After a turbulent 2011, the British music industry is looking ahead to a positive 2012 and according to Paul McManus, chief executive of the Music Industries Association (MIA), there is a lot to work towards in the coming months.

Two of the biggest aspects of 2012 will be regarding music education and the Live Music Bill.

For the latter, the Bill is just moments away from becoming law, as it now waits for the final stage of Royal Assent, a date of which has not yet been set.

When it becomes an Act of Parliament, small gigs will no longer be subject to the 2003 Licensing Act, meaning that more musicians, particularly those starting out, will be able to play in more venues.

Currently, venues such as pubs face huge fines if they allow live music without a licence but this could completely transform and strengthen the British music scene.

Elsewhere, the National Plan for Music Education, which was published last November, will be brought in this year.

Writing for Mi-Pro.co.uk, Mr McManus noted that the MIA has lobbied hard on the “critical importance of children continuing to have a statutory right to learn a musical instrument at school”.

Related to this, he added that 2012 will mark a huge transition as the Local Authority Music Services become new music hubs as part of the National Plan for Music Education. They will see regions apply for funding to become hubs and offer music services inside and outside of schools.

In the government’s plans it states that every child will have the opportunity to play a musical instrument and Mr McManus explained that the MIA is working closely with the Department for Education to ensure that purchasing of new instruments is being done cost-effectively.

Away from the education sphere, the exec said that the MIA will this year be working to secure government grants to help manufacturers exhibit at major overseas trade shows, support music events like Next Brit Thing and monitor US and EU law on the sourcing of woods for musical instruments.

How will the Live Music Bill effect you? Will you be able to play and attend more local gigs and shows?

What are your thoughts on the National Plan for Music Education?

Stradivarius violins are some of the most famous and expensive instruments in the world.

In late 2011, ABRSM and Pure Solo ran a competition offering one lucky, and highly talented violinist a once-in-a-lifetime chance to play one of these multi-million pound instruments.

Laura Ayoub was the winner who headed to Sound West Studios in London to get her hands on the 300 year old violin.

Check out the video below of her amazing day!

As Laura put the £4 million Stradivarius through its paces with V. Monti’s Czardas and the theme to Schindler’s List, little did she know that Nicola Benedetti was waiting in the wings to impart some knowledge and offer a one-off opporunity to duet with the world famous musician. Afterwards, she was full of praise for the compeition winner:

“I was thrilled to meet Laura Ayoub. She is a talented, wonderful young musician and it was thrilling for both of us to talk about technique and repertoire and share our experiences of studying the violin. I was extremely impressed with her commitment, hard work and dedication to violin and I wish her the best of luck for the future.”

What would you do to get your hands on such a wonderful violin? If not a Stradivarius, what would be your dream instrument? What would be the first thing you played on it?

The BBC is to show a programme about an ambitious project to form an orchestra of instruments made out of junk.

Scrapheap Orchestra airs on BBC4 on Sunday (December 18th) and fans of the Proms may remember that the group performed Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture in the summer. The programme follows the project from creating violins and drums out of scrap to the final performance at the Royal Albert Hall.

A team of musical instrument makers had 11 weeks to build instruments, while professional musicians at the BBC Concert Orchestra had to get a decent sound out of them. Meanwhile, Tchaikovsky’s piece had to be re-arranged to allow for the different tonalities of the instruments.

Visiting the orchestra during the project, the Guardian reported that many of the musicians and makers had worries about the instruments sounding awful.

“There’s a drama in getting over the line between this working and sounding like a joke,” conductor Charles Hazlewood told the news provider.

“I’d die a million deaths if I thought we were going to go out on stage in the Albert Hall and make people laugh. The premise is a serious one: is it possible to reimagine this wonderful organism called the orchestra? Can you go back to ground zero?”

The challenge was seemingly impossible. No instrument could be the same as there would not be enough junk; but some did work. One cello was made out of a Land Rover fuel tank, which on first rehearsal “sounded like a hornet trapped in a jam jar”, maker Ben Hebbert explained.

“But we cut bits away and adjusted. It’s ended up as a beautifully playable instrument,” he added, although bowing it does not create the ideal sound.

Elsewhere, a double bass is made from a zinc bathtub and a tambourine uses a sheet of X-ray film.

US composer Eric Whitacre’s vocal score Light and Gold has received a nomination at the Music Industries Association (MIA) Awards.

