Recent orchestral Music featured in the BBCPO's "Red Brick Sessions" (so called, I think, because the series of concerts from which this programme originated took place in Peel Hall of the University of Salford, which has a facade of ... ). The works are taken from two separate concerts, which showcased the work of each composer.
Anders Hillborg (b1954) has featured at the Proms a couple of times (Sakari Oramo presented Beast Sampler with the BBCSO in 2015, and Cold Heat was performed by Zinman and the Zurich Tonnhalle in 2011). I first heard his Liquid Marble at the Huddersfield CMF about twenty years ago - a sort of melding of Sibelius harmonic overlapping and Lutoslawskian textures (for some reason it kept reminding me of Riisager). The sort of thing that would appeal to large orchestras wanting to present quickly-assimilated and large-audience-friendly "contemporary Music" that doesn't take up too much time at the beginning of a concert.
I really enjoyed the early works of Tansy Davies (b1973) when they first appeared, and I still find them enjoyable; infectious rhythmic vitality and full of an expressive potential that I don't think that she's explored in more recent work (my disappointment - much worry that will cause her! - began with the trumpet concerto Spiral House from 2004) which sound a lot more "conventional" and ordinary. I shall look forward optimistically to hear the works in this programme (and Spine, from 2005 is a good piece).
To complete the programme, a chamber work for cimbalom and String Sextet, Panopticon by David Fennessy (b1976); the title of which, disappointingly, has nothing to do with the central observation room on Gallifrey.
Anders Hillborg (b1954) has featured at the Proms a couple of times (Sakari Oramo presented Beast Sampler with the BBCSO in 2015, and Cold Heat was performed by Zinman and the Zurich Tonnhalle in 2011). I first heard his Liquid Marble at the Huddersfield CMF about twenty years ago - a sort of melding of Sibelius harmonic overlapping and Lutoslawskian textures (for some reason it kept reminding me of Riisager). The sort of thing that would appeal to large orchestras wanting to present quickly-assimilated and large-audience-friendly "contemporary Music" that doesn't take up too much time at the beginning of a concert.
I really enjoyed the early works of Tansy Davies (b1973) when they first appeared, and I still find them enjoyable; infectious rhythmic vitality and full of an expressive potential that I don't think that she's explored in more recent work (my disappointment - much worry that will cause her! - began with the trumpet concerto Spiral House from 2004) which sound a lot more "conventional" and ordinary. I shall look forward optimistically to hear the works in this programme (and Spine, from 2005 is a good piece).
To complete the programme, a chamber work for cimbalom and String Sextet, Panopticon by David Fennessy (b1976); the title of which, disappointingly, has nothing to do with the central observation room on Gallifrey.
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