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Composer News
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Stravinsky’s Funeral Song travels the globe
Igor Stravinsky’s Funeral Song, a long lost orchestral memorial to his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov, received its first performance in 107 years on 2 December in St Petersburg, conducted by Valery Gergiev and live streamed from the Mariinsky Theatre.
Orchestras have swiftly added the 12-minute work to their current seasons, with premieres confirmed in 16 countries, including performances conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Charles Dutoit and Simon Rattle.
> Read More > Read More (Spanish) > Watch the performance
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Turnage Remembering and Martland Memorial
Mark-Anthony Turnage introduces two new works premiered in London in coming months, exploring the theme of remembrance in radically different ways.
Remembering was written as a tribute to guitarist John Scofield’s son Evan with first performances conducted by Simon Rattle in London and Berlin. Martland Memorial is fronted by Colin Currie as percussion soloist in a cortège and sequence of dance movements.
> Read Interview
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Adams conducts LSO in London and Paris
This month sees John Adams conducting El Niño and Scheherazade.2 with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican in London and within an Adams weekend at the Philharmonie in Paris.
In honour of his 70th birthday in February, Faber & Faber has published a paperback edition of Adams's Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life, providing an absorbing journey through the composer’s creative landscape.
> Read More
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Gruber’s Piano Concerto for Emanuel Ax
Emanuel Ax is soloist in HK Gruber's new Piano Concerto, with first performances by the New York Philharmonic and Alan Gilbert in January and the Berlin Philharmonic and Simon Rattle in March.
The composer describes how the soloist in the 23-minute work is “at the tip of a symphonic iceberg. The orchestra provides an echo chamber for the material of the pianist, resonated through tuned percussion and harp.”
> Read More
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Michel van der Aa: festive feature in Helsinki
Michel van der Aa travels to Finland in the New Year for a feature at the Music Nova festival (1-12 February), introducing three major works to Helsinki audiences.
The Finnish premiere of his 3D opera Blank Out follows stagings in Amsterdam, Rome and Beijing, with further dates planned in Lucerne and New York. Also featured in Helsinki are Spaces of Blank for mezzo and orchestra and Hysteresis with Kari Kriikku as virtuoso clarinet soloist.
> Read More
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Birtwistle’s The Last Supper served in Glasgow
Harrison Birtwistle’s opera, The Last Supper, receives a semi-staged performance in Glasgow on 14 January, with Roderick Williams leading the disciples and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Martyn Brabbins.
Birtwistle’s ritualistic drama, premiered in 2000, looks back two millennia to the birth of Christianity, exploring the mythologising of the moment and the theme of betrayal that has resonated down the centuries.
> Read More
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Online Scores: New Additions to Website
Latest new works viewable in our free digitised library of full scores include Anna Clyne’s Abstractions for orchestra, HK Gruber’s trumpet concerto Aerial, Karl Jenkins’s Cantata Memoria and James MacMillan’s Stabat Mater. Recently added classics include Bernstein’s film score for On the Waterfront and Strauss’s Salome’s Dance.
> View Online Scores
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News in Brief
> Andriessen awarded New York Philharmonic’s Kravis Prize > Christopher Rouse: Organ Concerto reviews from Philadelphia > Reich album releases surrounding 80th birthday > Karl Jenkins: Cantata Memoria at Carnegie Hall > Offenbach’s opera Fantasio returns to Paris stage > More News
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Featured Video
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Stravinsky: How was Funeral Song lost and found?
This web trailer on Mariinsky.tv details the rediscovery of Stravinsky’s Funeral Song. Dr Natalia Braginskaya explains how the performing materials went missing in the Soviet era and were found last year in the library of the St Petersburg Conservatory, attracting worldwide interest.
> View Video
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Recordings
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John Adams Scheherazade.2 Leila Josefowicz/ St Louis Symphony/ David Robertson Nonesuch 557170
The premiere recording of Adams's dramatic symphony for violin and orchestra gives a voice to the Scheherazades of our own time.
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Alberto Ginastera Harp Concerto Yolanda Kondonassis/ Oberlin Orchestra/ Raphael Jiménez Oberlin Music OC 1604
Honouring the Ginastera centenary, this new collection includes his popular Harp Concerto, performed worldwide in 2017.
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Aaron Copland Short Symphony BBC Philharmonic/ John Wilson Chandos CHSA 5171
This second album in Chandos's Copland orchestral series includes his rarely heard Short Symphony in a sparkling performance under John Wilson.
> More Recordings
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Premieres
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Elena Kats-Chernin Miniatures for Strings 7 December 2016 Recital Hall, Melbourne Australian Chamber Orchestra/ Richard Tognetti
HK Gruber Piano Concerto 5 January 2017 Lincoln Center, New York Emanuel Ax/ New York Philharmonic/ Alan Gilbert
Mark-Anthony Turnage Remembering 19 January 2017 Barbican, London London Symphony Orchestra/Simon Rattle
Christopher Rouse Symphony No.5 10 February 2017 Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas Dallas Symphony Orch/ Jaap van Zweden
> More Performances
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