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London Symphony OrchestraLiving Music

London’s Symphony Orchestra

Sunday 15 March 2015 7.30pm Barbican Hall

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS

Britten Four Sea Interludes Shostakovich Concerto No 1 for Piano, Trumpet and Strings INTERVAL Sibelius Symphony No 2

Michael Tilson Thomas conductor Yuja Wang piano Philip Cobb trumpet

With thanks to our supporters of this evening’s concert: Mr Neil & Dr Kira Flanzraich, Sir Michael Moritz KBE & Ms Harriet Heyman and those who wish to remain anonymous

Concert finishes approx 9.40pm

15-03 MTTWang (FD).indd 1 3/10/2015 2:59:35 PM

Welcome Kathryn McDowell

Living Music In Brief

Welcome to this evening’s LSO concert at the Barbican, for which we are joined by LSO Principal Guest Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas in a programme featuring masterworks of the early 20th century by Britten, Shostakovich and Sibelius. Following the Gala celebration on 12 March, tonight is the second of a pair of concerts marking MTT’s recent 70th birthday, taking place ahead of a tour to New York and the West Coast of America.

I would like to extend a warm welcome to tonight’s soloist, Yuja Wang. The LSO is particularly pleased that, for the performance of Shostakovich’s virtuosic Concerto No 1 for Piano, Trumpet and Strings, she will be joined by LSO Principal Trumpet Philip Cobb.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the generous supporters of our forthcoming US tour: City National Bank, Mr Neil and Dr Kira Flanzraich, Bruce and Suzie Kovner, Sir Michael Moritz KBE and Ms Harriet Heyman, Michael Tilson Thomas and Joshua Robison, and those who wish to remain anonymous.

I hope you enjoy the concert and will join us again soon. Following the US tour, the LSO returns to the Barbican on 8 April for the launch of the LSO International Violin Festival, which runs from April to June. In the first concert, Leonidas Kavakos plays Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No 1, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda.

Kathryn McDowell CBE DL Managing Director

SIR SIMON RATTLE ANNOUNCED AS LSO MUSIC DIRECTOR FROM 2017

The London Symphony Orchestra is delighted to announce the appointment of Sir Simon Rattle as its Music Director from September 2017. In this position, Sir Simon will be involved in every aspect of the LSO’s work, as well as championing the importance of music and music education. He will follow in the footsteps of previous Principal Conductors including Valery Gergiev, Sir Colin Davis, Michael Tilson Thomas, Claudio Abbado and André Previn.

lso.co.uk/simonrattle

THE LSO ON TOUR THIS MONTH

Following this month’s two concerts celebrating Michael Tilson Thomas’ 70th birthday, the Orchestra will travel to the US for an eleven-date tour. Keep up-to-date with the LSO’s travels and behind-the-scenes stories on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

facebook.com/londonsymphonyorchestra twitter.com/londonsymphony

A WARM WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS

Tonight we are delighted to welcome: Gerrards Cross Community Association, Redbridge & District U3A, Hertford U3A, Anne Parrish & Friends, Mr D Bright & Friends, Terri Hamilton & Friends and Frits Ziegler & Friends

lso.co.uk/groups

2 Welcome 15 March 2015


lso.co.uk Programme Notes 3

Benjamin Britten (1913–76) Four Sea Interludes from ‘Peter Grimes’ Op 33a (1944)

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DAWN

SUNDAY MORNING

MOOONLIGHT

STORM

While staying with friends near Los Angeles during the summer of 1941, Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears came across an article by E M Forster on the Suffolk poet George Crabbe (1754–1832) in a back issue of The Listener. Britten was later to comment: ‘I suddenly realised where I belonged and what I lacked’, and even more revealingly, ‘that I must write an opera’. Pears discovered a copy of Crabbe’s poems, including The Borough, which tells the tragedy of the fisherman Peter Grimes, in a ‘Rare Book Shop’. His and Britten’s enthusiasm after making this discovery is obvious in a letter sent to their New York friend Elizabeth Mayer on 29 July: ‘We’ve just discovered the poetry of George Crabbe (all about Suffolk) and are very excited – maybe an opera one day!!’. The remainder of 1941 and the early part of 1942 were spent working on a draft synopsis and libretto for an opera based on Peter Grimes, but it was not until reaching the UK that a librettist was found – the left-wing writer Montagu Slater, with whom Britten had frequently collaborated in the 1930s – and serious progress made.

