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In Portrait: Luke Bedford

Wednesday 22 May 7.45pm Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London

Luke Bedford Wonderful No-Headed Nightingale 8’(UK premiere of ensemble version)

Luke Bedford Renewal (world premiere) 25’

Interval

Gérard Grisey Périodes from Les Espaces Acoustiques 15’

Interview with Luke Bedford

Luke Bedford Renewal (repeated)

Sian Edwards conductor

There will be a short discussion on stage with Luke Bedford in the second half, before a repeat performance of Renewal.

Renewal is commissioned by the London Sinfonietta with the generous support of Michael and Patricia McLaren-Turner.

The London Sinfonietta is grateful to Arts Council England and the PRS for MusicFoundation for their generous support of the ensemble’s Music Programme 12/13 and to the John Ellerman Foundation for their support of the ensemble.

This concert will be broadcast in BBC Radio 3 Hear and Now on Saturday 15th June 2013 at 10.30pm

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Welcome to tonight’s concert.

We are proud to be presenting not only the worldpremiere of Luke Bedford’s latest piece, but also to be presenting the concert to mark the justifiedwidespread recognition he is receiving for hiscomposition. Luke’s last major piece for theLondon Sinfonietta was Or Voit Tout en Aventure,which made an impact when it was first performedand has since been played on several occasions athome and abroad – not least by the LondonSinfonietta. Obviously we hope very much thatthis new work Renewal has a similar effect onaudiences and programmers, and is a piece thatenters the repertoire.

Luke’s work with us was nurtured on the Blue TouchPaper programme, which itself generated manyother pieces by other composers that are now partof the repertoire.  The scheme still continues – lastweek three new cross-artform projects were shownwhich promise to be developed and performed againin the future. The London Sinfonietta continues tobe committed to working not only with those

composers it has had a long-standing relationshipwith, but to give emerging composers theopportunity to make new music with some of thebest musicians in the world.

We could not achieve this work without the supportof the Arts Council, whose advocacy for the arts isespecially important at this time.  We also could notdo this without the support of individuals – andtonight’s commission has been made possiblethrough a generous donation from Michael andPatricia McLaren Turner – long standing supportersof our work. We are hugely grateful to them. Pleaseconsider joining them in supporting us on thejourney of bringing new work to the stage.

Andrew BurkeChief Executive

londonsinfonietta.org.uk@Ldn_Sinfoniettafacebook.com/londonsinfonietta

Welcome

We hope you enjoy your visit to Southbank Centre.We have a Duty Manager available at all times. If you have any queries please ask any member of staff for assistance.

Eating, drinking and shopping? Southbank Centreshops and restaurants include Foyles, EAT, Giraffe,Strada, YO! Sushi, wagamama, Le Pain Quotidien,Las Iguanas, ping pong, Canteen, Caffe Vergnano1882, Skylon, Concrete and Feng Sushi, as well ascafes, restaurants and shops inside Royal FestivalHall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Hayward Gallery.

If you wish to make a comment following your visit please contact Visitor Experience Team atSouthbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX, phone 020 7960 4250 or emailcustomer@southbankcentre.co.uk.

We look forward to seeing you again soon.

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Luke Bedfordcomposer

Luke Bedford was born in 1978 and studiedcomposition at the Royal College of Music withEdwin Roxburgh and Simon Bainbridge. His worksrange from chamber groups, including the stringquartet Of the Air, to ensemble, sometimes withvoice, with Good Dream She Has and Or Voit Tout En Aventure, and to full orchestra with Outblaze theSky and Wreathe.

Tom Service wrote of Or Voit Tout en Aventure, awork composed as part of the London Sinfonietta’sBlue Touch Paper scheme, that is was “one of themost outstanding pieces by any young composer I’ve ever experienced – music of brooding expressiveintensity and charged with that indefinable quality that makes a piece sound as if it was written out ofsheer necessity.”

Bedford was the recipient of a prestigious PaulHamlyn Artists’ Award in 2007, and in 2008Wreathe won a British Composer Award. 2010 saw the world premiere of At Three and Two by the Hallé Orchestra.

Bedford’s first opera, Seven Angels, based onMilton’s Paradise Lost, was premiered in 2011 by The Opera Group and BirminghamContemporary Music Group.

Bedford was the first ever composer in residence at Wigmore Hall in London, which has earned himseveral commissions including the string quartetNine Little Boxes, All Carefully Packed (2011). InFebruary 2012, Wonderful Two-Headed Nightingalewas given its world premiere by the ScottishEnsemble. Bedford was awarded the Ernst vonSiemens Musikstiftung Composer’s Prize in June2012 in Munich.

