Ten years of At Lunch - from the stage

In celebration of the tenth anniversary of our At Lunch concert series, we asked some of our players to share their favourite memories from the last decade of lunchtime concerts...

Joy Farrall (Principal Clarinet):

"There is real excitement in opening a brand new piece of music once a year (if not twice on occasion), knowing it is a piece written especially for your orchestra and your colleagues by an amazing establishment figure or up-and-coming young genius, and for that privilege to have been on-going for ten years is a total delight."

Clare Finnimore (Principal Viola):

"In Norwich there's always a fabulous keen and supportive audience. We can really feel that they're with us every step of the way- they're especially open and receptive to the new music. 

With the BBC broadcasts often being taken from Cambridge's West Road Concert Hall there is always an 'edge' to these lunchtime performances in more ways that one. I'll always remember the bitter cold at the beginning of the rehearsal and the howling gale coming in through the back door with the BBC wires! It's always lovely chatting to audience members here afterwards, then going to Burwash Manor Barns for tea and cake.

Wigmore Hall is such a special place holding many memories for each one of us. With the pressure of the live broadcast behind us it's great to wallow in this perfect acoustic!" 

Huw Watkins (Principal Piano):

"It's been a huge privilege to launch so many new pieces in the last 10 years of At Lunch. I'm particularly proud to have written one of the very first of these commissions in 2006, Dream, for violin, clarinet and piano. Not only was this a remarkable experience musically (working with Joy Farrall and Alina Ibragimova, who joined us for this tour) - we also took the programme to Kraków, where the food was unforgettable!"

Alina Ibragimova, Joy Farrall, Michael Zev Gordon (whose music also featured in this programme),
and David Butcher (Chief Executive) on tour in Kraków.

Miranda Dale (Principal Second Violin):

"Perhaps most of our interesting experiences have been played out before Norwich concerts, including the time when we turned up in a taxi to play at the Assembly Rooms and Jackie realised that she had left her violin on the train! On hair-tailing back in said taxi and feverishly searching the train, which luckily had not started it's return journey, she even more luckily spotted a cleaner walking down the platform with her violin on the trolley! Not much rehearsal was had before that concert, just tea and scones required!

The other famed Norwich incident was when it started snowing just after our train started out from Liverpool Street station in London - it snowed so hard and fast that our train could not cope and we limped towards Norwich having to disembark at Ipswich in order to wait on the freezing platform for another train. Phone calls were feverishly made to and fro to our colleagues and concert manager who had driven there from nearer by and as the time ticked quickly by and the concert should have started we were still on the train! Joy and David valiantly saved the day (Norwich audience as ever game) by having a pre-concert talk (only during concert time!) whilst we scrambled to the Assembly House. I seem to remember Caroline running onto the stage from the taxi and joining Huw in her stocking feet to play a sonata with him followed by our commission before jumping back in a taxi to catch our return train!"

Thomas Gould (Associate Leader):

“At Britten Sinfonia we often say that a chamber music mentality is at the core of everything we do, and the At Lunch series provides us with the chance to put our money where our mouths are! As well as providing an opportunity to interpret chamber masterworks, each programme also features a world premiere composition. We've been privileged to work with composers such as Joey Roukens, Enrico Chapela, Dobrinka Tabakova, Charlie Piper, Nico Muhly and Jay Greenberg (to name but a few) over recent years, and it has been wonderful to see their careers flourish. A particular highlight for me was the At Lunch programme that featured Argentinian bandoneonist Marcelo Nisinman in music by his compatriot Astor Piazzolla. We had a lot of fun letting our hair down and undoing a few buttons for that one!"


Don't miss At Lunch Three, featuring music for the unusual combination of flute, viola and harp by Debussy, Takemitsu and a new work by Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason - Norwich Fri 19 Feb, Cambridge Tue 23 Feb & London Wed 24 Feb. More information and booking.

Find out more about Ten Years of At Lunch.

