Le Tombeau de Rachmaninov

You may not necessarily have heard of Music Haven, but they are a firm which publishes and promotes new music. For their latest venture, the pianist Noriko Ogawa (who is also involved in Jamie's concerts for people with autism and their carers) will be playing Le Tombeau de Rachmaninov at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall this Sunday, 19 April 2015.

The work is intended to celebrate both Ravel and Rachmaninov, composers featured in the Bridgewater Hall's Ravel & Rachmaninov: International Concert Series so Le Tombeau de Rachmaninov takes the same form as Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin but each movement of the new work is written by a contemporary composer whose movement echoes the work of Ravel and Rachmaninov; so that the movements are Prelude by Stephen Hough (b.1961), Fugue by Alan Mills (b.1964), Forlane by Peter Fribbins (b.1969), Rigaudon by James Francis Brown (b.1969), Menuet by Cecilia McDowall (b.1951) and Toccata by the Japanese composer Takashi Yoshimatsu (b.1953).

A couple of the composers have explicitly written their movements in memory of someone lost in the war (just as Ravel had done with the movements of his piece), with Peter Fribbin's Forlane dedicated to his grandfather who died in the First World War, a week after his 21st birthday, and Cecilia McDowall dedicating her Menuet to the composer Jehan Alain who died  during the Second World War.

Noriko Ogawa will also be playing piano music by Ravel and Rachmaninov, further information and tickets from the Bridgewater Hall website. The concert starts at 7.30pm, and at 6.30pm some of the composers involved will be talking about the work.