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Wonderful No- Headed Nightingale(2011/2012)

The piece is a reworking of my Wonderful Two-Headed Nightingale for violin, viola and 15 players.The original title was taken from a 19th centuryposter advertising a pair of singing conjoined-twins, Millie and Christine McCoy. They were bornin slavery in 1851, sold to a showman, and yetmanaged to escape the fate of many performers atfreak shows and built a relatively normal life forthemselves. Something of their story and theposter intrigued me, and I found some parallelswith the music I was trying to write.

From early on in the composition process I knewthat the two soloists would be forced to play either identical or very similar music for most of the piece.

I felt the tension between their combined, unifiedsound and their desire to break free from oneanother could be richly exploited. But I also knewthat they would never be successful in tearing free.They would remain as locked together at the end ofthe piece as they were at the start.

In creating this version for 10 players, I was forcedto move the soloists back into the ensemble. Hencethe new title – the two heads might have beenremoved, but the nightingale sings on. The twobasic harmonic ideas, from which everything elsein the piece is created, are heard in the openingsection. The first is familiar; the bare fifths of openstrings, while the second is altogether stranger; theflattened F played by the ensemble on its firstentry. These two building blocks – fifths andquarter-tones – are matched in rhythmical termsby a few short patterns which are combined inconstantly changing ways, so that the overall resultis never predictable.

There are four definable sections to the piece. After a duet between the violin and viola, theensemble gradually enters and takes over therhythmic impetus. This builds to a crisis point, and the music collapses, leaving just a series ofstark chords. Instead of simply fading away, theopening material springs back into life, bringingthe piece to a close.

Luke Bedford

Notes on the programme

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Renewal(2012/2013)

Renewal is a single-movement work with four mainsections. They each appear as a sudden burst ofenergy; a suddenly-created soundworld. They all try to remain stable for as long as possible butinstability always wins out and each part collapses.

The piece opens with a slow melody in the highestregister. This is not one of the main sections, but acts as a sort of background radiation to the piece:something that connects the four main sections and out of which they appear and into which they will decay.

At various times certain instruments come to thefore; the piccolo and violin near the start, the hornand trombone in the second section and the bassdrum in the third.

Each section has a different trajectory. In the first,an energetic idea gradually runs down, in thesecond, the tempo spirals towards a climax in thecentre of the piece, in the third the bass drum triesto instil energy back into the ensemble and thefourth is the first extended slow music in the piece,which finally merges with the seemingly ever-present background material.

Renewal is about creating something new from the rubble of each previous section. The piece is a celebration of renewal and regrowth, written in the full knowledge of its impermanence.

Luke Bedford

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Gérard Griseycomposer

Gérard Grisey was born in Belfort on 17 June, 1946.He studied at the Trossingen Conservatory inGermany from 1963 to 1965 before entering theConservatoire National Supérieur de Musique inParis. Here he won prizes for piano accompaniment,harmony, counterpoint, fugue and composition(Olivier Messiaen’s class from 1968 to 1972). Duringthis period, he also attended Henri Dutilleux’s classesat the Ecole Normale de Musique (1968), as well assummer schools at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena(1969), and in Darmstadt with Ligeti, Stockhausenand Xenakis in 1972.

He was granted a scholarship by the Villa Medici inRome from 1972 to 1974, and in 1973 founded agroup called L’Itinéraire with Tristan Murail, RogerTessier and Michael Levinas, later to be joined byHugues Dufourt. Dérives, Périodes and Partiels wereamong the first pieces of spectral music. In 1974-75,he studied acoustics with Emile Leipp at the Paris VIUniversity, and in 1980 became a trainee at theI.R.C.A.M. In the same year he went to Berlin as aguest of the D.A.A.D., and afterwards left forBerkeley, where he was appointed Professor ofTheory and Composition at the University ofCalifornia (1982–1986).

After returning to Europe, Grisey taught compositionat the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musiquein Paris from 1987, and held numerous compositionseminars in France (Centre Acanthes, Lyon, Paris)and abroad (Darmstadt, Freiburg, Milan, ReggioEmilia, Oslo, Helsinki, Malmö, Göteborg, LosAngeles, Stanford, London, Moscow and Madrid.)Gérard Grisey died in Paris on 11 November 1998.

