MUSIC SALES CLASSICAL SEASON HIGHLIGHTS 2017– 2018
C OMPO SERS
C O MP O S ER S
Anna Thorvaldsdottir The Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir has signed a long-term agreement with Chester Music. Her catalogue includes twenty-five works spanning orchestral, ensemble, solo, choral, vocal and chamber opera repertoire, which are performed internationally and many of which have been recorded on the Deutsche Grammophon, Innova and Sono Luminus labels. Thorvaldsdottir’s orchestral works include Dreaming, which won the 2008 Nordic Council Music Prize, and AERIALITY which has received over twenty performances since its premiere in 2011. Her largest scale work to date is UR_, a chamber opera with a cast of four characters which deals with the human struggle to return to a natural state of being. Thorvaldsdottir was the recipient of the New York Philharmonic’s Kravis Emerging Composer Award in 2015, which features the prize of an orchestral commission, on which the composer is currently working, for premiere in the spring.
John Luther Adams American composer John Luther Adams signed a long-term agreement with Chester Music in October 2016. With sixty-four pieces currently in the catalogue, his output ranges across the full gamut – from orchestral, chamber and choral works to electronic repertoire. His music has gained increasing attention since the orchestral work Become Ocean won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014 and a Grammy Award for Best C ontemporary Classical Composition in 2015. His next major new work, Become Desert, is a forty- five-minute piece for chorus and orchestra to be premiered in March 2018 by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. The New York Philharmonic will perform it later that year. Various European premieres are planned for the following season. The UK premiere of songbirdsongs will be performed by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group in September at the BBC Proms. In February 2018 the New York Philharmonic will give the New York premiere of the orchestral version of Dark Waves.
Eivind Buene Three Lessons in Darkness is the title of the work by Eivind Buene that will be premiered by Ensemble Musikfabrik and conductor Enno Poppe at the renowned Donaueschinger Musiktage in Germany in October 2017. Buene lives in Oslo, teaches at the Academy of Music in the same city and has a career as a novelist. His latest novel Oppstandelse was released in September 2016. Buene is a recent signing to Edition Wilhelm Hansen. So far in 2017 Buene’s works have been performed by the Oslo Philharmonic, and by the London Sinfonietta (who premiered Sea Change at Bergen International Festival). He was featured at the June in Buffalo contemporary music festival as a teacher and composer, and at Risør Chamber Music Festival in Norway. The coming season includes two CD releases and the world premiere of his violin concerto Falling Angels/ Sound Asleep/Among Voices of the Dead, with soloist Peter Herresthal and Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra.
Sarah Kirkland Snider American composer Sarah Kirkland Snider joined G. Schirmer, Inc. in August 2016. After an international tour of her idyllic song cycle Unremembered in Spring 2017, Snider is at work on a Mass for Trinity Wall Street in New York. Premiering in the spring, the Mass will mark her latest collaboration with poet Nathaniel Bellows, whose text is an elegy for endangered species. Also premiering this autumn is The Blue Hour, an hour-long song cycle collaboratively composed by Snider, Rachel Grimes, Shara Nova, Angelica Negron, and Caroline Shaw. Set to Carolyn Forche’s poem ‘On Earth’, The Blue Hour is written for string orchestra/co-commissioner A Far Cry and v ocalist Luciana Souza; co-commissioner Washington Performing Arts will present the world premiere November 4, with an East Coast tour to follow. Snider is a co-founding Artistic Director of New Amsterdam Records, based in Brooklyn, NY, and a vocal advocate for the advancement of women composers.
Benet Casablancas After celebrating his sixtieth birthday with a wide range of performances, this season will bring Benet Casablancas further recognition with important orchestral concerts. The Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya conducted by Kazushi Ono will perform Three Interludes for Orchestra in November 2017. The German premiere of Sogni ed Epifanie will be presented in April 2018 under the baton of Josep Pons with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, at Mannheim’s Rosengarten and in Saarbrücken. It will also be played in June 2018 by the Orquesta Nacional de España conducted by Josep Caballé- Domenech in Madrid. Several CDs will be released: two CDs on Naxos with a selection of orchestral works and ensemble music featuring Ensemble New Babylon, Bremen; on Sony Classical, a CD with the London Sinfonietta conducted by Felix Krieger, featuring some important firstreleases.
