General Manager Elizabeth Davies Head of Finance Volker Schirp Financial Assistant Holly Cumming-Wesley Head of Concerts & Production Natalie Marchant Head of Concerts & Production (maternity leave) Deborah Famodun Digital and Production Assistant Rhuti Carr Head of Participation & Learning Aoife Allen Participation & Learning Producer Phoebe Walsh Marketing Manager Isaku Takahashi Marketing Officer Eleanor Killner Development & Events Assistant Adam Flynn Digital Productions Manager AMBASSADORS Penny Jonas Anthony Mackintosh Robert McFarland Belinda Matthews Philip Meaden Sir Stephen Oliver QC FREELANCE & CONSULTANT STAFF Hal Hutchison Concert Manager Lesley Wynne Orchestra Personnel Manager Tony Simpson Lighting Designer Megan Russell Event Producer WildKat PR The London SInfonietta is grateful to its auditors and accountants MGR Weston Kay LLP.
LONDON SINFONIETTA'S 2021/22 SEASON AT THE SOUTHBANK CENTRE NIGHT SHIFT Audience participation is central to this immersive musical experience Thu 10 March, Queen Elizabeth Hall SOUND OUT LIVE Inspiring the next generation of composers in this concert for schools and young people Thu 24 March, Royal Festival Hall TAPESTRIES Kaleidoscopic and sensually colourful music from George Lewis and Alex Paxton Thu 31 March, Queen Elizabeth Hall LEANING EAST Celebrating contemporary musical life in Poland with two world premieres Wed 27 April, Queen Elizabeth Hall LONG SONG OF SOLITUDE Claude Vivier's masterpiece Lonely Child, plus a new work by Nicole Lizée inspired by Vivier Fri 6 May, Queen Elizabeth Hall
Recently announced: ILLUSIONS Philip Venables' and David Hoyle's anarchic and uncompromising piece of multimedia performance art, part of New Music Biennial 2022 early July (date tbc), Southbank Centre For full details and to book visit londonsinfonietta.org.uk or southbankcentre.co.uk Find us on social media: @Ldn_Sinfonietta @london.sinfonietta LondonSinfonietta LondonSinfonietta