Hannah Kendall reflects on the OPUS2016 workshops

Across two days in January the Barbican hosted the OPUS2016 workshops in which ten composers from the scheme had an opportunity to work on their piece and receive valuable feedback from Britten Sinfonia musicians: Thomas Gould, Huw Watkins and Ben Chappell. The workshops were open to the public for the first time so that all composers, musicians and music enthusiasts were able to observe the exchange between Britten Sinfonia musicians and the shortlisted composers, and learn from this fascinating and challenging process. Hannah Kendall shares her experience:

I’ve been an admirer of Britten Sinfonia for a number of years, and so it was a privilege to work so closely with the superb musicians from the ensemble, its executive team, and the 10 shortlisted composers from the OPUS2016 initiative recently. Not only was it an enriching artistic experience through gaining a deeper knowledge of the music of my peers, I also had the opportunity to have an insight into the overall ethos of one of the UK’s leading ensembles.

Supporting contemporary music, and composers in general is integral to Britten Sinfonia’s attitudes. How incredible to have two whole days dedicated to new works by 10 different composers, and performed in such great detail. I really enjoyed the openness of the sessions. Thoughts were shared freely between the musicians, composers, and audience members, which allowed for fascinating discussions. A particular in-depth conversation focused on how each of the composers generate their musical material, and how this might translate to being performed by an acoustic instrument if achieved through a computer programme.

As well as ‘Composer’, I had also been given the title ‘Diversity Ambassador’. I like it! Redressing the imbalances in new and classical music in general is very important to me. Whilst conversations around this topic didn’t specifically come up over the two days, I was very much encouraged by the fact that Britten Sinfonia was demonstrating that it’s at the forefront of their activities.

I loved meeting and working with such talented composers. I particularly admired the confidence that they each displayed through in their writing skills, which were strikingly individual. They all very much deserved to be selected for OPUS2016, and I’m looking forward to hearing more.

Hannah Kendall

The winning composer will be invited to write the piece as a commission for the award winning At Lunch concert in December 2016. The prize will include a dedicated rehearsal for the commissioned piece 6-8 weeks in advance of the concert, three performances of the work (London, Cambridge and Norwich) and a commission fee.

Watch this space, OPUS2016 winner will be announced soon!

OPUS2016 Instrument Focus Session

On Friday 4 December, OPUS2016 shortlisted composers met with musicians from Britten Sinfonia and composer Julian Phillips to discuss their first drafts and sketches and to explore the idiomatic techniques of each instrument in the piano trio they have been writing for. James Hoyle and Emma Wilde share their experience…

Last Friday was the first workshop for Britten Sinfonia’s OPUS2016 scheme, and was the first opportunity to meet Britten Sinfonia musicians, mentors, and of course my fellow composers. Although each composer approached the workshop in their own way, my own plan was to compose a number of short fragments of contrasting materials from which the final piece will be assembled. It was an extremely useful (if luxurious!) experience to be able to hear my materials in the flesh so early on in the composition process, as it not only allows me to fix problems and elaborate on successes, but being confronted with sound allows me to step away from the notes on the page, and to treat the materials with greater freedom.

I was fortunate to work with three musicians (Marcus Barcham-Stevens, violin; Ben Chappell, cello; Huw Watkins, piano) who approached everyone’s work with considerable understanding and virtuosity, and they were readily able to offer useful suggestions as to how I might be able to better realise my ideas on their respective instruments. As a composer it was such a pleasure to work with musicians who are so able and supportive, and I feel this has given me greater confidence to take risks with my materials, whilst also writing idiomatically for the instruments. When writing with specific players in mind, I often find that the unique playing styles of those musicians deeply informs the music I compose, even acting as a form of muse. For me, among the most important aspects of the day was being able to familiarise myself with them, and being able to do so with my own music was particularly informative.

