Adams Other Mary on Stage
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Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited February 2015 2015/1 Adams Other Mary on stage Included in this issue: “John Adams received a rapturous response for the world premiere staging MacMillan Concertos including new at ENO of his Passion oratorio, The Gospel According to the Other Mary. work for Colin Currie Bursting with fury, compassion and inspiration, this elemental score seems to carry the composer to a whole new level of expression.” So wrote The Independent of the work’s first full staging by Peter Sellars, in a production shared between English National Opera, Theater Bonn and Royal Swedish Opera. Joana Carniero Little summoned a vivid range of sonorities from Interview with the newly the orchestra, with fervent vocal portrayals signed US composer from Patricia Bardon as Mary, Meredith The final book by the late Bob Gilmore, Arwady as Martha and Russell Thomas Claude Vivier: A Composer’s Life, breaks as Lazarus. new ground as the first in-depth study of the composer (University of Rochester “…the music sweeps all before it. The distance that Press 978-1-58046-485-7). With Adams has travelled from his minimalist beginnings unrestricted access to Vivier’s archives, to this rich tapestry of a score is remarkable. Some of the passages for orchestra alone, such as the author drew upon interviews with the Lazarus’s death, ride on waves of emotion; and Canadian-born composer’s family, friends Adams has mastered the ability to keep the and colleagues to build a picture of a complex audience gripped over hour-long arcs of intensity… Photo: ENO/Richard Hubert Smith soul, while revealing the personal quest for Is it opera or oratorio? It hardly matters. Just The Gospel According to the Other Mary in Peter Sellars’s staging at English National Opera, self-discovery woven through his works. surrender to the work’s overwhelming flood of with Patricia Bardon in the title role. emotion.” Financial Times Growing up in a Montreal orphanage, Vivier Scheherazade.2 in New York modern woman storyteller/hostage whose gave up ambitions to join the priesthood, strength of character and powers of instead studying composition with Tremblay John Adams’s new ‘dramatic symphony for “… this modern Passion endurance are tested over and over by male and Stockhausen. Forging an unlikely alliance Glanert violin and orchestra’, Scheherazade.2, is hegemony. The ‘scenario’ was suggested by between Modernism and a lyrically infused Reviews of opera Solaris has inspired Adams’s unveiled on 26 March by Leila Josefowicz images in the media of imperilled women expressivity, he created a sequence of highly staged in Cologne and the New York Philharmonic under Alan most thrilling score.” under the pressure of religious and political distinctive works including Lonely Child, The Observer Gilbert. The composer mounts the rostrum conservatism.” Bouchara and the opera Kopernikus. Art and for further American performances with the life became increasingly intertwined as he Cincinnati and Atlanta Symphony “The piece mixes the biblical — the story of Christ’s sought to combine Eastern mysticism with Orchestras, and the work travels in the arrest, trial, Crucifixion and Resurrection retold with earthly passion, leading up to his violent death 2015/16 season to Europe and Australia for the emphasis on a psychologically damaged and Jenkins in Paris, aged 34. self-harming Mary Magdalene and her more robust concerts by co-commissioners the Royal and pragmatic sister Martha — with parallel stories Concertgebouw, Sydney Symphony and “It is only now, with the publication of Bob Gilmore’s of social injustice from modern America… London Symphony Orchestras. The Healer new biography, that we have a real chance to put Vivier’s work in its proper contexts… an intense life [Adams’s] score is amazingly rich: luscious and Karl Jenkins’s newest emotional in some places, terrifyingly driven and Leila Josefowicz has played Adams’s Violin and an indelibly magical oeuvre. This is music choral work is The Healer, though that was born in a dark crucible. Vivier was violent elsewhere.” The Times Concerto and The Dharma at Big Sur over a hundred times worldwide, and the new premiered in October and an orphan and you could hear much of his music as “…gut-wrenching harmonies, fiercely insistent 40-minute work has been created in close receiving its first US a search for origins, for purity, almost as an escape from the world.” BBC Radio 3 Music Matters rhythms and sudden moments of tingling melodic collaboration. Explaining the links with Rimsky performance at Carnegie purity… [an] immensely powerful score, easily the Turnage Korsakov’s classic score, the composer Hall in New York on “A thorough, clear-sighted and humane biography finest thing he has composed in more than two 19 January. The 40-minute of one of the most extraordinary composers of The Guardian describes how “Scheherazade.2 imagines a New