Sinfonia Concertante with Lawrence Power

SCOTTISH ENSEMBLE £10:11/12 SEASON  

SINFONIA CONCERTANTE

With Lawrence Power, viola

Fri 17 - Thu 23 February 2012 across Scotland

Fri 24 February 2012 Wigmore Hall London (not part of £10:11/12 Season)

 

Haydn              Symphony No.44 in E minor ‘Trauer'

Luke Bedford   Wonderful Two-Headed Nightingale (world première performances)

William Alwyn  Pastoral Fantasia

Mozart              Sinfonia Concertante in E flat K 364

 

Fri 17 Feb 2012, 8pm Eden Court, Inverness

Sat 18 Feb 2012, 7.30pm The Music Hall, Aberdeen

Sun 19 Feb 2012, 7.30pm The Queen's Hall, Edinburgh

Mon 20 Feb 2012, 7.30pm St Paul's Cathedral, Dundee

Wed 22 Feb 2012, 7.30pm Perth Concert Hall

Thu 23 Feb 2012, 7.30pm City Halls, Glasgow

Fri 24 Feb 2012, 7.30pm Wigmore Hall, London

 
The Scottish Ensemble's £10:11/12 Season continues into 2012 with a series of concerts showcasing the distinctive voice of the viola at venues across Scotland from 17 - 23 February 2012. The Ensemble will be joined by unparalleled star viola player Lawrence Power on this tour, pairing with Scottish Ensemble Artistic Director Jonathan Morton as soloist in Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante.  As part of the Ensemble's £10:11/12 Season, all tickets for these concerts in Scotland are £10.


Sinfonia Concertante concerts will feature the Ensemble's trademark blend of established classics of the string repertoire alongside new and unusual works for the unique forces of the UK's only professional string orchestra. From Mozart, one of the early masters of chamber music, to one of the freshest voices in British composition, Luke Bedford, audiences will hear how composers across the centuries have employed the individual characteristics of the viola.

 
33-year old Bedford has won several major prizes for his music and is Composer in Residence at London's prestigious Wigmore Hall. The Ensemble commissioned Bedford to create a companion piece to Mozart's famous Sinfonia Concertante using the same forces as the earlier composer's work. Scottish audiences will hear the very first performances of this brand new work for solo violin, solo viola, strings, oboes and horns before the piece receives its London premiere at Wigmore Hall on 24 February 2012.

On his Scottish Ensemble commission, Wonderful Two-Headed Nightingale Bedford says:

I am delighted to have been invited to create a new work for the Scottish Ensemble. In particular, I am looking forward to the challenges of writing a new piece to stand alongside the work of Mozart and his Sinfonia Concertante. The Scottish Ensemble has a strong reputation for commissioning exciting new music, and I am very proud to join the rank of contemporary composers to have had works performed by this unique group.

 
Continuing the Ensemble's tradition for bringing world-class soloists to audiences across Scotland, Lawrence Power, in high demand across the world as a solo viola player and as a chamber musician, will be joining the Ensemble on this tour. Power will be joining Scottish Ensemble Artistic Director Jonathan Morton as soloist in Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, famous for its beautiful melodic phrases, and in Bedford's Wonderful Two-Headed Nightingale. Power will also introduce audiences to an unfairly neglected 20^th-century British composer: William Alwyn. Power will bring the idyllic pastoral scenes of Alwyn, reminiscent of contemporaries Vaughan Williams and William Walton, to life in a performance of the composer's Pastoral Fantasia. Composed in 1939, Alwyn's piece paints a nostalgic and poignant portrait of a landscape about to be altered forever. 

 
The Scottish Ensemble's £10:11/12 Season gives audiences the opportunity to experience first-class music making for the special flat-rate of £10. The Ensemble is committed to delivering first-class musical experiences to everyone, even in the current climate of economic uncertainty. Offering one of the best-value nights out available, audiences have the opportunity to try out for themselves the powerful and rewarding performances that this enterprising group is known for.

  Pre-concert conversations and additional events

Audiences in Inverness are invited to join soloist Lawrence Power from 7.15pm to find out more about the challenges of preparing a brand new work for performance and about his life as a touring soloist. In Aberdeen and Glasgow, Lawrence will be returning to the stage following the performance to answer questions

Young musicians in Aberdeen can get exclusive access to the world-class musicians of the Ensemble by participating in Wired, a series of interactive workshops taking place before all Scottish Ensemble concerts in Aberdeen this season, thanks to the support of Aberdeen City Council.

Wired workshops give young musicians who play any instrument the opportunity to learn more about the music to be played in the concert, perform with other young players, discover the lives of the composers and performers behind the music, and find out what life as a professional musician is really like. Afterwards, participants can join their friends and family at the concert and apply their new found knowledge to the concert experience.

