Secret Kiss: English-language premiere of one of Peter Eötvös' last compositions

In 19th century Japan, a young Frenchman travels to Japan to learn about the secrets of silk production. While visiting a rich man, he observes a young girl with her eyes closed. She suddenly opens her eyes, looks at the Frenchman and points silently to a tea cup in front of her. Out of this single glance, the two protagonists become entangled in a moving and wonderful story.

Inspired by the 1997 novel Silk, by Italian author Alessandro Baricco, Secret Kiss is one of Peter Eötvös' last compositions and it is receiving its English-language premiere in November when BCMG (Birmingham Contemporary Music Group) perform it at the CBSO Centre and Wigmore Hall. Geoffrey Patterson conducts, with soprano Alice Rossi and Meg Kubota as the Reciter. The programme also features music by Rebecca Saunders, Julian Anderson, Lisa Illean and Sir Harrison Birtwistle including his final ensemble work, ...when falling asleep.

The melodrama Secret Kiss was composed for the Japanese singer and performer, Ryoko Aoki and the work was first performed in 2019, in a Japanese translation, by Aoki conducted by the composer 

The same week as the performances of Secret Kiss, BCMG returns to Wigmore Hall as part of the hall's Daniel Kidane focus day when, conducted by Gabriella Teychenné, BCMG perform a programme of Kidane's music with tenor Elgan Llŷr Thomas and guitarist Pétur Jónasson including Cradle Song, a setting of the poem by William Blake for tenor and ensemble, commissioned through BCMG's Sound Investment Scheme and premiered in 2023, plus Winged for electric guitar and string quartet, and Pulsing based on a poem by Zodwa Nyoni

Full details from the BCMG website.

Let me tell you a story: BCMG in music by Hilda Paredes, Ondřej Adámek and Harrison Birtwistle at the CBSO Centre

Hilda Paredes (Photo: Graciela Iturbide)

Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG) is presenting programme of contemporary music written for people of all ages, with a double-bill of new commissions, on Sunday 7 April 2024 at the CBSO Centre, Birmingham, B1 7LF under the title Let me tell you a story.

The concert features the world premiere of Abalorios (Glass Bead), by London-based Mexican composer Hilda Paredes. This is a 21st century guide to the contemporary music ensemble, inspired by Britten’s iconic Young Person Guide to the Orchestraand commissioned by BCMG as part of its Sound Investment scheme. At the heart of Paredes' piece is the idea of a glass bead wind-chime, reflecting the orchestras movements and sounds. 

The concert will also feature the European premiere of a new theatrical work let me tell you a story by Berlin-based Czech composer Ondřej Adámek, co-commissioned by BCMG and Tongyeong International Music Festival, uses storytelling traditions from Korea with a text by Icelandic writer Sjón and a host of exotic instrumentation, including the Korean Drum Buk.

Also on the programme is Harrison Birtwistle's Cortege, subtitled "a ceremony for 14 musicians" Cortege is an elaborate piece of music theatre imbued with tension, movement and ritual, a feast for the eyes and ears. 

Full details from the BCMG website.

One of the 2022 Voices of Black Opera, Thando Mjandana, premieres a Daniel Kidane work with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group

South African tenor Thando Mjandana won the Samuel Coleridge Taylor Award at the Voice of Black Opera competition in Birmingham in 2022 [see my article] and there is a chance to hear Mjandana in action back in Birmingham later this month when he joins Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG) and conductor Vimbayi Kaziboni for the world premiere of Daniel Kidane's Cradle Song (setting text by Blake) on 18 October 2023 at The Elgar Concert Hall, University of Birmingham, and the programme is repeated in Bristol on 29 October.

Entitled Songs at Day, Songs at Night, the concert also features soprano Mimi Doulton, and features Daniel Kidane's Primitive Blaze, the UK premiere of Julian Anderson's Mitternachtslied (setting texts by Nietsche and Longfellow), the world premiere of Anderson's Thus, and music by Harrison Birtwistle.

Kidane's Cradle Song is one of BCMG's Sound Investment scheme commissions, as was Harrison Birtwistle's 2018 work, … when falling asleep which is included in the programme.