The book, which compiles a new collection of works by the composer for mixed choir, is listed in the Best Classical Publication category. It features pieces such as Lux Aurumque, Sleep and Boy and a Girl.

Light and Gold was released last year and speaking of the collection, the composer said: “I’m often asked which of my compositions is my favourite. I don’t really have one that I love more than the others, but I do feel that the four measures that musically paint the text ‘never kissing’ may be the truest notes I’ve ever written.”

Whitacre has had a successful year so far. His award-winning musical Paradise Lost is currently being adapted for a stage show and soundtrack and he is getting ready for the third Virtual Choir, the project that made him a YouTube hit.

With the aim to bring classical music to a new audience, 185 members of the public from 12 countries lent their voice for Lux Aurumque, edited by Whitacre, which received over one million hits in its first two months.

Virtual Choir 2 was released on April 7th and this time featured the piece Sleep.

Other nominations at this year’s MIA Awards include Absolute Beginners: Ukulele, in the Best Education Publication category.

Meanwhile, Adele’s songbook of the award-winning album 21 is listed in the Best Pop Publication alongside Legendary Guitar Acoustic Songs and Play Guitar with Led Zeppelin.

The awards celebrate the best products and retail initiatives within the UK’s musical instrument industry. It is organised by the MIA, the UK trade association for manufacturers, distributors, publishers, retailers and educators of instruments and associated products.

Winners will be announced on November 30th at London’s Marriott Grosvenor Square Hotel.

A community choir has performed Verdi’s Anvil Chorus at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden to show people unfamiliar with opera what it is all about.

Thurrock Community Chorus sang the piece from Il Trovatore to an audience made up of hundreds of families at a ‘welcome performance’, which aims to bring a new audience to the medium by showing what happens backstage as well as front of house. The event also showcases the talents of the Royal Ballet and the vigorous training they go through in the studios.

The choir was set up by the Royal Opera House when it opened its scenery-making workshop in Purfleet, Essex. To launch the £8 million site, members of the community were brought together to perform a new opera, Ludd and Isis, The Purfleet Opera.

Due to its success, the choir still meets weekly at a local school and performs every two months.

Speaking to the Independent ahead of the Covent Garden gig, community chorus director, Jeremy Haneman, said: “Community choirs have a bad reputation but people come here because they are genuinely really good.

“We make sure we combine the core experience with encouraging people’s individuality”.

The choir is made up of people who are discovering a keen interest in opera, as well as children, and people who are using the group as therapy to recover from an illness.

“This is a wonderful opportunity to do something I love,” one member, electrician Martin French, told the news provider.

Opera House professionals have also been known to pop along for rehearsals and Mr Haneman added that the choir’s membership could soon reach 200, allowing him to take them on tour across the UK as ‘cultural ambassadors’ to bring opera to other communities.

Community orchestras are being put under the spotlight this week as five inspirational groups have been nominated for this year’s Gramophone Music In The Community award.

Organised by the classical music magazine alongside the Times and Making Music, the UK’s organisation for voluntary music, the award aims to recognise the work done by the voluntary music sector in changing lives through music.

Members of the public are invited to vote for their favourite orchestra through the Times website. The five shortlisted amateur groups do not necessarily have top class playing standards, but have been shown to bring enjoyment and mental wellbeing to their members.

Up for the award is the British Police Symphony Orchestra, which has 80 players who also work for the police in their day job or are connected to the force. It performs concerts to raise money for charities, but the orchestra has also formed marriages, principal percussionist Danny Mizon told the Times.

Cardiff County and Vale of Glamorgan Youth Orchestra, meanwhile, includes 26 ensembles and provides music education for 8,000 pupils in 166 schools, at the same time as putting on concerts to a high musical standard.

The Cobweb Orchestra is also up for the award. Its purpose is to encourage adults to start playing their instruments again, although it also has an ‘instrument bank’ to allow members to try out different instruments.

“There are also many people who made music at university and now have a gap in their lives,” orchestra administrator Catherine Shackell told the Times.

Contrastingly, the East London Late Starters Orchestra invites adults to pick up an instrument for the first time and under the guidance of professional tutors.

Really Terrible Orchestra makes up the shortlist. Co-created by author Alexander McCall Smith 16 years ago, the Edinburgh-based group was set up “to encourage those who have been prevented from playing music, either through lack of talent or some other factor, to play [with] similarly afflicted players”.

The orchestra to receive the most votes will be reported in the Times on October 7th.

