Born in Latvia, trained in Paris, lived in Canada: introducing Tālivaldis Ķeniņš, a very global 20th century composer

Tālivaldis Ķeniņš Violin Concerto, Percussion Concerto; Eva Bindere, Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, Andris Poga; SKANI
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 17 November 2020 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Tālivaldis Ķeniņš' music is relatively unknown and this fine disc is a terrific introduction to his complex, technically demanding, neo-Romantic style

I have to confess that until I was sent this disc, the name of the Latvian composer Tālivaldis Ķeniņš was unknown to me. Thanks to the vicissitudes of 20th century politics Ķeniņš had diverse history, trained in both Latvia and Paris, he ended up emigrating to Canada where he spent the final 50 years of his adult life.

This new disc from the Latvian Music Information Centre's label, Skani, presents a portrait of Tālivaldis Ķeniņš with his Violin Concerto from 1974, Concerto for Five Percussionists and Orchestra from 1983,and Beate Voces Tenebrae from 1977, performed by Eva Bindere (violin), Mikus Bāliņš, Elvijs Endelis, Elīna Endzele, Guntars Freibergs, Ernests Mediņš (percussion), Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, conductor Andris Poga.

Tālivaldis Ķeniņš' father, Atis Ķeniņš, was one of the founders of the Latvian Republic in 1918 and his mother was a diplomat, so part of Tālivaldis Ķeniņš' childhood was spent in France. Intentions of studying at the Sorbonne were failed by the war and Tālivaldis Ķeniņš studied in Lativa. His father was deported, for the first time, in 1944, and Tālivaldis Ķeniņš fled Lativa. He studied in Paris with Tony Aubin and Olivier Messiaen, and by 1951 had emigrated to Canada.

Almost a generation older than his famous Estonian colleague, Arvo Pärt, Ķeniņš solved the conundrum of how to live as an artist under Soviet domination by joining the Latvian diaspora (his first job in Canada was as the organist for the Toronto Latvian congregation). But this has meant that his work has rather passed under the radar, though since his centenary in 2018, Ķeniņš and his music have been gaining more recognition in his native country and this new recording should do a lot to intrigue those outside Latvia.

Ķeniņš does not write simple music, there is no stripped down element and whilst the term neo-Romantic might be applied, you could also say that his music is complex, technically demanding, and sonically imaginative. This is the music of someone who developed in the Baltic, acquired the sophisticated techniques of Paris in the 1940s and 1950s, and then ploughed his own furrow, very much away from the mainstream of Western music in the later 1950s and after.

A riot of colours and textures: Avi Avital's imaginative programme of over 300 years of music for the mandolin - Art of the Mandolin

Art of the Mandolin - Vivaldi, Scarlatti, Beethoven, Ben Haim, Henze, Sollima Bruce - Avi Avital, Alon Sariel, Anneleen Lennaerts, Sean Shibe, Ophira Zakal, Yizhar Karshon, Patrick Sepec, Venice Baroque Orchestra; Deutsche Grammophon
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 16 November 2020 Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★)
Avi Avital in an imaginative personal history of the mandolin, from music by Vivaldi and Scarlatti, through Beethoven and Ben Haim, to contemporary pieces by Henze, Sollima and Bruce

Mandolin player Avi Avital's back catalogue is full of his, often superb, performances of music written for other instruments. Partly this is explained by the sheer lack of repertoire, but partly from the fact that Avital's first teacher was a violinist, and they played violin repertoire. 

 

In a charming introductory essay on his latest disc Art of the Mandolin on Deutsche Grammophon, Avital explains how he was taught by the violinist Simcha Nathanson who had emigrated to the Israeli city of Beer Sheva from the USSR in the 1970s. But the local conservatory did not need a violin teacher. Nathanson found some mandolins in the basement; as the instrument is tuned the same as the violin, he started to teach violin pieces on the mandolin. That is how Avital learned, as part of a youth mandolin orchestra which became a local legend. 'I believe that he had very little, if any, knowledge of the original repertoire for mandolin – or if he did, he chose to ignore it. Yet through this ignorance he brought up a generation of young mandolin players trained in the classical repertoire, all of us holding the pick “the wrong way” – as I later learned from Italian teachers.'

So, on Art of the Mandolin on Deutsche Grammophon, Avi Avital goes back to repertoire written specifically for mandolin. He performs Vivaldi's Concerto for two mandolins in G major RV 532 with Alon Sariel (mandolin) and Venice Baroque Orchestra,  and then a group of works with Sean Shibe (guitar), Anneleen Lenaerts (harp), Ophira Zakai (theorbo), Patric Sepec (cello) and Yizhar Karshon (harpsichord) with an emphasis on chamber music for plucked instruments, with Beethoven's Adagio ma non troppo in E flat major for mandolin and harp (harpsichord), WoO 43/2, David Bruce's Death is a Friend of Ours for mandolin, guitar, harp, theorbo, and harpsichord, Giovanni Sollima's Prelude for solo mandolin, Domenico Scarlatti's Sonata in D minor for mandolin and basso continuo, Paul Ben Haim's Sonata a tre for mandolin, guitar and harpsichord and Hans Werner Henze's Carillon, Recitatif, Masque for mandolin, guitar and harp.