Le Chant du Monde In November 2016, The Music Sales Group completed the acquisition of the P arisian publishing house Le Chant du Monde, taking on a substantial catalogue of French and Russian copyrights including works by Honegger, Milhaud, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Khachaturian, as well as contemporary works of composers including Sofia Gubaidulina, Nicolas Bacri, Oscar Strasnoy and Ramon Lazkano. The most recent signings to the publisher include Luis Rizo-Salom and the Argentinian composer Daniel D’Adamo. Le Chant du Monde was established in Paris by Léon Moussinac in 1938 and has played a prominent part in French musical life for the past eighty years.
OP ERA
O P ER A
Antichrist By Langgaard Staatstheater Mainz will present the German premiere of the philosophical-religious opera Antichrist by Rued Langgaard on June 3. The performance will be conducted by Hermann Bäumer and staged by Anselm Dalferth. It is a rare production of this opera which was written in the 1920s about the decline of the western society and civilization. It was not performed on stage until 1999 due to the libretto being rejected by the Royal Theatre Copenhagen.
The Second Violinist The gripping new chamber opera The Second Violinist by Donnacha Dennehy, co-commissioned by Landmark Productions and Wide Open Opera, was premiered at Ireland’s Galway International Arts Festival in July 2017. Performances follow in Dublin from October 2-8. The latest collaboration between Dennehy and writer/director Enda Walsh dramatises the surreal mental breakdown of a lonely, Gesualdo-obsessed musician as he prepares for a performance. With Aaron Monaghan in the title role, Ryan McAdams conducts the Chorus of Wide Open Opera and Dennehy’s Crash Ensemble. Crash has also co-commissioned a new instrumental work from Dennehy, and will give the world premiere on September 16 on Spike Island; The Knights will perform the US premiere later in the season.
Avner Dorman After the powerful premiere of Wahnfried last season, Avner Dorman turns to multi-media for his next operatic venture: Star Cross’d, a Romeo & Juliet-themed video opera pilot, filmed for Houston Grand Opera and with a libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann. An audacious next step in twenty-first century opera production, the story will be selected from a public call for stories, in time for an April premiere. Wahnfried will also be restaged in the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, back by popular demand and coinciding with Wagner’s Ring Cycle, March May.
Vanessa at Glyndebourne Between August 5 and 26 2018, Glyndebourne Opera will stage the UK premiere of Vanessa, the 1958 Pulitzer Prize-winning opera by Samuel Barber. The two-hour grand opera, with a libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti, tells the story of two women, Vanessa and Erika, both besotted with a young man welcomed into their country home. It is a battle for love and ideals. Emma Bell, the Kathleen Ferrier Award- winning dramatic soprano, will play the title role, alongside Edgaras Montvidas (Anatol), Doris Soffel (The Old Baroness) and Donnie Ray Albert (The Old Doctor). This new production runs for ten performances and will be directed by Keith Warner, recently acclaimed for his staging of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby and Avner Dorman’s Wahnfried. Jakub Hru° ša will conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Nico Muhly’s Marnie Marnie, running from Nov 18 - Dec 3 in London, is the second major work by Nico Muhly commissioned by Metropolitan Opera and English National Opera. Nicholas Wright’s libretto is based on the novel by Winston Graham and inspired by the screenplay to the 1964 Hitchcock thriller. A young woman makes her way through life by embezzling from her employer, before she moves on and changes her identity. Marnie examines the cost of freedom, the limitations of forgiveness and the impossibility of escaping the past, in music that is direct and powerful. Muhly says, ‘The whole beat of the thing is her changing identities and tricking people and robbing them. There’s a kind of mystery element to it’. A stellar creative team led by Tony Award- winning director Michael Mayer includes mezzo Sasha Cooke in the title role, bass- baritone Daniel Okulitch as Mark Rutland and Lesley Garrett as Mrs Rutland. Set design is by Julian Crouch and 59 Productions. Marnie goes to the Met in November 2018.
