Glasgow Music Announces Ambitious and Eclectic 2011/2012 Season

Posted: Monday 21 March 2011

  • Svend Brown unveils an ambitious and eclectic second season as Director of Music, Glasgow Life
  • The Glasgow Music 2011/2012 Season will build upon the success of last season, bringing more international artists, festivals, premieres and new commissions to Glasgow’s Concert Halls, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and Tramway

  • The season launches on 23rd September with Space Wide Open – a spectacular weekend of music and family activities

  • Glasgow Music’s focus on Minimalism continues, including a major celebration of the 75th Birthday of Philip Glass which features performances by the hugely influential composer

  • Abdullah Ibrahim Trio, András Schiff, Mitsuko Uchida, Alfred Brendel and more visit Glasgow for a festival of piano music this November
  • The Tallis Scholars perform two atmospheric concerts in Kelvingrove featuring the piece that launched their stellar career almost 40 years ago, Allegri’s Miserere

  • A Weekend in Venice celebrates some of the finest repertoire of Monteverdi and Vivaldi, with performances by the Dunedin Consort, La Serenissima, Adrian Chandler and Mhairi Lawson

  • Two of Scotland’s classical music luminaries Donald Runnicles and Jonathan Morton take the reins and programme their own weekends

  • Glasgow’s Concert Halls’ Artists in Residence The Pavel Haas Quartet return for two performances
  • New commissions include Stephen Deazley, Martin Parker and Andy McGregor (MAN HIGH), David Lang (new string quartet) and Steve Martland (new choral work)

Svend Brown’s ambitious second season as Director of Music, Glasgow Life will bring an eclectic array of artists from across the globe to Glasgow, from revered virtuosos to avant-garde musical trailblazers. Glasgow Music’s programming endeavours to complement the rich offerings of the city’s already illustrious music scene by featuring artists and repertoire rarely heard in the city. Building on the success of last year, the 2011/2012 Season will feature more international artists, mini-festivals, world premieres, new commissions and one-off events. In addition to events in Glasgow’s Concert Halls, the season will also feature events in Tramway, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

SPACE WIDE OPEN – A SPECTACULAR OPENING WEEKEND
On Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th September, City Halls and Old Fruitmarket will throw open their doors for Space Wide Open – a spectacular weekend of world premieres, special commissions, musical performances and family activities to launch Glasgow Music’s 2011/2012 season.

The centrepiece of Space Wide Open will be Scottish land artist Jim Buchanan’s amazing water and light installation, Labyrinth. Specially commissioned for the occasion, Buchanan will transform the Old Fruitmarket into a fascinating water maze. On Friday 23rd, the Season launches with an evening of ambient music set around the labyrinth, featuring the internationally renowned composer Craig Armstrong, the dynamic new music group Icebreaker (who perform Terry Riley’s classic In C) and a closing set from Scottish minimal techno DJ Alex Smoke, inspired by In C. 

On Saturday 24th September, arts organisations across Glasgow will join forces with Glasgow UNESCO City of Music for a day of family fun. City Halls and Old Fruitmarket will be buzzing with activity, with sound installations, live performances, workshops, Opti-Music and more filling the venues. Many events will have a cosmic theme, and groups of young musicians will be invited to give their own interpretation of the classic 2001: A Space Odyssey theme (the opening of Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra) at City Halls.

The weekend will premiere Music Impossible – a brand new musical instrument which transforms laser security beams into a tool for music making. It has been specially commissioned by Glasgow Music, and created by a team led by composer and sound artist Martin Parker.

Two films inspired by space exploration will be screened in City Halls, accompanied by sensational live music. Music at the Brewhouse give the world premiere of MAN HIGH, a specially commissioned collaboration between Stephen Deazley, Martin Parker and Andy McGregor. Inspired by the fascinating story of Captain Joseph Kittinger and his epic mission to test astronaut equipment by jumping out of a balloon at 102,800 ft, MAN HIGH will be accompanied by jaw-dropping footage of this extraordinary event.

Icebreaker make a welcome return to Glasgow to reprise their version of Brian Eno’s Apollo: For All Mankind following the show’s phenomenal reception last season. They will perform to the backdrop of Al Reinert's documentary on the Apollo space missions, For All Mankind.

The Glasgow Royal Concert Hall will open its doors for a Children’s Classic Taster Concert, musical workshops and an open rehearsal with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and National Youth Choir of Scotland.