From the outset, chief among the opera’s distinctive features was the sequence of orchestral interludes (six in all) that introduce or separate scenes, a device in which the influence of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and Berg’s Wozzeck can be felt. On early typed libretto drafts Britten made important marginal notes throughout, in which he succinctly describes the kinds of music he intended to write. Those concerning the interludes are of particular interest and suggest that they were intended to have a programmatic function within

the structure, a point made even clearer by the arrangement of four of them into a concert suite in which each was given a descriptive title by the composer: ‘Dawn’ (Interlude I in the opera); ‘Sunday Morning’ (Interlude III); ‘Moonlight’ (Interlude V); and ‘Storm’ (Interlude II).

‘Dawn’, described by Britten in his libretto marginalia as an ‘Everyday, grey seascape’, comprises three ideas operating on three levels: the high-lying unison melody for flutes and violins; the bubbling rising and falling arpeggios on clarinets, harp and violas; and the ominous chorale-like motif from bassoons, brass and low strings. ‘Sunday Morning’ (‘Sunny, Sparkling music’) is taken from the beginning of Act II of the opera, where the schoolmistress Ellen Orford sings ‘Glitter of waves / And glitter of sunlight / Bid us rejoice / And lift our hearts on high’. Britten superimposes overlapping chords on the horns with (at first) a spiky idea on the woodwind, the quality enhanced by the bright D major tonality, brightened further by the use of a sharpened fourth note (G-sharp) of the scale. Ellen’s words coincide with the second idea, an expressive melody on violas and cellos. ‘Moonlight’ (‘Summer night, seascape, quiet’ in the composer’s description) introduces Act III of the opera. Quiet, slow throbbing syncopations are broken by chinks of moonlight (flutes and harp), before reaching a tumultuous climax.

The final interlude of the concert suite, ‘Storm’, speaks for itself. In the opera, it prefaces Act I Scene 2, set in The Boar, and re-emerges throughout the scene as characters arrive at the pub. A rondo structure in E-flat minor, the interlude not only provides a graphic portrayal of the physical storm but also the psychological storm in Grimes’ mind.

PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER

PHILIP REED’s publications include

The Selected Letters and Diaries

of Benjamin Britten, (2 vols, co-

edited with Donald Mitchell) and

contributions to studies of Peter

Grimes and the War Requiem.

PETER GRIMES is an opera

composed in 1944–45 by Britten to

a libretto by Montagu Slater, based

on George Crabbe’s narrative poem.

The opera is set in ‘The Borough’, a

fictional coastal village in Suffolk, and

follows the story of the fisherman

Peter Grimes, a solitary figure who

finds it impossible to integrate with

the society around him. After the

death of his young apprentice, the

townsfolk become suspicious of

Grimes and resolve to hunt him

down, slowly driving him mad.


4 Composer Profiles 15 March 2015

Britten received his first piano lessons from his mother, a member of the Lowestoft Choral Society who also encouraged her son’s earliest efforts at composition. In 1924 he heard Frank Bridge’s tone poem The Sea and began to study composition with him three years later. After leaving Gresham’s School, Holt, in 1930 he gained a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, studying composition with John Ireland and piano with Arthur Benjamin. Britten attracted wide attention when he conducted the premiere of his Simple Symphony

in 1934. He worked for the GPO Film Unit and various theatre companies, collaborating with such writers as W H Auden and Christopher lsherwood.

His lifelong relationship and working partnership with Peter Pears developed in the late 1930s. At the beginning of the World War II, Britten and Pears remained in the US; on their return, they registered as conscientious objectors and were exempted from military service.

The first performance of the opera Peter Grimes on 7 June 1945 opened the way for a series of magnificent stage works mainly conceived for the English Opera Group. In June 1948 Britten founded the Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts, for which he subsequently wrote many new works. By the mid-1950s he was generally regarded as the leading British composer, helped by the international success of operas such as Albert Herring, Billy Budd and The Turn of the Screw.