From Rossini's William Tell to 20 newly commissioned operas: Irish National Opera reinforces its commitment to contemporary work as a result of pandemic restrictions

For its 2020/21 season, Irish National Opera (INO) was planning a staging of Rossini's grand opera William Tell, the work's first production in Dublin since 1870! Fate had other plans and as a result of the pandemic, the production had to be shelved yet the company wanted to do something equally ambitious and involving a significant number of people. 

What they have come up with is 20 Shots of Opera, twenty newly commissioned one-act operas from a whole range of Irish composers, each opera for just one or two singers and an orchestra of up to eleven. The results are being presented in partnership with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, and the films will be streamed free on the INO website from 17 December 2020.

The composers involved present an eclectic mix, with works by Gerald Barry, Éna Brennan, Irene Buckley, Linda Buckley, Robert Coleman, David Coonan, Alex Dowling, Peter Fahey, Michael Gallen, Andrew Hamilton, Jenn Kirby, Conor Linehan, Conor Mitchell, Gráinne Mulvey, Emma O’Halloran, Hannah Peel, Karen Power, Evangelia Rigaki, Benedict Schlepper-Connolly and Jennifer Walshe. It is one of the biggest single-event commissioning projects in Irish classical music. And the subjects of the operas are equally eclectic, from Beethoven’s letters about troublesome servants and laundry dilemmas (Gerald Barry's Mrs Streicher) to a marine biologist’s meditations ‘on the enigmatic figure of Libris Solar, an alchemical blend of human, non-human and neoprene’ (Jennifer Walshe's Libris Solar).

The project has reinforced the company's commitment to contemporary opera, as artistic director Fergus Sheil explains, "We’ve already performed Donnacha Dennehy’s The Second Violinist [see Ruth's review], gave the world premiere of Brian Irvine’s Least Like the Other and Evangelia Rigaki’s This Hostel Life, and we are committed to staging Gerald Barry’s Alice’s Adventures Under Ground in co-production with London’s Royal Opera House next May. What we’ve done since lockdown began, though, has helped us reforge our identity with some unique projects, 20 Shots of Opera among them. I hope our existing and new audiences will embrace this and be as excited as we are about bringing these pieces to life."

In casting the operas, the company has also been able to take advantage of the sad fact that the pandemic has imposed restrictions in international travel, so that they have engaged world-class Irish artists and international singers based in Ireland to perform, including Orla Boylan, Claudia Boyle, Naomi Louisa O’Connell, Sinéad Campbell Wallace and Gavan Ring and such rising stars as Andrew Gavin, Rachel Goode, and Emma Nash.

Full details from the INO website.

Musical Chain: Baltic Sea Philharmonic's innovative video response to lockdown

Anyone who has read my recent interview with conductor Kristjan Järvi will not be surprised to find that the conductor's response to lockdown with his orchestra the Baltic Sea Philharmonic was never going to be straightforward.

The orchestra has released the first in a series of videos in which classics from the repertoire are recorded by the orchestra's musicians in their home studio and then remixed by Kristjan Järvi, interwoven with elements of electronic music to create dense sound textures and finally produced, along with videos created by professionally editing the orchestral musicians films of themselves.

The project arose because during lockdown earlier this year the orchestra was due to tour Poland, Germany and Russia. Instead, they created a virtual orchestra involving musicians from all over Europe in a Musical Chain. The name Musical Chain being inspired by the human chains formed by people in the three Baltic States in August 1989. 

The project reflects the cross-border spirit of the orchestra and its commitment to using digital media to convey the energy, style and freedom of its live performances.  Kristjan Järvi comments: "The pandemic has put us in a situation where we have to get out of our everyday groove and comfort zone, out of our familiar structures, methods and routines. We have to create a completely new raison d'être for ourselves and ask ourselves why we do what we do. Physically we can't create the same energy in the same room, but we create a new way of bringing our energy and ideas to people around the world who are inspired by what we do and the way we make music."

Two videos have already been released, Beethoven’s Twilight [YouTube], based on Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 and Midnight Mood [YouTube], based on Grieg's Morning Mood. The next video in the series Ascending Swans, based on Sibelius'  Song of praise will be released on November 20, keep an eye on the orchestra's YouTube channel.