Silent Zone Silent Zone by Louise Alenius depicts a family with two adult children that has ceased to communicate as a result of an incident in the past. The daughter does not speak at all, and only reacts by beating on her own body or things around her. The parents only communicate with inner voices. Silent Zone is that place in our bodies where we store all the parts of our lives that we cannot or dare not confront. It is a physical place in which all the incidents that are not spoken of take place. It is also a state of mind, where the system (muscles, brain, feelings etc.) collapse and are all on standby. The director of the opera is Tue Biering, the acclaimed and controversial Danish theatre director. Silent Zone will premiere at Copenhagen Opera Festival 2017 on July 30, with a run of twelve performances. It will then tour around Denmark. Alenius has worked extensively with performance, ballet and experimental music theatre. This is her first chamber opera.
Proving Up Following a season of sensational premieres and universal acclaim for their Breaking the Waves, Missy Mazzoli rejoins forces with librettist Royce Vavrek for the chamber opera Proving Up. An hour-long, harrowing tale of family, loss, and isolation in N ebraska during the era of the 1862 Homestead Act, Proving Up is based on a short story of the same name by Karen Russell, and co-commissioned by Washington National Opera, Opera Omaha, and Miller Theatre at Columbia University. The first performances take place at the Kennedy Center, January 19-21 2018, as part of the American Opera Initiative Festival. James Darrah will direct the Opera Omaha world premiere April 13-22, and the Omaha production travels to Miller Theater in September 2018. Mazzoli’s Sinfonia (for o rbiting spheres) receives its European premiere on September 5 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall, London.
OP ERA
DA NC E
The Vanishing Bridegroom
Saariaho and T.S. Eliot
British Youth Opera will present a new production of The Vanishing Bridegroom by Judith Weir as part of its 30th - anniversary season. The opera was written in 1990 and is a dramatisation of three traditional Scottish folk tales from the West Highlands, each featuring a bridegroom who disappears. Seen together, they form a continuous narrative about one marriage. This production will be directed by Stuart Barker and conducted by James Holmes, in a newly available reduced version for chamber ensemble of 13 players that retains the full cast of the original opera. Performances take place at the Peacock Theatre in London on S eptember 2, 6 and 8.
To celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of publication of Four Quartets, a major achievement of T.S. Eliot’s poetic career, the Richard B. Fisher Centre of Performing Arts, Bard College, NY commissioned the choreographer Pam Tanowitz, composer Kaija Saariaho and set designer Brice Marden to create a full-length proscenium dance setting to Four Quartets. The expressive qualities of dance and music are central themes of Eliot’s poetry, recurring again and again as metaphors for the ineffability of human experience. It will be the first authorised dance project based on Eliot’s masterpiece. The performances take place July 6–8 2018 at Bard College, NY.
Everest in Europe Following the premiere of Everest at the Dallas Opera in 2015, the American press acclaimed this first opera by Joby Talbot as ‘a lasting work’. On May 5 Everest will receive its European premiere in a new production at Theater Hagen, conducted by Joseph Trafton. Theater Hagen will also present The Lodger by Talbot – a modern soundtrack to the 1927 silent film classic of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock which is known to be the first ‘proper’ Hitchcock thriller. Film and music will be presented on May 29.
Daniel Catán Florencia en el Amazonas by Daniel Catán, inspired by the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez, will continue to storm the United States with performances in three different cities in spring 2018. First, San Diego Opera, a long-time champion of Catán, will stage the opera, starring Elaine Alvarez and conducted by Joseph M echavich, March 17-25. Renowned diva Ana María Martínez will sing the title role in Florida Grand Opera’s staging of the acclaimed Opera Colorado production, co-starring Steven LaBrie and running April 28 to May 5 under the baton of Ramón Tebar. Madison Opera’s production runs concurrently (April 27-29), with a cast led by Elizabeth Caballero and conducted by John DeMain.