A movement of Beethoven’s String Quartet in G, Opus 18 Number 2 that has been lost for over 200 years is to be performed to modern audiences.

The piece was discarded by the Romantic composer in 1799 shortly after it was written, but now Barry Cooper, a music professor at the University of Manchester and an expert on Beethoven, has pieced together original sketches of the movement to create something of what it once might have sounded like.

Now, the university’s resident string quartet, Quatuor Danel, will perform the movement tomorrow (September 29th) and bring to life the great composer’s work to modern audiences for the first time.

At just 74 bars long, Beethoven rewrote the movement, which is what audiences have heard up until now, but elements of it do not have a harmony, so Professor Cooper has used his knowledge of the composer’s style to add extra parts for the performance.

Indeed, the expert told the BBC that Beethoven was a perfectionist who thought he had not mastered how to write quartets.

“He felt that when he wrote this early movement, he didn’t actually know how to write quartets. Any other composer would have been delighted to have written this lovely movement,” Professor Cooper said.

Avid listeners will note that compared to the amended version, the movement has a very different rhythm.

However, Professor Cooper stressed that the most fascinating thing about the find is that it is the last substantial work that Beethoven composed in full before it was lost, while other discarded works have mostly survived over the years.

“With other works that he revised, like his opera Fidelio, discarded movements still survive more or less intact,” he explained.
“So the prospect of hearing a Beethoven work that has been absent for over 200 years should be of much interest to anyone who loves his music, even if my reconstruction may differ slightly from what the composer wrote.”

The piece had been commissioned by Prince Franz Joseph Maximilian von Lobkowitz, Beethoven’s patron, in 1799.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra has finished recording 205 separate national anthems to be used for next year’s Olympic Games.

Recording began last April with Afghanistan’s national anthem and after playing each one alphabetically, the final tune has been performed this week with Zimbabwe.

In total, it took 52 hours to record all of the music at Abbey Road Studios in London, with musicians given ten to 12 minutes to sight read and record each anthem.

Each anthem, under Olympic guidelines, must be between 60 and 90 seconds long and they must be original arrangements owing to legal but also creative reasons.

Conductor and composer Philip Sheppard told the Independent that now it is down to each country to approve the recording.

“It’s like having 205 film executive producers looking over your shoulder,” he said.

Other challenges faced by the composer saw a heavy cutting job on the Uruguay national anthem, which not only runs for seven minutes, but also has seven different tunes.

Uganda has the shortest anthem at just eight bars, which he had to extend.

Mr Sheppard was also required to dig around for some of the anthems that had never been recorded before. The only version of Bhutan’s anthem seemed to be a field recording of a man signing it in a temple, he explained.

Furthermore, in the time it has taken for all 205 recordings to be made, a new country has been created (South Sudan) and Libya’s National Transitional Council has replaced its anthem, which praises the Gaddafi regime.

This tune has been changed in time and the 36-person orchestra recorded the 1951 anthem Libya, Libya, Libya.

While only a few of the tunes will be played as a medal ceremony, every single one will be sounded at the welcoming ceremonies for both the Olympics and the Paralympics.

A British violinist is preparing to break a new world record for giving the highest performance on land.

Hugh Midford, a freelance professional violinist, will climb 20,305 feet up a mountain in the Himalayas and play the violin to complete the challenge, all in aid of the Classic FM Foundation.

He will be joined by George Thomas, a radio DJ and founder of Henley’s Regatta Radio, and under the rules of the challenge, he must play for at least 15 minutes and be witnessed by at least ten people.

Speaking to the Henley Standard, Mr Midford said: “I really don’t know if we will be able to meet those conditions. It might be that it is simply too cold for me to play for that length of time with my gloves off and the weather could affect how many people we have there to watch.

“If I play I know that it will be the highest anyone has played a violin, it just won’t be an official record.”

As for the repertoire, the violinist says that he will play some Bach sonatas.

“This is something I have always wanted to do,” he added.

“I’m very much an outdoors person. I do a lot of hill walking and cycling and this takes everything to the next level.”

He will not be taking his antique violin along for the ride, however. Instead, Hickies Music Store in Reading has donated a violin especially for the charity fundraising trip.

“I think it might go out of tune a lot,” the violinist admitted.

The team will set off on October 1st and all donations will go to the Foundation, which funds music therapy for vulnerable people. During his three-week trip, Mr Midford will be updating his progress on the Classic FM website.