PHILIP GLASS VISITS GLASGOW FOR CELEBRATION OF HIS 75TH BIRTHDAY
Last season Svend Brown introduced a major Minimalism strand to Glasgow Music’s programming, and this season MINIMAL returns to celebrate a very special occasion – the 75th birthday of one of the genre’s founding fathers, Philip Glass. Glasgow Music will devote two mini-festivals to his work – MINIMAL: Glass At 75 (Part I) in October 2011 and MINIMAL: Glass At 75 (Part II) in May 2012, the latter of which features two performances by the hugely influential composer and musician himself.

MINIMAL: Glass At 75 (Part I) brings some of New York and Scotland’s finest contemporary music performers together for a weekend of events in Glasgow’s Concert Halls and Tramway. Part rock band and part amplified chamber group, Bang on a Can are at the cutting edge of the New York music scene, and count Steve Reich among their many fans. They launch a weekend-long Glasgow residency with a day of gigs at Tramway inspired by their legendary Marathon concerts.

The Smith Quartet will perform the complete Philip Glass String Quartet repertoire at Tramway, and in a very special event, the Scottish Ensemble and renowned violinist Robert McDuffie perform Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Glass’s new violin concerto The American Seasons, which was inspired by Vivaldi’s masterpiece. Glass created this concerto especially for McDuffie, who gave its world premiere with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 2009, and Jonathan Morton takes the solo in the Vivaldi to complement the Glass, demonstrating that Minimalism started in the 1700s. 

The weekend will also feature NY samplers (showcasing the best of the current New York music scene), the The Red Note Ensemble performing Philip Glass’ 1000 Airplanes on the Roof (accompanied by stunning visuals by Jerome Sirlin), as well as the Red Note Ensemble and Bang on a Can collaborating on Brian Eno’s Music for Airports.

Glass himself will then visit Glasgow in May 2012 for MINIMAL: Glass at 75 (Part II). As well as giving a recital in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on 26th May, Glass will appear with the Kronos Quartet for a performance of his own score for Dracula, the classic Universal Pictures 1931 silent horror film starring Béla Lugosi. Glass's score is the first ever written for the silent film, of which the composer himself is a big fan.

THE PIANO FEATURING IBRAHIM, SCHIFF, BRENDEL, UCHIDA AND MORE
This November, Glasgow Music will stage a major piano festival – The Piano.

Highlights include the South African jazz legend Abdullah Ibrahim and his Trio, András Schiff making his Glasgow debut with Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, Japanese pianist Mitsuko Uchida performing a programme of Chopin and Schumann, and the retired Austrian pianist Alfred Brendel giving a lecture on character in music, which he will illustrate at the keyboard.

Elsewhere throughout the festival, pianolist Rex Lawson’s Dead Pianists’ Society will feature piano rolls recitals by great pianists of the past including a rare roll of Liszt’s B Minor Sonata.

The unique six-piano ensemble Piano Circus will perform the complete Steve Reich keyboard repertoire in Tramway, coinciding with the venue’s Piano Drop installation, as artist Raydale Dower investigates sonic repercussion by dropping a piano within Tramway’s T1 theatre space and recording the unfolding composition. By significantly slowing the recorded image and sound, Dower highlights the inherent levels of musicality present within his catastrophic approach to playing a classical instrument, exposing timbre and rhythm otherwise unperceivable within the fleeting, momentary act.  The recording will be re-presented as an ambisonic sound installation within the T1 space (realised with support from Creative Scotland and produced by Tramway).

 The Piano will also feature Italian ambient composer and pianist Ludovico Einaudi, young Swiss pianist (and protégé of Brendel) Francesco Piemontesi in recital and Llyr Williams performing Beethoven’s stunning Hammerklavier.

THE TALLIS SCHOLARS IN KELVINGROVE
One of the world’s greatest choirs and leading exponents of Renaissance sacred music, The Tallis Scholars, will make a rare Glasgow appearance on 10th and 11th February 2012, singing in the stunning setting of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. Both programmes feature the piece that made their name in the early 1970s: Allegri’s Miserere. On Friday it will be performed in the context of other music written for the Sistine Chapel; and on Saturday it is partnered with Robert Carver’s epic motet, O Bone Jesu for 19 solo voices – one of the peaks of Scottish music from any age.  

MINIMAL: EXTREME
From Friday 23rd to Sunday 25th March 2012, the cream of new music ensembles join forces for a weekend of amazing music by Louis Andriessen, featuring his work alongside that of Steve Reich and Philip Glass, and also including new commissions from two of his famous students, David Lang and Steve Martland.

