Britten Sinfonia @ 30
Three world premieres launch Britten Sinfonia’s Barbican 22/23 season
Saturday 15 October at 1pm, St Giles Church, Cripplegate, London
Tickets: £12, students and under 18s £3
Anoushka Shankar, Manu Delago and Britten Sinfonia
Saturday 15 October at 7.30pm, Barbican Hall, London
Tickets: £10-£16
Britten Sinfonia opens its 30th anniversary season at the Barbican, where it is an Associate Ensemble, with two concerts in a single day (Sat 15 Oct) that look firmly to the future, and celebrate the art and joy of musical collaboration.
A lunchtime concert in the evocative setting of St Giles Church, Cripplegate puts the spotlight on three emerging composers, each of whom have written new works for the culmination of their year-long development scheme with Britten Sinfonia, Magnum Opus. (Sat 15 Oct at 1pm, St Giles, Cripplegate)
In the evening, a Britten Sinfonia collaboration with sitar star Anoushka Shankar that first began at the BBC Proms in 2020, continues when Shankar, percussionist Manu Delago and conductor/arranger Jules Buckley show Indian ragas and the sitar in a new light with Buckley’s characteristically skillful string arrangements (Sat 15 Oct – 7.30pm – Barbican Hall).
Magnum Opus composer showcase
Saturday 15 October at 1pm, St Giles Church, Cripplegate, City of London
Contemporary music and support for composers has been part of Britten Sinfonia’s DNA since the orchestra was founded three decades ago, resulting in over 200 commissions and important opportunities for emerging composers to workshop and hear their work performed by some of the country’s finest chamber and orchestral musicians. It’s therefore fitting that Britten Sinfonia should launch its 30th anniversary season at the Barbican by showcasing the music of three composers who have been commissioned through its newly minted Magnum Opus scheme.
At the heart of Magnum Opus is the opportunity for burgeoning composers to engage directly with Britten Sinfonia’s outstanding musicians. For their new works, Jonathan Brigg (b.1984, Bradford, England), Nathan James Dearden (b.1992, Tonyrefail, Wales) and Aileen Sweeney (b.1994, Glasgow, Scotland) have chosen to write concertos with very different solo instruments at their heart.
Jonathan Briggs’s Concerto for Piano and 10 Instruments, features pianist Huw Watkins. Briggs describes it as “a call-back to the piano music that I knew and loved as a teenager — the “tabloid concerto” style of imitation Rachmaninov, popularised by pieces such as Richard Addinsell’s Warsaw Concerto, and piano arrangements of 1920s and 30s big band jazz”.
Aileen Sweeney describes her Percussion Concerto, written for percussionist Owen Gunnell as “three little puddings”. She explains: “Have you ever been in a restaurant, looked at the dessert menu and just can’t decide what to have? But then, you notice you can order 3 little ones for the same price as a big one? I love it when that happens. When writing this concerto, I wanted to write lots of different things. Something with lopsided time signatures, something meditative and inward, something super rhythmic… I couldn’t pick – so I didn’t.”
Nathan James Dearden’s Love Songs for the Broken, with soloist Robert Burton on soprano saxophone gives “voice to the queer love story – be it one of passion, absurdity, repentance or sorrow” with movements named after poems written by queers poets from history, and by 7th century Japanese poet Kankikomoto no Hitomaro whose “fluidity and universality in his language” has always spoken to Nathan.
The composers have discussed, workshopped and developed their new works in collaboration with the soloists, Britten Sinfonia musicians and Magnum Opus Programme Directors Joe Cutler and Dobrinka Tabakova.
Anoushka Shankar, Manu Delago and Britten Sinfonia
Saturday 15 October at 7.30pm, Barbican Hall
Boundary-crossing, multi-Grammy-nominated sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar joins forces with Britten Sinfonia for an evening presenting ragas and the sitar in a new light. Alongside conductor and arranger Jules Buckley, Anoushka Shankar has produced arrangements of her own pieces for Britten Sinfonia strings, who are also joined by her regular collaborator, percussionist Manu Delago.
Britten Sinfonia, Anoushka Shankar and Manu Delago, will also tour in October to Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden (16 October) and Norwich Theatre Royal (30 October).