Mata Hari in Amsterdam Mata Hari returns to the stage of Dutch National Ballet this autumn, with a run of twelve performances in Amsterdam from October 14. The full-length ballet, which features an original score by Tarik O’Regan and choreography by Ted Brandsen, was commissioned and first performed by DNB in 2016 and subsequently released on DVD on the EuroArts label. It tells the remarkable story of one of the most iconic women in Dutch history, Margaretha Geertruida Zelle who reinvented herself as the exotic and mysterious dancer Mata Hari. The revival coincides with the centenary of the death of the heroine, who was executed as a spy during World War I.
Munich Ballet Festival Opening the 2018 Ballet Festival Week at the Bayerisches Staatsballet in Munich in April 2018, an all-McGregor programme features the world premiere of a new work created to music by Kaija Saariaho. McGregor’s second collaboration with Saariaho explores Circle Map, a six-part work each relating to a poem by Persian poet Rumi. With a distinctive orchestration and a processing of the texts in the work’s electronics, the pitch and tone of the original voice are modified differently from one movement to another. The programme also includes Borderlands, Wayne McGregor’s first commission for the San Francisco Ballet. Set to an electronic score by Joel Cadbury and Paul Stone, Borderlands is a fierce, driving study in movement inspired by the work of visual artist Josef Albers.
Salonen Dance Works Japanese choreographer/director Saburo Teshigawara’s powerful sense of composition, command of space and his decisive dance movements all fuse to create a unique world that is his alone. His response to a new commission from Paris Opera Ballet is to create a work giving substance to the profound, organic and poetic language of the Violin Concerto by Esa-Pekka Salonen. From October 26 to November 16, Teshigawara commands choreography, design and lighting as Salonen conducts violinist Akiko Suwanai in a programme including Pina Bausch’s intense and earthy Rite of Spring and Balanchine’s Agon, both with music by Stravinsky, a composer regularly championed by Salonen. Obsidian Tear receives its US premiere with co-commissioners of the work, Boston Ballet in November 2017 and returns to The Royal Ballet in London in May 2018. McGregor paired Salonen’s virtuoso violin solo Lachen verlernt with Nyx for orchestra. McGregor boldly choreographs the work for an all-male cast and the imaginative world of the ballet is both archaic and futuristic in its exploration of the tribal behaviour of its all-male group. In 2016, Finnish - based Tero Saarinen Company created Morphed, an evening of dance set to music by Salonen (Violin Concerto, Foreign Bodies, Concert étude). It comes to the Festival Hall in London on August 10.
DA N CE
CHAMBER
Violin Sonatas
The Judas Tree returns Kenneth MacMillan’s final and possibly most controversial ballet, with an original score by Brian Elias, returns to the Royal Opera House this October. Originally premiered by the Royal Ballet in 1992, the programming of The Judas Tree alongside six other ballets by the choreographer is part of the Royal Opera House’s ‘Kenneth MacMillan: A National Celebration’. In his final work both he and Elias were inspired not only by biblical stories of betrayal but also by contemporary events. It is an exploration of collective guilt and the violent consequences of a rule of fear. As MacMillan admitted after he finished, ‘There are things in me that are untapped and that have come out in this ballet that I find frightening’. In The Judas Tree, MacMillan returns to themes that had occupied him throughout his career in an uncompromising and discomfiting work. The score itself is part symphony, part music drama – but above all an abstract orchestral structure expressed in terms of movement and dance. Four performances will take place between October 24 - November 1, 2017. Koen Kessels conducts.
Alice in Australia The unrivalled success of Joby Talbot and Christopher Wheeldon’s first full-length ballet continues in September when Australian Ballet presents Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in Melbourne and later in Sydney. This occasion also marks the world premiere of a slightly reduced orchestration by Talbot which has future outings with National Ballet of Japan who present the work in 2018 and Royal Danish and Swedish Ballet who stage revivals in the coming season. Alice will run from September 12 -30 in Melbourne and December 5 -22 in Sydney. Meanwhile, Talbot and Wheeldon’s second full-length ballet The Winter’s Tale has its Australian premiere presented by The Royal Ballet on tour to Queensland in July.