Performers include the conductor Paul Hillier – one of the seminal figures in minimalism who has enjoyed close artistic relationships with Arvo Pärt and Steve Reich. He brings his ensemble Theatre of Voices as well as his choir Ars Nova, who will stretch the definition of Minimalism with performances of Terry Riley’s In C and Karlheinz Stockhausen’s electronic-vocal masterpiece Stimmung. This cult piece will be performed at a “cushion concert” in the atmospheric Old Fruitmarket, with the audience bringing their own cushions to relax and become completely immersed in this hypnotic masterwork. Alongside these works Hillier includes music by Martland, Andriessen, Philip Glass (Choruses from Einstein on the Beach) and more.

The Smith Quartet, Ars Nova, Bang on a Can and London Sinfonietta all appear in a night of Reich and Andriessen in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on Friday 23 March. Reich’s City Life sits alongside Andriessen’s Life – a touching work for live ensemble and video. After the interval, Andriessen’s new monodrama Anais Nin is staged alongside Reich’s rockiest piece in years: 2 x 5, pitching Bang on a Can against themselves on tape. Andriessen’s ...miserere...  is heard alongside the work that inspired it: Allegri’s Miserere to close the evening.

The Smith Quartet will give a rare performance of Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No.2, a beautiful but demanding 6 hour long piece which is rarely heard live.

PAVEL HAAS QUARTET – ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
“Glasgow has been lucky to find a quartet of such professionalism, integrity and vigour as the Pavel Haas Quartet: we should indeed be very proud to call them our artist-in-residence.” The Herald

After making a big impression in their first year as Glasgow’s Concert Halls’ Artist in Residence, the acclaimed young Czech string quartet go back to their roots in their second season of residency when they’ll play some of the finest Czech repertoire, which they are passionately committed to performing. On Sunday 23rd October they’ll host A Portrait of Dvořák at City Halls, with the programme including the composer’s American Quartet. They return on 13th May for a programme which features Janáček’s String Quartet No. 2.

DONALD RUNNICLES AND JONATHAN MORTON WEEKENDS
In spring 2012, Glasgow Music will celebrate two world class talents working in our midst, and offer an insight into their passions, interests and working methods. We will hand over the reins to Jonathan Morton, Artistic Director and Leader of the Scottish Ensemble and also to Donald Runnicles, the Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Runnicles and Morton have been invited to use the Halls as they wish and have asked some of their favourite musicians to come and play.

Donald Runnicles Weekend will open with a live edition of BBC Radio 3’s In Tune from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and close with a performance of Bruckner’s Symphony No.7 and Osvaldo Golijov’s Mariel showcasing the BBC SSO’s Principal Cellist Martin Storey.

Jonathan Morton brings dance, gypsy spirit, minimalist hardcore and DJs to Glasgow for his weekend. Full details of both weekends will be announced soon.

A WEEKEND IN VENICE
From 27th – 29th April 2012, Glasgow Music celebrates some of the finest repertoire of Monteverdi and Vivaldi with A Weekend in Venice. Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum will host Scotland’s premier Baroque ensemble, the Dunedin Consort, as well as one of the world’s leading exponents of the music of Vivaldi and his Italian contemporaries, La Serenissima, and Adrian Chandler and Mhairi Lawson.

Svend Brown, Director of Music, Glasgow Life, said:
"One year in to this new style of programming in Glasgow, I’ve been delighted at the enthusiastic response of artists, audiences and our many partners in the city. We go into our second year confident that the audiences who have already discovered us will find plenty more in 2011/12 to delight them – and hope that we continue to broaden that audience and attract ever more music lovers to live events in Glasgow."

Councillor George Redmond, Chair of Glasgow Life, said:
"Over the past year, Svend’s programming has brought world class musicians to Glasgow and we are delighted with the success of his first season. Glasgow Music’s 2011/2012 programme will bring an exciting new dimension to the city’s music scene, complementing the rich variety already on offer with major artists visiting the city for the first time and an array of premieres and one-off events. I’m sure we’ll see some very special performances in Glasgow throughout this forthcoming season."

Collaboration is once again key to the season, and in 2011/2012 partners will include RSAMD, Scottish Ensemble, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Red Note Ensemble, Hebrides Ensemble, Glasgow UNESCO City of Music and more.

www.glasgowconcerthalls.com/glasgowmusic

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