Britten Sinfonia @ 30
Three world premieres launch Britten Sinfonia’s Barbican 22/23 season
Saturday 15 October at 1pm, St Giles Church, Cripplegate, London
Tickets: £12, students and under 18s £3
Anoushka Shankar, Manu Delago and Britten Sinfonia
Saturday 15 October at 7.30pm, Barbican Hall, London
Tickets: £10-£16
Britten Sinfonia opens its 30th anniversary season at the Barbican, where it is an Associate Ensemble, with two concerts in a single day (Sat 15 Oct) that look firmly to the future, and celebrate the art and joy of musical collaboration.
A lunchtime concert in the evocative setting of St Giles Church, Cripplegate puts the spotlight on three emerging composers, each of whom have written new works for the culmination of their year-long development scheme with Britten Sinfonia, Magnum Opus. (Sat 15 Oct at 1pm, St Giles, Cripplegate)
In the evening, a Britten Sinfonia collaboration with sitar star Anoushka Shankar that first began at the BBC Proms in 2020, continues when Shankar, percussionist Manu Delago and conductor/arranger Jules Buckley show Indian ragas and the sitar in a new light with Buckley’s characteristically skillful string arrangements (Sat 15 Oct – 7.30pm – Barbican Hall).
Magnum Opus composer showcase
Saturday 15 October at 1pm, St Giles Church, Cripplegate, City of London
Contemporary music and support for composers has been part of Britten Sinfonia’s DNA since the orchestra was founded three decades ago, resulting in over 200 commissions and important opportunities for emerging composers to workshop and hear their work performed by some of the country’s finest chamber and orchestral musicians. It’s therefore fitting that Britten Sinfonia should launch its 30th anniversary season at the Barbican by showcasing the music of three composers who have been commissioned through its newly minted Magnum Opus scheme.
At the heart of Magnum Opus is the opportunity for burgeoning composers to engage directly with Britten Sinfonia’s outstanding musicians. For their new works, Jonathan Brigg (b.1984, Bradford, England), Nathan James Dearden (b.1992, Tonyrefail, Wales) and Aileen Sweeney (b.1994, Glasgow, Scotland) have chosen to write concertos with very different solo instruments at their heart.
Jonathan Briggs’s Concerto for Piano and 10 Instruments, features pianist Huw Watkins. Briggs describes it as “a call-back to the piano music that I knew and loved as a teenager — the “tabloid concerto” style of imitation Rachmaninov, popularised by pieces such as Richard Addinsell’s Warsaw Concerto, and piano arrangements of 1920s and 30s big band jazz”.
Aileen Sweeney describes her Percussion Concerto, written for percussionist Owen Gunnell as “three little puddings”. She explains: “Have you ever been in a restaurant, looked at the dessert menu and just can’t decide what to have? But then, you notice you can order 3 little ones for the same price as a big one? I love it when that happens. When writing this concerto, I wanted to write lots of different things. Something with lopsided time signatures, something meditative and inward, something super rhythmic… I couldn’t pick – so I didn’t.”
Nathan James Dearden’s Love Songs for the Broken, with soloist Robert Burton on soprano saxophone gives “voice to the queer love story – be it one of passion, absurdity, repentance or sorrow” with movements named after poems written by queers poets from history, and by 7th century Japanese poet Kankikomoto no Hitomaro whose “fluidity and universality in his language” has always spoken to Nathan.
The composers have discussed, workshopped and developed their new works in collaboration with the soloists, Britten Sinfonia musicians and Magnum Opus Programme Directors Joe Cutler and Dobrinka Tabakova.
Anoushka Shankar, Manu Delago and Britten Sinfonia
Saturday 15 October at 7.30pm, Barbican Hall
Boundary-crossing, multi-Grammy-nominated sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar joins forces with Britten Sinfonia for an evening presenting ragas and the sitar in a new light. Alongside conductor and arranger Jules Buckley, Anoushka Shankar has produced arrangements of her own pieces for Britten Sinfonia strings, who are also joined by her regular collaborator, percussionist Manu Delago.
Britten Sinfonia, Anoushka Shankar and Manu Delago, will also tour in October to Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden (16 October) and Norwich Theatre Royal (30 October).