| Boosey & Hawkes presents Live Score Reading: Peter Maxwell Davies, Eight Songs for a Mad King |
| Tune in for Boosey & Hawkes’s wildest Live Score Reading yet: Peter Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King, featuring Julius Eastman’s famous 1973 recording as the music-obsessed Mad King who howls, jabbers, and rages as he slowly loses his mind, performed with The Fires of London conducted by Maxwell Davies himself. During the score video broadcast, we’ll be joined by several past “Mad Kings” in the Live Chat, who will provide insights into the score’s jaw-dropping vocal techniques and dazzling notation. |
| The Mad Kings: Special Guest Commentators Holger Falk Thomas Florio Leigh Melrose Julian Otis Peter Tantsits |
| “The King is Dead”: About Eight Songs |
| Eight Songs is a fantastical sequence of delusions portraying King George III’s rantings as he attempts to teach his pet birds the music that obsesses him. Scored for male voice and six players, the strings and woodwinds represent George’s birds, and the percussionist their “keeper”. The King’s virtuoso part, spanning five octaves, demands an entire repertoire of distorted vocalizations. Learn more about Eight Songs. |
| 4 December @ Cardiff University “Unmasking Max: Peter Maxwell Davies Study Day” Learn more about Maxwell Davies at this daylong symposium dedicated to the exploration of his life and music. |