Boosey & Hawkes

Osvaldo Golijov: European performances grow

(October 2009)

Argentinian-born composer Osvaldo Golijov, who signed with Boosey & Hawkes in June this year, was featured at the Trondheim Festival in Norway last month.

The seven programmed works in Trondheim included Ayre for soprano and ensemble, composed as a companion piece to Berio’s Folk Songs, in which Golijov draws upon traditional melodies from America, Armenia, Sicily, Genoa, Sardinia, the Auvergne and Azerbaijan. Also performed in Trondheim was the cantata Oceana, setting texts by Pablo Neruda, who the composer describes as “our Latin American Bach who can transform everything on this Earth into poetry”.

Golijov has increasingly developed a performance calendar in Europe to mirror his success in North and South America. His full-evening Pasión según San Marcos, a highly individual setting complete with Brazilian and Cuban singing, drumming and dancing, has in recent years been heard in Spain, Portugal, Italy and within major Golijov features at The Barbican Centre in London and last year’s Holland Festival. Ainadamar, his one-act opera on the life of Lorca, was staged in Darmstadt in 2007 and heard in concert in Birmingham and London last year.

Most widely performed of all in Europe is the string orchestra version of Last Round, Golijov’s thrilling pugilistic tribute to the master of tango nuevo, Astor Piazzolla, which has in recent years been regularly heard in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Finland. Destined to travel similarly is Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind in the version for clarinet and string orchestra with its Klezmer-inflected solo writing, performed last summer in Glasgow and Amsterdam.

Forthcoming international performances include an Australian tour of Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra by Dawn Upshaw and the Australian Chamber Orchestra in February 2010, following on from Golijov’s successful feature at last year’s Adelaide Festival. Upshaw also performs the songs within the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s New Creations Festival featuring eight of the composer’s works (24 February - 3 March).

Future Golijov projects include a commission to be performed by a consortium of 35 American orchestras; a violin concerto for Leonidas Kavakos commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Berliner Philharmoniker, and the Barbican Centre in London; and a Metropolitan Opera commission scheduled for premiere in 2014. Deutsche Grammophon is due to release a new recording of Pasión según San Marcos, following its discs of Ayre, Ainadamar and Oceana.

> Further information on Work: Ayre

Photo: John Sann / Deutsche Grammophon

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