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The programme from the London Sinfonietta's world premiere performance of Steve Reich's 'Radio Rewrite' at Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall.

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Steve Reich: Radio Rewrite

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19/02/2013 15:30

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Steve Reich: Radio Rewrite TourTuesday 5 March 7.30pm London Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre

Wednesday 6 March 7.30pmBirmingham Town Hall

Steve Reich Clapping Music* 6’

Steve Reich Electric Counterpoint# 15’

Steve Reich 2 x 5 20’

Interval

Steve Reich Radio Rewrite world premiere (London) 16’

Steve Reich Double Sextet 22’

Brad Lubman conductorSteve Reich performer*Mats Bergström guest electric guitar#

Sound Intermedia sound projection

There will be a short talk on stage with Steve Reich, immediately following the performance at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, London.

Radio Rewrite is commissioned by the London Sinfonietta with support from LondonSinfonietta Entrepreneurs and Pioneers including Sir Richard Arnold, Trevor Cook, SusanGrollet in memory of Mark Grollet, and Richard Thomas; Alarm Will Sound and StanfordLive in honor of the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation with generous supportfrom Van and Eddi Van Auken.

Thursday 7 March 7.30pmBrighton Dome

Saturday 9 March 9pmGlasgow Royal Concert Hall

Performance at Brighton Dome in association with:

The Steinway concert pianos chosen and hiredby the University of Sussex are supplied andmaintained by Steinway & Sons, London

The performance on Tuesday 5 March is being broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, on Live In Concert. It will be available to listen to via the website for a further seven days atbbc.co.uk/radio3

The London Sinfonietta isgrateful to the Aaron CoplandFund for Music for theirsupport of this concert.

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Welcome to tonight’s concert.

It’s always a special occasion to welcome back SteveReich to work with the London Sinfonietta, and nomore so when we can premiere a new work by him.Radio Rewrite has such an exciting story behind itsince Steve first accepted the invitation to write for us again back in 2008. The way the piece hasevolved is a testament to a composer who is alwaysexploring new ideas, with the same energy,curiosity and enthusiasm that first led him to make his music in such a distinctive way.

The ensemble has become a dedicated advocate forSteve’s music, and we are proud to have recordedVariations for Vibes, Pianos and Strings, the previouscommission by the London Sinfonietta. In morerecent seasons, we have performed Music for 18Musicians with Steve as part of the ensemble. Sonow, it is particularly exciting to have supportedRadio Rewrite’s creation and to be giving the worldpremiere. The London Sinfonietta’s collaborationwith Radiohead in 2005, and the performance ofone of Jonny Greenwood’s first compositions,makes us feel part of a set of associations that are re-converging at this point. It’s a great night to be part of.

I’m particularly grateful to all the people who havecontributed towards the cost of this new work. We’ve benefitted from donations of all sizes, and via a successful online funding campaign. Peopleclose to the London Sinfonietta and a wider audiencefrom all over the world who all share a passion forSteve’s music have given money. We hope they willbenefit from an on-going satisfaction and connectionwith the work, knowing they have made possible anew piece that will be played many times, tothousands of people, all over the world in years tocome. There may be many of you in the audiencetonight who are part of our now much widercommissioning network – so thank you.

I hope you enjoy the evening. Do let us know what you think.

Andrew BurkeChief Executive

londonsinfonietta.org.uk@Ldn_Sinfoniettafacebook.com/londonsinfonietta

Welcome

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Steve Reichcomposer

Steve Reich has been called “America’s greatestliving composer” (The Village VOICE), “the mostoriginal musical thinker of our time” (The NewYorker), and “among the great composers of thecentury” (New York Times).

His music has been influential to composers andmainstream musicians all over the world. He is aleading pioneer of minimalism, having in his youthbroken away from the establishment that wasserialism. His music is known for its steady pulse,repetition and a fascination with canons; itcombines rigorous structures with propulsiverhythms and seductive instrumental colour. It alsoembraces harmonies of non-Western and Americanvernacular music, especially jazz. Reich’s studieshave included the Gamelan, African drumming atthe University of Ghana and traditional forms ofchanting the Hebrew scriptures.