Musicians can protect their hearing by wearing earplugs, sitting further apart and chewing gum, according to a BBC report.

Written by the BBC’s safety manager, the health and safety report lists the risks involved in playing for long periods and even years in the organisation’s five orchestras.

It is a well-known fact that string players get the brunt of the noise from the brass instruments behind that produce large decibels and after years of playing, this can cause tinnitus and hard of hearing in later life.

But it is the brass players who can also damage their hearing, the report finds. It suggests that trombonists and other brass players are exposed to around 92 decibels, almost the same level given off by a chainsaw.

Meanwhile, during a three-hour rehearsal or performance, an oboist is exposed to the same amount of noise as spending an hour on the Underground.

To help with some of these hearing ailments, the report largely recommends wearing earplugs, although it claims that chewing gum can prevent a clenched jaw, which can lead to tinnitus, while it also recommends using a screen to partition sections of the orchestra away from other musicians during rehearsal.

The report, a response to EU rules about noise in the workplace, also provides advice on stress levels of musicians.

It reads: “The sound of your colleagues’ instruments may well contribute to increased stress levels … the adrenaline rush you thrive on in performance can turn under certain circumstances to unhealthy stress that is associated with raised blood pressure, compromised immunity and changes to metabolism.”

Principal cellist for the English String Orchestra, Peter Adams, criticised the report. He told the Telegraph: “The tendency of musicians to do a lot of drinking at the end of concerts is surely a greater risk to health.

“Certainly, if you are sat next to the brass section it can be very loud and people do take precautions but using chewing gum – I don’t think that would look very good from the audiences’ point of view, or on the BBC cameras during the Proms.”

One concertmaster will have to be very careful about where he leaves his luggage from now on after being given the opportunity to play a rare Stradivarius violin.

After two years of hard work in approving the loan, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO) has been presented with the musical instrument.

Made by the legendary Antonio Stradivari in 1723, the violin is now owned by an anonymous group of heirs, who have been negotiating the transfer with the MCO Foundation.

Gregory Ahss, an Israeli violinist, will play the Stradivarius during his period as concertmaster of the MCO and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra.

Indeed, it was at the Lucerne Festival, where the MCO is in residence, in which the violin was presented on the opening day to its new soloist.

The MCO Foundation works to support the advancement of young talent through scholarships and contemporary music by commissioning new work. It also funds chamber music concerts in new and unusual formats such as in clubs.

For most violinists, playing a Stradivarius is a dream come true, but the price tag is often a hefty one.

Last June, one of the most well-preserved Stradivarius violins, owned by the Nippon Music Foundation, was sold at auction for a record-breaking £9.8 million.

The Lady Blunt, named after Lord Byron’s granddaughter Anne, was made by the Italian violin-maker in 1721 and the sale reached over four times the previous auction record for a Stradivari violin.

Experts estimate that there are around 600 Stradivarius violins that remain in existence, but some of them could be lost.

It was reported last week that a collection of rare violins have disappeared after the world’s biggest violin dealer filed for bankruptcy and was arrested for fraud.

Dietmar Machold’s Austrian castle is home to hundreds of musical instruments and 17 have vanished, five of which are Stradivarius and four are Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesu.

Yet to be uncovered, the collection is thought to be worth around £50 million.

The Master of the Queen’s Music, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, has called for a new national anthem to be composed, claiming that God Save the Queen is “very boring”.

What’s more, he has even offered to write the new version.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, he suggested that the new anthem should be “a bit more stirring”.

“God Save the Queen has always struck me as having a very flat tune, and, indeed, it normally comes out sounding like one long ‘derrrrrrrrrrrr’,” he said.

Sir Peter compared the British national anthem to those of other nations like France and Germany, which are “a lot more impressive” and have “a more galvanising effect on their peoples”.

“Benjamin Britten’s arrangement of our anthem was probably the best there has ever been, but he didn’t honestly have a lot to work with,” the composer remarked.

“It would be a lovely idea to start from scratch and come up with a whole new anthem. I don’t know if I am the one to write it, but it’s a thought.”

While just one verse of God Save the Queen is usually sung, the Telegraph suggests that there are six verses, with some sources claiming more that have been added over the years to mark certain events.

Not all of the verses would be quite suitable for performing today, though. Verse six speaks of crushing the “rebellious Scots”.

The suitability of the national anthem has been a hot topic recently. While the public berated the length of Jerusalem, the anthem played to celebrate an England win at the Commonwealth Games last year, Formula 1 racer Lewis Hamilton recently claimed God Save the Queen is too short.

