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Howard Skempton

  • 20th CenturyAdvent Calendar

    Howard Skempton – One for the Road

    by 5:4 December 12, 2021 • 05:00
    December 12, 2021 • 05:00

    Today’s Advent Calendar work is one of Webernesque miniature proportions. Composed in 1976, Howard Skempton‘s One for the Road for solo accordion is a typically strange piece, full of paradoxes. In a not dissimilar way to a more recent work like Oculus, Skempton’s material is obsessive, cycling around a single…

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  • Advent & ChristmasThematic series

    Howard Skempton – The Wells Service

    by 5:4 December 21, 2019 • 05:00
    December 21, 2019 • 05:00

    The pair of canticles used in a traditional Anglican choral evensong service effectively straddle the Christmas story, the Magnificat pointing towards it, the Nunc dimittis referring back to it. Their use in this service means that there must be literally thousands of settings of them, though, no doubt fuelled by…

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Howard Skempton – Here’s the Tender Coming (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 16, 2017 • 20:14
    March 16, 2017 • 20:14

    Back to the Lent Series, and to a completely charming and surprisingly poignant little miniature by Howard Skempton. Here’s the Tender Coming is a Northumbrian folk tune, and Skempton’s arrangement of it dates from 2011, appropriately written for Northumbrian piper Kathryn Tickell plus the addition of a string quartet. Despite the cheeriness…

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  • Premières

    Howard Skempton – Piano Concerto (World Première)

    by 5:4 January 19, 2017 • 20:36
    January 19, 2017 • 20:36

    Another interesting première from 2016, also performed at the Tectonics festival, also for piano and orchestra, also featuring John Tilbury as soloist, is Howard Skempton‘s Piano Concerto. This is a work that i’ve been more than usually interested to hear. In conversations throughout the last couple of years, Howard has talked…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    CBSO Centre, Birmingham: BCMG – Remembering the Future

    by 5:4 June 13, 2016 • 11:14
    June 13, 2016 • 11:14

    Both the title of last night’s BCMG concert, ‘Remembering the Future’, and its prevailing tone emphasised a looking back, and with good reason, as this was the final concert in Stephen and Jackie Newbould’s long tenure running the ensemble. Thankfully, that didn’t cause the evening to sag into mere nostalgia, focusing…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    CBSO Centre, Birmingham: BCMG – The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

    by 5:4 December 6, 2015 • 17:10
    December 6, 2015 • 17:10

    The CBSO Centre, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group‘s home, found itself seriously packed on Friday evening, for a concert in which the ensemble was joined by baritone Roderick Williams. Just two works were on the programme, Dominic Muldowney‘s An English Song Book, a BCMG commission from 2011 comprising five cabaret songs,…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2014 revisited: Howard Skempton – Oculus (World Première)

    by 5:4 January 23, 2015 • 22:15
    January 23, 2015 • 22:15

    One of the smallest works receiving their first performance at HCMF 2014 was Howard Skempton‘s two-minute Oculus, for solo piano. Despite such brevity, it’s a beguiling curiosity of a piece; indeed, ‘Skemptonian’ might be a good adjective for music that is weird, amusing and a bit baffling all in equal…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2014: Lohengrin, Philip Thomas, Aurora Orchestra

    by 5:4 November 22, 2014 • 16:40
    November 22, 2014 • 16:40

    Not that the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival needs to reinforce its cutting edge credentials, but if it did, featuring Salvatore Sciarrino‘s Lohengrin on the opening night would certainly do it. The piece is cast in a single act—but an act of what? this is the question that pervades the work…

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  • Festivals

    Proms 2010: Cage, Cardew, Skempton and Feldman

    by 5:4 August 27, 2010 • 18:09
    August 27, 2010 • 18:09

    A few hours after the bizarre final notes of Arvo Pärt’s Symphony No. 4 had faded away, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Ilan Volkov came to the Royal Albert Hall to present the Proms with a late-night performance of rather more experimental fare. They began with one of…

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5:4
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