Psappha 2019/20 new season, nine world premieres and a return home.

Halle St Peters

The Manchester-based ensemble Psappha will be celebrating its 2019/20 season by moving back into its home, the new renovated Halle St Peters in November 2019. The ensemble's season includes nine world premieres including a new work by their patron, Mark-Anthony Turnage, and commissions from George Stevenson and Alissa Firsova. The ensemble's emerging composer development programme Composing for ... with this year's selected composers writing for sitar player Jasdeep Singh Degum, accordionist Milos Mihajlovic, and the cello and piano of Psappha core members Jennifer Langridge and Benjamin Powell.

Beyond the music itself, the ensemble is working with Prof. Douglas Jarman (author of The music of Alban Berg) to create films to be screened before each concert to bring out the context, relevance and history of selected pieces in the programme. And to complement Anna Thorvaldsdottir's Into the Light Air, an ordained member of the Triratna Buddhist Order will lead a mindfulness meditation.

The season opens on 26 September 2019 at St Michael's Ancoats with a programme including Berg's Lyric Suite,  and music by Nina Danon, Charlotte Bray, Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade and George Stevenson. The first concert at Halle St Peter's is on 28 November, with a programme of Webern, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Athanasia Kontou, Alissa Firsova, Elizabeth Lutyens and Webern's chamber arrangement of Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1.
 
Full details from the Psappha website.