I went to a really exciting concert yesterday. So exciting that I cannot wait to post about it…
Britten Sinfonia has two annual composer programmes – Opus 1 for eight young composers who get a chance to write for and get feed back from Britten Sinfonia musicians, and Magnum Opus for three more experienced composers. These three are embedded with the musicians for a year during which they write two new commissions which will be performed in showcase concerts. Yesterday was the second of those showcases – the concerti. And what was so exciting was that all three pieces were so different, so original, so thrilling – and such fun!
First up Anibal Vidal‘s Invocacion No 2: a Kintsugi Resurrection for trumpet and ensemble, performed with great panache by Imogen Whitehead.
This was a gloriously joyful ‘journey of deconstruction and resurrection’ – specifically of Haydn’s Trumpet concerto and Mahler’s Second Symphony. With the help of an extraordinarily busy Owen Gunnell, Britten Sinfonia’s percussionist, and a random collection of drums, bells, clappers, clunkers and toy intruments of all kinds (including a long piece of rubber pipe with a mouth piece that Imogen swopped for her trumpet at one point and whirled round her head to create an enchanting whine) – Annibal ‘cut’ his musical material ‘into small cells which he looped, fragmented and stitched back together, creating a new patchwork of sound’. The Kintsugi of the title, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold glue using the mended golden cracks to create new beauty. It was a delight.
The second piece, Voicings, by Eden Lonsdale, could not have been more different.
It is in the nature of a concerto for a solo instrument (in this case the voice) that the instrument should stand out from the orchestra accompanying it – but this was not what Eden wished to achieve. Having experimented and then jettisoned lyrics, he was seeking ‘a global sound to which the voice contributed an equal part’. In the resulting slow and lyrically dream-like piece, he really did ‘weave’ the ravishing voice of Alexandra Achillea through the fabric of the music ‘like a golden thread, at times shimmering through and at others becoming totally absorbed in it.’ So beautiful.
The final piece, Four by Four by Four by Alex Groves was entirely different again – this time inspired by the works of American wall artist Sol LeWitt. LeWitt realises his works directly onto massive walls – huge black square or circles, thousands of individually drawn lines – concepts which can be set out in written form and realised by others.
And Four by Four by Four did indeed create exciting blocks of vertical, horizontal and diagonal music – the orchestra creating startling and thrilling blocks, the violin in the skilled hands of Rakhi Singh, creating the long cutting diagonal lines. All, of which joyfully combined under the baton of Tom Fetherstonhaugh, also the conductor for the two earlier pieces. As Alex said in his introduction, the music truly did leap off the page!
Exciting indeed……. And thank you Britten Sinfonia for giving them this space.
Meanwhile……
There are just a few (but only a few) tickets left for the Kyan Quartet tomorrow evening (go here for tickets) and for William Jack on Thursday (go here for tickets).
I hope to see many of you at one or other (or even both!) concerts.
For other future happenings in at Hampstead Lane and elsewhere – see our Upcoming Events page.
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