score for Flanders decades.” Photo: Rhys Frampton recent times… a deeply engaged and engaging reflecting on World War I score is performed by Distinguished Concerts International New portrait.” Times Literary Supplement York conducted by Jonathan Griffith, and the For a selection of books on composers visit concert also includes the US premiere of the www.boosey.com/shop composer’s Dylan Thomas tribute Llareggub, The Centenary celebrations for concertos for violin, piano and and The Peacemakers. Andrzej Panufnik in 2014 cello, and the three string brought an increased focus quartets. Cultural exchange Karl Jenkins describes how “The Healer is a on the composer’s life and saw Panufnik Cantata for St Luke, an evangelist and works in his twin performances in Western physician of the soul. The text deals with homelands of Poland and Europe by the Warsaw healing, not only in the Christian and spiritual the UK, and far beyond. Philharmonic and I,Culture sense, but also with secular issues such as 2016 the ‘healing’ of our planet, Earth. In addition Carlisle Over 350 performances Orchestra, and visits by the to setting parts of St Luke’s Gospel there are were scheduled worldwide, London Symphony Floyd extracts from the Book of Common Prayer, a with over 200 of these in Poland Orchestra and Chicago 90th birthday Symphony Orchestra to Poland. poem by William Blake, and contributions amounting to a major reappraisal of Alberto especially written by Terry Waite, Vivien his output. Official honours included the dedication of a new street in Harrison and Carol Barratt. Ginastera Centennial of birth Awareness of the composer review Warsaw – Aleja Andrzeja “The work is scored for soprano, baritone, also grew thanks to special Panufnika – and inclusion of mixed chorus, oboe (doubling cor anglais), Steve centenary profiles in music magazines and the Tragic Overture in a war commemoration strings and percussion. As in my Stabat Reich numerous broadcast features on BBC Radio concert on the Westerplatte peninsula in Mater, in order to evoke the atmosphere and 80th birthday 3, including Composer of the Week, and on Gdansk. sound of the ancient holy land (or Middle Polish Radio. Scholarship on Panufnik also made advances East) I have occasionally used two percussion With Panufnik’s music ‘ceasing to exist’ in in 2014, including conferences in Warsaw and instruments associated with this part of the 2017 world, the riq and the darbuca. There is also John Poland between 1954 and 1977, after his Krakow. This looks set to continue in 2015 Anniversaries dramatic escape to the West, and an uneasy with the publication of an English translation of an important role for the solo oboe (doubling Adams rapprochement there in the following Beata Boles|awska’s biography by Ashgate cor anglais), which is featured throughout, 70th birthday decades, it is only now that open ears in his echoing the ancient indigenous double reed Publishing and of a new edition of Panufnik’s Dominick native country have listened again to his music autobiography Composing Myself from instruments of that region.” and responded with fresh enthusiasm. This Toccata Press, expanded with a postlude by The competition linked to the release of Argento change is due both to long-term champions Lady Camilla Panufnik completing his story, Jenkins’s Motets collection runs until the end 90th birthday and to a younger generation of interpreters, in alongside a comprehensive collection of the of April. Videos are now being submitted by the concert hall and on a series of new composer’s other writings. choirs hoping to win the prize of a new work recordings, headed by the series of eight The summer also brings a Glasgow Panufnik specially written by the composer for them to 2018 symphonic discs on the CPO label. Leonard weekend by the BBC Scottish Symphony premiere. If the winning choir can travel to Taking audiences beyond the evergreen Orchestra conducted by Lukaz– Borowicz and New York they will also have the chance to Bernstein Sinfonia Sacra, repertoire receiving the Violin Concerto on tour with Alexander perform the work in a Jenkins concert hosted American Centennial of birth widespread attention in 2014 included the Sitkovetsky and the Australian Chamber by DCINY. For full information visit microtonal orchestral Lullaby, the three Orchestra. www.boosey.com/jenkinsmotets. van der Aa Violin Concerto Michel van der Aa’s new Violin Concerto for Janine Jansen (left) received its first performance in New Co November with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and A selection American composer Vladimir Jurowski, as part of the composer’s residency with premiered in the orchestra. Following the David T. Little Amsterdam premiere, the who signed with Boosey & Hawkes performers travelled to Essen’s last year describes how his powerful Photo: Harald Hoffmann/Decca Philhamonie, and Jansen played the work again in December with the Bergen works are not afraid to ask Philharmonic and Andrew Litton.