One of his greatest masterpieces, the War Requiem, was first performed on 30 May 1962 for the festival of consecration of St Michael’s Cathedral, Coventry, its anti-war message reflecting the composer’s pacifist beliefs. A remarkably prolific composer, Britten completed works in almost every genre and for a wide range of musical abilities, from those of schoolchildren and amateur singers to such artists as Mstislav Rostropovich, Julian Bream and Peter Pears.

Benjamin Britten Composer Profile

Dmitri Shostakovich Composer Profile

After early piano lessons with his mother, Shostakovich enrolled at the Petrograd Conservatoire in 1919. He announced his Fifth Symphony of 1937 as ‘a Soviet artist’s practical creative reply to just criticism’. A year before its premiere he had drawn a stinging attack from the official Soviet mouthpiece Pravda, in which Shostakovich’s initially successful opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District was condemned for its ‘leftist bedlam’ and modernism. With the Fifth Symphony came acclaim not only

from the Russian audience, but also from musicians and critics overseas.

Shostakovich lived through the first months of the German siege of Leningrad serving as a member of the auxiliary fire service. In July he began work on the first three movements of his Seventh Symphony, completing the defiant finale after his evacuation in October and dedicating the score to the city. A micro-filmed copy was despatched by way of Tehran and an American warship to the US, where it was broadcast by the NBC Symphony Orchestra and Toscanini. In 1943 Shostakovich completed his Eighth Symphony, its emotionally shattering music compared by one critic to Picasso’s Guernica.

In 1948 Shostakovich and other leading composers, Prokofiev among them, were forced by the Soviet cultural commissar, Andrey Zhdanov, to concede that their work represented ‘most strikingly the formalistic perversions and anti-democratic tendencies in music’, a crippling blow to Shostakovich’s artistic freedom that was healed only after the death of Stalin in 1953. Shostakovich answered his critics later that year with the powerful Tenth Symphony, in which he portrays ‘human emotions and passions’, rather than the collective dogma of Communism.



Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–75) Concerto No 1 for Piano, Trumpet and Strings Op 35 (1933)

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2

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ALLEGRETTO

LENTO

MODERATO

ALLEGRO CON BRIO

YUJA WANG PIANO

PHILIP COBB TRUMPET

As a young man Shostakovich had ambitions to become a composer-pianist in the mould of Rachmaninov or Prokofiev, and by his early twenties he had gained a notable position in Russia as a solo pianist. In 1927 he had even been one of the Russian competitors at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw, though he achieved only an honourable mention. His performing style was very individual. ‘Shostakovich emphasised the linear aspect of music and was very precise in all the details of performance,’ recalled a friend. ‘He used little rubato in his playing, and it lacked extreme dynamic contrasts. It was an ‘anti-sentimental’ approach to playing which showed incredible clarity of thought.’

Shostakovich wrote this concerto for himself to play, composing it soon after completing the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and the 24 Preludes for Piano, and gave the first performance with members of the Leningrad Philharmonic conducted by Fritz Stiedry on 13 October 1933. Shostakovich twice recorded the work, and there is even a brief film clip of him playing the finale at a recklessly fast tempo.

For a decade Shostakovich had taken full advantage of the excitement and confusion that reigned in post-Revolutionary Russia, producing a vast body of work that ranged from the modernist brutalism of the Second and Third Symphonies to the biting satire of the opera The Nose, from light-hearted ballet scores to the deep seriousness of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.

The concerto is one of his most accessible and justly popular works from this period. Short and compact, it constantly teases the listener with half-quotations, parodies and sudden changes of direction. Although it has its moments of seriousness, they are more apparent than real and tend to be swept aside by the anarchic humour which was a speciality of the young Shostakovich. Influences of Ravel, Prokofiev, Gershwin and Stravinsky can be heard, but equally important is Shostakovich’s own approach to music for stage and film.

