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Premières

  • Premières

    Proms 2022: Hannah Eisendle – Heliosis (UK Première)

    by 5:4 August 15, 2022 • 16:48
    August 15, 2022 • 16:48

    Does it matter if the way a composition sounds doesn’t bear any meaningful resemblance to the composer’s stated inspiration? That’s a question that often suggests itself when listening to contemporary music, and it has completely dominated my listening to Austrian composer Hannah Eisendle‘s new work Heliosis, which received its first…

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  • Premières

    Proms 2022: Anna Thorvaldsdottir – ARCHORA (World Première)

    by 5:4 August 13, 2022 • 05:00
    August 13, 2022 • 05:00

    The relationship between Anna Thorvaldsdottir‘s music and nature has always been, to put it mildly, complicated. Far from being a composer merely setting out (as far too many have claimed far too often) to evoke the wildness of her native Iceland, Thorvaldsdottir has tended to be much more concerned with…

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  • Premières

    Proms 2022: Matthew Kaner – Pearl (World Première)

    by 5:4 August 12, 2022 • 13:44
    August 12, 2022 • 13:44

    Voices returned to contemporary music at the Proms on Wednesday evening, with the first performance of Matthew Kaner‘s new vocal work Pearl. The piece, for baritone and orchestra, takes its title from the Middle English poem Pearl, written by the anonymous Gawain Poet, setting portions of the text from Simon…

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  • Premières

    Proms 2022: Gavin Higgins – Concerto Grosso (World Première)

    by 5:4 August 10, 2022 • 15:34
    August 10, 2022 • 15:34

    Finally. Following six premières of, to say the least, wildly varying quality, this year’s Proms season finally struck gold on Monday evening in the form of Gavin Higgins‘ new large-scale work for brass band and orchestra, Concerto Grosso. First things first: it’s a bit of an odd title, as the…

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  • Premières

    Proms 2022: Julian Anderson – Symphony No. 2 ‘Prague Panoramas’ (World Première)

    by 5:4 August 8, 2022 • 11:20
    August 8, 2022 • 11:20

    Almost exactly 10 years ago, i coined a new adjective, ‘Faberian’, in reference to Faber Music, to summarise what i later described as “the kind of thing one hears all too often in works from the more mainstream protagonists of that particular publishing house”. On that first occasion i elaborated…

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  • Premières

    Proms 2022: Hildur Guðnadóttir & Sam Slater (arr. Robert Ames) – Selections from Battlefield 2042 (European Première)

    by 5:4 August 2, 2022 • 15:59
    August 2, 2022 • 15:59

    As part of the Proms’ inexorable slide away from concert works in an attempt to remain relevant, yesterday evening’s event was given over to orchestral arrangements and reworkings of music from videogames. They included the European première (following a performance by the LA Philharmonic late last year) of Robert Ames‘…

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  • Premières

    Proms 2022: Nicole Lizée – Blurr is the Colour of My True Love’s Eyes (European Première)

    by 5:4 August 1, 2022 • 14:31
    August 1, 2022 • 14:31

    Canadian composer Nicole Lizée‘s new percussion concerto, premièred last month in Ottowa, received its first European performance at the Proms last Friday evening. Its title, Blurr is the Colour of My True Love’s Eyes, though somewhat strange at first, perhaps suggests the two main aspects of the work. The first…

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  • Premières

    Proms 2022: Cheryl Frances-Hoad – Your Servant, Elizabeth (World Première)

    by 5:4 July 23, 2022 • 12:54
    July 23, 2022 • 12:54

    Last night’s Prom was a monarchist’s paradise, waxing lyrical in the Queen’s platinum jubilee year with an evening of music composed for royal occasions. Nestling among all the sonic bowing and scraping and forelock-tugging from the usual early 20th century shower was a short new choral work from Cheryl Frances-Hoad,…

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  • Premières

    Proms 2022: Sally Beamish – Hive (World Première)

    by 5:4 July 22, 2022 • 17:56
    July 22, 2022 • 17:56

    Yesterday evening’s Prom concert wasn’t specifically aimed at children, but you’d be forgiven for thinking it was while listening to Sally Beamish‘s new harp concerto, Hive. The work’s narrative is structured in a simple four-movement form, corresponding to the seasons of the year, beginning in winter. This opening movement isn’t…