Among his works are Dérives, Jour Contre-Jour,Tempus ex machina, Les Chants de l’Amour, Talea, LeTemps et l’Ecume, Le Noir de I’Etoile, L’Icône paradoxale,Les Espaces Acoustiques (a cycle consisting of sixpieces), Vortex Temporum and Quatre chants pourfranchir le seuil.

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Périodes from Les EspacesAcoustiques

Périodes forms part of the cycle Les EspacesAcoustiques which includes in succession: Prologue,for solo viola, Périodes for seven musicians, Partielsfor 18 musicians, Modulations for 33 musicians,Transitoires and Epilogue for large orchestra.

All these pieces can follow on from each otherwithout interruption, each one widening theacoustic field of the previous piece. The cycle’s unityis produced through the different pieces’ similarityof form and through two acoustic points ofreference: the harmonic spectrum and periodicity.

The language used in these pieces can besummarised as follows:

● To no longer compose with musical notes, but with sounds.

● To compose not only with sounds, but with the difference that separates them from each other (the pre-audibility stage).

● To act upon these differences, in effect to control the evolution (or non-evolution) of the sound and the speed of this evolution.

● To take into account our relative auditory perception.

● To apply phenomena which have long since been experimented with in electronic musicstudios to the instrumental field. These applications will be much more radical and perceptible in Partiels and Modulations.

● To find a synthetic way to write in which different parameters participate in the creation of a unique sound. For example: the arrangement of non-tempered pitches creates new timbres, and from this arrangement emerges durations etc. This synthesis will firstly aim to create sounds (material) and secondly will tackle the different relations that exist between sounds (forms).

Within Périodes, three types of moments can befound: dynamic/increasing tension, dynamic/progressive relaxation and static/periodicity. These moments are relative to human respiration:inhalation, exhalation and rest. Periodicity here isakin to experiencing gravity. It is a centre, a polewithout new energy, thus forcing us to orbit,gravitate, waiting to detect a new anomaly allowing for new evolution, for take-off.

These periodicities however are not identical to thoseemanating from a synthesiser. I call them ‘blurred’, as is our heart, our walk; never rigorously periodicalbut with a margin for fluctuation creating interest.

Périodes is an intimate piece, in which the stringquartet has an essential and delicate role.

To be noted, in particular:

● The first ‘inhalation’, during which the instruments envelop the viola’s “D” in the harmonic spectrum, and then gradually distance themselves into sound complexes which are further and further from the initial spectrum.

● The second inhalation, essentially rhythmic, (passing from periodic to non-periodic) and emanating from the heartbeat.

● The section utilising a particular string technique, allowing for the progressive transition from a much differentiated harmonic complex to an extremely simple colouration of the fundamental. As regards the temporal structures, they are entirely deduced from the harmonic spectrum used in this piece.

Gérard Grisey (1974). Translated by Claire Lampon

Notes on the programme

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Sian Edwardsconductor

Sian Edwards studied at the Royal NorthernCollege of Music and with Professor A.I. Musin atthe Leningrad Conservatoire. She has worked withmany of the world’s leading orchestras includingthe Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris,Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Berlin SymphonyOrchestra, the Frankfurt Radio SymphonyOrchestra, MDR Leipzig, Vienna SymphonyOrchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, FinnishRadio Symphony Orchestra, St. PetersburgPhilharmonic, Royal Flanders Philharmonic, HalléOrchestra, and City of Birmingham SymphonyOrchestra. She has a close relationship withEnsemble Modern in Germany.

She made her operatic debut in 1986 conductingWeill’s Mahagonny for Scottish Opera and her RoyalOpera House debut in 1988 with Tippett’s The KnotGarden. From 1993 to 1995 she was Music Directorof English Naional Opera. For the GlyndebourneFestival she has conducted La Traviata and theRavel Double Bill, and for Glyndebourne TouringOpera Katya Kabanova and Tippett’s New Year. Sheconducted the world premiere of Mark AnthonyTurnage’s Greek at the Munich Biennale in 1988,and other engagements have included the worldpremiere of Hans Gefors’ Clara for the OpéraComique in Paris, Cosi fan tutte in Aspen and Jenufa for Welsh National Opera.

Sian Edwards’ recordings include Peter and the Wolf,Britten’s Young Person’s Guide, and Tchaikovsky’s5th Symphony, all with the London PhilharmonicOrchestra and Judith Weir’s Blond Eckbert withEnglish National Opera.