The Auditions: Augusta Read Thomas' new ballet score on disc as part of Nimbus ongoing series devoted to her music

Augusta Read Thomas The Auditions, Selene; ICE Ensemble, Vimbayi Kaziboni, Third Coast Percussion, CLiff Colnot; NIMBUS ALLIANCE
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 13 November 2020 Star rating: 3.5 (★★★½)
The eighth volume of Nimbus' series devoted to American composer Augusta Read Thomas includes the first outing on disc of hea major ballet score and a new version of an old favourite

I interviewed the American composer Augusta Read Thomas way back in 2015 [Musicweb International], when she was in London for the premiere of a new work at the Wigmore Hall,  and whilst there have been opportunities to hear her work live in the UK since then, she is not perhaps as well known as she deserves. But the ongoing series devoted to her work on Nimbus is making much of her catalogue available for exploration.

The latest volume, no. 8, in Nimbus Alliance's series devoted Augusta Read Thomas is The Auditions and other works, which features her 2019 ballet The Auditions performed by ICE Ensemble, conductor Vimbayi Kaziboni, alongside a version of Selene arranged for Third Coast Percussion, conductor Cliff Colnot, Avian Capriccio performed by Axiom Brass Quintet, Plea for Peace performed by Jessica Aszodi (soprano), Yuan-Qing Yu and Ni Mei (violins), WeiJing Wang (viola), Ken Olsen (cello), Ripple Effects for carillon performed by Joey Brink and Michael Solotke, Two Thoughts About the Piano performed by Daniel Pesca (piano), and Your Kiss performed by Claire Booth (soprano) and Andrew Matthews-Owen (piano).

Smetana's Má vlast performed in honour of Velvet Revolution: Czech Philharmonic live & on-line

Semyon Bychkov, Czech Philharmonic (Photo Marco Borggreve)

In collaboration with Prague Spring International Music Festival, the Czech Philharmonic and chief conductor Semyon Bychkov will perform Bedřich Smetana's Má vlast on 17 November 2020 in the Rudolfinum in Prague. The first of a planned annual concert honouring the anniversary of the Velvet Revolution on 17 November 1989 (the non-violent transition of power from the one-party Communist government in Czechoslovakia). 

The concert will be broadcast live on Czech TV and streamed internationally on demand for seven days via the Facebook pages of the orchestra and Mezzo TV amongst others.

Smetana wrote the six symphonic poems of Má vlast (which were probably not conceived of as a single entity) between 1874 and 1879, at a time when the composer was in worsening health, and had lost his hearing. Each work was premiered separately, but the complete set was performed together for the first time in 1885 in Prague. The Czech Philharmonic first performed Má vlast completed in 1901 (in a brewery), and in 1925 the work was chosen by chief conductor Václav Talich (1883-1961) for the orchestra’s first live broadcast and, five years later, it was the first work that the orchestra committed to disc. During the Nazi era, when Goebbels demanded that the orchestra perform in Berlin and Dresden, Talich programmed Má vlast as an act of defiance; while in 1945 Rafael Kubelík (1914-1996) conducted the work as a ‘concert of thanks’ for the newly liberated Czechoslovakia.

The performance of Má vlast on 17 November 2020 will mark 30 years since Kubelik conducted the work in Prague’s Old-Town Square commemorating Czechoslovakia’s first free elections in June 1990 [YouTube].  Kubelik was chief conductor of the orchestra from 1941 to 1948, when he left the country in protest at the Communist regime, and he only returned in 1990, conducting Má vlast with the orchestra at the Prague Spring Festival which he had inaugurated in 1946.

Further information on the broadcast from Czech TV (in Czech), and the Czech Philharmonic's Facebook page.

A Life On-Line: Baroque in Wiltshire, Stravinsky in Chelsea, Beethoven in Poole

Telemann: Cantata 'Der am Olberg Zagende Jesus' - Roderick Williams, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
(Photo Southbank Centre /BBC Radio 3 /Mark Allan)

This week, our listening and watching has moved from Handel, Bach and Telemann, through rare Beethoven, to Stravinsky's war-time tale and a celebration of the art of American poet Emily Dickinson in song, 

Our week began with London Mozart Players' Remembrance Sunday offering, Igor Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale from the chapel of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea and conducted by the hospital's music director, William Vann, with the actor Tama Matheson as the narrator. Stravinsky's ever inventive piece is a remarkably apt work for our times, written during the restrictions of World War I and the Spanish Flu epidemic, the work's moral is to be happy with what you have 'Un bonheur est tout le bonheur / Deux, c'est comme s'ils n'existaient plus'.