Different Trains and Music for 18 Musicians haveeach earned him Grammy awards, and hisdocumentary video opera works The Cave andThree Tales, done in collaboration with video artist Beryl Korot, have pushed the boundaries of the operatic medium.

Over the years his music has significantly grown both in expanded harmonies andinstrumentation, resulting in a Pulitzer Prize for his 2007 composition Double Sextet.

Reich’s music has been performed by majororchestras and ensembles around the world,including the New York and Los Angelesphilharmonics; London, San Francisco, Boston and BBC symphony orchestras; London Sinfonietta;Kronos Quartet; Ensemble Modern; EnsembleIntercontemporain; Bang on a Can All-Stars; andeighth blackbird. Several noted choreographers have created dances to his music, such as AnneTeresa de Keersmaeker, Jirí Kylían, Jerome Robbins,Wayne McGregor and Christopher Wheeldon.

“ere’s just a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musicalhistory and Steve Reich is one of them.” The Guardian

Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes.

Photo: © Wonge Bergmann

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So said Steve Reich in an interview with Cole (now Nicole) Gagne in 1980. He repeated the point in 1994 in response to a question from the MusicalTimes about the future of music. Yet despite this, Radio Rewrite is in fact the first time Reich hasexplicitly worked with the materials of rock music.

The development of Steve Reich’s music, from hisstudent works, through the early tape and phasingpieces, to masterworks like Music for 18 Musiciansand beyond, runs in parallel with the development of popular music from the 1960s to the 2010s. Many claims are made for his influence on pop, rock,house, techno and even rap, but how much of that isgenuine contact, and how much wishful revisionism?

In his student years, before he met Terry Riley in 1964 and discovered the tape phasing process in 1965,Reich claimed three major influences on his music:Bach, Stravinsky and jazz. The last of these was mostinfluential, particularly the playing of John Coltrane,whom Reich saw many times at San Francisco’s JazzWorkshop club in the early 1960s. In particular, Reich has mentioned the importance of Coltrane’s1961 Africa/Brass album, and listening back it’s nothard to hear why.

In its patterns of repetition, flow and rupture, and its emphasis on the beatAfrica/Brass is typical of the music of the African (particularly West African)diaspora. To these Coltrane adds modality, an emphasison massed sound over distinct melody, harmonicstasis, and a way of building form by adding orsubtracting layers. In other words, many of the planksof Reich’s minimalist style. Two further elements –phasing and glittering tuned percussion – came soonafter, as a result of Reich’s experiments with tape loopsand his encounter with Ghanaian drumming.

These two elements are what usually signal theinfluence of Reich. But the fact that so much of hismusic is arguably built on a template derived fromColtrane and other Afro-diasporic musicians of the 60s, a template that in various forms underpins music from blues to rap, is what makes the ‘Reichmeme’ so persistent.

There were signs of this a decade later, as thebreakthrough of Reich (as well as Riley and PhilipGlass) coincided with the height of disco. Thepremiere of Music for 18 Musicians in March 1976, for example, came just a month after the release of Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder’s 17-minute masterpiece ‘Love to Love You Baby’.

It is possible to read (and has been done) Music for 18 Musicians in conjunction with disco. Certainly they share common features: a sprawling scale, aformal language of extended and repeating climaxesand releases, techniques of layering and cross-fading, and a relentless adherence to the beat. Indeed in1978 a live performance of Music for 18 Musicianssold out the Bottom Line club in New York, and the following year a Rolling Stone feature on Glassattempted to argue that minimalism actuallyprefigured disco. A 1984 article in Harper’s magazineeven referred to Reich’s music as a form of ‘higherdisco’. The coincidence of white art and black pop was not entirely arbitrary: the racial politics of discoand early techno was already leading black producerslike Derrick May to self-identify with‘sophisticated’ European aesthetics.