James Hoyle, OPUS2016 shortlisted composer

I really enjoyed the initial workshop day with Britten Sinfonia musicians and Julian Philips. Often as composers we don't get the opportunity to test out ideas with musicians at the start of the composition process and now I have heard how my initial ideas sound I have a better understanding of how I can develop these ideas into a full 5 minute piece for the January workshop. The musicians were very helpful and were willing to respond to any questions we had. I realised that some ideas were working really well, for example using the piano's resonance to complement the sustained sound of the strings and this is something I can now take advantage of and develop further. On the other hand, I realised that sometimes I had misjudged the use of the piano's pedal and can now change this for the final draft.

Another aspect of the day that was particularly interesting was getting the chance to hear the other shortlisted composers' music and have a group discussion session with Julian Philips where we presented our ideas and offered each other thoughts and advice. It was interesting to see that we had all had issues concerning how to approach composing for piano trio due to the 'historical baggage' associated with this ensemble (due to the amount of great works written for this combination) and the problematic issues of composing for piano. However, I think that after this session we all went away with more ideas for how to compose effectively for this ensemble and for how to turn our initial fragments into full pieces.

Emma Wilde, OPUS2016 shortlisted composer



OPUS2016 shortlisted composers will be presenting their works in January 2016 for two days of workshops at the Barbican in London, with discussions and performances of the pieces these composers have been working on. Find out more and how to reserve your place here.

A look back on At Lunch - James Calver

James Calver, Concerts Director, shares a fond memory from our April 2011 At Lunch concert...

Marcelo Nisinman (c) Karin van der Meul

One of my fondest Britten Sinfonia At Lunch memories was back in 2011 (in my previous role as Concerts Assistant), when Thomas Gould (violin), Huw Watkins (piano), Caroline Dearnley (cello) and Stephen Williams (double bass) performed a Piazolla-inspired programme with guest artist Marcelo Nisinman (bandoneon).  Marcelo Nisinman is internationally renowned in his field, and much in demand as a soloist playing with orchestras and at festivals around the world. He has performed with, Martha Argerich, Gidon Kremer, Gary Burton, Fernando Suarez Paz, Assad Brothers, and the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutoit, and formed his own world-famous quartet ‘Tango Factory’ in 2009.

Moodily-lit, laced with thigh-slapping rhythms, percussive string techniques, and featuring a newly-written piece by Mexican composer Enrico Chapela, Nanobots, this At Lunch tour had an ‘end of term’ vibe, Britten Sinfonia doing what we do best: exploring music outside what one might normally expect to hear filling Wigmore Hall on a wet Wednesday lunchtime in April...

I turned pages for Huw, and found myself doing so with a certain uncontrollable Argentinian flare. It was that easy to become this immersed in the music and infected by the style and atmosphere, to the extent that I’ve never really felt so much a part of a performance than at this moment, particularly in the closing work of the concert: a dramatic performance of Piazolla’s Curato Estaciones Poteñas (The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires), in a version close to the original written and performed by the composer himself and his quintet. It brought the house down.

At Britten Sinfonia, we’ve often adapted and expanded At Lunch programmes into full-length evening performances, this being one of those occasions.  Marking the start of a new series entitled ‘Unbuttoned’ at the newly-built APEX concert hall in Bury St. Edmunds, we gave an intimate ‘in-the-round’ cabaret-style performance of the programme with a couple of additions.  Thom Gould instructed me to “show some chest hair” when I was about to turn for the final piece…the event was Unbuttoned in every sense of the word.  

James Calver, Concerts Director

Find out more about the last ten years of At Lunch on our website, and don't forget to take part in our competition to be in with a chance of winning two tickets to an At Lunch concert this season.

Edward Nesbit - our OPUS2015 winner's story

I have had the pleasure of working with Britten Sinfonia for almost twelve months.  Back in December, the twelve composers who had been shortlisted for Britten Sinfonia’s OPUS2015 scheme enjoyed a workshop with the horn player Richard Watkins, where we discussed every aspect of the horn, from extended techniques to, if I remember correctly, the treatment of the horn in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.  

