RISE UP! Winter Concert Tour 4 — 6 January 2020 Coventry, London & Nottingham NATIONAL YOUTH ORCHESTRA of GREAT BRITAIN
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RISE UP! Winter Concert Tour 4 — 6 January 2020 Coventry, London & Nottingham NATIONAL YOUTH ORCHESTRA OF GREAT BRITAIN 4 January, 7.30pm Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry 5 January, 7.00pm Barbican Centre, London 6 January, 7.30pm Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham Eisler AUF DEN STRASSEN ZU SINGEN Britten As part of our ongoing relationship with the BBC SINFONIA DA REQUIEM and its commitment to connect audiences with remarkable music and culture, we are excited that our performance on 5 January will be broadcast — INTERVAL — on BBC Radio 3 on 13 January. You can listen for 30 days at bbc.co.uk/radio3 or via BBC Shostakovich Sounds. Thank you to the BBC for its active and supportive relationship. SYMPHONY NO. 11 'THE YEAR 1905' We are proud to support the GREAT Britain campaign, showcasing the best of what our whole nation has to offer. JAIME MARTÍN Conductor Thank you to the London Symphony Orchestra for their incredible support for this concert and to Warwick Arts Centre and The University of Warwick for hosting our winter residency as part of our shared commitment to developing teenage Thank you to NYO Composers for sharing their new music before musicians and audiences. the concert at the Barbican Centre. 1 SARAH ALEXANDER OBE KYNAN WALKER Chief Executive & Artistic Director Leader 2020 'Rise up!' highest level, not only to entertain you, Hello, I’m Kynan and on behalf of all 164 of Each composer made their music for a but to share what is possible when we unite us in the National Youth Orchestra of Great reason. Their message was a bid to make For NYO's 164 musicians, sitting still is not behind a cause we care about: the present, Britain, I warmly welcome you to our first a difference to the prevailing political an option. In the face of a music education and sustained future, of orchestral music. concert of the year! circumstances at the time. But these crisis, tonight's concert is a radical act: Tonight we stand together, demonstrating messages are perpetually relevant, they teenagers who have dedicated themselves that orchestral music has a role to play I am ecstatic to be leading NYO for a are messages we empathise with today to something they feel passionate about, in the world today, no matter when it was second year. It will be a musical journey with in the society we live in now and the coming together against the odds, to share written, and knowing that, if we don't fight, developments and progressions among my challenges that beset its structure. Brexit, their skills and their love of music with it is at risk of disappearing from our schools fellow musicians as we form the titanic and debates about the NHS, ‘how many years us, and each other. and concert halls. diverse, yet unified NYO. left to save the planet?’… they affect us. They affect teenagers. We resent frivolous Tonight's music is written by composers with We are so grateful to all of you who have We are not only 164 teenagers who love attitudes to harmful consequences, but a point to make about the world. Eisler's already backed this cause with us. 70% of music. We are 164 teenagers who feel most importantly, we feel passionate about song is a call to arms, a cry celebrating unity our income comes from charitable donations, passionately about societal, environmental sharing our views and making a difference: and justice; Britten's Sinfonia shows music's and we are thankful to those who have and political affairs and how they impact revolution. Tonight’s programme shows power to communicate an anti-war message contributed, but support comes in many us, you and the world. This is why we are our want for change. The outpourings of loudly and clearly, and Shostakovich's different forms: we also acknowledge the so excited to present tonight’s programme passion in all three works show how we, symphony is a song of rage against tyranny, thousands of lifts given to music lessons which offers intrigue, inspiration, and rests NYO, harness music to demonstrate what reflecting on the revolutionary songs of or after-school rehearsals, hours of on a backbone of political messages that these three composers believed in: music the past. Who better to bring the spirit encouragement, letters written to local manifest each piece. has the power to make a difference in a of this music to life than an orchestra of MPs, or interviews shared with the local way that transcends international barriers. passionate young people, all born on this press. Thank you for joining our movement Eisler’s Auf den Strassen zu singen side of the 21st century, who have activism and sharing our message: tonight's concert demonstrates resentment