Full details from BCMG's website.

BCMG in Bloom: celebrating cherry blossom time

Photography by Anthony Crutch at Cherry Blossom Concert 2022

It's cherry blossom time and on Sunday, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG) will be celebrating with an outdoor concert in Oozells Square, Brindley Place, Birmingham on Sunday afternoon, 2 April 2023. 

Hanami, or flower viewing, is the Japanese tradition of celebrating the transient beauty of the cherry blossom. Every year, flocks of people join together for outdoor parties beneath the boughs of the blooming trees. So, BCMG will be performing a selection of music by Charlotte Bray, Hollie Harding, Dai Fujikura and György Ligeti to provide a distinctly contemporary music take on this celebration of Spring.

Tickets are free, and we are promised an hour-long, sensory event for all ages. Full details from the BCMG website.

BCMG back on the road with Stockhausen in Birmingham and in Hannover

Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG) will be giving a free live outdoor performance on Thursday (20 August 2020) in Brindley Place in Birmingham, in partnership with IKON. The programme of music by Stockhausen, Henze and Zimmerman is inspired by another forthcoming BCMG performance. On Saturday 29 August 2020, BCMG is joining forces with Das Neue Ensemble and Nordic Voices to give a rare performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Sternklang in a Hanover park, performing the work under the stars as the composer intended (the performance is sold-out).

In Birmingham, BCMG's free programme (its first live concert in Birmingham since lockdown) will consist of Stockhausen's Tierkreis (Zodiac) for solo cello performed by Ulrich Heinen alongside Hans Werner Henze’s Serenade for cello solo and Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Four Short Studies.

In Hannover the players of BCMG will join forces with Das Neue Ensemble and Nordic Voices for Sternklang in Hannover's Königlicher Berggarten Herrenhausen on 29 August 2020. Stockhausen conceived Sternklang (Star Sound) as 'park music' to be played outdoors under the stars and it was premiered in 1971 in Berlin's English Garden, and the composer conducted the work in Birmingham in 1992 when BCMG performed it at Cannon Hill Park. The Hannover performance is led by Stephan Meier who is artistic director of both BCMG and Hannover-based Das Neue Ensemble, and they are joined by Oslo's four-piece a cappella group Nordic Voices.

Sternklang is scored for five groups of four instrumentalists and singers, positioned far apart across the outdoor space,  any instruments can be used and the amplified groups play solo and together, with ‘sound runners’ carrying music from one group to another and allowing strains from the different groups to be heard across the park. From the constellations Stockhausen devised musical ‘models’ from the positions of the stars so that “on a clear night, star constellations can be directly read from the sky and integrated as musical figures”. You can read more about the work in Paul Griffiths' article on the BCMG website.

Further details from the BCMG website.

Creating Music At Home

With the advent of the current crisis, there has been a flurry of music going on-line, and now Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG) is encouraging families to participate. BCMG has launched Creating Music at Home, two growing sets of fun digital resources to encourage children to create music in their homes. BCMG has also launched its on-line resources to enable children to complete their arts awards remotely.

There is one set Creating Music at Home resources for children who don’t have a musical instrument and another set for those who do. The activities are inspired by or linked to an existing piece of music by a well-known or living composer, with such themes as superheroes, sounds in the house and garden, code and graphic scores. Starting this week, activities are released on a weekly basis with those for children with instruments of Thursdays and for those without instruments on Tuesdays, and children are encouraged to share their resulting creations with the BCMG family. The resources are Free and open to anyone.

http://resources.bcmg.org.uk/creating-music-at-home/
http://resources.bcmg.org.uk/creating-music-at-home-instrumentalists/

Arts Award is a national qualification that supports children and young people to develop as artists and arts leaders. It is designed to inspire children and young people aged up to 25 to enjoy the arts, offering the chance to develop creativity, communication and leadership skills. BCMG has launched its Arts Awards Discover (KS1) and Arts Award Explore (KS2) on-line resources to enable children to complete their arts awards remotely, either by themselves or with the support of people in their home.