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  • Premières

    Proms 2022: Hildur Guðnadóttir – The Fact of the Matter (World Première)

    by 5:4 July 21, 2022 • 16:15
    July 21, 2022 • 16:15

    Last night’s Prom concert included the first of this year’s crop of premières. The Fact of the Matter is a 16-minute response to the current state of the world by Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir. In the pre-concert discussion, she spoke about the divisions between people, and the feeling that “we’re…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    Laura Bowler – The Blue Woman; Distance

    by 5:4 July 18, 2022 • 16:39
    July 18, 2022 • 16:39

    The opportunity to hear two new works by Laura Bowler within a single week isn’t just a exciting prospect, it’s a daunting one. Her subject matter has oscillated between the personal and the global, at both extremes seeking to address the pain and damage that far too many people are…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    BEAST FEaST 2022: Resonances (Part 2)

    by 5:4 July 10, 2022 • 11:41
    July 10, 2022 • 11:41

    In the previous part i highlighted the works heard at BEAST FEaST 2022 that went against the grain and handled their materials with gentleness. However, not surprisingly the dominant compositional attitude was one aspiring to power and heft. Though unassumingly titled, Helena Gough‘s Yolk featured an almost flamboyant display of…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    BEAST FEaST 2022: Resonances (Part 1)

    by 5:4 July 7, 2022 • 12:25
    July 7, 2022 • 12:25

    The key word, i think, is “feast”. There was something gloriously gluttonous about the quantity of music performed at BEAST FEaST 2022, though considering the festival was celebrating both the 40th anniversary of the founding of Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre and the recent 70th birthday of its founder Jonty Harrison,…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2022 (Part 4)

    by 5:4 May 9, 2022 • 09:52
    May 9, 2022 • 09:52

    A disconcerting aspect of some of the pieces performed at this year’s Estonian Music Days was the extent to which their material, language and / or behaviour was obviously begged, borrowed and / or stolen from heavily-worn musical conventions, to the point of outright cliché. This was especially apparent in…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2022 (Interlude / Part 3)

    by 5:4 May 5, 2022 • 05:00
    May 5, 2022 • 05:00

    In addition to conventional acoustic and electronic music, there was the opportunity to explore a variety of audiovisual work during my time in Tallinn. This was primarily due to COMMUTE, a fringe festival run by the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, with late evening concerts each day, after the…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2022 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 May 2, 2022 • 05:00
    May 2, 2022 • 05:00

    The smallest-scale events at this year’s Estonian Music Days were a pair of chamber concerts at each end of the festival. Irina Zahharenkova’s keyboard recital at the Arvo Pärt Centre encompassed extremes of musical invention. The most egregious were two works dating from the early 1990s by a Russian guitarist…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2022 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 April 28, 2022 • 16:51
    April 28, 2022 • 16:51

    Even before my plane touched down at Tallinn airport, i knew that this year’s Estonian Music Days was going to feel a bit different. Last year marked the 20th anniversary of Estonia’s independence from Soviet occupation, and one of the effects of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine is that Tallinn…

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Helena Tulve – Lament (World Première)

    by 5:4 April 16, 2022 • 05:00
    April 16, 2022 • 05:00

    Curating this year’s Lent Series, focusing on death, grief and loss, has been something of a difficult experience. As i mentioned at the start of the series, this theme has felt unavoidable and inevitable at the moment, but at the same time works such as the ones i’ve featured, that…

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    James MacMillan – The Keening (World Première)

    by 5:4 April 13, 2022 • 05:00
    April 13, 2022 • 05:00

    The penultimate work in this year’s Lent Series is one that ended up having to wait over a quarter of a century from the date of composition to receive its first performance. James MacMillan completed his orchestral piece The Keening in 1987, while studying for his PhD at Durham University.…

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Arash Yazdani – Nakba (World Première)

    by 5:4 April 9, 2022 • 16:36
    April 9, 2022 • 16:36

    The Arabic word ‘nakba’ (النكبة), which translates as “disaster” or “cataclysm”, is used to refer to the suffering, displacement and destruction wrought on the Palestinians from 1948 (with the wartime exodus) to the present day. It’s a term that has been in use right from the outset of the Israeli-Palestinian…

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5:4
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