Yet how much Reich and disco really knew of eachother is beside the point. What is clear is that they were both attuned to similar musical andtechnological currents at the time – Afro-diasporicbeats; the technology of the turntable, tape loop and cross-fader; and the possibilities ofaccumulative and layered musical forms.

However, there were easily documented points ofcontact. Perhaps the most important of these was in1973, when Brian Eno, until then a member of RoxyMusic, saw Steve Reich and Musicians at the QueenElizabeth Hall and introduced himself to thecomposer. Reich’s influence on Eno was profound,and contributed to a change in direction in his workthat can be documented through solo albums likeAnother Green World, the Ambient and Discrete Musicseries, and his work as a producer.

The Steve Reich meme

‘e sounds that surrounded America from 1950 through 1980 – jazz and rock and roll – cannot be ignored. ey can be refined, filtered, rejected, or accepted in part, but they can’t be ignored, or you’re an ostrich; you’re ill-informed.’

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In 1976 David Bowie, who was working with Eno onhis Low album, attended the European premiere inBerlin of Music for 18 Musicians, and the pulsingmarimbas and vibraphones of that album’s ‘WeepingWall’ are an unmistakable homage. Bowie wasn’t theonly rock musician to have felt minimalism’sinfluence. The Who famously quote Riley’sarpeggiated keyboard style on ‘Baba O’Riley’, andReich’s technique of building up textures throughclosely spaced canons can be heard through prog rock(a choice example is ‘I Robot’ by The Alan ParsonsProject). To say nothing of Mike Oldfield’s TubularBells, itself enormously influential.

The contact between Reich and popular music coolsin the 1980s, as do both disco and prog. But the mostrecent and enduring phase of cross-influence waslaunched by a band who might be said to have helpedrevive both styles. The Orb’s sampling of Reich’sElectric Counterpoint for their 1990 single ‘LittleFluffy Clouds’ simply made explicit the sympathybetween late 80s/early 90s rave culture and Reich’sglittering, pulse-driven soundscapes. Rave’s biggestact, Orbital (who themselves drew on Reichiantimbres in the keyboard riff of ‘Lush 3’ and thelayered pianos of ‘Kein Trink Wasser’), made atechnical homage in their arch use of phasing speechloops for the intro and outro to their second(‘Brown’) album of 1993.

While rave and techno have their roots in the sameAfro-diasporic elements as disco (and so share someof the same DNA as both Coltrane’s modal jazz andReich’s minimalism), Reich’s music in the 1990sappealed to a different mood. Instead of the ‘newAfrica’ sought by Coltrane or May, techno andminimalism were connected by the general desire forself-sublimation that permeated popular music of thetime, from rave to Nirvana. Reich’s appeal was nowthe ambient glow of massed sound, the totalabsorption of surface detail into a generalisedtexture, the effacement of the individual, and it canbe heard on albums as diverse as U2’s The Joshua Tree(produced by Eno), My Bloody Valentine’s Lovelessand Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II.Spiritualized’s Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating inSpace and Tortoise’s TNT in different ways even closethe circle between loops and Coltrane-esque jazz.

Towards the end of the decade, as techno maturedand its producers became more self-reflective, a newgenre – minimal techno, or microhouse – was born.

The Reich Remixed album of 1999 may have beendevised by Nonesuch records to attract a crossoveraudience to its Reich discography, but it struck achord nevertheless. Producers were creating a newform of techno that was more attuned to minuteprocesses of variation and evolution. Several of them,including Carsten Nicolai, Richie Hawtin andNobukazu Takemura have acknowledged theinfluence in particular of Reich’s early music.Takemura (a contributor to Reich Remixed) samplesFour Organs on his Assembler/Assembler 2 album.Hawtin’s Concept series of 12 inches focused withReichian obsession on single rhythmic ideas; thesewere later ‘remixed’ by Thomas Brinkmann into newrhythmic configurations by using a custom twin-armturntable to play the record against itself. Brinkmannhas taken Reich’s phasing technique to an extreme onhis ‘X100’ record, which consists of just a click, a toneand a bass kick recorded on two slightly out of phasegrooves for the duration of one LP side.

