| Prach Boondiskulchok’s first opera short to be premiered at Opera Forward, ahead of major commission of a full-length opera from La Monnaie: Burmese Days Thursday 12 March 2026: 20.15-22:00 Muziekgebouw aant ‘t IJ, Grote Zaal Lesson Opera Forward Festival, 12 March 2026 – Amsterdam Dutch National Opera(1 of 7 new operas under the banner of Harvest) Lesson to be developed further into a full-length opera for Mascarade Opera Burmese Days (78mins) La Monnaie, 9 June 2027, London 2027 tbc, O.Festival (Holland) May 2028  Ahead of a major chamber opera commission from La Monnaie, Prach Boondiskulchok’s opera short Lesson will be premiered in the Opera Forward showcase at the Muziekgebouw on Thursday 12 March at 8.15pm. Prach is currently writing a full-length opera based on Orwell’s Burmese Days to be premiered next summer. Lesson is a 10-minute monodrama for voice and piano, where the singer and the pianist are a teacher and a student in a tense piano lesson. Within the microcosm of the music lesson, there is endless dramatic material which Prach draws on: tradition versus innovation, the myth of cure-all exercises, success and failure, lineage, break-up, regret and forgiveness. As Prach explains,“Like most musicians, I have spent more than twenty years inside the peculiar, yet near-universal format of the music lesson. The teacher-pupil relationship is particular: more intimate than most friendships, longer than some marriages and, by nature, unequal. Deep in our current century, it’s one of the few traditions that retains characteristics of much older worlds; the worlds of aural tradition and embodied knowledge. The piano itself carries over two centuries of repertoire, and any new note placed on it resonates against all those others. In this piece, I play with that historical weight: the piano writing mimics the texture and gesture of nineteenth-century works. In the middle section, the piano abandons all nineteenth-century sonority. A mono-rhythmic drone opens up what might be called the unconscious of the instrument, its roots of in metal and mallets. This is also the sound of the teacher’s interior: his anxiety about fading relevance and the suspicion that the world is moving faster than he can follow.”Prach’s opera for La Monnaie -Burmese Days – is based on George Orwell’s 1936 debut novel, an exploration of the colonial mores at an exclusive members club in the dying days of the British Empire. Controversy and tensions arise when the club admits their first non-European member. Political ambitions and romantic entanglements spill over against the backdrop of colonial machinery and Buddhist cosmology. The opera is scored for classical ensemble Het Muziek and virtuoso musicians from Myanmar and Thailand (Hsaign Waing and Piphat music) – this will be a modern synthesis of Western and Southeast Asian music traditions. PRACH BOONDISKULCHOK |
 Prach Boondiskulchok’s compositional language explores the layers and contradictions of the sound worlds he encounters through his multiple musical identities: a Bangkok-born musician grown up with both Western and Thai classical traditions, an internationally active pianist, and a researcher entangled in the boundaries between historical performance practices and microtonal music. While embracing influences as diverse as Buddhist chanting, Josquin des Prez, Piphat traditions, Ravel, Partch and Grisey, Prach’s scores prioritise intelligibility and emotional immediacy. Prach started his musical journey Thailand before winning a scholarship to the Yehudi Menuhin School. At the Guildhall, he studied composition under Malcolm Singer and Julian Anderson. He has had further formal guidance from Mstislav Rostropovich, Richard Goode, András Schiff and Thomas Adès. Until recently, Prach taught piano in chamber music at the Royal College of Music. Recent compositions have included Ciaccona and Other Debauched Dances premiered at the MA Festival Bruges. Other key commissions included Ritus for the Endellion String Quartet’s 40th anniversary in 2019 which the Guardian described as a “work of great charm”. In 2025, he was a resident composer with Het Muziek (formerly Asko|Schönberg Ensemble) conducting research and development for his new opera — Burmese Days. Prach is the first Thai composer to be commissioned to write for a major European opera house. Prach is a distinguished pianist in the Linos Piano Trio, winner of the 1st Prize and Audience Prize at the Melbourne International Chamber Competition. The Strad praised their album Stolen Music as “compelling, dramatic, fascinating and unfailingly musical.” HARVEST AT OPERA FORWARD Harvest is the product of Cora Burggraaf’s invitation to a group of contemporary composers at the forefront of an evolving opera sceneto each write a short monodrama in close collaboration with several well-experienced singers. This theatrical concert offers a virtuosic demonstration of mature voices in leading roles, with layered performances of great depth and capability. Harvest’s 7 pieces of piano and singer instrumentation offer new perspectives on voice,brimming with life, strength, and charisma. Each composer and musician collaboration provokes a fresh approach to straddling the tension of opera: contextualising itself within historical repertoire whilst innovating forwards, with new conceptualisations of colour and texture. |