Most of us were at that stage in the middle of composing extracts of music for horn trio, all of which were workshopped by Jackie Shave, Huw Watkins and Carys Evans in January this year.  Over the course of an intense weekend, we heard what everyone had produced – which amounted to the best part of an hour of music.  It was a very interesting – and very diverse – selection of pieces, and made for a lively and fascinating couple of days.

I was delighted to be chosen as the winner, and as a result have extended my original three-minute miniature into a full-length piece.  The resulting work, Lifesize Gods, was workshopped again more recently, and following that workshop I have given it a final few tweaks in advance of the premiere.  From here on in it will be the most exciting part of the process, and, for me at least, the easiest: I can now more or less simply sit and listen to the results.

One of the interesting challenges of writing a horn trio is the small number of previously written horn trios which have entered the repertoire.  While I have come across a number of very fine horn trios while writing my own, there are only two works which have firmly entered the repertoire: those by Brahms and Ligeti.  As a composer this situation brings both advantages and disadvantages.  There are fewer models to which I might turn for inspiration – but, on the other hand, there is not the weight of history that one has to deal with when writing, say, a string quartet.

It is interesting, then, that I will be sharing a programme with another new horn trio, by Huw Watkins.  I was, as it happens, at the premiere of Huw’s Horn Trio in 2009, and vividly remember the impression it made on me then; it will be a great pleasure to have the chance to hear it again live – three times, no less!  It really is a fantastic piece, and is an important addition to the repertoire which will doubtless continue to be performed for many years to come.   Huw and I are very different composers, however, which is probably no bad thing, given that we will be appearing in the same programme.  While Huw’s piece is lyrical, contrapuntal and full of contrast, my new work is, for the most part, transparent, almost obsessively single-minded, and extremely quick.

Britten Sinfonia have generously invited me to continue my involvement in the scheme, and next week I will be working with Julian Philips to choose the ten composers who will be shortlisted for OPUS2016.  This is something very new to me, but something that I am looking forward to immensely.  A total of 287 composers have submitted applications.  It’s a daunting number, but is testament to the fantastic nature of the opportunity that Britten Sinfonia are offering – and I’m sure it will be much harder to leave people out than to find people to shortlist.

Another aspect of my involvement with  Britten Sinfonia has been being a part of Musically Gifted.  Musically Gifted is a scheme which facilitates philanthropic donations to help fund commissions.  People can donate anything from £10 to £1,000, and all donors receive rewards, from thank you cards all the way up to invitations to rehearsals and social events with performers and composer.  The issue of how to fund contemporary music is a complex one, and many composers are unable to earn anything like a living from their composition work.  Musically Gifted is an imaginative and valuable contribution towards improving this difficult situation.

Lifesize Gods is being performed at Britten Sinfonia’s At Lunch Series in St. Andrew’s Hall, Norwich, on 27 November; West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, on 1 December; and Wigmore Hall, London, on 2 December.  It promises to be a fantastic concert! 

Edward Nesbit - OPUS2015 winner

Click here for more details and booking for At Lunch One, which features Edward's new work, Lifesize Gods.

Sinfonia Student review - At Lunch 4

Britten Sinfonia At Lunch 4 
West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge 10/03/15

Harrison Varied Trio for violin, piano and percussion
Joey Roukens Lost in a surreal trip (world premiere tour)
Shostakovich Piano Trio No. 2

Britten Sinfonia’s Lunchtime Concert series came to a flourishing Easter climax* with the ensemble’s performance of varied and fantastic instrumentation. Parallels can be drawn from the contemporary nature of both Lou Harrison and Dmitri Shostakovich, however the success of this
lunchtime concert came in its eclecticism, not its continuity. The two composers, whose works comprised the beginning and end of the recital, were active during a similar time, however their music could not be more dissimilar.