Tama Matheson very effectively played the multiple roles (the work was intended for three actors - the soldier, the devil and a narrator - plus a dancer for the princess), and he proved an engaging story-teller whilst keeping us aware of the rhythms between the text and the music. For all Stravinsky's weaving of popular rhythms into the score, it is not a fun piece, and under William Vann's direction LMP's performance combined rhythmic vitality with spikiness and a certain seriousness of intention. [London Mozart Players]

On Monday, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment launched its OAE Player with a concert of cantatas by the three great contemporaries, Telemann, Bach and Handel, with baritone Roderick Williams and soprano Rowan Pierce. The material was a mix of recordings from concerts without an audience at the Southbank Centre, and a live concert at the Wiltshire Music Centre. We started with Telemann's Cantata 'Der am Olberg Zagende Jesus' with Roderick Williams conducting and singing the solo baritone role. Telemann wrote a remarkable number of cantatas, many of which do not survive, and they are a neglected area, fertile for discovery. With no audience and with Roderick Williams facing the ensemble, this was a very intimate performance and the players matched the chamber-like nature of Williams' singing. A moving account of Christ on the Mount of Olives, you wondered why the work was not better known.

The folk-song as art song: Albion Records's first volume of its complete Vaughan Williams folk-song arrangements

Ralph Vaughan Williams Folk Songs, Vol. 1; Mary Bevan, Nicky Spence, Roderick Williams, Jack Liebeck, William Vann; Albion Records
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 11 November 2020 Star rating: 3.5 (★★★½)
The first volume in a series devoted to RVW's folk-song arrangements for voice and piano, with a significant number of first recordings

When you say Vaughan Williams and folk-song, what immediately comes to mind, the choral settings, the Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, Greensleeves, Six Studies in English Folk-song or perhaps simply the way folk-song came to imbue RVW's essential style. Maybe we might remember a few of the folk-song arrangements which pop up in recitals, such as Through Bushes and Through Briars, but in fact there are over 80 folk-song arrangements by RVW for voice and piano, the majority of which have never been recorded. Albion Records (the recording arm of the RVW Society) is planning a four-disc set of all RVW's arrangements of folk-song for voice and piano or violin, 80 in all of which 57 have not previously been recorded in these arrangements. That's a hell of a lot of mature RVW to simply drop off the table.

The first volume in Albion Records new series, Ralph Vaughan Williams: Folk Songs Volume 1, features soprano Mary Bevan, tenor Nicky Spence, baritone Roderick Williams, violinist Jack Liebeck and pianist William Vann in 23 songs, including 15 world premieres, Folk Songs from Sussex from 1912, Six English Folksongs from 1935, and three sea songs from The Motherland Song Book, Volume IV (1919).

RVW himself collected many folk-songs, between 1903 and 1913, he transcribed over 800 folk songs, mostly from the southeastern counties and East Anglia [there is a fascinating article at the British Library website, and RVW's m/s are there]. The curiosity about the songs on this disc is that quite a number were not collected by RVW himself. Folk Songs from Sussex was volume five of a series from Novello, Folk Songs of England, edited by the folk-song collector Cecil Sharp (1859-1924). All the songs in Folk Songs from Sussex were collected by W Percy Merrick (1869–1955), a folk song collector who worked with Lucy Broadwood (1858-1929) and other members of the Folk Song Society. And in fact all the songs come from a set of 60 recorded as being sung by Henry Hills (1831–1901), a farmer originally from Lodsworth (between Midhurst and Petworth), Sussex, between 1899 and 1901. The Six English Folksongs were collected by RVW, as were the final three songs on the disc. But clearly the act of arranging was entirely separate from that of collecting, it wasn't that once RVW had collected a song he arranged it. Quite the opposite, it seems.

So why are these songs not better known?

Eight commissions for ORA Singers' Emergency Composers in collaboration with Tate Modern

The eight composers chosen for ORA Singers and Tate Modern's commissions
Dani Howard, Sorana Santos, Eunseog Lee, James B. Wilson, Kemal Yusuf, Ben Park, Florence Anna Maunders and Satoko Doi-Luck.

ORA Singers launched its Emergency Composers’ Fund in collaboration with Tate Modern earlier this year in response to the COVID-19 crisis to provide work for composers during lockdown (composers being one particular arm of freelance workers who have been particularly affected by the pandemic).

545 composers registers, and now eight have been selected. Each composer will write a reflection on an art-work from Tate Modern, from its international collection. The final works will capture eight musical voices during this unique period of human history. Each work will last three to six minutes and be written for unaccompanied choir. Discussions are now underway about the showcase performances for the works.