G. Schirmer composers André Previn, Gabriela Lena Frank and Daniel Wohl have each written distinctive works for violin premiering this season. André Previn, who celebrates his ninetieth birthday in 2019, will continue his iconic partnership with Anne-Sophie Mutter with The Fifth Season, which she co-commissioned with Carnegie Hall. Mutter will give the world premiere at Carnegie Hall on March 4, accompanied by pianist Lambert Orkis. After three sensational orchestral premieres last season, Gabriela Lena Frank’s intimate sonata for solo violin will be recorded and premiered by Movses Pogossian on November 21 in Los Angeles, through a commission from New Music USA. Wohl returns to form with a hybrid sonata for solo violin and electronics; commissioner Lina Bahn will give the world premiere at the Smithsonian Institute on October 22.
Stewart Copeland The Sheriff of Luxembourg, the rousing new work for solo percussion and tape by Stewart Copeland, will be premiered by Christoph Sietzen in Cologne, October 22. Commissioned as part of the European Concert Hall Organization’s Rising Stars series, Sietzen will tour the piece across Europe through May. Copeland’s brilliant and surreal chamber opera The Invention of Morel heads to Long Beach Opera March 17-25.
Matthew Aucoin
The ascendant opera career of Matthew Aucoin continues next season. He will conduct Crossing – his inspired Walt Whitman/Civil War chamber fantasia – at BAM on October 3-8 and at LA Opera on May 26. On April 22 Brentano Quartet will premiere a Union College-commissioned series of miniatures, intended to be expanded and developed into Aucoin’s first mature string quartet. Chanticleer will give the premiere of their commission from Aucoin on June 9-16 in Danville, California. His Piano Concerto will also have its East Coast premiere with soloist Conor Hanick and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project October 29, with a premiere recording to follow.
CHORAL
Tan Dun Recently awarded the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Venice Biennale, Tan Dun will conduct the world premiere of his evening-length Buddha Passion at the Dresdner Musikfestspiele in May 2018. Scored for soloists, chorus, and orchestra, Buddha Passion is inspired by ancient manuscripts found in the Dunhuang caves of China. This oratorio was co-commissioned by Dresden, Melbourne Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic.
O’Regan at Pacific Chorale Tarik O’Regan will be Composer-inResidence at Pacific Chorale for three seasons from 2017/18. As part of the role, he will write new works for the choir, as well as advising its Music Director Robert Istad on programming selections. In the first event, Pacific Chorale will present the US premiere of O’Regan’s A Celestial Map of the Sky on October 29. The piece, for large chorus and orchestra, is featured on an album of the composer’s orchestral music recently released by NMC Recordings. O’Regan, who is currently working on an opera for Houston Grand Opera, has also been commissioned by the American Guild of Organists to write a new choral work for the association’s National Convention in Kansas City in July 2018.
In the Land of Uz Judith Weir looked to the biblical Book of Job for her latest choral work, In the Land of Uz. The thirty-five minute piece features narrator, organ and an ensemble of five instruments. It’s the first work commissioned as part of Weir’s post as Composer in Association with the BBC Singers. It will be premiered at the BBC Proms in Southwark Cathedral, London, on August 12. In Spring 2018, choirs and singers from Aberdeen will premiere The Big Picture, commissioned by the sound festival and Aberdeen Art Gallery. Also this season, a short work for the Schubert Ensemble’s thirty-fifth anniversary concert at Wigmore Hall, London on March 21.
ORCHESTRA
Schirmer Theatrical In December 2017, Stanford Live! will present François Girard’s 1998 film The Red Violin with live orchestra, featuring the Oscar-winning score by John Corigliano and the brilliant v iolinist Lara St. John. A new Schirmer Theatrical production ‘Women Rock’, a celebration of female singers and songwriters from the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, received its symphonic premiere in June 2017 in the USA with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, and will be presented by several orchestras throughout the 2017-18 season, including the Tucson Symphony, Detroit Symphony and more. The concert features three female vocalists performing the music of Holly Knight, Carole King, Irene Cara, Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, Minnie Riperton, Heart, Pat Benatar, Joan Jett and Tina Turner, all expertly arranged and conducted by Jeff Tyzik.