Recent and future concert engagements includeperformances with Ensemble Modern, BayerischeRundfunk in Munich, SWR SinfonieorchesterFreiburg, Kuopio Symphony, Turku Philharmonic,Klangforum Wien, Frankfurt Radio SymphonyOrchestra, Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia,musikfabrik, Landesjugendorchester Berlin,Deutscher Musikrat, Palestinian Youth Orchestra,Nagoya Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, EnglishChamber Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra ofWales as well as performances at the EdinburghInternational Festival and a tour of the UK with theRoyal Philharmonic Orchestra in honour of theQueen’s Diamond Jubilee. Recent and futureoperatic engagements include The Rape of Lucretiaand La traviata for the Theater an der Wien, theballets Orlando and Rite of Spring for theStaatstheater Stuttgart, The Rake’s Progress forScottish Opera and Thomas Ades’ The Tempest forOper Frankfurt.

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London Sinfonietta making new music

The London Sinfonietta is one of the world’s leading contemporary music ensembles with areputation built on the virtuosity of its performancesand ambitious programming. It is committed toplacing new music at the heart of contemporaryculture and continually pushing boundaries, regularly undertaking projects with choreographers,video artists, film-makers, electronica artists, jazzand folk musicians. The ensemble is ResidentOrchestra at Southbank Centre with its headquarters at Kings Place.

Famed for its commitment to the creation of newmusic, the London Sinfonietta has commissionedover 300 works since its foundation in 1968, andpremiered many hundreds more. World and UKpremieres in 2012/13 include, among others, SteveReich’s Radio Rewrite (a London Sinfonietta co-commission), David Fennessy’s 13 Factories (UKpremiere), Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen’s Run(world-premiere) and Renewal by Luke Bedford(London Sinfonietta commission).

The London Sinfonietta’s pioneering young artistprogrammes include Blue Touch Paper, a schemewhich promotes the next generation of partnershipsacross a variety of artistic disciplines; Writing theFuture, a programme which enables young composersto work with London Sinfonietta musicians as theymake new music; and the London SinfoniettaAcademy, which gives the UK’s finest youngmusicians the opportunity to come together tofurther their performance experience and training in an intensive week-long course.

The London Sinfonietta Label and releases on NMCRecordings and Signum Records present a recordingscatalogue of the finest new music performed by theLondon Sinfonietta. The latest releases include NewMusic Show, Thomas Adès: In Seven Days, JonathanHarvey: Bird Concerto with Pianosong and LouisAndriessen: Anaïs Nin/De Staat.

Michael Cox*flute/piccolosupported by Michael and Patricia McLaren-Turner

Melinda Maxwelloboe

Mark van de Wiel*clarinet

Michael Thompson*hornsupported by Belinda Matthews

Byron Fulcher*trombone

Alexandra Woodviolin

Joan Atherton* violin

Paul Silverthorne*violasupported by Nick and Claire Prettejohn

Lionel Handycello

Enno Senft*double bass supported by Anthony Mackintosh

Hugh Webb harp

Alex Nealpercussion

*London Sinfonietta Principal Players

Tonight’s Players

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The London Sinfonietta Academy is central to theLondon Sinfonietta’s commitment to working withyoung musicians. A week-long summer course enables30 students and three conductors from across the UKto learn skills specific to performing new music fromthe ensemble’s Principal Players. The LondonSinfonietta Academy 2013 will be conducted byworld-renowned composer, conductor and performerGeorge Benjamin, and culminate in a publicperformance on Sunday 14 July. Keep an eye on ourwebsite and social media channels to find out how toreserve tickets.

Now in its third year, the London Sinfonietta’s Writing the Future scheme continues to pair composerswith London Sinfonietta Principal Players to develop new chamber compositions, as well as encouragingcreative cross-artform collaborations with students at Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design.An open call has just been announced for this year’s scheme which will focus on The New Music Show on Sunday 8 December, London Sinfonietta’s festival-in-a-day featuring live performances, installations, talks and opportunities for audiences to get involved. For more information, visitlondonsinfonietta.org.uk/writing-future or email now@londonsinfonietta.org.uk

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The ground-breaking Blue Touch Paper programmecontinues into another round of developing inventivecross-artform work. This year, composer EdwardJessen worked with director Joseph Alford, composerLuke Carver Goss worked with writer Jacob Polley,and composer Dan Stern worked with set designerAurelian Koch. Their works received their previewperformance on Tuesday 14 May at VillageUnderground in London.

Applications are now open for next year’s scheme. Visit londonsinfonietta.org.uk/blue-touch-paper for more information.

