One of Estonian’s best-known composers, Erkki-Sven Tüür, makes his second visit to the Proms this evening, for the UK première of his work for strings Flamma by the Australian Chamber Orchestra (he was last heard at the Royal Albert Hall in 2003, with the Concerto for Violin). Like most of his fellow Estonians, …
Estonia
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In the wake of my experiences at this year’s Estonian Music Days, extended in my recent weekend of articles focusing on the country’s choral music, yesterday’s late evening concert at St Matthew’s Church in Cheltenham was a real treat. It featured a choir new to me, the E STuudio Youth Choir, …
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CD/Digital releasesThematic series
Estonia in Focus weekend: New Estonian Choral Music; Tõnu Kõrvits – Moorland Elegies; Galina Grigorjeva – Nature Morte
by 5:4To bring this first Estonia in Focus weekend to a close, some excellent CDs of Estonian contemporary choral music have been released in the last few months. Together they admirably demonstrate the considerable range and richness of compositional thought typical of the country’s new music scene. For a broad but in-depth …
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PremièresThematic series
Estonia in Focus weekend: Galina Grigorjeva – Vespers (World Première)
by 5:4A major new choral work was premièred at this year’s Estonian Music Days in Tallinn, by one of the country’s most celebrated composers. Born in the Ukraine, Galina Grigorjeva relocated to Estonia 25 years ago and has since become essentially adopted by the country as one of its own. On …
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Estonia’s highly imaginative approach to choral music is not in any way a recent development. The country’s most dominant figure of the earlier twentieth century is Cyrillus Kreek (1889–1962), who in addition to being a composer was also a choral conductor and a collector of both Estonian and Swedish folk music. …
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PremièresThematic series
Estonia in Focus weekend: Tatjana Kozlova-Johannes – To My End and to Its End… (World Première)
by 5:4A few months back, i reported on the goings-on at the Estonian Music Days, the second year running that i’d attended the festival. During this time, i’ve become increasingly interested in the country’s new musical endeavours, which for various reasons – both our fault and theirs – remain almost entirely unknown …
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In the previous part, i remarked on Estonian music’s apparent distance from compositional developments of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. And while i also remarked that i don’t believe it’s happening in a vacuum, it is demonstrably removed from many of the attitudes that one tends to take for granted …
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i’ve recently got back from a few days in Tallinn, attending Eesti Muusika Päevad, the Estonian Music Days, the country’s annual celebration of contemporary music. Coming away from my first encounter with the EMD last year, and reflecting on the experience after, left me with mixed feelings. Estonian contemporary music …
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On 9 September, a concert given at the Vale of Glamorgan Festival of Music by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, conducted by Tõnu Kaljuste, was for the most part concerned with the music of Arvo Pärt, featuring a new work commissioned by the …
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FestivalsPremières
Proms 2010: Arvo Pärt – Symphony No. 4 ‘Los Angeles’ (UK Première) plus Mosolov
by 5:4Last Friday evening’s Prom concert, given by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, brought to the UK Arvo Pärt‘s first symphony in almost four decades: his fourth, subtitled (with both geographical and theological connotations) ‘Los Angeles’. However, before Pärt’s work—in an imaginative, even provocative bit of concert programming—came a short …