Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited February 2013 2013/1 Reich Radio Rewrite Britten in Beijing Steve Reich’s new ensemble work, with first performances in Included in this issue: The Britten centenary sees the composer’s drawings, resulting in a spectacular series of the UK and US in March, draws inspiration from songs by music celebrated worldwide including many animal lanterns handcrafted in Shangdong van der Aa Radiohead. works receiving territorial premieres, from Province. The production used the biblical Interview about his new 3D song through to reworkings by Stravinsky. South America to Asia and the Antipodes. tale of Noah to explore contemporary film opera Sunken Garden “It was not my intention to make anything like As an upbeat to this year’s events, the first ecological concerns. Through a series of ‘variations’ on these songs, but rather to Britten opera was staged in China with a educational projects, Noye’s Fludde provided draw on their harmonies and sometimes Noye’s Fludde collaboration between an illustration of man’s struggle with the melodic fragments and work them into my Northern Ireland Opera, the KT Wong environment and the significance of flood own piece. As to actually hearing the original Foundation and the Beijing Music Festival. mythology to both Chinese and Western cultures. songs, the truth is – sometimes you hear First staged in Belfast Zoo last summer as them and sometimes you don’t.” part of the Cultural Olympiad, Oliver Mears’s Overseas Britten highlights in 2013 include Photo: Wonge Bergmann Reich encountered the music of Radiohead production transferred in October to Beijing as territorial opera premieres in Brazil, Chile, following a performance by Jonny part of the UK Now Festival. The KT Wong Israel, Turkey, Japan and New Zealand and Radio Rewrite, Steve Reich’s new ensemble Greenwood of Electric Counterpoint at the Foundation’s aim is to foster innovative cross- a major Britten in Moscow festival with work, is premiered at the Royal Festival Hall Sacrum Profanum festival in Krakow: “It was cultural collaboration between China and the operas, four concerts by the Russian in London on 5 March, travelling with the a great performance and we began talking. wider world and this was reflected in the National Orchestra and an exhibition at the London Sinfonietta to Birmingham, Brighton I found his background as a violist and his Britten staging. Members of the Belfast cast Pushkin Museum. Centenary series were and Glasgow (6-9 March). The all-Reich present active role as a composer extremely joined the Children and Young Women’s recently announced by Carnegie Hall in Adams programme opens with the composer in interesting… When I returned home I made it Chorus of the China National Symphony New York and by Los Angeles Opera. The Gospel According to Clapping Music, and also includes Electric a point to go on line and listen to Orchestra, the New Talent School Choir and In the UK all 14 of Britten’s major operas will Counterpoint and recent works 2x5 and Radiohead’s music and two songs stuck in members of the China Philharmonic Orchestra the Other Mary toured to be performed, including the Aldeburgh Double Sextet, conducted by Brad Lubman. my head… The first, third and fifth conducted by Nicholas Chalmers. Europe by Dudamel Festival’s staging of Peter Grimes on the Radio Rewrite is co-commissioned by the movements of Radio Rewrite are fast and Designs were inspired by the Reeves beach, and a new Gloriana directed by London Sinfonietta and Alarm Will Sound, based on Jigsaw Falling into Place and the Collection of zoological and botanical Richard Jones at The Royal Opera. which gives the first US performances at second and fourth are slow and based on Stanford Live (16 March) and in St Louis Everything in its Right Place.” Noye’s Fludde in its Chinese premiere at the Beijing Music Festival (18 March). The 20-minute work is scored Reich continues to be a central composer for for a classic Reich line-up of paired winds, contemporary dance. Rosas performs Anne vibes and pianos, plus string quartet and Teresa De Keersmaeker’s choreography of electric bass. Drumming more than 30 times this season Reich describes how in Radio Rewrite he including future dates in Berlin, Amsterdam, references songs by Radiohead, viewing this Paris and London with musicians from Ictus. in the continuing tradition of composers Reich is composer in residence with the using “pre-existing music (folk or classical) as Dutch National Youth Orchestra this summer material for new pieces of their own”, from with repertoire including Music for 18 Birtwistle Renaissance settings of the L’homme armé Musicians, Three Movements and Tehillim. The Moth Requiem premiered by Netherlands Chamber Choir Jenkins Mass for Peace Karl Jenkins’s The Armed the Stabat Mater remains an Man: A Mass for Peace is set Eastertide favourite, travelling this to feature prominently through year to Sweden, France, Germany