COMPOSERS’ ACADEMY SUN 2 JUN 2019, 6pm FREE, no ticket required – just turn up! Royal Festival Hall MUSIC please note venue Geoffrey Paterson conductor OF TODAY WU WEI ARTIST PORTRAIT FRIDAY 5 APRIL 2019 CHIA-YING LIN Rubato the wider life of the Philharmonia and the expertise 2018-19 within its membership. As part of the Philharmonia’s 6pm, Queen Elizabeth Hall ALEX WOOLF Octet for mixed ensemble INSPIRING broader Emerging Artists programme, the Orchestra BENJAMIN ASHBY Some Mad Ideas also delivers a range of specialist projects to Introduced by Dr Cheng Yu of SOAS, support the progression and development of young NEW University of London Hear world premieres by three emerging instrumentalists in a variety of contexts, supporting composers in the culminating concert of the the work of our partner music education hubs, MUSIC Philharmonia Orchestra’s Composers’ Academy. schools, universities and conservatoires. This UNSUK CHIN Jonathan Stockhammer conductor programme seeks to encourage young people from Wu Wei sheng Over the course of the year, our composers work diverse backgrounds to continue learning, to join ARTISTIC DIRECTOR closely with Philharmonia musicians, visiting ensembles, and to develop and improve technique composers and Unsuk Chin, Artistic Director of and musicality through coaching, masterclasses, JUKKA TIENSUU Music of Today. This is an exciting opportunity to side-by-side projects and instrumental tuition. hear the work of the newest generation of Hehkuu for sheng and ensemble composers in the UK today. (UK premiere) 20mins The Philharmonia Orchestra is committed to The Philharmonia’s Composers’ Academy is GUOPING JIA providing opportunities to nurture, showcase and developed in partnership with The Wind Sounds in the Sky for sheng, stretch the next generation of artistic talent. The Orchestra’s Emerging Artists programme consists of cello and percussion (UK premiere) 10mins two distinct programmes – the Composers’ Academy ˇ and the Philharmonia MMSF Instrumental Fellowships. ONDREJ ADÁMEK Both connect an annual cohort of young artists to Lost Prayer Book for sheng and ensemble (UK premiere) 20mins @philharmonia Philharmonia Orchestra The timings shown above are not exact and are 6 Chancel Street, London SE1 0UX Philharmonia Orchestra provided only as a guide Tel: 020 7921 3900 philharmonia_orchestra philharmonia.co.uk PLEASE NOTE this performance is being recorded philharmonialondon This concert is promoted by Philharmonia Ltd Music of Today is supported by an anonymous donor /philharmonia Music of Today All information in this programme was correct at the time Philharmonia Orchestra and Southbank Centre are Partner in Leicester of going to press, but changes may be unavoidable. both registered charities. The Philharmonia Orchestra gratefully acknowledges support for Music of Today from Esa-Pekka Salonen WELCOME TO SOUTHBANK CENTRE If you wish to get in touch with us following your visit please contact the Visitor Experience Team at Southbank Centre, We hope you enjoy your visit. We have a Duty Manager Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX, or phone 020 3879 9555, available at all times. If you have any queries please ask or email [email protected] any member of staff for assistance. We look forward to seeing you again soon. There are a range of cafes, restaurants and shops on site. Enjoy fresh seasonal food and buy products inspired by our southbankcentre.co.uk artistic programme and iconic London buildings. JUKKA TIENSUU (b. 1948) and completely chromatic range that is suitable Hehkuu for sheng and ensemble (2014) for the performance of music in a European style. Each pipe has a reed, and closing an air The sheng, a form of Chinese mouth organ, is hole at the pipe’s base causes the reed to one of the world’s oldest instruments to have a sound. Gradually removing or placing a finger continuous performance tradition. Examples over the hole allows for glissandi, a distinctive survive from the time of the Han dynasty (206 BC effect that Tiensuu makes extensive use of. to AD 220), and pictures of sheng exist from a Tiensuu principally employs the sheng as a thousand years before this, as long ago as melodic instrument, but he also makes use – 1100 BC. Music for sheng has kept pace with particularly in the faster, second half of his piece MUSIC, FILM AND DRAMA FOR TURBULENT TIMES the times, and as China has opened itself to the – of its ability to play chords, especially repeated West – particularly in the later 20th century and in fast rhythms, somewhat like the strumming of into the 21st – the instrument has appeared a guitar. Traditional music for sheng features JUNE - SEPTEMBER 2019 with increasing frequency in Western art music many traditional blowing and tonguing ESA-PEKKA SALONEN contexts. One of the first occasions was in Tan techniques for achieving effects like these, conductor Dun’s opera Marco Polo of 1996, in which the which go by evocative names like qu qi, or instrument was one of several used