Tagged with 'Simon Rattle'

Summer, sun, symphony concert: The Bayreuth Festival invites everyone to the open-air concert ‘Wagner for all’ with a picnic on 30 July. With free admission, the festival orchestra under the direction of Nathalie Stutzmann will present musical and spatial references to Wagner, including Anton Bruckner's 7th Symphony. 

On 14 June, the Berlin Philharmonic will give the world premiere of Andrew Norman’s Spiral as part of the orchestra’s farewell season of their principal conductor Simon Rattle, and within their “tapas” series of new works approximately six minutes in length, designed to whet the appetite for contemporary music.

Andrew Norman is widely regarded as one of the most successful composers of his generation and regularly receives commissions from major international orchestras. Last year he achieved great success with his children’s opera A Trip to the Moon, written for the Berlin Philharmonic’s “Vokalhelden” (Vocal heroes) project. In the same year, Norman’s orchestral work Play won a Grawemeyer Award, and he was named “Composer of the Year” at Musical America.

Andrew Norman - Spiral: a musical force

Norman’s Spiral traces the transformations of a few instrumental gestures as they orbit each other in ever contracting circles. The strings are instructed to play divisi and, one after the other, they entwine to create the effect of a musical spiral.

"...the idea of a "spiral-shaped" orchestra piece is something I've been thinking about for a while. Some of the musical ideas and gestures in this piece were definitely inspired by my experiences of and with Simon and the Berlin Philharmonic (namely their unique physical energy and precision)." – Andrew Norman

Further performances of Spiral will follow in Berlin on 15 & 16 June. On 23 July the BBC Symphony Orchestra will perform the UK premiere at the BBC Proms, who co-commissioned the work, with Karina Canellakis conducting.

• Andrew Norman – profil


• Spiral – work details


• Berlin Philharmonic

On 26 June, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ last large-scale work, The Hogboon, will be premiered by the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle, joined by the London Symphony Chorus, LSO Discovery Chorus and Guildhall School Musicians at the Barbican Hall, London. The work was commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg and Philharmonie Luxembourg.



The Hogboon is a children’s opera which tells the story of Magnus, a young Orkney Islander who, with the help of a friendly Hogboon (a household troll), sets out to defend the village from the feared sea monster, Nuckleavee.

Completed shortly before his death in March,The Hogboon was particularly close to Maxwell Davies' heart as an Orkney resident and a passionate advocate for music education. The composer wrote the libretto himself, based on an Orkney folk tale. He took great pleasure in creating a work for combined professional and student forces, assigning the children’s choir the roles of the angry sea monster and the witch’s kittens. The opera also bears an ecological moral: we must take care of nature if we wish to live alongside it.

Bearing in mind the involvement of children and students, I have not written down to them with any condescension – rather – I have written up, knowing, from long experience, that, taken absolutely seriously, children and students are wickedly perceptive, and not to be taken for granted. I have attempted to make the masque work on several levels, of interest to adults, students and children, with weavings into the work’s verbal and musical textures diverse layers of meaning not least to do with our accommodations with Nature, and our present ecological problems.– Maxwell Davies

The Hogboon can next be seen in Luxembourg with the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra in May 2017. Following the premiere of The Hogboon in London, a free memorial event in Maxwell Davies' honour will take place at St John's Smith Square on 27 June. Included in the programme are two of his last works, The Golden Solstice (2016) for choir and organ and String Quartet Movement 2016, receiving its premiere performance. For more information and booking go to: https://www.sjss.org.uk/events/max-celebration.

• Sir Peter Maxwell Davies - profile


• The Hogboon - workdetails


• Barbican Hall - information on the premiere The Hogboon


• St. John's Smith Square - information on the memorial event