Lou Harrison’s Varied Trio for violin, piano and percussion is a wonderful gem of a piece, with influences from Gamelan music palpable and Native American sounds coming to the fore in Elegy, the central movement. Gould’s playing was sensitive and engaging, remaining particularly accessible as was Watkins' piano interjections in Bell Bowls. The real star of this piece was the fantastic Owen Gunnell, whose playing was virtuosic and displayed consummate technical prowess, remaining involved throughout. Even when playing rice bowls with chopsticks, Gunnell displayed musicianship and ability. The sporadic and broken-up nature of the work was not a hindrance to its effectiveness, rather this added to its charm.

Lost in a surreal trip, on its world premiere tour, by Dutch-born composer Joey Roukens was full of interest and style. Characterised by sharp contrasts in atmosphere and mood, the work began in an ethereal-like haze, and shifted through a pulsating club-inspired sections, to pop induced rhythms, finally to return to the shimmering opening material once more. Again, virtuosity aided the successful evocation of the piece. It is interesting that the extremely eclectic styles exhibited in Roukens' work were aptly reflecting in the altering ensemble size throughout the programme, first with the addition of cello and then with the removal of percussion. Again, Gunnell’s playing was especially sensitive, with his vibraphone technique evoking both intensity and subtlety.

Shostakovich’s second piano trio is a work of sublime intensity, and this was well managed by the trio of Huw Watkins, Thomas Gould and Caroline Dearnley. Written in 1944, in the midst of
WWII, Shostakovich’s composition reflects the tumult of the age, with incredible dissonance in the opening movement, unfolding from the fantastic opening cello solo, entirely in harmonics, convincingly played by Dearnley. The trio was gritty and powerful, while real emotional intensity was realised in the slow movement, effectively a funeral march; the opening piano chords evoke total pain and sorrow, while the violin line weeps with searing agony.

This was the first concert in a long while where members of the audience were visibly reduced to tears it was simply that wonderful, and moving. The final movement was equally persuasive, with Watkins’ playing reaching transcendental heights in his rendition of the Jewish-style ‘Dance of Death’ melody that has become so well-known and widely recognised. A fantastic crescendo was reached towards the end of the finale, concluding a resoundingly superb performance that had audience members captivated and exclaiming their delight come the final few notes. The ensemble’s weight, mettle and intensity was admirable, however the overall sound still required a little more grit in the cello.

This was a wildly persuasive performance, and a hugely enjoyable and engaging one too, reflecting in its repertoire and instrumentation the wide-ranging span of twentieth-century and modern chamber music.

Carl Wikeley (Sinfonia Student 2014-15)

This programme will be recorded in Norwich's St Andrew's Hall on Friday 13 March 2015 for later broadcast by BBC Radio 3.

*The final concert in the 2014-15 At Lunch series will take place on 30 June (West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge) and 3 July (St Andrew's Hall, Norwich) and feature the young musicians from Britten Sinfonia Academy. More information.

Sinfonia Student review - At Lunch 2

Sinfonia Student David Roche shares his experience of our At Lunch 2 programme, which was performed on Tuesday 13 January 2015 in West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, and featured a new work by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho...

***

Kaija Saariaho’s instrumental writing is incredibly exciting and sophisticated, Nocturne is especially so and it proved to be an awesome opener. The rhythmically-loose, choppy, folk-style music moves into and out of broad musical gestures concomitant with spectral music: diaphanous trills between open strings and harmonics at a pace that prevents the lower pitches from ‘speaking’ properly; playing extremely close to the bridge in order to coax out a shimmering, unpredictable range of overtones (violist Garth Knox* calls this ‘irising’); looking to the sounds themselves to find an organising principle– all completely mesmerising in performance. The very strong hints of Scandinavian folk music were almost as striking, check out Benedicte Maurseth’s latest release Overtones to hear what I mean - similar soundworlds! Violinist Jacqueline Shave brought the work to life: a moving interpretation of a hefty composition.