One account suggests that Shostakovich’s initial idea was for a solo trumpet concerto. Whether there is any truth in this or not, the final result is by no means a double concerto for equally-matched soloists, for the piano is very much in the foreground all the time. The trumpet plays a major role, however, often a thoroughly subversive one, and achieves a kind of lunatic glory in the Rossini-meets-Mickey-Mouse conclusion.

INTERVAL – 20 minutes

There are bars on all levels of the Concert Hall; ice cream

can be bought at the stands on Stalls and Circle level.

Why not tweet us your thoughts on the first half of the

performance @londonsymphony, or come and talk to

LSO staff at the Information Desk on the Circle level?


ANDREW HUTH is a musician,

writer and translator who writes

extensively on French, Russian and

Eastern European music.

The concerto constantly teases the listener with half-quotations, parodies and sudden changes of direction.

QUOTATION AND PARODY

A distinctive feature of

Shostakovich’s musical style is

the frequent use of quotation and

parody. His entire compositional

output, from the youthful First

Symphony to his final work, the

Viola Sonata, is peppered with

musical quotation. These range

from tongue-in-cheek references

to popular tunes and allusions to

his own works, to the recurring

use of personal musical motifs,

the most famous and recognisable

of which is his famous ‘DSCH’

(D, E-flat, C, B) musical signature.


6 Programme Notes 15 March 2015

1

2

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4

ALLEGRETTO

TEMPO ANDANTE, MA RUBATO

VIVACISSIMO

FINALE: ALLEGRO MODERATO

The beginning of 1901 found Sibelius in Italy, his mood tense and gloomy. The death of his 16-month-old daughter Kirst the previous year had been a severe blow, and although the First Symphony was beginning to meet with international success, he was uncertain about his musical future. Various unfocused ideas came to him. One evening, for example, he jotted down a musical phrase and over it wrote: ‘Don Juan. I sit in the twilight in my castle, a guest enters. I ask who he is – no answer. I make an effort to entertain him. Still no answer. Eventually he breaks into song and then Don Juan notices who he is: Death’. Two months later he sketched another idea which he labelled ‘Christus’.

These two themes later formed the basis of the Second Symphony’s Andante, but Sibelius was not then thinking of a new symphony: rather of a series of four tone poems on the Don Juan legend or perhaps something related to Dante’s The Divine Comedy. ‘Several of my projects will not be ready for many years,’ he wrote to a friend; but after his return to Finland that summer the Second Symphony took shape. ‘I have been in the throes of a bitter struggle with this symphony,’ he complained. It was nearly finished in November, but further revisions caused two postponements of the planned premiere. It was last completed in January 1902, and Sibelius conducted four performances that March in Helsinki.

When Finnish audiences heard Sibelius’ First Symphony in 1899, they expected it to reflect the world of the heroes of the Kalevala depicted in his earlier tone poems. In fact, though, Sibelius’ main

concern was not to illustrate anything at all, but to explore a personal approach to purely symphonic momentum. The Second marks a big further step in this direction. Nevertheless, it still looks both forward and backwards, perhaps more so than any other work by Sibelius, giving rise to some curious contradictions in the relation and balance between the four movements.

The first movement is certainly a very original structure, pointing toward the new Classicism Sibelius aimed for in later works. The cool Nordic atmosphere is unmistakable, and so is the personal character of the themes, with such Sibelius fingerprints as swelling dynamics and long held notes ending in a flourish. The freshness of the colouring is achieved by the use, initially, of unmixed strings, woodwind and brass. Ideas are presented in turn, then in different combinations and changing perspectives. The movement ends modestly, with a sense of completion as neat as anything in Haydn.

The Andante, on the other hand, is more sectional, with a fluid tempo moving from the slow, bleak opening towards passages of dissonant anguish that are almost expressionistic. At a time when Finland was an oppressed province of the Russian Empire, the Second Symphony was often regarded from a nationalistic viewpoint.

