News

Composer Sebastian Currier discusses his new orchestral work, Track 8, inspired by Beethoven’s lesser-known Eighth Symphony and commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra as part of its Beethoven 2020 anniversary celebrations. Conductor Louis Langrée leads the orchestra in the world premiere of Currier’s work on April 3.

Brett Dean introduces his new piano concerto for Jonathan Biss, transporting us to an Austrian village house where Beethoven struggled with family conflict and deafness.

The new website of the Peter Maxwell Davies Trust was launched in December, providing an online destination for those exploring the composer and his music.

Andris Nelsons unveils HK Gruber's new Short Stories from the Vienna Woods in Leipzig, Boston and New York, offering symphonic highlights from the composer's acclaimed opera from 2014.

First European performances of John Adams's propulsive concert-opener, I Still Dance, take place in Amsterdam and London in March, conducted by the composer and the work's dedicatee Michael Tilson Thomas.

Following performances in the Netherlands and Germany, Detlev Glanert's epic Requiem for Hieronymous Bosch painted a vivid canvas in London in December, travelling on with conductor Semyon Bychkov to Prague in March.

A Different Drummer, Steven Mackey's timpani concerto premiered in Dallas in November, travels to Europe for its first performances on a French tour around the Paris region in March.

Recent works by Lera Auerbach include Arctica, her fourth symphony written in collaboration with National Geographic, and Eve's Lament travelling internationally with conductor Marin Alsop.

This season sees two new operas for young audiences by composer Elena Kats-Chernin: Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver was premiered at the Komische Oper in Berlin in November, and June brings her new operatic version of The Wind in the Willows at the Kassel Staatstheater.

The coming months see a series of performances of Claude Vivier's music across the Netherlands. The highly charged spiritual theatricality of his works brings stagings of Musik für das Ende in Toronto, Hamburg, Rotterdam and Bruges, following upon the French premiere of Hiérophanie last autumn.

The Léonie Sonning Music Foundation has announced that the South Korean-born composer Unsuk Chin is awarded the 2021 Music Prize. Her music will receive a special feature in Copenhagen in June 2021 including the prize concert at the DR Concert Hall.

The Offenbach Edition Keck, creating quality performance materials and rediscovering neglected works, was much in evidence in the composer’s bicentenary.

Major recent works by Sofia Gubaidulina, travelling widely this season, include the Triple Concerto for violin, cello and accordion, Dialogue: I and You for violin and orchestra, and the oratorio On Love and Hatred.

Harrison Birtwistle's most recent work, ...when falling asleep, was premiered in Birmingham in September and toured to Hamburg in an 85th birthday programme.

Assange - Fragments of an Un-time is Iris ter Schiphorst's new work for female voice, ensemble and sampler, exploring the crucial ongoing importance of press freedom.

The poetry of Edith Södergran lies behind Magnus Lindberg's recent ensemble work, Shadow of the Future, composed for the Ensemble Intercontemporain.

Clyne draws inspiration from poetry, art, and music in two new works premiering this spring: Breathing Statues for string quartet, written for Calidore String Quartet; and COLOR FIELD, for Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

Miller Theatre’s Composer Portrait series showcases Oscar Bettison’s dark and idiosyncratic musical style on February 20. Alarm Will Sound and Alan Pierson perform Livre des Sauvages and Pale Icons of Night, Bettison’s new violin concerto featuring soloist Courtney Orlando.

The new decade was launched with a UK TV screening of the new BalletBoyz film of Prokofieff's classic, danced to Kenneth MacMillan's immortal choreography.

Leading German composer Manfred Trojahn has signed an exclusive publishing contract with Boosey & Hawkes. New works include a setting of Hofmannsthal’s ‘Chandos Letter’ with stagings in Bonn and Vienna in February 2020.