He told the BBC: “When I stand up there and Felipe [Massa] has won, [the Brazilian national anthem] is ten minutes long – and when I’m standing there it lasts half a minute. I would urge the UK to make our national anthem longer.”

People living in London might have recently been woken up by the sounds of classical music playing from the skies as part of an experimental project by a UK artist.

Luke Jerram’s Sky Orchestra took to the capital last month, which saw seven balloons rise up into the skies in quick succession to a height of around 500 feet, each playing out a different element of the musical score.

Designed to be heard and seen from ground level, the music was composed by BAFTA and Ivor Novello award-winning British musician Dan Jones and aimed to provide a gentle wake-up call across London or lullaby on evening flights.

The point of the project? While it is the brainchild of UK artist Jerram, it also marked the start of the countdown to the London 2012 Olympics and was made possible by London mayor Boris Johnson and the London International Festival of Theatre.

Explaining the concept behind his installation, Jerram said: “A form of acoustic urban art, Sky Orchestra questions the boundaries of public artwork, private space and the ownership of the sky.

“The aim is to lift the sleeping public into a space on the edge of sleep, and to inspire their imaginations through sound. Each balloon plays a different element of the musical score creating a massive audio landscape.

“Like whales calling in the ocean, the same sounds may be heard in succession passing from one balloon to another across the sky.”

This is not the only musical art project Jerram has created. He has been lauded for his street piano installation Play Me, I’m Yours, which has now positioned over 400 pianos in cities across the world including New York and Sydney.

It invites any member of the public to play at the instrument and take ownership of their urban environment, and many of the pianos have been decorated by artists or the local community.

Two new works have been commissioned to mark the ten-year anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York.

They will aim to reflect the tragedy of the event of one decade ago, highlight the emotions of the events that have taken place since and illuminate what the future might hold for those affected.

First to be premiered is Not in Our Time by composer Richard Blackford. The work will be performed at the climax of two concerts, the Cheltenham Festival on September 11th and the Lighthouse in Poole on September 13th.

It has been commissioned by the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and explores the theme of war declared in the name of religion. The piece uses at its focal point speeches from presidents George Bush and Barack Obama, as well as 11th century texts of the First Crusade.

Blackford said of the work ahead of its premiere: “Perhaps it’s through poetry and song that we can look unflinchingly at this tragedy of our time and offer some hope of reconciliation for the next generation.”

The special Cheltenham Festival event will feature solos from tenor Paul Nilon and baritone Stephen Gadd and will be conducted by Gavin Carr.

On September 30th, John Corigliano’s One Sweet Morning will receive its world premiere at Avery Fisher Hall in New York. It will be performed by the New York Philharmonic and conducted by Alan Gilbert, with Mezzo-Soprano Stephanie Blythe.

Composer Corigliano explained his apprehensions about the idea of composing a piece for 9/11.

“How can one hear music of any dramatic surges without imagining these events accompanying the music – or vice versa?” he said.

“Inevitably, the piece would become a tone poem of that unimaginable day – something I never intended and did not want.”

He explained that he chose four poems from different age and countries to show that 9/11 was not just about one day but has continued over the decade and the piece ends with the dream of a world without war.

This year, the BBC Proms is to host its first ever turntablist musician at a concert by the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.

What’s more, the work in which the turntablist will perform has been composed by the grandson of legendary Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev.

Gabriel Prokofiev, who is a DJ, producer and composer, will show off his 2004 work Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra on August 6th, featuring DJ Switch and led by Vladimir Jurowski.

The piece is in five movements and combines hip-hop and classical, with a range of turntable techniques like mixing and scratching.

Speaking to the Guardian, Prokofiev explained the work: “In the 19th century when the modern design of the piano fully emerged and you had people like Liszt … and it was really all about showing off – the same with the violin and Paganini.

“It feels like when an instrument is really emerging, there’s this thing of showing off the extremes of what it can do. Turntables have entered that era.”

Indeed, the composer spends a lot of time bringing the two genres together through his label Nonclassical, in the hope that young people will find an avenue in which to access classical music and find it relevant to them.

Also featuring at the Proms 30 will be extracts from Romeo and Juliet, perhaps Prokofiev senior’s most famous work.

Prokofiev junior told the Guardian of living up to his grandfather’s name and talent: “Sometimes I think the name might make people write me off straight away because, like, what descendents of successful composers have gone on to become successful composers themselves?”