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Get closer to the London Sinfonietta andcontemporary classical music with activitiesthat give you the opportunity to create,curate and perform with a world-classensemble. The KX Collective, a dynamicgroup of young people from Kings Cross andsurrounding areas, continue to create andperform new music, collaborate withprofessional musicians, produce events andfind out about music being made today.

On Sunday 15 September, the LondonSinfonietta performs James Tenney’sPostal Pieces at Kings Place Festival andwe’re inviting you to be a part of theconcert. Tenney’s pieces consist ofnotated music or simple text instructionson individual postcards. Now it’s yourturn to be inspired. RSVP with your ownidea on a postcard, we’ll select the mostpromising pieces and premiere themalongside our performance of Tenney’s Postal Pieces that evening. Find out more and RSVP atlondonsinfonietta.org.uk/rsvp

As part of the Steve Reich: Radio Rewrite tour inMarch 2013, the London Sinfonietta presented aRepeating Patterns Schools Concert, produced by,and for, young people. With nearly 2000 pupils at theRoyal Festival Hall, the KX Collective performed theirnew composition ReReich, inspired by the music ofSteve Reich. Members of the London Sinfoniettaperformed other works by Reich including ElectricCounterpoint, which features on the GCSE curriculum.For further details of future opportunities, visitlondonsinfonietta.org.uk/together or emailtogether@londonsinfonietta.org.uk

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The London Sinfonietta is a registered charity andrelies on the considerable generosity of manytrusts, foundations and individuals to continue tocreate and perform outstanding new music.

London Sinfonietta Pioneers

Do you share our passion for new music? Join theLondon Sinfonietta Pioneers and you will play acrucial role in making new music happen.

Membership starts from just £35 per year (lessthan £3 per month) and will support all areas of the London Sinfonietta’s new music-making and help us to remain at the forefront ofcontemporary classical music.

You might like to direct your support to a majornew commission with an annual gift of £200 andabove and gain an insight into the creativecommissioning process. Recent Pioneer supportedcommissions have included In Broken Images by Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Radio Rewrite by Steve Reich.

A gift of £1,000 and above per year will supportone of our world-class Principal Players for aseason and give you a close connection with theperforming ensemble.

Your support, at any level, is enormously valuableto the London Sinfonietta and all Pioneers enjoy an engaging relationship with the ensemble, withregular opportunities to meet our players andattend specific supporters’ events.

Help us continue to lead the way, sparking the greatest innovations in music andnurturing the best musical talent as we go.Become a Pioneer today and help us make new music happen.

Find out more by contacting our Developmentteam on 020 7329 9340, by emailingpioneers@londonsinfonietta.org.uk or visiting londonsinfonietta.org.uk/pioneers

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Honorary Patrons

John BirdSir Harrison BirtwistleAlfred Brendel KBESir George Christie CH

Lead Pioneers

Sir Richard ArnoldTrevor CookSusan Grollet in memoryof Mark GrolletLeo and Regina HepnerPenny JonasAnthony MackintoshBelinda MatthewsRobert & Nicola McFarlandMichael & PatriciaMcLaren-Turner

Sir Stephen Oliver QCNick & Claire PrettejohnRichard Thomas & Caroline CowiePaul & Sybella Zisman

Creative Pioneers

Ian BakerAndrew BurkeRobert ClarkJeremy & Yvonne ClarkeRachel ColdicuttSusan CostelloAnton CoxDennis DavisDeborah GoldenPatrick HallNicolas HodgsonAndrew HuntMaurice & Jean JacobsFrank & Linda Jeffs

Alana Lowe-PetraskeJane McAuslandStephen MorrisJulie NichollsSimon OsbornePatricia O’SullivanGeoff PeaceRuth RattenburyDennis StevensonIain StewartAnne StoddartSally TaylorBarry TennisonDavid and Jenni Wake WalkerEstela WelldonJohn WheatleyJane WilliamsStephen WilliamsonMichelle Wright

Plus those generous Pioneers whoprefer to remain anonymous

Arts Council EnglandThe Aaron Copland Fund for MusicThe Angus Allnatt Charitable TrustThe Boltini TrustThe British CouncilThe Britten Pears FoundationThe Derek Butler TrustThe City of London Corporation’s City Bridge TrustColumbia Foundation Fund of the

London Community FoundationThe D’Oyly Carte Charitable TrustFidelio Charitable TrustThe Goldsmith’s Company CharityThe John Ellerman Foundation