TOTAL Salonen The Barbican Centre features Esa-Pekka Salonen in 17-18. The focus begins on November 22 with a collaboration with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in which Salonen conducts the student orchestra in his LA Variations. The next day, Salonen works with student composers. On December 10 the BBC presents ‘Total Immersion: Esa-Pekka Salonen’, including the BBC Singers pairing his work with music by his teacher Einojuhani Rautavaara and the UK premiere of Karawane performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. From February 8-18, the Los Angeles Philharmonic continues its relationship with Salonen in performances of three concertos by their original soloists: Yo-Yo Ma, Yefim Bronfman and Leila Josefowicz. Wing on Wing, commissioned for the orchestra’s inaugural season in Disney Hall, completes the cycle. In London on March 28, Young Musician of the Year 2016, Benjamin Goldschneider plays Salonen’s Concert étude for solo horn in a concert presented by the Britten Sinfonia. On April 13, in the USA the LA Phil and Gustavo Dudamel give the world premiere of their latest orchestral commission from Salonen which travels to the Barbican on May 2.
Bryce Dessner
Muhly Premieres James McVinnie will premiere a new organ concerto by Nico Muhly with the LA Philharmonic, conducted by James Conlon, in Los Angeles on February 23, 24 and 25. Muhly and McVinnie have collaborated numerous times in the past but this is their most substantial project to date. Other significant performances of Muhly’s music this s eason include the French premiere of Mixed Messages, given by Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France on October 14 as well as the European premiere of Looking Up!, a recent work for chorus and orchestra, which will be performed on April 28 by the MDR-Sinfonieorchester and MDR Rundfunkchor, conducted by Kristjan Järvi.
Helen Grime Fanfares The music of Helen Grime will open the 17-18 season of the London Symphony O rchestra and the first concert with its new Music Director Sir Simon Rattle on September 14. Fanfares, an orchestral showpiece and the first part of a larger work, commissioned by the Barbican, will be performed later in the season on April 19 and 26. Grime’s music features across the Barbican’s season. Grime has curated a concert exploring her musical interests and inspirations to be performed by the Britten Sinfonia at Milton Court Concert Hall on September 20, including her A Cold Spring and Into the faded air. The LSO under Daniel Harding will also perform Virga on February 18. The same work features in a performance by the Deutsches Sinfonie- Orchester Berlin under Robin Ticciati in Berlin on June 6. Grime continues as Wigmore Hall Composer-in-Residence with her latest new work, a song cycle for soprano Ruby Hughes, to be premiered on February 15.
This autumn, Bryce Dessner is given the keys to the Elbphilharmonie. Their new ‘Reflector’ series comprises four concerts over two days, showcasing the diversity of Dessner’s music and the works that inspire him to create. On October 20, in a late-night concert, the Symphoniker Hamburg will perform three of his works: the German premieres of Quilting, St. Carolyn by the Sea and El Chan, as well as Stratifications by Hans Abrahamsen. The following evening Dessner and Ensemble Resonanz take to the stage with selections of Lutoslawski, Ives, Bach and his own compositions, including the European premiere of Skrik. Dessner’s critically acclaimed rock band, The National, round off the residency in the Elbphilharmonie’s striking main hall. On February 15 2018, the Grammy Award- winning mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor will perform a new co-commission from the Orchestra of St Luke’s and Carnegie Hall – which sets text by the Argentinian protofeminist A lfonsina Stormi. The Labèque sisters will join John Storgårds and the London Philharmonic Orchestra to premiere a new Concerto for Two Pianos on April 13 at London’s Royal Festival Hall, with further performances at Dresden Philharmonie on June 17 and 18, and at the Auditorio Nacional Madrid on November 30 and December 1. L’Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire host another portrait concert on February 24 in Nantes in which Quilting and Réponse Lutosławski both receive their French premieres. The Munich Chamber Orchestra will perform the German Premiere of Wires at the Prince Regent Theatre on 28 April.
New Wallin Concerto Rolf Wallin is writing a concerto for violinist Alina Ibragimova, the Bergen Philharmonic and its Chief Conductor Edward Gardner to be performed in Bergen and London in summer 2018. A recording of Wallin’s Under City Skin in a new version for violin and strings is soon to be released on the BIS label, featuring soloist Peter Herresthal and the Arctic Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra conducted by Øyvind Bjorå.