Light and Matter was the second of two Saariaho pieces on the programme. The composer notes the influence of ‘the changing light and colour of Morningside Park’, especially ‘the continuous transformation of light on the glinting leaves’. The beautifully intricate, delicate instrumental writing and its evolution into dense, nebulous music certainly invites the listener make comparisons between the programme note and the composition - the hidden complexity of musical sound being used as a metaphor for light. The looming, resonating piano made me much more aware of the temporal nature of timbral sound: the attack and decay of its’ sounds drawing attention to one of the central precepts of the composition – gradual transformation. The trio gave a superbly assured performance of a difficult composition, the same being the case with the remaining works.

Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho

The Debussy suffered from a slight tuning issue with the cello’s low C but this did nothing to detract from the performance as a whole. I was particularly fortunate as I heard the sonata performed in rehearsal prior to the concert where there was no such problem, it was played impeccably on the first attempt and I was the only audience member at the time… which was nice (no iPhones or whispering). Caroline Dearnly’s vivacious performance and Huw Watkins’s perfectly-matched pianism cut through the bricky tone of the concert hall with ease, an extremely secure, visually-engaging performance that, along with the final piece, served to concretize the concert as a success. 

Fauré

The Fauré was, along with Nocturne, the best performance of the concert.  Well-paced, gorgeously subtle rubato in the strings; crystal-clear, perfectly appropriate accompaniment from the piano; the visual presence and fantastically lyrical performance from the cellist, especially in the first movement, really brought the piece to life. The interplay of the cello and violin gave the work a wonderful narrative drive, the performers responded to each other’s phraseological nuances, a dialogue that set their parts away from the piano – refreshingly liberal.

As excellent as the performances were, I was far less concerned with the Debussy and Fauré. To my mind there’s something considerably more interesting in the compositions created by living, working artists: they are able to defend and discuss their works, contribute to new depths of expression, new ways of making, and new ways of thinking. There is so much music one can engage with and the major, most frequently performed repertoire constitutes a very, very small piece of an outrageously tasty, terrifyingly large, yet-to-be-fully-discovered pie. 

It is extremely reassuring to see a successful professional ensemble commission works and dedicate so much to contemporary classical music. It was particularly pleasing to hear, firstly, a living composer’s music as the centerpiece of a concert and, secondly, a female composer’s music as the centerpiece of a concert – living composers and women are woefully underrepresented in classical music** (see Bachtrack’s most recent survey). It seems outrageous that the two things are uncommon enough to be worthy of notice. Also, having lived in a few other cities I can say with some certainty that new music does not get its deserved share of performances, especially performances by musicians as committed and excellent as those in Britten Sinfonia. The people of Cambridge are very lucky to have this music available and should endeavor to make the most of it, however demanding it may seem on first hearing!

*Explore Garth Knox's Viola Spaces here.
**Click here to read an article from The Guardian exploring our current male-dominated classical music industry.

David Roche (Sinfonia Student 2014-15)

Joey Roukens on composition

Composer Joey Roukens is writing a new work for Britten Sinfonia, which will be premiered on Wednesday 4 March 2015 in London's Wigmore Hall followed by performances in Cambridge and Norwich as part of our At Lunch 4 programme. Joey is one of the composers you can support through the Musically Gifted campaign. Find out more about Joey in this blog post as he answers questions about himself and his music...

How would you summarise yourself in one sentence?

I'm a composer with an eclectic (yet hopefully distinctive) musical language embracing the great diversity of styles and genres that make up our current musical age.

What’s your earliest musical memory?

Probably listening to my father’s vinyl records: mostly crooners, country and folk music. But I also remember a record of songs played by a Dutch street organist, which I was very fond of.

What do you like most about composing?

What I like most is when you stumble upon an idea that seems brilliant and you think this is going to be the masterpiece you’ve always wanted to write… only to realize the next day that the idea is not that brilliant after all and the piece you’re working on is definitely not going to be a masterpiece. For the most part, it’s not fun to compose: it’s an agony – 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration!

What inspires you?