to indicate ‘sawing wood’. Specific techniques are not the geographical origin of the characters. More mentioned in Tiensuu’s score, but that legacy of High and low art, violence and sensuality, satire and sentimentality recent works have put the sheng on an equal technique is very much present. – discover the culture and music of the Weimar era. footing with its Western counterparts, setting it within mixed ensembles in which the differences Tiensuu prefers his music to be presented without between East and West are erased, or at least programme notes, arguing that it is “mischievous” Includes a free Music of Today concert featuring new music partly obscured. Much of this presence is down to prejudice a listener in one way or another to Wu Wei, a leading virtuoso on the instrument before they have heard a piece for the first time. accompanying two silent films in a live screening who has given the premieres of more than 300 “Important in a composition”, he says, “are not Plus music by Berg, Hindemith and Weill works featuring the sheng, more than 20 of the thoughts of the composer but the thoughts Insights Day and free talks them concertos, like Jukka Tiensuu’s Hehkuu. the music incites in the listener and the small enlightenments they may lead the listener to.” Traditionally, a sheng would have 17 pipes, made of either bamboo or metal, but the modern The title Hehkuu comes from the Finnish verb instrument has 32 or more. These give it a wider hehkua: to glow or to burn. GUOPING JIA (b. 1963) the grassland (Earth), and the wildflowers that The Wind Sounds in the Sky for sheng, grow in between and which have endured long cello and percussion (2002) enough to have witnessed the fall of gods. The poet’s voice, expressed through the wood and The Wind Sounds in the Sky is inspired by horsehair of his zither, cries against the ‘September’, one of the best-known poems by desolation. the acclaimed Chinese poet Hai Zi. Although he took his own life aged just 25, Hai Zi was a Guoping Jia is of the same generation as Hai Zi, leading figure in the brief flowering of modern born just a year earlier than the poet. Deeply Chinese poetry that took place between the end committed to cultural exchange between China of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 and the and Europe, he founded in 2011 the Con Tempo Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 (after which Ensemble of Beijing, the first Chinese many poets were exiled). His poems weave themes contemporary music ensemble to combine of loneliness, yearning and especially nature into Eastern and Western instruments. His piece an intensely lyrical, often mystical vision. begins with an explosion of sound, the ferocity of which belies its modest trio instrumentation of In ‘September’ the central image combines the sheng, cello and percussion. The three distant winds (heaven, or some form of beyond), instruments – bowed string, blown reeds, struck PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA The Philharmonia’s international reputation in part derives from its extraordinary recording skins and metal; melody, harmony, rhythm; West, initial friction between differences as a single, East, global – occupy three very different musical bright thread – the wildflowers growing on the Founded in 1945, the Philharmonia is a world- legacy, which in the last 10 years has been built spaces. Yet Jia draws them together in such a Chinese steppe here sounding as a three- class symphony orchestra for the 21st century. on by its pioneering work with digital technology, way that each begins to sound like a reflection or stranded braid that finally unravels into a The Orchestra’s home is Southbank Centre’s most recently blazing a trail for classical music in an outgrowth of the others. Rather like Hai Zi’s sensation of loss and emptiness. Royal Festival Hall, where the Philharmonia has Virtual Reality. VR experiences featuring music poem, the music maintains the energy of that been resident since 1995 and presents a season by Sibelius, Mahler and Beethoven, placing the of around 50 performances each year. Under viewer at the heart of the orchestra, have been Principal Conductor & Artistic Advisor Esa-Pekka presented at Southbank Centre and internationally. Salonen, the Philharmonia has created a series ONDRˇEJ ADÁMEK (b. 1979) heard more clearly, as its words are whispered, of critically acclaimed, visionary projects, distinctive The Philharmonia records and releases music spoken or intoned by the players (using the for both their artistic scope and supporting live across multiple channels and media. An app for Lost Prayer Book for sheng and half-song, half-speech technique of sprechstimme). and digital content. Recent series include iPad, The Orchestra, has sold tens of thousands ensemble (2019) The relationship between text and music, and Stravinsky: Myths & Rituals (2016), which won a of copies; Hollywood composers choose to particularly the boundary where one might South Bank Sky Arts Award.