The composers and the artworks to which they are responding, are:

• Dani Howard [read my 2019 interview with Dani]
• Haegue Yang, Sol LeWitt Upside Down - Structure with Three Towers, Expanded 23 Times, Split in Three 2015
• Sorana Santos 
• Ibrahim El Salahi, Reborn Sounds of Childhood Dreams 1961-5
• Eunseog Lee 
• Agnes Martin, Morning 1965
• James B. Wilson 
• Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Untitled (Alhalkere)1989
• Kemal Yusuf [read about Kemal's The Key-Crack Chronicles]
  
• Cildo Meireles, Babel 2001
• Ben Park 
• Lorna Simpson, Then & Now 2016
• Florence Anna Maunders [Bromley Symphony Orchestra premiered Florence's Bacchanal in March 2020]
  
• Helen Frankenthaler, Vessel 1961
• Satoko Doi-Luck [whom we last saw wearing her other hat, and playing the harpsichord for Ceruleo's performance of Clare Norburn's Burying the Dead - review]
  
• Henri Matisse, The Snail 1953

Now all we have to hope is that Tate Modern remembers to put the works on display when it re-opens, otherwise there will be hordes of dissatisfied music lovers wandering round the museum.

 ORA Singers Artistic Director, Suzi Digby OBE, commented:

"The huge and unprecedented response generated by this fund has highlighted just how much need there is for artist support during this pandemic. We would have loved to be able to offer many more opportunities to the hundreds of talented, imaginative and deserving composers we heard from, but are so thrilled to be able to support these eight commissions."

 

Stone marimbas & Norse mythology: Sigur Ros release video from forthcoming Odin's Raven Magic

I have just finished reading Neil Price's terrific book Children of Ash and Elm, [Amazon, Hive] about the Vikings and their culture, and under its influence I am trying to read some of the primary sources, in translation, starting with The Sagas of the Icelanders [Amazon, Hive] so I was more than intrigued when this popped into my inbox this week.

Odin's Raven Magic is an orchestral work created as a collaboration between a diverse group of Icelandic musicians, the band Sigur Rós, the musician Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, Steindór Andersen, the most respected chanter of Iceland’s traditional epic narrative known as Rímur and Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir (from the string quartet Amiina).

The work is inspired by the 14th or 15th century poem Hrafnagaldur Óðins (Odin's Raven Magic) which is associated with (scholars disagree about its origins) the Poetic Edda one of the two major written sources of our knowledge of Norse mythology. Norse belief was not written about during the height of the Viking era, it was an oral tradition, and the Icelandic Prose Edda and Poetic Edda, compiled in the Medieval period are our main sources of information about Norse mythology and Skáldic poetry.

Odin's Raven Magic was premiered at the Reykjavik Arts Festival 18 years ago, and the work is only finally making it to disc and will be released on 4 December 2020.

The above video is the track Dvergmál  from Odin's Raven Magic performed Sigur Rós with Steindór Andersen, Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, Páll Guðmundsson, Conservatoire de Paris Orchestra and Schola Cantorum Choir in Paris, September 2004.

The fascinating and notable feature of the track is its use of stone marimbas, inspired by the work of the artist Páll Guðmundsson. The track begins with multiple players on stone marimba, with other instruments being added to the texture. You can't help feeling someone had been listening to Steve Reich's Desert Music, yet the stone is volcanic from Iceland and provides a real emotional link with the text which inspired the music.

Further information about Odin's Raven Magic.

Closely worked arguments: Rory MacDonald & the RSNO in Thomas Wilson's Symphonies No. 3 & 4

Thomas Wilson Symphonies No. 2 & 5; Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Rory MacDonald; LINN
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 26 October 2020 Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★)
Rory MacDonald and the RSNO complete their survey of Thomas Wilson's symphonies with his first mature one and his final one.

Following on from their disc of the composer's Symphonies No. 3 & 4 [see my review], Rory MacDonald and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra have recorded Thomas Wilson's Symphonies Nos. 2  & 5 for LINN records.

Wilson's Symphony No. 2 was completed in 1965, a period when he was music lecturer at Glasgow University. The work was premiered by James Loughran and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at Broadcasting House, Glasgow in November 1965 and the work's critical success led to further commissions for Wilson. 

The Soldier's Return: Opera Sunderland's powerful film premiere of Marcos Fernandez-Barrero's new opera

Marcos Fernandez-Barrero: The Soldier's Return - Ian Priestley, Austin Gunn - Opera Sunderland
(Photo Mark Savage)

Marcos Fernandez-Barrero The Soldier's Return; Ian Priestley, Katherine Aitken, Austin Gunn, Andri Björn Róbertsson, Marco Romano, Annie Rigby; Opera Sunderland on film
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 12 November 2020 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
A new community opera becomes a powerful short film about the real-life experience of veterans when they return home from war

Opera Sunderland was due to premiere Marcos Fernandez-Barrero's opera The Soldier's Return this year with a 40-strong community chorus, lockdown meant a change of plan. Instead, it was created as a film, the chorus and the musicians recorded in isolation and the soloists in a socially distanced production in the studio, and the result released on Remembrance Sunday. Directed by Annie Rigby (artistic director of Newcastle-based Unfolding Theatre), The Soldier's Return features music by Marcos Fernandez-Barrero, text by Jacob Polley, with Ian Priestley as the man, Katherine Aitken as the woman, Austin Gunn as voice 1 and Andri Björn Róbertsson as voice 2, with the orchestra and 23-strong community chorus of Opera Sunderland conducted by Marco Romano, filmed by Meerkat Films.