All of the music performed on the night will be by young musicians who have had to audition for their coveted desk at the National Youth Orchestra.

One double bass player, 17-year-old Martin Ludenbach, has taken a 12-week course to learn the music for the night.

“I’ve never had the chance to play with such a massive orchestra of 170 people and playing at the BBC Proms – there’s nothing quite like it,” he told North Wales Weekly.

An orchestra is to be set up in London next year, made up entirely of young musicians, as part of the capital’s Cultural Olympiad celebrations.

The Aldeburgh World Orchestra will recruit 124 musicians aged between 18 and 29 and from all over the globe for a one month residency in London.

Dependent on their visas allowing them to travel to the UK and Europe, the scheme will include funding for travel, accommodation and meals, and see the orchestra perform in a concert in Germany, Amsterdam and at the BBC Proms in London.

For most of the month, however, the orchestra, led by Sir Mark Elder, will be in residence in Suffolk at Snape Maltings. They will perform works by Britten, Mahler, Shostakovich and Stravinsky and will give the world premiere of a new BBC commission by Charlotte Bray.

The orchestra is open to ‘exceptional’ players and each musician will be tutored by a number of international orchestral principals as well.

With just one year to go until the London 2012 Olympics, part of the nation’s bid was to offer an alternative Cultural Olympiad spread over four years and culminating at the London 2012 Festival.

It involves art, film, literature, museums, theatre, dance and music, from large-scale commissions to local activities across the UK.

Other projects involved in the Cultural Olympiad include New Music 20×12, a UK-wide programme of 20 new works of 12 minutes long that are inspired by Olympics and Paralympics sports.

Meanwhile, young people aged between 14 and 19-years-old can get involved in Youth Music Voices, a choir encompassing different world styles.

Musicians living in east London are being targeted by a programme run by the London Symphony Orchestra, which hopes to inspire talented young musicians and support them and their families to make sure that they fulfil their ambitions.

A live concert will be held in London to mark the bicentenary of Novello and Co.

The Bach Choir, the Philharmonia Orchestra and cellist Raphael Wallfisch will perform at the Royal Festival Hall on September 20th to celebrate some of the classic works published by Novello over the past 200 years.

Works will include those by Handel, Elgar and Parry, as well as modern composers and music from film.

Presenter Aled Jones will host the event, called The Best of British, and the night will also feature two specially-commissioned works.

They will be two fanfares, one by composer John McCabe, which will open the evening, and the second by Patrick Hawes.

Other highlights of the concert include Elgar’s Nimrod from Enigma Variations, Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus and Parry’s I Was Glad, which was the processional music at this year’s royal wedding.

The theme from Goodbye Mr Chips by Richard Addinsell will also be performed.

Meanwhile, another new fanfare has been premiered, this time at the BBC Proms. Judith Weir’s new work, Stars, Night, Music and Light is a four-minute piece for mixed chorus, orchestra and organ.

Using text from Man by George Herbert, the work was performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC Singers at the First Night of the Proms on July 15th.

It had been specially commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and was conducted by Jiri Belohlavek.

Ivan Hewett from The Telegraph said of the work that reflecting on Weir’s past pieces that have included a ten-minute opera for one voice, “it was only to be expected that she would come at the genre of ‘grand curtain-raiser’ from an interestingly sideways angle”.

“Her setting of George Herbert’s lines hymning the stars and sun was grand enough to need three timpani players, full orchestra and chorus and organo pleno. But it was light on its feet, and kept pulling the rug from under its sturdy major-key assertiveness with curious side-slipping harmonies.”

The life and music of Geoffrey Burgon, the composer of many film, television and classical scores including Brideshead Revisited, Life of Brian, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Dr Who and The Forsyte Saga, will be celebrated in a special concert on July 21 at St John’s, Smith Square, London, hosted by Monty Python’s Terry Jones.

PROGRAMME
Nunc dimittis from Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Music from Brideshead Revisited, Bleak House, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Forsyte Saga
Cello Concerto (World Premiere)
Viola Concerto: Ghosts of the Dance
A selection of choral works including But Have Been Found Again, The Corpus Christi Carol, Apple Blossom, The Assumption, Love Me Brought (London Premiere)

Terry Jones presenter | Josephine Knight cello | Philip Dukes conductor/viola |
City of London Sinfonia | The Wellensian Consort

Tickets £34.50/£28/£18

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