Thursday 5 August 2021

Debuts on the podium, a final season, centenary premieres and The Cunning Little Vixen: CBSO launches Autumn 2021

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (Photo Hannah Blake-Fathers)
Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (Photo Hannah Blake-Fathers)

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) is opening its 2021/22 season with a celebration of being able to make music together. Principal guest conductor Kazuki Yamada will be leading forces including the orchestra, the CBSO Chorus and CBSO Youth Chorus, the three groups together for the first time since early 2020, in Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, Poulenc’s Gloria and Saint-Saens' Symphony No. 3 (with organist Anna Lapwood).

2021/22 is Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla's final one as music director and her concerts this Autumn nclude Faure's Requiem (in memory of the lives lost throughout Covid-19) and a concert performance of Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen with Elena Tsallagova in the title role plus Roland Wood as the Forester, which the orchestra will be touring to Dortmund, Hamburg and Paris.

Finnegan Downie Dear (winner of the 2020 Mahler Competition) will be conducting the orchestra for the first time in October, and other first-timers include the German conductor of mixed Ghanaian and German ancestry, Kevin John Edusei, and the Hungarian conductor Gergely Madaras (inaugural Sir Charles Mackerras Fellow at the English National Opera during 2012-2014).

2020 was the orchestra's centenary and three Centenary Commissions final receive their premieres, Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Go For It (30 September, world premiere), Debbie Wiseman’s Carnival of the Endangered Animals, a family friendly modern take on Saint-Saens' iconic suite (24 October, world premiere) and Jonathan Dove’s In Exile which sets a text by Alasdair Middleton with baritone Sir Simon Keenlyside and cellist Raphael Wallfisch, a (9 December, UK premiere). Other new music in the season includes two pieces by living Canadian composers new to the CBSO’s repertoire, Cassandra Miller’s La Donna (6 October) and Samy Moussa’s Nocturne (27 October). 

Full details from the CBSO website.

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