In using two Radiohead tracks, Radio Rewritemightbe said finally to confirm the importance of rock thatReich spoke of back in 1980. The debt has alreadybeen paid the other way, when Jonny Greenwoodperformed a stunning version of Electric Counterpointin Kraków in 2011. It was at this concert that Reichand Greenwood met, and the idea of Radio Rewritewas born. The London Sinfonietta’s involvementkeeps the circles turning in on each other. As well ascommissioning and giving the world premiere ofReich’s Variations for Vibes, Pianos and Strings in 2006,it was the London Sinfonietta who co-commissionedReich’s City Life (1995), his first piece to employdigital samplers of the sort used by musicians likeTakemura and The Orb. Greenwood’s compositionalcareer, meanwhile, may be said to have beenkickstarted by the London Sinfonietta, whoperformed and recorded his first orchestral worksmear in 2005, which led to his score for the filmThere Will Be Blood and other compositions. And apath via Steve Reich’s Drumming, Eno and Hawtinmay well take you to Radiohead tracks like ‘Packt LikeSardines in a Crushed Tin Box’ or ‘The Gloaming’. Tosay nothing of Thom Yorke’s ‘Arpeggi’, which theLondon Sinfonietta have already performed in a veryReich-like reworking. Radio Rewritemay beunprecedented in Reich’s illustrious career, but it alsohas a satisfying inevitability.

© Tim Rutherford-Johnson (2013)

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Clapping Music

Late in 1971, I composed Clapping Music out of adesire to create a piece of music that would need noinstruments at all beyond the human body. At first Ithought it would be a phase piece, but this turnedout to be rather inappropriate since it introduces adifficulty in musical process (phasing) that is out ofplace with such a simple way of producing sound.The solution was to have one performer remainfixed, repeating the same basic pattern throughout,while the second moves abruptly, after a number ofrepeats, from unison to one beat ahead, and so on,until he is back in unison with the first performer.The basic difference between these sudden changesand the gradual changes of phase in other pieces, isthat when phasing, one can hear the same patternmoving away from itself with the downbeats of bothparts separating further and further apart, whilethe sudden changes here create the sensation of aseries of variations of two different patterns withtheir downbeats coinciding. In Clapping Music it canbe difficult to hear that the second performer is infact always playing the same original pattern as thefirst performer, though starting in different places.Clapping Musicmarks the end of my use of thegradual phase shifting process.

Steve Reich (Writings about Music)

Electric Counterpoint

Electric Counterpoint was commissioned by theBrooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festivalfor guitarist Pat Metheny. It was composed duringthe summer of 1987. The duration is about 15minutes. It is the third in a series of pieces (firstVermont Counterpoint in 1982 for flutist RansomWilson followed by New York Counterpoint in 1985for clarinettist Richard Stolzman) all dealing with asoloist playing against a pre-recorded tape ofthemselves. In Electric Counterpoint the soloist pre-records as many as ten guitars and two electric bassparts and then plays the final eleventh guitar partlive against the tape. I would like to thank Pat

Metheny for showing me how to improve the piecein terms of making it more idiomatic for the guitar.

Electric Counterpoint is in three movements; fast,slow, fast, played one after the other without pause.The first movement, after an introductory pulsingsection where the harmonies of the movement arestated, uses a theme derived from Central Africanhorn music that I became aware of through theethnomusicologist Simha Arom. That theme is builtup in eight voice canon and while the remaining twoguitars and bass play pulsing harmonies, the soloistplays melodic patterns that result from thecontrapuntal interlocking of those eight pre-recorded guitars.