Opera Sunderland was founded in 2006 as Music in the Minster to give a fully staged performance of Britten's Noyes Fludded. In 2015, it presented its first commission MIRACLE! with words by David Almond (a writer from the North-East) and music by Marcos Fernandez-Barrero. MIRACLE! was Marcos-Barrero's first opera. He is a Spanish composer who trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the Royal College of Music and was based in the UK before returning to Spain where he teaches at the conservatoire in Barcelona.

The Soldier's Return is based on a libretto by poet and novelist Jacob Polley, who was born in Cumbria but currently lives in the North-East and teaches at Newcastle University. The text is based on interviews with local people involved in past, recent and ongoing combat situations.

As the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation spends 5.6 million euros on contemporary music in 2020, its ensemble prize goes to the Riot Ensemble and Synaesthesis

Riot Ensemble, winners of the one of
Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation's new Ensemble Prizes

The Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation has announced that its ensemble prizes for 2020 will go to the UK-based Riot Ensemble and the Lithuania-based Synaesthesis. Each ensemble will get a cash award of 75,000 euros. The ensemble prize was established in 2020 and intended to support two ensembles in their artistic and structural development. The selection board included composers Wolfgang Rihm and Enno Poppe, artistic directors Ilona Schmiel and Andrea Zietzschmann and the violinist Carolin Widmann.

'The London-based Riot Ensemble convinced the jury not only through their outstanding musicianship, intuition for contemporary trends and well thought-out programmes, but also through their considerate and sustainable approach to solving ongoing structural and organisational challenges in society. The Lithuanian ensemble Synaesthesis inspired the board of trustees with their fresh versatility and creativity combined with the highest musical ability and precision. Both prize-winning ensembles already produce an unmistakable and indispensable resonance within the world of contemporary music.' 

In 2020, the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation supported contemporary music to a total of 5.6 million euros, an amount increased by 2 million euros from the previous year as a direct result of the arts industry's COVID-19-related problems.

More than 180 contemporary music projects worldwide received funding in 2020. The 2020 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize and its endowment of €250,000 was awarded to the German violist Tabea Zimmermann, Composer Prizes went to Catherine Lamb (USA), Francesca Verunelli (Italy) and Samir Amarouch (France), all of whom have received €35,000. 

The extra funding for 2020 benefits music students facing financial difficulties in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and an extra application/submission period enabled the Foundation to provide help in a short-term and targeted way. The Foundation aimed to give special consideration to those projects which approach the current situation and its associated restrictions in an especially creative way, or to those who have been confronted with a difficult financial situation as a result of the pandemic.   

Looking back, looking forward: after an extraordinary year, Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival presents a final opera, and two talks centred on the 2020 festival

This year's Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival was a triumph of will and creativity over circumstance. During July, the festival presented 19 live shows at the Cockpit Theatre, allowing over 100 opera makers back into the theatre, and everything was streamed on-line as well. But the festival is not quite over for 2020, and it has three further events to intrigue us. Two events are talks, which look back on the 2020 festival, seeing what was done and what we can learn, whilst there is one final on-line opera.

On 25 November, there is an Opera and Music Theatre Forum (OMTF) Team Talk with the Tête à Tête team, and artistic director Bill Bankes-Jones, who put together the 2020 festival, sharing insights into programming and platforms, buildings and box office, marketing and monetising, and of course Health & Safety in this most strange of years. Further details from the festival website.

On 27 November, the music theatre group Aukoko will be hosting the first of its Powder Room Talks in which will chat to a group of women creatives from this year's festival to explore innovation and the creative process in times of Covid-19, and the future of women opera-makers, featuring contributions from April Koyejo-Audiger, Georgia Barnes, Anna Ho, Simone Ibbet-Brown and Julia Mintzer. Further details from the festival website.

Also, on 27 November, there will be one last Tête à Tête opera for 2020. LUQ society with perform Elena by Angela Luque and Isabel Grábalos. Described as a surrealist take on the true story of a family marked by adversity, the work looks at three women, three generations with a common past that persists in the form of transgenerational trauma. Further information from the festival website.