Thus Sibelius’ staunch champion, the conductor Robert Kajanus, could write: ‘The Andante strikes one as the most heart-broken protest against all the injustices that threaten at the present time to deprive the sun of its light and our flowers of their scent … The scherzo gives a picture of frenetic preparation … the finale develops towards a triumphant conclusion intended to arouse in the listener a picture of lighter and confident prospects

Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) Symphony No 2 in D major Op 43 (1901–02)

A TONE POEM or symphonic poem

is an orchestral work in a continuous

one-movement structure evoking

the particular mood or imagery

described in a literary work. The

form is more related to that of an

opera than a symphony, dealing with

programmatic and narrative ideas

in contrast to the purely musical,

abstract aims of a symphony.


ANDREW HUTH

SIBELIUS on LSO LIVE

Symphonies

Nos 1–7,

Kullervo

(Box set) 4CD

£19.99

Editor’s Choice

Gramophone

Choice of the Month – Orchestral

BBC Music Magazine

Available to buy online at

lso.co.uk/lsolive or as a digital

download on iTunes



ALL COMPOSER PROFILES BY

ANDREW STEWART

Jean Sibelius Composer Profile

for the future’. Sibelius either kept a sensible silence about such associations or denied them outright. The various poetic ideas that filled his mind before composing the work – Don Juan, Christ, Dante, or whatever – may not be very significant in themselves, but they certainly have nothing to do with Finnish mythology or nationalism.

Taking a stylistic position somewhere between the cool Classicism of the first movement and the unbridled Romanticism of the second, the last two movements owe a clear debt to Beethoven, and in particular his Fifth Symphony, with its transition from Scherzo to Finale. The sound of the music is of course very different, and the build-up of tension towards the end of the finale shows Sibelius as a master of symphonic momentum as the chorale theme first announced softly by the woodwind is subjected to repetition with suppressed dynamics and a rigidly controlled tempo before the final major key resolution.

Among the many tributes that the symphony earned him, Sibelius was especially pleased with comments from two fellow composers. After conducting it in Berlin in 1905 he wrote to his wife: ‘Busoni is totally enamoured of my symphony and understands its chaste concentration. In particular he thinks the second movement the best music in existence,’ though the letter continues rather mysteriously, ‘he hasn’t said a word about the Finale. You realise that Busoni cannot understand its significance’. Unreserved praise came after the Stockholm premiere in October 1902 from the Swedish composer Wilhelm Stenhammar: ‘You have reached into the deepest depths of the unconscious and the ineffable and brought forth something of a miracle. What I suspected has been proved true: for me you emerge as the foremost, indeed the only major figure at this moment’.

Sibelius, the second of three children, was raised by his Swedish-speaking mother and grandmother. The boy made rapid progress as a violinist and composer. In 1886 he abandoned law studies at Helsinki University, enrolling at the Helsinki Conservatory and later taking lessons in Berlin and Vienna. The young composer drew inspiration from the Finnish ancient epic, the Kalevala, a rich source of Finnish cultural identity. These sagas of the remote Karelia region greatly appealed to Sibelius, especially those concerned with the dashing youth Lemminkäinen and the bleak landscape of Tuonela, the kingdom of death – providing the literary background for his early tone poems, beginning with the mighty choral symphony Kullervo in 1892.

The Finns swiftly adopted Sibelius and his works as symbols of national pride, particularly following the premiere of the overtly patriotic Finlandia in 1900, composed a few months after Finland’s legislative rights had been taken away by Russia. ‘Well, we shall see now what the new century brings with it for Finland and us Finns,’ Sibelius wrote on New Year’s Day in 1900. The public in Finland recognised the idealistic young composer as a champion of national freedom, while his tuneful Finlandia was taken into the repertoire of orchestras around the world. In 1914 Sibelius visited America, composing a bold new work, The Oceanides, for the celebrated Norfolk Music Festival in Connecticut.

Although Sibelius lived to 91, he effectively abandoned composition almost 30 years earlier. Heavy drinking, illness, relentless self-criticism and financial problems were among the conditions that influenced his early retirement. He was, however, honoured as a great Finnish hero long after he ceased composing, while his principal works became established as an essential part of the orchestral repertoire.