The second movement cuts the tempo in half,changes key and introduces a new theme, which isthen slowly built up in nine guitars in canon. Onceagain, two other guitars and bass supply harmony,while the soloist brings out melodic patterns thatresult from the overall contrapuntal web.

The third movement returns to the original tempoand key and introduces a new pattern in triplemeter. After building up a four guitar canon, twobass guitars enter suddenly to further stress thetriple meter. The soloist then introduces a newseries of strummed chords that are built up in threeguitar canon. When these are complete, the soloistreturns to melodic patterns that result from theoverall counterpoint, when suddenly the bassesbegin to change both key and meter back and forthbetween E minor and C minor and between 3/2 and12/8, so that one hears first three groups of foureighth notes and then four groups of three eighthnotes. These rhythmic and tonal changes speed upmore and more rapidly until at the end the bassesslowly fade out and the ambiguities are finallyresolved in 12/8 and E minor.

Steve Reich

2 x 5

My first thought was that with two electric basses Icould write interlocking bass lines that would be

Notes on the programme

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clearly heard. This would not be possible on acousticbasses played pizzicato. I then began to think abouttwo pianos and two electric basses being the motorfor a piece that would use electric guitars and smalldrum kit as well. The classic rock combination oftwo electric guitars, electric bass, drums and pianoseemed perfect – so long as it was a doubled quintetresulting in two basses, two pianos, two drums andfour electric guitars. This made possible interlockingcanons of identical instruments. The piece can beplayed either with five live musicians and five pre-recorded or with ten musicians.

2 x 5 is clearly not rock and roll. Like any othercomposition, it’s completely notated while rock is generally not. 2 x 5 is chamber music forrock instruments.

We’re living at a time when the worlds of concertmusic and popular music have resumed theirnormal dialogue after a brief pause during thetwelve tone/serial period. This dialogue has beenactive, I would assume, since people have beenmaking music. We know from notation that it wasactive throughout the Renaissance with the folksong L’homme armé used in masses by composersfrom Dufay to Palestrina. During the Baroqueperiod, dance forms were used by composers fromFroberger and Lully to Bach and Handel. Later wehave folk songs in Haydn’s 104th symphony,Beethoven’s 6th symphony, Russian folk songs inStravinsky’s early ballets, Serbo-Croatian folk musicthroughout Bartok, hymns in Ives, folk songs andjazz in Copland, the entire works of Weill, Gershwinand Sondheim and on into my own generation andbeyond. Electric guitars, electric basses and drumkits, along with samplers, synthesizers and otherelectronic sound processing devices are now part ofnotated concert music. The dialogue continues.

Steve Reich (2008)

Radio Rewriteworld premiere (London)

Over the years, composers have used pre-existingmusic (folk or classical) as material for new pieces oftheir own. This was particularly notable from thebeginning of the 15th to the end of the 17th centurywhen over 40 settings of the mass using the tuneL’homme armé as its point of departure were writtenby composers Dufay, Ockeghem, Josquin des Pres

and Palestrina among others. L’homme armé was apopular folk song yet writing a mass was similar inscope then to writing a symphony in the Classical orRomantic period. Much later in the 19th century,Brahms wrote Variations on a Theme of Haydn and inthe 20th century we find Stravinsky reworkingPergolesi for his own Pulcinella. Radio Rewrite, alongwith Proverb (Perotin) and Finishing the Hat-TwoPianos (Sondheim) are my modest contribution to thisgenre.

Now, in the early 21st century, we live in an age of remixes where musicians take audio samples ofother music and remix them into audio of their own.Being a composer who works with musical notation, I chose to reference two songs from the rock groupRadiohead for an ensemble of musicians playing non-rock instruments. The two songs chosen wereEverything in its Right Place and Jigsaw Falling IntoPlace. The story is as follows:

In September 2011 I was in Krakow for a festival of my music. One of the featured performers wasJonny Greenwood of Radiohead who had prepared all the backing tracks for my piece Electric Counterpoint,and then played electric guitar live against thosetracks in concert. It was a great performance and webegan talking. I found his background as a violist andhis present active role as a composer extremelyinteresting when added to his major role in such animportant and innovative rock group. Even festivaldirector Filip Berkowitz suggested I listen toRadiohead. When I returned home I made a point togo online and listen to their music and the two songsmentioned above stuck in my head.