Anything can be a source of inspiration – a good movie, a museum, a night club, etc. But what inspires me most is other music. When I hear music that really moves or excites me I get inspired to write my own.

When was the last time you experienced writers’ block, and how did you move on from it?

With each piece, I go through a stage of writers’ block, sometimes it lasts only a day, other times it can last many weeks or even months. Frustratingly, there’s not much you can do about it; it’s part of the creative process. What works best for me is to just accept it and take a break.

How do you feel about new music and what we’re trying to do with Musically Gifted?

In these times of arts cuts it is very important that projects such as Musically Gifted exist to make alternative financing of new music commissions possible. Musically Gifted is a wonderful initiative I can only applaud. New music that’s being written today must be performed today, for it has something to communicate to the audience of today.

What would you like to be recognised for?

Frankly, I don’t care. I just write the music I want to write and as long as there are listeners out there who think my music is worthwhile, I am happy.

What advice would you give to other composers?

I don’t think I’m in the position to advise other composers, but if I had to advise younger, aspiring composers, I’d say: Be open to the whole gamut of styles, genres and sources that the current musical culture has to offer. Embrace everything, question everything and write only what you want to write, even if you think you shouldn’t write it.

What’s your musical guilty pleasure?

I’ve got plenty: the lush film scores of John Williams and Morricone, Strauss waltzes, Bacharach songs, new agey ambient music, at times I can even enjoy a bit of Einaudi.

If you turned your iPod on now, what would be playing?

That could be anything from Renaissance vocal music to the new Aphex Twin album.

  

Favourite five tracks of all time?

That’s difficult to say because I have so many favourites, plus, they change all the time. So let me just give you my favourite composers. As of now, they are (in no particular order): Bach, Mahler, Mozart, Sibelius, Stravinsky.

The last concert you saw?

A concert with orchestral works by Dutch composers, including a piece by me, about a month ago.

If you hadn’t been a musician, what might have happened?

Either I would have become a researcher in cognitive psychology (in fact, I studied psychology at university, as well as music composition), or I would have ended up a tramp.

Which musical instrument do you wish you could play, and why?

The violin. Because of the enormous emotional range it is capable of expressing.

Is there anything else you want to share with the world?

No, enough said, just listen to my music!

Joey's new work will be premiered in March 2014 as part of our At Lunch 4 programme, which also features works by Lou Harrison and Shostakovich.

You can find out more about Joey's music by listening to some tracks on his website.

Alina Ibragimova and Britten Sinfonia: an ongoing collaboration

Alina Ibragimova once again joins Britten Sinfonia in late February/early March for the tour of our Baltic Nights programme. Alina has been a regularly collaborator with Britten Sinfonia, first performing with us in 2006 for our At Lunch series of concerts. Aged only 21 Alina, performed lunchtime concerts in Krakow, , Aldeburgh, Cambridge, Norwich and London.

Alina rehearsing in Krakow with Huw Watkins and Joy Farrall

The programme for these At Lunch concerts featured the premiere of Huw Watkins Dream (later released on Britten Sinfonia’s Songs of the Sky CD), Michael Zev Gordon’s Fragments from a Diary and works by Stravinsky and Bartok.

Alina arriving at the Assembly House in Norwich in the Britten Sinfonia taxi

In 2007 Britten Sinfonia joined Alina in the studio to record Concerto Funebre for violin and orchestra by the little known composer, Karl Amadeus Hartmann. Hartmann is a figure unique in German music - the only composer to stay put and defy Hitler for the duration of the Third Reich and his Concerto Funèbre, written in 1939 was a protest against Hitler’s occupation of Prague. Released by Hyperion the disc also features Hartmann’s Suite No’s 1 and 2 and Sonata No’s 1 & 2 for solo violin.