the decade as we and Switzerland in concert and commemorate the centenaries appearing in a staged version in of the start and end of the Majorca. His children’s opera Eloise First World War (2014, 2018), receives new productions in Photo: K T Wong Foundation the 75th and 80th Hamburg, St Gallen and Cologne anniversaries of the outbreak this season. Amsterdam Paris Lyon Copenhagen Stockholm of the Second World War • • • • • Karl Jenkins is currently composing (2014, 2019) and the 70th •Oslo •Hamburg •Berlin •Düsseldorf •Barcelona the latest addition to his best-selling anniversary of the end of •Madrid •Milan •Florence •Lucerne •Salzburg Kats-Chernin Photo: EMI/Rhys Frampton Adiemus series and future projects hostilities (2015). Jenkins’s •Vienna •Moscow •St Petersburg •Istanbul New instrumentations for include a new 40-minute choral Mass based powerful work, commissioned by the Royal Jerusalem Tel Aviv Cape Town Beijing Monteverdi operas in Berlin on themes of healing. • • • • Armouries, not only describes the horrors of •Tokyo •Sydney •Wellington •Santiago war but offers the hope of peace as an end For further repertoire linked to the war •Bogotá •São Paulo •Brasilia •Buenos Aires to armed conflict. commemorations, including Jenkins’s •Los Angeles •Boston •New York For the Fallen and music by Adams, Britten, The Armed Man has established itself as the Finzi, Panufnik and Reich please visit For full details of international and UK centenary highlights most frequently programmed new work for www.boosey.com/warandpeace. visit www.britten100.org. choir and orchestra of recent decades, with over 1200 performances to date since its premiere in 2000, equating to 100 per year. In addition to the hour-long original with full orchestra, versions are also available with (1908-2012) ensemble, brass band or concert band. Carter in memoriam A film is available for screening with live performance, combining vivid imagery with historic footage, and a shorter 30-minute Tributes continue to flow for Elliott Carter Premieres of Carter’s final choral suite with orchestra can also be sung. who died on 5 November in New York at the compositions include Instances – The composer conducts The Armed Man at ripe age of 103. Aptly described as the an eight-minute work for chamber the Royal Albert Hall in London on 28 April, “Methuselah of American Composers” orchestra – on 7 February by the (Bloomberg), Carter’s musical journey Seattle Symphony and Ludovic together with his equally popular setting of Centre photo: Misha Donat the Requiem. Next year’s commemoration embraced friendship with pioneers including Morlot, with a further performance includes a special Sing UK project in Spring Charles Ives, neo-classical studies with at the Tanglewood Festival in August. Carter in the1940s, 1980s and 1960s 2014 which will culminate in The Armed Man Nadia Boulanger, the unfolding of a new Daniel Barenboim pays tribute to Carter in in London featuring 600 young voices from modernist aesthetic in the 1950s, a Berlin on 8 April with the European premiere Birmingham Contemporary Music Group at schools in the UK and youth choirs from sequence of radical masterworks, and an of A Sunbeam’s Architecture with tenor the CBSO Centre on 10 March, and the France, Belgium, Germany and Poland, Indian Summer of late compositions. Rolando Villazón, and the German premiere world premiere of Epigrams for piano trio and of the Concertino for Bass Clarinet and together with the Philharmonia Orchestra. A memorial concert is planned to take place UK premieres of Dialogues II and the String Chamber Orchestra with the Staatskapelle Visit www.sing.uk.org. at the Juilliard School in New York in early Trio are within an Aldeburgh Festival tribute Berlin at the Konzerthaus. Jenkins’s most recent work The Peacemakers, May, with performers most closely on 22 June. which topped the UK specialist classical connected to the composer uniting in Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Colin Currie are Two new recordings of Carter concertos charts last year and enjoyed sell-out celebration. A book is being prepared for piano and percussion soloists in the French have joined the discography: Alisa Weilerstein performances on tour, has been rapidly publication linked with the concert, as a joint premiere of the complete Two Controversies performs the Cello Concerto with Barenboim taken up by choirs around the world, with project by Carter’s publishers Boosey & and a Conversation on 22 February at the and the Staatskapelle Berlin on her debut first performances in South Africa and Hawkes and G.Schirmer. This will combine Salle Pleyel in Paris with the Orchestre disc for Decca (0289 478 2735) and Eddy Germany over the coming months. His the first fully comprehensive worklist with a Philharmonique de Radio France and Jukka- Vanoosthuyse is soloist in the Clarinet Songs of the Earth received its US premiere collection of tributes and memories from Pekka Saraste.