Esmée Fairbairn FoundationFenton Arts TrustThe Holst FoundationJerwood Charitable FoundationThe Stanley Thomas Johnson FoundationThe Leche TrustThe Leverhulme TrustThe Marple Charitable TrustMusicians Benevolent FundPRS for Music FoundationRVW TrustThe Harold Hyam Wingate FoundationYouth Music

London Sinfonietta Patrons and Pioneers

London Sinfonietta is immensely grateful to the following trusts

and foundations for their support:

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Board of Directors

Paul ZismanChairman

Andrew BurkeRachel ColdicuttIan DeardenDavid HockingsPenny JonasAlana Lowe-PetraskeBelinda MatthewsPhilip MeadenSir Stephen Oliver QCMatthew PikePaul SilverthorneSally Taylor

Administration

Andrew Burke Chief Executive

Sarah TennantHead of Concert Production

Natalie Marchant Concerts & Touring Administrator

Tina SpeedParticipation and Learning Manager

Shoubhik Bandopadhyay Participation and Learning Assistant

Claire BartonDevelopment Manager

Amy ForshawSenior Marketing Officer

Claire LamponMarketing & DevelopmentAssistant

Elizabeth Davies Head of Administration and Finance

Viktoria Mark Finance Assistant

James JoslinAdministrative Assistant

Freelance andConsultant Staff

Hal Hutchinson Concerts Manager

Lesley Wynne Orchestra Personnel Manager

Julie NichollsConsultant Accountant

Michelle Wright for Cause4Fundraising Consultant

soundukPublic Relations

London Sinfonietta is grateful to its accountants Martin GreeneRavden LLP and its auditors MGR Audit Limited for theirongoing support.

London Sinfonietta

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Mauricio Kagel: The Pieces of the Compass Rose

Saturday 1 June 7.30pmQueen Elizabeth Hall

“e sound references are neverused anecdotally; every one ofthem is integrated by Kagel’sextraordinary harmonicimagination into a world in which nothing is what it seems,and in which every new vistacontains a genuine surprise.”The Guardian

Discover The Pieces of the CompassRose, an extraordinary musicaltravelogue taking you from thenorth east of Brazil to the Gulf ofFinland via the South AmericanAndes. This is a rare performance ofall eight movements, inspired byplaces located at each point of thecompass relative to Kagel's nativeArgentina. The distinctive sound ofthe salon band orchestration isaccompanied by a huge array ofunusual percussion instruments:cushions, a conch, even an axechopping wood.

£9, £15, £22(£6.50 U26, £4.50 students)

0844 847 9940southbankcentre.co.uk

Darkness and Light: Georg Friedrich Haas’ in vain

Friday 6 December 8pmQueen Elizabeth Hall

Georg Friedrich Haas’ in vain,written in 2000, is an exploration of a musical sound outside thestandard tonal system ofcomposition, and an adventure for the listener. As well as themicrotonal harmonic sound-worldthat pervades the work, the normalconcert experience is altered for theaudience and the performers, asparts of the performance are given in pitch-black, according to a seriesof carefully planned lighting changesthat alter and heighten the listener’ssenses. This extraordinary work has been performed many times in Europe and now has its much awaited premiere in London.

Presented by the London Sinfoniettaas part of Southbank Centre’s The Rest is Noise, inspired by Alex Ross’ book The Rest is Noise.

£10, £20(£6.50 U26, £4.50 students)

0844 847 9940southbankcentre.co.uk

Stockhausen: Gruppen

Sunday 6 October 6pmRoyal Festival Hall

Leading exponents of the DarmstadtSchool from the early 1950s–1960s,Stockhausen and Nono wereinfluenced at that time by theuncompromising serial techniques of the Second Viennese School. Both, however, were of a generationthat strived to reshape their musical world after the horrors of the Second World War.

Whilst Nono’s technique wascombined with an impassionedpolitical ideology following his alliance with the Italian CommunistParty, Stockhausen’s Gruppen is amasterpiece of musical imaginationinspired by the rise and fall of theGraubünder Alps, visible from hiswindow. An intensely original sound-world, the piece features threeindependent orchestras each withtheir own conductor, who passswarms of sound between them in a thrilling concert experience.

Presented by the London Sinfoniettaas part of Southbank Centre’s The Rest is Noise, inspired by Alex Ross’ book The Rest is Noise.

£15, £25(£6.50 U26, £4.50 students)

0844 847 9940southbankcentre.co.uk

Upcoming London Sinfonietta concerts

at Southbank Centre

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