MORE SIBELIUS IN 2015

Sun 28 Jun 2015 7.30pm

SIBELIUS VIOLIN CONCERTO

& Berlioz Symphonie fantastique

Pablo Heras-Casado conductor

Joshua Bell violin

Part of the LSO International

Violin Festival, which is generously

supported by Jonathan Moulds

020 7638 8891 | lso.co.uk


Music Director

San Francisco Symphony

Artistic Director

New World Symphony

Principal Guest Conductor

London Symphony Orchestra

Michael Tilson Thomas, born in Los Angeles, is the third generation of his family to follow an artistic career. He began his formal studies at the University of Southern California where he studied piano with John Crown and conducting and composition with Ingolf Dahl. At age 19 he was named Music Director of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra. He worked with Stravinsky, Boulez, Stockhausen and Copland on premieres of their compositions at Los Angeles’ Monday Evening Concerts. During this same period he was the pianist and conductor for Gregor Piatigorsky and Jascha Heifetz.

In 1969, after winning the Koussevitzky Prize at Tanglewood, he was appointed Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. That year he also made his New York debut with the Boston Symphony and gained international recognition after replacing Music Director William Steinberg in mid-concert. He was later appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra where he remained until 1974. He was Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic from 1971 to 1979 and a Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1981 to 1985. His guest conducting includes appearances with the major orchestras of Europe and the United States.

Tilson Thomas’ recorded repertoire of more than 120 discs includes works by composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Mahler, Prokofiev and Stravinsky as well as his pioneering work with the music of Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, Steve Reich, John Cage, Ingolf Dahl, Morton Feldman, George Gershwin, John McLaughlin and Elvis Costello. He recently finished recording the complete orchestral works of Gustav Mahler with the San Francisco Symphony.

In February 1988 he inaugurated the New World Symphony, an orchestral academy for graduates of prestigious music programmes. In addition to their regular season in Miami Beach, they have toured in Europe, South America, Japan, Israel and the United States. New World Symphony graduates have gone on to major positions in orchestras worldwide.

As Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 1988 to 1995, Tilson Thomas led the Orchestra on regular tours in Europe, the US and Japan as well as at the Salzburg Festival. In London he and the Orchestra have mounted major festivals focusing on the music of Steve Reich, George Gershwin, Johannes Brahms, Toru Takemitsu, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and the School of St Petersburg, Claude Debussy and Gustav Mahler. As Principal Guest Conductor of the LSO he continues to lead the Orchestra in concerts in London and on tour.

During his 20-year tenure as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony he has presented eight summer festivals including ones devoted to the music of Mahler, Stravinsky, Wagner and American Mavericks. With the San Francisco Symphony he has made numerous tours of Europe, United States and the Far East.

Tilson Thomas is a Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France, was Musical America’s Musician of the Year and Conductor of the Year, and Gramophone Magazine’s Artist of the Year. He has won eleven Grammy Awards for his recordings. In 2008 he received the Peabody Award for his radio series, The MTT Files. In 2010, President Obama awarded him with the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to artists by the United States Government.

8 Artist Biographies 15 March 2015

‘The LSO, as so often with Tilson Thomas, were on their best form.’ The Guardian

Michael Tilson Thomas Conductor


lso.co.uk Artist Biographies 9

Yuja Wang is widely recognised as one of the most important artists of her generation. Regularly lauded for her controlled, prodigious technique, Yuja has been praised for her authority over the most complex technical demands of the repertoire, the depth of her musical insight, as well as her fresh interpretations and charismatic stage presence.

Yuja has already performed with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras including those of Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington, in the US, and abroad with the Berlin Staatskapelle, China Philharmonic, Filarmonica della Scala, Israel Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Orquesta Nacional de España, Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, the NHK Symphony in Tokyo, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestra Mozart and Santa Cecilia, among others. She made her New York Philharmonic debut in 2006 at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival and performed with the orchestra the following season under Lorin Maazel during the Philharmonic’s Japan/Korea visit. In 2009 Yuja performed as soloist with the YouTube Symphony Orchestra led by Michael Tilson Thomas.

