Proms 2017

James MacMillan’s latest religious blockbuster, A European Requiem, was given its first performance in Europe at the Proms a couple of days ago. The piece is a little over a year old (premièred in July 2016 in Oregon), and although its concert hall life has taken place in the midst…

It’s quite unusual to be sitting down to enjoy the Proms première of a piece you already know quite well. But that was the case with Anders Hillborg‘s Sirens, which received its first UK performance a couple of days ago by Swedish sopranos Ida Falk Winland and Hannah Holgersson with the BBC…

Last autumn, at the Royal Musical Association’s annual conference, composer Julian Anderson presented a paper addressing what he described as “the problem of professionals involved in modern music denigrating and otherwise attempting to devalue the music they are supposed to support”. The paper – which unfortunately i’ve not yet been able…

Despite being composed and first performed nearly six years ago, and also being released on CD in 2015, Swedish composer Anders Hillborg‘s Sirens, a large-scale work for two sopranos, chorus and orchestra, hasn’t yet been performed in the UK. Until, that is, this evening, when it finally receives its UK…

Last Sunday afternoon, French composer Laurent Durupt‘s new work Grids for Greed was given its first performance by the Van Kuijk Quartet at the second Proms Chamber Music concert, in Cadogan Hall. In his answers to my pre-première questions, Durupt made two remarks that are clearly most important to the…

This afternoon, at the second Proms Chamber Music concert at Cadogan Hall, French composer Laurent Durupt‘s first string quartet, Grids for Greed, will receive its world première by the Van Kuijk Quartet. Durupt is a composer new to me, so his answers to my pre-première questions are a useful starting point…

Concertos are a regular occurrence among Proms premières. Usually – too often – they’re for violin, but last year bucked this trend by featuring a pair of cello concertos (by Huw Watkins and Charlotte Bray). The 2017 season is bucking it some more, again featuring two of them, the first…

As i noted in my introduction to his answers to my pre-première questions, until the announcement was made about this year’s Proms in April, it had passed me by completely that Roderick Williams, as well as being one of Britain’s most well-known singers, is also a composer. Unsurprisingly focused on…

It’s easy to believe – even take for granted – that we ‘get’ Harrison Birtwistle. He represents a lot of things to a lot of people, but the tendency is to conflate the man and his music, mix in stereotypes drawing on his age and northern heritage, and arrive at…

Today’s Proms première is by renowned baritone Roderick Williams, whom many may not have realised – as i didn’t, until relatively recently – also has a sideline in composition. In preparation for the first performance of his new work Là ci darem la mano at Cadogan Hall this afternoon – in…

And we’re off: the first performance of Tom Coult‘s new orchestral work St John’s Dance got the 2017 Proms season up and running last night, courtesy of the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardner. i’ve only really scratched the surface of Coult’s music, having heard two earlier works in…

Tonight, this year’s Proms season kicks off in earnest, and once again i’ll be reviewing all of the contemporary pieces receiving world or UK premières. As an extra feature this year, i’ve interrogated some of the featured composers with a short series of questions, the answers of which hopefully will…

The 2017 Proms season is fast approaching, and in anticipation of this i’ve contributed an essay to the July edition of online journal Sounds Like Now. The essay focuses specifically on the way contemporary music has been and continues to be represented at the Proms, exploring a number of themes with…

It’s that time again: today all the details of this year’s Proms season have been revealed. From a contemporary music perspective, there are 15 world premières – from Tom Coult, Roderick Williams, Laurent Durupt, Julian Anderson, Brian Elias, Judith Weir, Philip Glass/Ravi Shankar (i know, just don’t), Michael Gordon, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Jonathan Dove, Daniel Saleeb, Gerald Barry, Hannah Kendall, Catherine Lamb and Lotta Wennäkoski – and nine European/UK…