towards the It is only with the most confident conviction firmly on their agenda? reminds us that together, our voices are toxic, extreme nationalism that emerged that I can say we will have the best of times very powerful indeed. as Nazism began to grow in popularity, with performing a programme so meaningful Tonight, we are shouting to be heard in lyrics written to resonate with the masses. to us and we hope you enjoy the journey today's noisy world; raising our voices Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem conveys his we take you on! and demonstrating the unbridled passion anti-war attitude, and Shostakovich’s work and electric energy that is created when vividly reflects the bloodshed, wasted life teenagers come together to perform at the and his denunciation of violent suppression. 2 3 HANNS EISLER AUF DEN STRASSEN ZU SINGEN (1928) The last year has seen some impressive made a decisive move in the late 1920s uprisings here in Britain: from the work of to turn away from that style of writing, Extinction Rebellion to pro- and anti-Brexit and think instead about how to reach the marches around the country. But luckily wider population. Eisler was a committed for us, these events have been largely Socialist, and wanted to support the workers peaceful. Tonight, you are invited to three of his country – particularly since Adolf ‘You must not believe that all modern musical uprisings with much darker and Hitler’s party, the NSDAP (later known as more violent undertones: for the rights of the Nazis) was gaining more support with composers are revolutionaries or the workers, the freedom of people, and every passing year. are poking fun. They simply want to opposition to war. Here, music matters make music, that is all, as our great – and can be powerful and dangerous. There was a strong tradition in Germany of choral singing for factory workers, and masters wanted to, young or old. Germany in the 1920s was an uncertain, even a national organisation called the Everyone in his own time and with unstable place: after the First World War Deutscher Arbeiter-Sängerbund (the the framework of that time. the country was broke, politicians couldn’t German Workers’ Singing Society). So Eisler decide on a good way forward, and workers decided to write pieces that local workers’ That is the whole secret!’ struggled to feed themselves and their choirs could sing – and to make them as families. Musicians and artists were also political as he could: ‘Choose texts and -HANNS EISLER, looking for new directions: there was subjects that concern as many people as ON OLD AND NEW MUSIC (1925) jazz and cabaret on the one hand, and possible’, he said. He even tried to persuade the complex language of experimental musicians to look for other spaces to composers Arnold Schoenberg, Alban perform, rather than standing neatly in Berg and Anton Webern on the other. a concert hall and following all the polite Hanns Eisler, a Schoenberg student, rules of sitting quietly and clapping. 4 5 Auf den Strassen zu singen is called a ‘I love your most recent works ‘Demonstration Song’. The audiences at a lot! The fact that they appear the first performances in Berlin and Vienna were so enthusiastic about it that the ‘strange’ to you yourself – as choir had to sing it again. But the critics you say – is for me the best sign were divided. Socialist writers thought of all! I find every moment in them Eisler’s choral pieces were some of the most important ever written because they thoroughly novel, original! put the people first: the singers and how Immensely beautiful in their they felt and thought. Nazi critics slammed inventiveness.’ the music as too simple and lacking artistic value. Middle-class journalists sat -ANTON WEBERN TO EISLER (1929) somewhere between the two, impressed with Eisler's music but worried that his politics got in the way of him doing his best. Look at this write-up by Hans Redlich: ‘Everyone should know that these pieces contain a clear revelation of astonishing mastery; it is AUF DEN STRASSEN ZU SINGEN therefore to be regretted that (WE ARE SINGING IN THE STREETS) the composer has deliberately DAVID WEBER endeavoured to limit the sphere of his music’s effectiveness, We march, yes we march through the city with a fervour that none can deny! which deprives those unable to (We’re marching! Make way!) accept Eisler’s party-political We sing, yes we sing and our voices ring out through the wide open sky! limitations, or rather his fusion March with us and show no fear! Make way! There’s no room for doubters here! of higher art with the demands Make way, make way! of the day and of the hour.’ Brothers, cease your labours, come from near and far! Claim that promised land where truth and justice are! -HANS REDLICH, CRITIC (1929) We may be the humblest, the poorest, but shoulder to shoulder we’ll fight.