Alina and Britten Sinfonia went on to perform Hartmann’s Concerto funebre in Cambridge and Norwich. Returning to Norwich and Cambridge in 2009 for concerts entitled Bach Plus Alina performed music by Bach and Kurtag. The towering genius of Johann Sebastian Bach was the focus of these concerts, which contrasted four of his works with two seminal 20th-century pieces by Berg and Kurtág. Bach two surviving violin concertos were played by Alina.. Kurtág’s acknowledgement of his debt to Bach in his Signs, Games and Messages, which includes ‘Hommage à J.S.B.’, an exploration of a Bach-like melodic line also saw Alina take centre stage, amazing audiences with her technical ability and artistic flair. Bach Plus was also performed in Inverness and Monmouth.

Later in 2009 Alina performed Vaughan Williams’ beautiful Lark Ascending in concerts with Britten Sinfonia in aid of the Great Fen Project.

Alina has described how she loves working with Britten Sinfonia “Playing with Britten Sinfonia is never boring… they have their own take on things and aren’t afraid to do so”

In celebration of Britten Sinfonia’s 20^th Birthday in 2011 Alina joined forces with another of the orchestra’s long-term collaborators, Pekka Kuusisto for a performance of Bach’s Double Violin Concerto at our Barbican birthday celebrations.

Alina rehearsing at the Barbican (c) Ben Ealovega

Alina & Pekka enjoying the applause after their performance at Britten Sinfonia's Birtdhay concert (c) Rhydian Peters

We’re really looking forward to working with Alina again. She will perform one of the two surviving Bach Violin Concerto’s alongside a beautiful and ethereal violin concerto by Latvian composer, Peteris Vasks entitled Distant Light. You can see Alina talking about the programme in our short film about the Baltic Nights programme

The concerts take place at Cambridge West Road Concert Hall on Monday 25 February, Wednesday 27 February at London’s Barbican and Sunday 3^rd March at Norwich Theatre Royal. To find out more about the concerts and to book tickets click here

Celebrating Chopin

2010 is Chopin year – to be precise the 200th anniversary of his birth.With nearly 9 months of 2010 gone, Britten Sinfonia have so far not performed any of Chopin’s music in celebration of this significant event. And in actual fact we had not planned to do so, not as a snub to Chopin and his wonderful music, but just couldn’t be fitted into our schedules or programming.

Then a couple of days ago Peter Maxwell Davies sent us his new work which we had co-commissioned with Wigmore Hall for our award-winning At Lunch series. His new work is entitled Nocturne No. 1 and is his immediate ‘hats off’ reaction to Chopin’s piano works, songs and cello music.

Many of Chopin’s works involve the piano and all demand considerable technical expertise and expressive depth. I’m sure Max’s piece, which is scored for Piano Quartet will be no different and our players Huw Watkins (piano), Jacqueline Shave (violin), Martin Outram (viola) and Caroline Dearnley (cello) are looking forward to discovering the nuances of this new piece.

So in typical Britten Sinfonia style the orchestra will be celebrating Chopin’s anniversary with music inspired by him. You can come and enjoy these concerts at London’s Wigmore Hall on 6 October, Norwich’s Assembly House on 8 October, Cambridge’s West Road Concert Hall on Tuesday 12 October and Birmingham’s Town Hall on Friday 15 October.
The programme will also include Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet which is acknowledged as a masterpiece and probably his best known chamber work alongside a set of miniatures from James MacMillan, each dedicated to important figures in his life. You can find out more about this concert here

Songs of the Sky

The first CD on our new 'own label' is now available: Songs of the Sky. It features works by Steve Martland, Huw Watkins, Tarik O'Regan, Jason Yarde and John Tavener, all of which we have commissioned in recent years and premiered during our Britten Sinfonia At Lunch tours.

The label is being run in association with Signum Records, from whose website you can order it. We will be selling copies at all our own promotions of course (around 20 people in Cambridge bought it yesterday), and you can also order it via your usual retail outlet. The plan is to bring out 4 or 5 CDs a year, reflecting the breadth of our repertoire. Next up will be a CD of Hindemith, followed by a recording we made in South America with Joanna MacGregor: Britten Sinfonia in Buenos Aires. Start collecting!