Further information from:
http://resources.bcmg.org.uk/bcmg-arts-award/arts-award-explore-at-home

Migrating Sounds: Rebecca Saunders, Richard Causton, Vito Žuraj, and Shiori Usui at BCMG

Rebecca Saunders

On Sunday (15 December 2019) the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG) will be presenting a pair of new works by Rebecca Saunders and by Richard Causton as part of its Migrating Sounds programme at the CBSO Centre in Birmingham. The concert features the UK premiere of Rebecca Saunders' Scar and the world premiere of Richard Causton's Transients, both works commissioned via the BCMG Sound Investment scheme, plus Tension by Vito Žuraj, and Shiori Usui’s Deep.

Saunders' Scar is inspired by the idea of residual marks and the way in which paper is physically marked, left to right, by annotated music. Written for 15 soloists, the work is based on a left/right-hand axis of two grand pianos, two percussionists, a button accordion and electric guitar. The rest of the ensemble is added to this, bass clarinet, trumpet, horn, trombone, violin, viola, cello and 5-string double bass. In the video below, Stephan Meier, BCMG's artistic director, introduces Saunders' manuscript.

Scar is the latest in the on-going relationship between Saunders and BCMG which began in 2017 (including a piece by Saunders at BCMG's 30th birthday concert) and Scar will be the fifth work by Saunders that BCMG has performed this year, though in fact BCMG first performed a work by Saunders back in 2010! And in November this year, BCMG gave a repeat performance of Stirrings Still at Conservatoire à rayonnement regional de Paris.

Vito Žuraj's Tension will be performed in a new version for two ensembles with NEXT musicians side-by-side. Shiori Usui’s Deep was written in 2014 as part of BCMG’s Apprentice Composer-in-Residence Scheme run in partnership with Sound and Music. The work takes the listener on a musical journey to the very bottom of the ocean, and was inspired by the BBC TV series, Blue Planet

Rebecca Saunders is the recent recipient of the Ernst Von Siemens Music Prize, an award sometimes known as the ‘Nobel Prize for Music’; previous recipients include Yehudi Menuhin, Leonard Bernstein and Daniel Barenboim. Richard Causton is Reader in Composition at the University of Cambridge and recently became an Honorary Patron of the Centre for Young Musicians.

BCMG's NEXT Music Study Programme in Contemporary Performance, created in partnership with the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire supports early career musicians who want to dedicate their professional career to contemporary music. It is the only programme in the UK providing intensive, year-long training in contemporary music performance practice.

BCMG's Sound Investment scheme is an innovative way of supporting the commissioning of new music by giving BCMG's patrons and supporters the ability to become part of the commissioning process for a modest investment. Thus making the audience members the real owners of new pieces.



Full details from the BCMG website.

BCMG: Across the Channel - Outre Manche

Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG) is joining forces with the French ensemble Court-circuit and the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire for a cross-Channel collaborative project bringing the two new music ensembles together with early career musicians to perform music by five contemporary composers, Hilda Paredes, Mael Bailly, Francois Paris, Rebecca Saunders and Jonathan Harvey.

The project involves a residency and exchange visit, culminating in a concert at the Conservatoire on 14 June 2019, when Jean Deroyer will conduct the two ensembles alongside early career musicians from the Conservatoire.

The concert will feature UK premieres of Siphonophorae by Mexican-born London-based Hilda Paredes, and Six miniatures pour sextuor by the young French composer Maël Bailly. À propos de Nice by French-born Spain-based François Paris dates from 2005 and is inspired by 1929 silent film of the same name by Jean Vigo which will be shown as part of the performance. British composer Rebecca Saunders, who won the 2019 Ernst von Siemens prize, has strong links to BCMG (with two other works being performed by BCMG in 2019) and they will perform her Stirrings Still I in the concert. The programme is completed with Jonathan Harvey's 2009 composition for ten-piece chamber ensemble Vajra .

The exchange is completed in November when members of BCMG travel to Paris to perform with Court-circuit and work with students from the Paris Conservatoire.

Full details from the BCMG website.