Espiral: new music from Spain and Latin-America from Camerata Gala and Alejandro Muñoz

Espiral - Igmar Alderete, Ruben Jordan, Juan de Dios Garcia Aguilera, Raquel Rodriguez, Monica Cardenas, Jose Javier Delgado; Camerata Gala, Alejandro Muñoz; LBS Classical
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 10 November 2020 Star rating: 3.5 (★★★½)
An engaging disc of new music from a Spanish ensemble exploring the links between the music of Spain and of Latin America

This recent disc from the Spanish label LBS Classical, Espiral features an exploration of contemporary music from the Spanish ensemble, Camerata Gala under their conductor Alejandro Munoz, exploring not only contemporary Spanish music but the bonds between Spanish and Latin-American music, and featuring Spanish-Cuban composer Igmar Alderete, Spanish composers Ruben Jordan, Juan de Dios Garcia Aguilera, Raquel Rodriguez, Jose Javier Delgado, and Peruvian-Spanish composer Monica Cardenas.

The disc features Igmar Alderete's Bailando con Arcos, Ruben Jordan's Alzheimer (with soprano Auxi Belmonte), Juan de Dios Garcia Aguilera's Abisal, Raquel Rodriguez's Espiral, Monica Cardenas's Influence and Jose Javier Delgado's No Questions.

We begin with Bailando con Arcos (Dancing with Bows) by the Spanish-Cuban composer Igmar Alderete which was written in June 2019 for Camerata Gala. A work which uses both rhythmic and harmonic material from Spanish and Cuban folk-music. It is full of complex rhythms and harmonic colour, yet seems to fit into the tradition of writing for string orchestra from the mid-20th century. Despite the apparent technical difficulty of the music, notably its rhythms, the result is undeniably catchy and has tremendous forward energy meaning that it does not seem to last its duration of almost eleven minutes.

Handel, ecology and a recently discovered bacteria: L'Apothéose - Ideonella Sakaiensis

Spanish period instrument ensemble, L'Apothéose has released a new video Ideonella Sakaiensis. Joining forces with animators Chow Juan and Camila Insua, using the ensemble's performance of the musette from Handel's Trio Sonata No. 2, Op. 5 in D, HWV 397 and produced by La Favorita, the video has a clear ecological message about protection of our environment.

The video's title, Ideonella Sakaiensis, is that name of a bacteria discovered in 2016 by Japanese researcher which is capable of degrading plastic in a few weeks. The members of the ensemble comment that the organism 'could be the key to start disintegrating one of the most damaging materials of the pollution of our planet But for the moment, this discovery is not enough to revert the grave situation in which we are living'

The video's engaging story is set to music by Handel, which comes from the ensemble's recent disc [see my review], yet it also has a strong message that the ensemble wishes to convey, that for them the fundamental legacy they leave behind, should not only be musical but also human.

Embracing a changed world and a developed on-line presence: arts organisations change and adapt to the new reality

Telemann: Cantata 'Der am Olberg Zagende Jesus' - Roderick Williams, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
(Photo: Soutbank Centre, BBC Radio 3, Mark Allan)

Last year a young vocal ensemble, Songspiel, applied for funding to create a film project based around a new song cycle with the view that classical music had been slow to adapt to on-line formats but when it did its reach was measurably incredibly large. The result, revealed last week [see my article] debuted in a changed world. And reactions to those changes are starting to filter through, as arts organisations of varying types embrace an on-line presence in a world where access to live performance is at a premium.

Last night was the press launch of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's OAE Player, its sophisticated new on-line offering. The same day, Ikon Arts Management announced a new partnership with media relations agency Nicky Thomas Media and film production company TMRW CO to offer comprehensive digital services to artists and arts organisations, and the UK classical music world's only print news outlet, Classical Music announced that it is going to stop printing and transform into an on-line classical music news website.

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's OAE Player was given a virtual press launch last night as I and my colleagues watched terrific performances of Telemann's Cantata der am Olbeg Zagende Jesus, Bach's Cantata 'Ich habe genug' BWV 82 and Handel's Apollo e Dafne with baritone Roderick Williams and soprano Rowan Pierce. The OAE Player not only leverages recordings of live performances such as this, and the ensemble's Bach, the Universe and Everything series at Kings Place but also includes specially created content recorded without an audience this summer, including Beethoven's Octet, Telemann's instrumental fantasias and much else besides. The intention is that the on-line portal will offer a growing number of performances, masterclasses and 'hidden value' content, and is seen by OAE as an on-line incarnation of its planned 2020/21 The Edge of Reason. It is a route that many organisations will be looking at implementing.

Included in the specially recorded videos is music from Jean-Baptiste Lully's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. As Crispin Woohead, CEO of the OAE comments about the work's central character, Monsieur Jordain,  "He’s an idiot, but not a complete idiot.  In him we see ourselves, struggling with the things we shouldn’t do, but do anyway."

An emblem, perhaps, for our times.

