Oliver Knussen News
British composer and conductor (1952-2018)
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- United Kingdom
- conductor, composer
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2024-03-29
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2024-03-25 09:57:00
Aldeburgh Festival at 75: Blond Eckbert and Curlew River, plus Unsuk Chin, Judith Weir, Alban Gerhardt and Daniel Pioro as featured artists
The 75th Aldeburgh Festival opens on 7 June and runs until 23 June 2024. The festival features stagings of Judith Weir's Blond Eckbert and Britten's Curlew River, and the festival's featured musicians are composers Judith Weir and Unsuk Chin, violinist Daniel Pioro and cellist Alban Gerhardt.Judith Weir's Blond Eckbert is being staged as a co-production between Britten Pears Arts and English Touring Opera, and the work is directed by Robin Norton-Hale, conducted by Gerry Cornelius with a cast that includes Simon Wallfisch and Aoife Miskelly. Ryan Wigglesworth will conduct the Knussen Chamber Orchestra in the premiere of Weir's The Planet and Wigglesworth also conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Weir's Forest. Soprano Claire Booth performs Weir's solo opera, King Harald's Saga whilst the BBC Singers perform Blue Remembered Hill. The Leonkoro Quartet premiere Weir's second string quartet, The Spaniard, and there are performances of more of Weir's music from pianists Stephen Osborne and Rolf Hind, Trio Boheme, […]
2024-01-09 07:48:00
Aldeburgh Festival at 75: festival regular, Tony Cooper reports
[…] Herring at the Jubilee Hall and the first performance of his cantata Saint Nicolas at the Parish Church with a trio of lectures delivered by E.M. Forster on George Crabbe, Tyrone Guthrie on theatre and Sir Kenneth Clark on East Anglian painters. Following the deaths of Britten and Pears the artistic direction fell to a coterie of musicians who knew both men well including conductors Philip Ledger and Steuart Bedford and composers Colin Matthews and Oliver Knussen. However, a big event in 2013 (Britten’s centenary year) centred on Peter Grimes which was miraculously and successfully staged on Aldeburgh beach with the festival then under the direction of Jonathan Reekie while his successor, Roger Wright, who has been at the crease enjoying a terrific innings for the past decade, retires after this festival. The 2019 festival presented the UK première of the chamber opera The Hunting Gun by Thomas Larcher [see Tony's review], based […]
2023-12-31 16:56:00
Since I am busy at work on my new book project, a two-volume study of the complete operas of Mozart in their eighteenth-century political and intellectual context, it seems fitting to have heard more music by Mozart than by any other composer this year. (For 'rules' on counting, please see my previous post.) Beyond my top four, Mozart, Wagner, Beethoven, and Strauss, I heard a good range of music from Alkan to Zimmermann and beyond.19 Mozart 12 Wagner 8 Beethoven, Strauss 7 Brahms, Schumann 6 Bach 5 Schubert, Byrd 4 Mahler, Prokofiev 3 Benjamin, Chopin, Ligeti, Liszt, Ravel 2 Berg, Bizet, Debussy, Dvořák, Handel, Haydn, Henze, Knussen, Puccini, Schoenberg 1 Alkan, Dieter Ammann, CPE Bach, Johann Christoph Bach, JCF Bach, Bartók, Beethoven, Berberian, Berio, Boismortier, Boulez, Busoni, Cage, Chausson, Cherubini, Unsuk Chin, Coleridge-Taylor, Crumb, Duparc, Elgar, Fauré, Francesco Filidei, Grisey, Saed Haddad, Hartmann, Hindemith, Holliger, Humperdinck, Ibert, Janáček, Korngold, […]
2023-12-19 09:07:00
75th Aldeburgh Festival: Judith Weir's Blond Eckbert, Britten's Curlew River, Sumidagawa & more
[…] Cornelius. Judith Weir is one of the festival's featured musicians and there will be performances of her music by BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Ryan Wigglesworth, pianists Rolf Hind and Steven Osborne, the Nash Ensemble, Aldeburgh Voices, and Tenebrae, the BBC Singers perform her oratorio blue hills beyond blue hills, soprano Clare Booth performs the mini grand opera King Harald's Saga, the Leonkoro Quartet premieres of her second string quartet, The Spaniard, and Ryan Wigglesworth and the Knussen Chamber Orchestra premiere Planet, written specially for the orchestra.Claire van Kampen directs a new production of Britten's Curlew River in Blythburgh Church, conducted by Audrey Hyland with tenor Ian Bostridge, baritone Peter Braithwaite, bass-baritone Sir Willard White and singers and alumni from the Britten Pears Young Artists programme. There will also be a chance to see the Japanese Noh play, Sumidagawa (Sumida River) that inspired Britten and the performance will be preceded by a new English re-telling of […]
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