O R C H ES TR A
Evening Land in New York Bent Sørensen has been commissioned to write an orchestral work for the New York Philharmonic. Sørensen describes the music as ‘a piece in one movement around 15 minutes long. It has some very fast, energetic passages, but it also has an incredible softness to it’. The title is Evening Land, another of Sørensen’s poetic titles, that always come to him in the beginning of the compositional process, and, which cannot be changed after they first arrive. The premiere will take place in David Geffen Hall on November 30, with repeat performances on December 1 and 2.
Class of ‘38
Saariaho in Europe
The Soundstreams Festival in Canada will present the opera Gállábartnit by Britta Byström in Spring 2018. The opera’s libretto is in Sami, written by Rawdna Carita Eira with hint of Sami myths and everyday life of the nomadic Nordic people. It is, as the composer tells us, ‘a beautiful story about a woman choosing the unknown’. Byström celebrated her fortieth birthday in early 2017, and will be celebrated by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra with several concerts in October, including world premieres of a Horn Trio written for Chris Parks, Malin Broman and Simon Crawford-Phillips and her new Double Concerto, Infinite Mirrors, written for violinist Malin Broman and double-bass player Rick Stotijn. The concerto is co-commissioned by Phiilharmonie Zuidnederland. Early 2018 will also see the world premiere of the orchestral piece Many, Yet One commissioned by Detroit Symphony Orchestra after Byström won the 2017 Elaine Lebenbom Memorial Award.
This year Kaija Saariaho takes on a residency at L’Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire. Cellist Anssi Karttunen will give two performances of Notes on Light on October 1 and 2 under the baton of Ernest Martinez-Izquierdo; Pascal Rophé will lead performances of Laterna Magica on February 11 and 13; Camilla Hoitenga plays Aile du Songe in four performances between April 13-18 with Clément Mao- Takacs conducting. Later that summer, on June 1, Mao-Takacs will conduct the Oslo Philharmonic in a programme of her works, including Graal Théâtre with violinist Peter Herresthal. At Symphony Hall in Birmingham on September 27 and 28, Xavier de Maistre, Mirga Gražinyt -Tyla and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra will give the UK premiere of Saariaho’s harp c oncerto, Trans with Xavier de Maistre for whom it was written. Saariaho’s latest opera Only the Sound R emains will receive its French premiere on January 23 and given five further performances, staged by the Opéra National de Paris. Ernest Martínez conducts and Peter Sellars returns as director. Only the Sound Remains combines two short operas inspired by Nôh dramas based on translations by Ezra Pound and Ernest Fenollosa: Always strong (original title Tsunemasa) and Feather mantle (Hagoromo). The cast will feature Philippe Jaroussky, Davone Tines and dancer Nora Kimball‑Mentzos. A DVD of the Paris production will be available in January.
Three iconic American composers from the G. Schirmer/AMP family – Joan Tower, John Harbison and John Corigliano – celebrate their eightieth birthdays in 2018. The many festivities include a Corigliano retrospective at National Sawdust, New York, beginning February 16; a Joan Tower retrospective at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music on September 9 2018, and a John Harbison celebration at MIT. Additional events will be announced throughout the season.
Britta Byström
Abrahamsen & Berlin Phil In his final season with Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Sir Simon Rattle will premiere Three Pieces for Orchestra by Hans Abrahamsen. The work continues the series of Four Pieces for Orchestra all derived from the Ten Studies for piano. Following on from the premiere in Berlin on May 26, the work will be presented on tour at the Royal Festival Hall London (May 30), Musikverein Vienna (June 3), and Concertgebouw Amsterdam (June 5).
Jolas’ True Stories The BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Storgårds will give the UK premiere of Histoires vraies by Betsy Jolas at the Barbican in London, on November 3. The piece is a double concerto for trumpet (Håkan Hardenberger) and piano (Roger Muraro). It was written in 2015 and is, in the composer’s words, ‘my first conscious attempt to work with the “sounds we try not to hear”… sounds that are here selected from my daily environment and either tamed as usual through stylisation, or left quasi crude with their full disturbing potential’.
