London Symphony Orchestra presents James MacMillan: Artist Portrait 2009/10

By -

including world premiere of his Violin Concerto performed by Vadim Repin

Kristjan Järvi teams up with young London Symphony Orchestra On Track musicians from East London plus soloists from the London Symphony Orchestra to perform James MacMillan’s Into the Ferment. In the first half the LSO St Luke’s Fusion Orchestra premieres a new work written in collaboration with composer/producer Nitin Sawhney.

James MacMillan will be the LSO’s Artist Portrait throughout the LSO’s 2009/10 season, a series which begins in the 50th birthday year of the composer. There will be a performance of the St John Passion, a piece that received its world premiere in April 2008 and was commissioned by the LSO to celebrate LSO President Sir Colin Davis’ 80th birthday and recorded on the LSO’s own label, LSO Live.

"The LSO Artist Portrait is a great way for the LSO to focus on those artists with whom it has a special relationship. We are delighted that James MacMillan is our focus for the 2009-10 season. He shares the LSO's commitment to education and as James has a close bond with LSO musicians, this is an ideal opportunity to develop and explore that further.” - Kathryn McDowell, LSO Managing Director

The LSO has enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with James over many years and has been involved in the commissioning of six works; The World's Ransoming commissioned for Principal Cor Anglais Christine Pendrill and the LSO (1995-96), Cello Concerto commissioned for Mstislav Rostropovich (1996), Symphony 'Vigil' (1997), A deep but dazzling darkness commissioned to celebrate the opening of LSO St Luke's in 2003, St John Passion commissioned to celebrate LSO President Sir Colin Davis' 80th birthday (April 2008) and the Violin Concerto which will be premiered on 12 May 2010 performed by Vadim Repin and conducted by Valery Gergiev. In addition to the three main season concerts, MacMillan’s Into the Ferment will be performed as part of the LSO Discovery concert in the Barbican on 30 October 2009 and the composer will be working with the young musicians in the lead up to the performance.

"It’s a great honour to have this focus on my music, for my 50th birthday, too. Over the years the LSO has played and commissioned quite a few of my most important pieces, and it is marvellous that it is making a survey of my work. The LSO is marking the season with the premiere of my Violin Concerto, to be performed by Vadim Repin and conducted by Valery Gergiev. I wanted to make this a concerto that both sings and dances. I love the human voice and I always want to draw that out when writing especially for string instruments. And of course as a Scot I’ve grown up with fiddle music. It’s music that can soar, and be expressive and lyrical, and it has also provided music for dance through the centuries. I used to play in folk bands when I was younger and fiddles were always the core part of the music. If I can plug into that reservoir of experience and memory in all forms of folk music, I hope to unleash something that can affect the concerto, that can give it a soul which both sings and dances. There’s another chance to hear Epiclesis, a trumpet concerto I wrote in 1993. It’s a more complex piece that anything I had done up to that point; I was trying to make sense of some of the extra musical and even theological ideas that have always been important to me. It’s wonderful that the Orchestra is doing my St John Passion again, which has become such an important piece for me. I was asked to write a piece to mark the 80th birthday of Sir Colin Davis, a man who has been such an important figure both for this Orchestra and this country over the decades. The premiere was one of the most memorable occasions of my life." - James MacMillan

James MacMillan: Artist Portrait 2009/10
30 October 2009, 7.30pm Barbican Hall
MACMILLAN Into the Ferment*
LSO ST LUKE’S FUSION ORCHESTRA new work
LSO On Track Youth Orchestra
LSO St Luke’s Fusion Orchestra
Members of the LSO
Kristjan Järvi conductor*
Paul Griffiths conductor

Tickets £7 (£4 concessions)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Music in Opera

By -
There are numerous books on the topic, and every composer, librettist, director, singer and audience member has their opinion as to what role the music should play in an opera. In a play without music, the words ought to support the meaning behind a character's actions. However, in the case of action movies, often times the action is what tells the story and there aren't words, just images to forward the plot. We might hear music to accompany action, build tension, but the action tells the story. Musicals tend to speak until the emotion of the moment just "has" to break out in song - unless it's something like "Mama Mia" where the dialog is the rails we travel on between songs; the songs themselves, written before the concept of the musical, are the focus of the production, while the story is secondary. Operas are a different beast. The music provides emotion to the words spoken, but it also plays the role of ambience when there is only action. In ...
Read more

Episode 210b: Joyeuse le départ

By -
Image
Podcast:  Play in new window  |  Download Subscribe:  Apple Podcasts  |  Android  |  Google Play  |  Stitcher  |  TuneIn  |  RSS Provost Cunningham has Transmigrated, but to where! What is Dr Sage going to do with his body? And how can she bring home her friends, Abigail and Erasmus, without also bring home Cunningham? What are they going to say when they find the “skeleton” she’s hiding in her closet? Cast: Eddie Louise Clark  as Dr Sage Chip Clark  as Professor Savant Justin Bremer  as the Narrator Emily Riley Piatt  as Abigail Entwhistle, Calypso & Dean Stewart Written by  Eddie Louise Theme music by  Unwoman Sound Design by  Chip Michael
Read more

Teaching Composition – What are we trying to achieve

By -
In the process of learning composition I have spent time with a number of instructors who have encouraged me to write twelve-tone, pitch-class, electro-acoustic and other forms of experimental techniques. No matter how much I might understand and appreciate the work of other composers in the genres, these are not forms of music I resonate with. They are simply not forms of music I listen to and I struggle with the idea of writing them. However, in a Master Class by Libby Larsen she made the comment, “Learn them all, because all forms of music have something to offer.” This I very much agree. There are elements of each of the above mentioned forms (and others) that I do resonate with. Berg’s Violin Concerto is a beautiful twelve-tone work, although it is possible to look at numerous sections of the music with a “tonal” analysis. Another composer friend, Gary Bachlund commented that using these techniques can narrow the choices for how to compose a piece of work. If you look at ...
Read more