Harrison Birtwistle Composer

Sir Harrison Birtwistle CH was born in Sinfonietta, was premiered in 2003. The Accrington, England in 1934 and studied following year brought first performances clarinet and composition at the Royal of The Io Passion for Aldeburgh Almeida Manchester College of Music, making Opera and Night's Black Bird commissioned contact with a highly talented group of by Roche for the Lucerne Festival. A disc contemporaries including Peter Maxwell featuring Night's Black Bird has since won Davies, Alexander Goehr, John Ogdon and the 2011 Gramophone Contemporary Elgar Howarth. In 1960 he sold his clarinets Award and the 2012 BBC Music Magazine to devote his efforts to composition, and Premiere Recording award. the following year travelled to Princeton as a Harkness Fellow where he completed the His opera The Minotaur received its opera Punch and Judy. This work, together premiere at the Royal Opera House in 2008 with Verses for Ensembles and The Triumph and has been released on DVD by Opus of Time, firmly established Birtwistle as a Arte. It has since returned to the Royal leading voice in British music. Opera House for a revival in early 2013. In 2009, his music theatre work The Corridor The decade from 1973 to 1984 was opened the Aldeburgh Festival and toured dominated by the monumental lyric to the Southbank Centre and the Bregenz tragedy The Mask of Orpheus and by the Festival, with further performances in New series of remarkable ensemble scores now York and Amsterdam. Angel-Fighter for performed by the world's leading new voices and ensemble was premiered at the music groups: Secret Theatre, Silbury Air Leipzig BachFest in June 2010, his Concerto “A great original ... one of the and Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae for Violin and Orchestra was premiered by Perpetuum. Large-scale works in the most gifted composers of his the Boston Symphony and Christian Tetzlaff following decade included the operas in 2011, as was In Broken Images generation” Gawain and The Second Mrs Kong, the commissioned by MITO and the London The Times concertos Endless Parade for trumpet, the Sinfonietta in celebration of the 150th piano concerto Antiphonies, and Earth Anniversary of the unification of Italy. Dances. Later compositions include Fantasia upon Birtwistle's works of recent decades include all the Notes (2012) for the Nash Ensemble, Exody, premiered by the Chicago Symphony Gigue Machine (2012) for Nicolas Hodges, and Daniel Barenboim, Panic which The Moth Requiem (2012) commissioned by received a high profile premiere at the Last the Netherlands Chamber Choir, BBC and Night of the 1995 BBC Proms with an Danish Radio, Songs from the same Earth

estimated worldwide audience of 100 (2013) for the Royal Philharmonic Society,

million, and The Shadow of Night Construction with Guitar Player (2013) for

commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra Julian Bream Trust, Responses: Sweet and Christoph von Dohnányi. The Last disorder and the carefully careless (2014), Supper received its first performances at the concerto for piano and orchestra the Deutsche Staatsoper in Berlin and at premiered in his 80th birthday year Glyndebourne in 2000. Pulse Shadows, a (commissioned by Bavarian Radio, London meditation for soprano, string quartet and Philharmonic, Casa da Musica Porto and chamber ensemble on poetry by Paul Boston Symphony Orchestra), The Cure Celan, was released on disc by Teldec and (2015) which acts as a companion chamber won the 2002 Gramophone Award for best opera to The Corridor, co-commissioned by contemporary recording. Theseus Game, Aldeburgh Music and the Royal Opera co-commissioned by RUHRtriennale, House. Ensemble Modern and the London

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Harrison Birtwistle Composer

More recently he has composed The Silk Daniel Harding, Elgar Howarth, Vladimir House Sequences for the Arditti Quartet Jurowski, Oliver Knussen, Ingo Metzmacher, (2015), Five Lessons in a Frame for the Sir Antonio Pappano, Sir Simon Rattle, London Sinfonietta and Ensemble David Robertson, Robin Ticciati, Franz Musikfabrik (2016), Deep Time Welser-Möst and Ryan Wigglesworth. He commissioned by the Staatskapelle Berlin has received commissions from leading and the BBC (2017), conducted by Daniel performing organisations and his music has Barenboim, Three Songs from the Holy been featured in major festivals and Forest for Das Neue Ensemble, Intrada for concert series including the BBC Proms, piano and percussion, commissioned by Salzburg, Glyndebourne, Holland and Southbank Centre, De Doelen and the Lucerne Festivals, Stockholm New Music, Library of Congress, Donum Simoni, a Wien Modern, Wittener Tage, and the fanfare for Sir Simon Rattle’s opening South Bank and Barbican Centres. season as Music Director of the LSO, and Keyboard Engine, construction for two Birtwistle has received many honours and pianos commissioned for Pierre-Laurent prizes, including the Grawemeyer Award in Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich which 1986 and the Siemens Prize in 1995; he was received its world premiere at the 2018 made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Aldeburgh Festival, alongside further Lettres in 1986, awarded a British performances at the Carnegie Hall, Cal knighthood in 1988 and made a Companion Performances and Koelner Philharmonie of Honour in 2001. In 2013, he was asked to and elsewhere. judge the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award and later in 2015, he received the Current works and future plans include Wihuri Sibelius prize for music and a BASCA Duet for Eight Strings for Adrian Brendel Award for Responses: Sweet disorder and and Lawrence Power commissioned by the the carefully careless. He was Henry Purcell Nash Ensemble and premiered at Wigmore Professor of Music at King's College, Hall, Pictured Within, Birthday Variations University of London (1994-2002) and is for M. C. B. for the BBC Proms, and …when currently Visiting Professor of Composition falling asleep for BCMG. He is also writing a at the Royal Academy of Music in London. piece for the Reina Sofía School of Music Recordings have been released on the and a major orchestral work co- Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Teldec, commissioned by the LSO, Barbican Centre, Signum, NMC, CPO, Metronome and ECM Orchestre de Paris Luxembourg labels. Philharmonie, Swedish Radio and Casa da Musica, Porto.

Valid for use until 1 September 2021 In October 2019, his opera The Mask of For updated versions please contact Orpheus was fully staged by English [email protected] National Opera for the first time in 33 years, conducted by Martyn Brabbins and directed by Daniel Kramer.

The music of Birtwistle has attracted international conductors including Stefan Asbury, David Atherton, Pierre Boulez, Daniel Barenboim, Martyn Brabbins, Christoph von Dohnányi, Peter Eötvös,