Yuja regularly gives recitals in major cities throughout Asia, Europe and North America and has appeared in chamber recitals at summer festivals throughout the world, including annual appearances at Switzerland’s Verbier Festival. In March 2011 Yuja performed in a three-concert chamber series at the Salle Pleyel in Paris with principal players from the Berlin Philharmonic. She made her Carnegie Hall recital debut at Stern Hall in October 2011.

Last season the LSO invited Yuja to be their featured artist in the UBS Soundscapes: LSO Artist Portrait series for 2014, which included performing three concertos and recitals in London, followed by a tour of China with Daniel Harding. Yuja’s frequent summer collaborations with violinist Leonidas Kavakos extended further as they undertook multiple tours of Europe focusing on the great violin and piano sonatas of Brahms. She returned to the Los Angeles Philharmonic for subscription concerts and on tour in the US with Dudamel conducting.

In 2014/15 Yuja returns to the Concertgebouw to perform Shostakovich’s Concerto No 1 with Mariss Jansons conducting. She is featured as Artist-in-Residence with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, appearing three times over the course of the season. She makes her concerto debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in spring of 2015.

Yuja records exclusively for Deutsche Grammophon, releasing five recordings on the label. Most recently, she joined Leonidas Kavakos to record the complete Brahms Violin and Piano Sonatas for Decca Records.

At a young age Yuja entered the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. From 1999 to 2001 she participated in the Morningside Music summer programme at Calgary’s Mount Royal College. Yuja then moved to the US to study with Gary Graffman at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, graduating in 2008.

In 2006 she received the Gilmore Young Artist Award, and in 2010 was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. Yuja is a Steinway Artist.

‘Wang’s breathtaking control and tender touch confirm her as a pianist of enormous promise.’ The Guardian

Yuja Wang Piano


‘[Cobb] played his long, languid lines of contrasting melodies with plushness and assuredness.’ New York Arts Review

10 Artist Biographies 15 March 2015

Philip Cobb was appointed to the post of joint Principal Trumpet with the London Symphony Orchestra in July 2009 while he was only 21 years of age.

Philip is a fourth generation Salvationist and comes from a family that is intrinsically linked with Salvation Army music-making at its highest level. From a young age, Philip regularly featured as a cornet soloist, appearing alongside his brother Matthew and father Stephen, accompanied by his mother Elaine. However, in the ensuing years he found himself making more regular appearances as a soloist in his own right.

In 2000 he gained a place in the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain, where he became Principal Cornet on a number of courses and won the prestigious Harry Mortimer Award on four occasions.

As a student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, Philip studied with Paul Beniston (Principal Trumpet of the London Philharmonic Orchestra) and world-renowned trumpet soloist Alison Balsom. In 2006 he took part in the prestigious Maurice André International Trumpet Competition and was awarded one of the major prizes in the competition as the Most Promising Performer. While studying, Philip played in The Salvation Army’s International Staff Band and also released his debut solo CD, Life Abundant, in 2007, accompanied by the Cory Band and organist Ben Horden. The following year he was awarded the Candide Award at the London Symphony Orchestra’s Brass Academy, and also played with the European Union Youth Orchestra as Principal Trumpet.

Prior to leaving the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Philip was already working with orchestras such as the London Philharmonic, London Chamber and BBC Symphony orchestras, and by the time he had completed his Bachelor of Music degree he had secured his current post in the London Symphony Orchestra. Philip has also played guest principal at the Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Despite his busy schedule with the Orchestra, Philip continues to maintain his solo career and a continued interest in brass bands, and has just released his second solo CD called Songs from the Heart accompanied by the Salvation Army’s International Staff Band.

He is also actively involved with the recently formed Superbrass, Eminence Brass and Barbican Brass ensembles. One of his other passions is film music and he enjoys the opportunity of pursuing this area of music-making with the LSO and as a freelance trumpet player. Recent soundtracks on which Philip can be heard include: Twilight: New Moon, The Pirates, Shrek, A Better Life and Rise of the Guardians. He was also featured in the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Philip Cobb Trumpet


LSO International Violin Festival 12 Violin Superstars | 12 Amazing Concerts

April to June 2015

020 7638 8891 | lso.co.uk/violinfestival

MEDIA PARTNER

The LSO International Violin Festival is generously supported by Jonathan Moulds

IVF Colour.indd 1 16/02/2015 12:0315-03 MTTWang (FD).indd 10 3/10/2015 2:59:37 PM


