Wednesday 12 May 2021

From pedal-power to new poetry: London Sinfonietta return to live audiences

Composer Laura Bowler (photo Bob Clewey)
Composer Laura Bowler (photo Bob Clewey)

The London Sinfonietta is returning to live performance with audiences with something of a bang, and a series of premieres from Luke Bedford, Kerry Andrew, Gavin Higgins, Robert Mitchell, Larry Goves, and Laura Bowler, involving everything from pedal-powered drama to new poetry.

Tenor Mark Padmore joins London Sinfonietta on 5 June 2021 at Kings Place for the premiere of Luke Bedford's Lessons from the Past, a song cycle inspired by a quotation from American historian Stephen Greenblatt, “I began with the desire to speak with the dead." And Padmore will also be performing Peter Warlock's bleakly desolate masterpiece, The Curlew, setting words by WB Yeats, and there will also be music from Charlotte Bray.

On 23 June 2021, Notes about Now will feature new songs setting poems created in special projects curated by Poet in the City in collaboration with different communities, just before and in the recent months of the pandemic. The event will mix reading of new poetry with new songs by Kerry Andrew, Gavin Higgins, Robert Mitchell and Larry Goves.

Laura Bowler's new work for London Sinfonietta, House Slides premieres on 9 July 2021 at the Royal Festival Hall. In order to put climate change at the centre of both the piece and the performance, there will be up to 16 bicycles on stage powering the performance in what seems to be an industry first (though it also perhaps evokes the 2013 animated film Belleville Rendez-vous). Katie Mitchell directs, Sian Edwards conducts and Jessica Aszodi sing the solo soprano role. The work describes the 'intimate psychological journey of a woman's response to the climate crisis', and Cordelia Lynn's text uses submissions from members of the public.

On-line, the ensembles World Premiere Wednesdays continue with new works from Naomi Pinnock and Hannah Kendall. And there is also a chance to hear members of the next generation of performers with members of the London Sinfonietta Academy.

Full details from the London Sinfonietta's website.

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