Guinovart at the Palau Catalonian composer Albert Guinovart has been appointed Guest Composer by the Palau de la Música Catalana December 2017 and June 2018. There will be concerts, lectures, special events and almost a dozen of solo, chamber and orchestral concerts. Requiem, a major choral commission for soprano, baritone, mixed choir and orchestra, will receive its world premiere in January, performed by soprano Marta Mathéu, baritone Josep-Ramon Olivé, the Cor Jove de l’Orfeó Català directed by Esteve Nabona and the Orquestra Simfònica de les Illes Balears and conducted by Pablo Mielgo. The focus will also include a meet - the - composer introductory talk, ‘From Gershwin to Guinovart’– crossover portraying Gershwin’s orchestral works – as well as his Gaudí, Scaramouche, Mar i Cel and Gershwin Suite performed by the composer on the piano with the Orquestra Simfònica del Vallès conducted by James Ross. Other concerts include performances of orchestral and choral works such as Serenata Amadeus for string orchestra in February with the Orquestra Nacional Clàssica d’Andorra and Missa Brevis “Rex Genitor” to be given by Cor de Cambra Femení Scherzo conducted by Jordi Casas i Bayer, featuring Guinovart on piano.
Arthur Bliss Ernest Bloch Peter Bruun Eivind Buene Geoffrey Burgon Britta Byström Benet Casablancas Elliott Carter Daniel Catán Carlos Chávez John Corigliano Henry Cowell Martin Creed Paul Creston Richard Danielpour Donnacha Dennehy Bryce Dessner
Thea Musgrave Marc Neikrug Anders Nordentoft Arne Nordheim Per Nørgård Michael Nyman Tarik O’Regan Andy Pape Ramon Paus Anthony Payne Jocelyn Pook Rachel Portman Francis Poulenc Zbigniew Preisner Andre Previn Karl Aage Rasmussen Sunleif Rasmussen
Terry Riley Robert X Rodríguez Niels Rosing-Schow Poul Ruders Kaija Saariaho Aulis Sallinen Esa-Pekka Salonen Asbjørn Schaathun Arnold Schönberg Gunther Schuller William Schuman Bright Sheng Sarah Kirkland Snider Jean Sibelius Bent Sørensen Igor Stravinsky Nathaniel Stookey
Joby Talbot Tan Dun John Tavener Augusta Read Thomas Anna Thorvaldsdottir Virgil Thomson Joan Tower Kevin Volans Rolf Wallin Judith Weir Eric Whitacre James Whitbourn Daniel Wohl Julia Wolfe Hugh Wood Yehudi Wyner Gabriel Yared
Inside pages: Saga Sigurdardottir / Henrik Beck / Glyndebourne/James Bellorini / Mathias Løvgreen Bojesen / NMC Recordings / Dutch National Ballet/Marc Haegeman / Gideon Lester / Royal Opera House/Johan Persson / Dor Film / Los Angeles Philharmonic Association / Mediaserver.hamburg.de/Jörg Modrow / Fotolia
Anders Koppel Ezra Laderman David Lang Rued Langgaard Peter Lieberson Magnus Lindberg Witold Lutosławski John McCabe Niels Marthinsen Peter Maxwell Davies Missy Mazzoli Paul Mealor Gian Carlo Menotti Olivier Messiaen Darius Milhaud Nico Muhly Tristan Murail
Photo credits
Holmgreen Albert Guinovart John Harbison Hauschka Patrick Hawes Hans Werner Henze Juliana Hodkinson Bo Holten Karel Husa Jacques Ibert Alberto Iglesias Angel Illarramendi Charles Ives Jouni Kaipainen Aaron Jay Kernis Betsy Jolas Leon Kirchner
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Avner Dorman Henri Dutilleux Søren Nils Eichberg Ludovico Einaudi Brian Elias Duke Ellington Manuel de Falla George Fenton Gabriela Lena Frank Philip Glass Michael Gordon Henryk Mikolaj Górecki Morton Gould José Luis Greco Helen Grime Jorge Grundman Pelle Gudmundsen-
Front cover: Calvin Richardson in Obsidian Tear (music by Esa-Pekka Salonen) at the Royal Ballet, London. © Royal Opera House, 2016. Photo by Bill Cooper.
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