LSO International Violin Festival 12 Violin Superstars | 12 Amazing Concerts

April to June 2015

020 7638 8891 | lso.co.uk/violinfestival

MEDIA PARTNER

The LSO International Violin Festival is generously supported by Jonathan Moulds

IVF Colour.indd 1 16/02/2015 12:0315-03 MTTWang (FD).indd 11 3/10/2015 2:59:37 PM

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Sofia Guerra I thought the concert was great, and both my daughter and I really enjoyed it. She is still singing Toreador around the house. on the LSO Discovery Family Concert (8 Feb)

Christopher Smith I live in Edinburgh and one of the highlights of my periodic visits to London is to come to hear the LSO if at all possible. It is a privilege to hear music played so well.

John Ball The Balakirev was an exotic rarity, the Glazunov Concerto very suave. The Rachmaninov Symphony No 1 was thrilling to hear live. Maybe it failed in 1897 but it stood tall at this concert. on the LSO with Valery Gergiev (19 Feb)

The Scheme is supported by Help Musicians UK The Garrick Charitable Trust The Lefever Award The Polonsky Foundation

Taking part in the rehearsals for this concert were Esther Kim, Katie Meyers and Runqing Zhou*

*Also performing in the concert

LSO STRING EXPERIENCE SCHEME

Established in 1992, the LSO String Experience Scheme enables young string players at the start of their professional careers to gain work experience by playing in rehearsals and concerts with the LSO. The scheme auditions students from the London music conservatoires, and 15 students per year are selected to participate. The musicians are treated as professional ’extra’ players (additional to LSO members) and receive fees for their work in line with LSO section players.

FIRST VIOLINS Roman Simovic Leader Carmine Lauri Lennox Mackenzie Clare Duckworth Nigel Broadbent Ginette Decuyper Gerald Gregory Jörg Hammann Maxine Kwok-Adams Claire Parfitt Laurent Quenelle Colin Renwick Ian Rhodes Sylvain Vasseur Rhys Watkins David Worswick

SECOND VIOLINS David Alberman Thomas Norris Miya Väisänen David Ballesteros Richard Blayden Matthew Gardner Julian Gil Rodriguez Naoko Keatley Belinda McFarlane William Melvin Iwona Muszynska Philip Nolte Louise Shackelton Harriet Rayfield

VIOLAS Paul Silverthorne Malcolm Johnston German Clavijo Anna Green Julia O’Riordan Robert Turner Edward Vanderspar Heather Wallington Philip Hall Cian O’Duill Caroline O’Neill Alistair Scahill

CELLOS Rebecca Gilliver Minat Lyons Alastair Blayden Jennifer Brown Noel Bradshaw Eve-Marie Caravassilis Daniel Gardner Hilary Jones Amanda Truelove Mary Bergin

DOUBLE BASSES Joel Quarrington Colin Paris Nicholas Worters Patrick Laurence Matthew Gibson Thomas Goodman Joe Melvin Jani Pensola

FLUTES Gareth Davies Adam Walker Alex Jakeman

PICCOLO Sharon Williams

OBOES John Roberts Michael O’Donnell

CLARINETS Andrew Marriner Chris Richards Chi-Yu Mo

E-FLAT CLARINET Chi-Yu Mo

BASSOONS Rachel Gough Daniel Jemison Joost Bosdijk

CONTRA BASSOON Dominic Morgan

HORNS Timothy Jones Stephen Stirling Angela Barnes Benjamin Jacks Jonathan Lipton

TRUMPETS Philip Cobb Alan Thomas Gerald Ruddock Daniel Newell

TROMBONES Dudley Bright Peter Moore James Maynard

BASS TROMBONE Paul Milner

TUBA Patrick Harrild

TIMPANI Nigel Thomas Antoine Bedewi

PERCUSSION Neil Percy David Jackson Sam Walton Antoine Bedewi

HARP Bryn Lewis

12 The Orchestra 15 March 2015


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