Not every artist or small organisation can easily afford to create a sophisticated on-line offering. The new partnership between artist management company Ikon Arts Management, which already has a link-up publishers Edition Peters, media relations agency Nicky Thomas Media and film production company TMRW CO, is intended to offer artists a way of considering the full media potential of on-line rather than just streamed concerts, to seek new ways to present music and engage audiences. Examples of the sort-of joined up thinking that can result from this includes the Hatfield House Music Festival's highly engaging on-line festival this year, combining music, art and history (its first digital offering), and forthcoming cross-genre projects with the Orchestra of the Swan.

And of course, the news-gathering and reporting of all this has to change as well. The September/October 2020 issue of Classical Music (which was founded in 1976 as a weekly and since 2018 it has been part of the Mark Allen Group) will be the last in print. Instead, the publication will become fully on-line as classical-music.uk, a one-stop hub providing news, opinion, analysis, podcasts and industry resources aimed at all those working in classical music or with a professional interest in the sector. With the industry changing so quickly, and with personal and professional interactions changed radically by the restrictions placed on us, having a responsive new website is a welcome development, assuming that the economic model works.

This is just a sampling, what popped into my inbox yesterday, there will be plenty more changes and in a year's time, groups and organisations that have not embraced change will come seem like dinosaurs.

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Dancing Folk: Jeff Moore's homage to Percy Grainger played by amateur and professional musicians across the globe in aid of Help Musicians

The Musicians for Musicians project, which aims to raise funds for Help Musicians, has released a new track as a follow up to the album Many Voices on a Theme of Isolation. Dancing Folk is a single, new folk-inspired piece by Jeff Moore which Moore describes as a tribute to the music of Percy Grainger except that in Moore's new piece, all the folk-tunes are fake and invented by Moore! The result is a delightfully engaging tribute to the sheer joy of music making, and you can dance to it too.

The work is played by an on-line ensemble of both amateur and profession musicians from across the globe, including members of BBC Concert Orchestra, LSO, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,Philharmonia Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Swan, Carducci Quartet, Piatti Quartet, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, City of London Sinfonia, Sinfonia Viva, BBC NOW, West End shows such as Phantom of the Opera and The Book of Mormon, all conducted by Timothy Redmond.

Full details from the Dancing Folk website, and the single is available from Bandcamp.

The See Within from Belgian ensemble The Echo Collective

The See Within; The Echo Collective; 7K!
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 9 November 2020 Star rating: 3.5 (★★★½)
The Belgian post-classical ensemble moves into the spotlight, from supporting other artists to creating its own material

The Echo Collective is a Belgian ensemble of classically trained musicians founded by Margaret Hermant (violin, harp) and Neil Leiter (viola), which has made a name for itself working with artists such as  Winged Victory For The Sullen and the late Jóhann Jóhannsson, as well as performing with artists in genres as diverse as alt.rock, synth-pop and black metal. Now the ensemble has produced an album of its own material. The See Within on the 7K! features music composed by members of The Echo Collective performed by Margaret Hermant (violin, harp), Neil Leiter (viola), Gary De Cart (magnetic resonator piano) and Charlotte Danhier (cello).

The disc is the first appearance on record of the Magnetic Resonator Piano (MRP), an instrument invented by  Andrew McPherson which uses magnets fitted to a piano to create the kind of sustain and crescendos that can be achieved with strings. This means that whilst some of the disc's sounds resemble electronics, it was in fact all produced acoustically. The music is produced without complex written explantation, it is there simply for us to experience and think about.

The disc features eight tracks, Inflection Point, The See Within, From Last Night's Rain, The Witching Hour, Glitch, Unknown Gates, Respire and First Brightening ranging in length from under three minutes to over ten minutes. The style is very much post-classical or new classical with strongly thoughtful, contemplative element to it. The music itself is highly varied and can be complex in its structures, and within this the group produces some intriguing textures and combinations of timbres. There is a feeling that different tracks deliberately feature different instruments, so that The See Within is all watery harp textures, whilst From Last Night's Rain seems to have the MRP to the fore.

A work like The Witching Hour might only be a little over five minutes long, but it features a lot of material within its structure. The world here might be post-classical, but there is a strong sense of the performers' classical roots. There are many adjectives to describe this music, approachable, thoughtful, contemplative, atmospheric, intriguing, but simple or simplistic is not one of them.

The Echo Collective

With a track like Glitch, the range of sounds makes it difficult to believe that we are listening to acoustic music (the only electronic manipulation was the addition of reverb), yet it is not just fascinating for that reason and the performers use their tools to create intriguing soundscapes which draw you in.

The See Within
The Echo Collective - Margaret Hermant (violin, harp), Neil Leiter (viola), Gary De Cart (magnetic resonator piano), Charlotte Danhier (cello)
7K!  7K024D 1CD [40:38]
Available as CD, Vinyl or download from 7K!