-ENDS-

 

For more information, ticket requests or interviews, or to request images please contact:

Keren Nicol
Marketing and Development Manager, Scottish Ensemble
0141 332 4747
keren.nicol@scottishensemble.co.uk  

 

For more information on Wired in Aberdeen, please contact:

Pippa Barnwell
Concerts and Projects Manager, Scottish Ensemble
0141 332 4747
Pippa.barnwell@scottishensemble.co.uk

 

Full concert information available from  http://www.scottishensemble.co.uk/40/forthcoming_concerts/

NOTES TO EDITORS

 
Luke Bedford - biography

Luke Bedford was born in 1978 and studied composition at the Royal College of Music with Edwin Roxburgh and Simon Bainbridge.

His works range from chamber groups (e.g. the string quartet Of the Air), to ensemble, sometimes with voice (Good Dream She Has and Or Voit Tout En Aventure) and to full orchestra (Outblaze the Sky, Wreathe).

Tom Service wrote of Or Voit Tout en Aventure, that is was "one of the most outstanding pieces by any young composer I've ever experienced - music of brooding expressive intensity and charged with that indefinable quality that makes a piece sound as if it was written out of sheer necessity."

Bedford was recently the recipient of a prestigious Paul Hamlyn Artists' Award, and in 2008 Wreathe won a British Composer Award. 2010 saw the world première of At Three and Two by the Hallé Orchestra.

Bedford is currently the first ever composer in residence at the Wigmore Hall in London. Forthcoming commissions include works for both the Britten Sinfonia and the Scottish Ensemble.

The opera Seven Angels continues Bedford's fascination with the work of John Milton, as seen previously in works such as On Time for choir and orchestra, and Rode with Darkness for orchestra.


Lawrence Power- biography

Lawrence Power is one of the foremost violists today and in 2011 was shortlisted for the Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist Award. He is regularly invited to perform with some of the world's greatest orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Stockholm Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and City of Birmingham Symphony orchestras. He has been appointed Artist in Residence with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra in 2011/2012.

He regularly gives recitals with pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips and has performed in prestigious venues and concerts series worldwide, including the BBC Proms at London's Cadogan Hall. Other chamber music partners include Alex Kerr, Paul Watkins and Menahem Pressler, Elisabeth Batiashvili, Francois Leleux and Sebastian Klinger and Julian Rachlin. Future orchestral engagements include performances with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Markus Stenz and Vladimir Jurowski and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder.

Lawrence Power has recorded extensively for Hyperion Records, including a three-disc survey of the music of Hindemith, and the concertos of Bartok and Rozsa.

 He plays a rare viola by the Bolognese maker Antonio Brensi from c.1610 and has been appointed International Professor of Viola at the Zurich Hochschule der Kunst.

  Scottish Ensemble Company Profile

Versatile, enterprising and ambitious, the Scottish Ensemble is a tight-knit band of outstanding string players from around Europe who perform regularly together under Artistic Director, Jonathan Morton.

The foundation of their work is the rich repertoire of music for strings of the three centuries since the age of Bach and Vivaldi. They bring a sparky questing attitude to bear on this heritage and new work habitually rubs up against much loved masterworks within the same programme. Commissions from John Tavener, James MacMillan, Sally Beamish, David Horne, John Woolrich, Craig Armstrong, Steve Martland and Thea Musgrave have enriched their concerts in recent years.

They also venture further afield musically by collaborating with musicians of different traditions. Leading Shetland fiddler Aly Bain, and folk musician Dougie MacLean have both performed with the ensemble. Maverick musicians such as American bassist Edgar Meyer and Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto (both free spirits, equally happy in many different musical worlds) have proven the ideal partners, and created joyfully adventurous and unique events in which Western ‘classical' works sat happily alongside folk, electronica and improvisation.

Although it is based in Glasgow, the majority of the Scottish Ensemble's projects - some 50 concerts a year - tour throughout Scotland, appearing in many major towns and cities, as well as further flung areas including the Islands and northernmost Highlands of Scotland. It also presents programmes of small scale chamber music showcasing the talents of its many excellent individual players.
The Ensemble appears regularly at London's Wigmore Hall, BBC Proms and Edinburgh International Festival as well as City of London Festival; Aldeburgh Festival;  and the St Magnus Festival, Orkney.  Internationally, it has toured to China (Shanghai Spring International Festival), Germany and France.

Many music lovers further afield know the ensemble best through its recordings, which include its award-winning CD of Tavener, as well as the critically acclaimed  CD of Britten with tenor, Toby Spence (both on the Linn Records label). More recent recordings include the Eight Seasons, featuring Jonathan Morton as soloist (on Signum Records), and the Ensemble's CD with Alison Balsom on EMI Classics which was the label's biggest selling CD of 2010. A follow-up recording with Alison on EMI Classics was released in January 2012 featuring Seraph, co-commissioned by Scottish Ensemble and Perth Concert Hall and performed by Scottish Ensemble

Concerts and recordings may be the most visible aspect of the Scottish Ensemble's work, but its commitment to education, outreach and community work in Scotland is equally important. This work develops constantly, and includes large scale creative projects for children - many of them experiencing live performances of this kind for the first time - instrumental coaching and masterclasses, and professional development seminars for workplaces.

‘this is one set of musicians you really need to see live to fully appreciate' - The Scotsman, September 2011

www.scottishensemble.co.uk