It was not my intention to make anything like‘variations’ on these songs, but rather to draw on theirharmonies and sometimes melodic fragments andwork them into my own piece. This is what I havedone. As to actually hearing the original songs, thetruth is – sometimes you hear them and sometimesyou don’t.

Radio Rewrite is in five movements played withoutpause. The first, third and fifth are fast and based onJigsaw and the second and fourth are slow and basedon Everything. The piece is scored for flute, clarinet,two vibes, two pianos, string quartet and electric bass.It was co-commissioned by the London Sinfoniettaand Alarm Will Sound and is about 16 minutes induration. It was completed in August 2012.

Steve Reich (2012)

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Double Sextet

There are two identical sextets in Double Sextet.Each one is comprised of flute, clarinet,vibraphone, piano, violin and cello. Doubling theinstrumentation was done so that, as in so manyof my earlier works, two identical instrumentscould interlock to produce one overall pattern. For example, in this piece you will hear the pianosand vibes interlocking in a highly rhythmic way to drive the rest of the ensemble.

The piece can be played in two ways; either withtwelve musicians, or with six playing against arecording of themselves.

The idea of a single player playing against arecording of themselves goes all the way back toViolin Phase (1967) and extends though VermontCounterpoint (1982), New York Counterpoint (1985),Electric Counterpoint (1987) and Cello Counterpoint(2003). The expansion of this idea to an entirechamber ensemble playing against pre-recordings ofthemselves begins with Different Trains (1988) and

continues with Triple Quartet (1999) and nowDouble Sextet. By doubling an entire chamberensemble, one creates the possibility for multiplesimultaneous contrapuntal webs of identicalinstruments. In Different Trains and Triple Quartetall instruments are strings to produce one largestring fabric. In Double Sextet, there is more timbralvariety through the interlocking of six differentpairs of percussion, string and wind instruments.

The piece is in three movements – fast, slow, fast –and within each movement there are four harmonicsections built around the keys of D, F, A flat and B or their relative minor keys B, D, F and G sharp. As in almost all of my music, modulations from one key to the next are sudden, clearly setting off each new section.

Double Sextet is about 22 minutes long and wascompleted in October 2007. It was commissioned by eighth blackbird and received its world premiereby that group at the University of Richmond in Virginia in March 2008.

Steve Reich

Steve Reich

Steve Reich with Principal Percussionist David Hockings

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Brad Lubmanconductor

Conductor/composer Brad Lubman is founding co-Artistic Director and Music Director of Ensemble Signal, hailed by The New York Times as “one of the most vital groups of its kind.”

Brad Lubman’s guest conducting engagements includemajor orchestras such as the Finnish Radio Symphony,Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the StPaul Chamber Orchestra. In addition, he has workedwith some of the most important ensembles forcontemporary music, including Klangforum Wien,musikFabrik, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic NewMusic Group.

Brad Lubman’s work includes a number of CDrecordings. A new CD with first recordings of orchestral works by Morton Feldman was released with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in October 2011 at Mode Records, receiving greatacclaim by the international press.

In the 2012/13 season, Brad Lubman is working onceagain with the DSO Berlin and the RKF and he will make his debut with the NDR-Sinfonieorchester,Hamburg. To mark the 100th anniversary ofStravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps, he will conduct theNew York based Orchestra of St. Luke’s in a guestperformance in North Carolina.

Brad Lubman is Associate Professor of Conducting andEnsembles at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester,New York where he has directed the Musica Novaensemble since joining the faculty in 1997. He is also on the faculty of the Bang-on-a-Can Summer Institute.

His own music has been performed in the United Statesand Europe and can be heard on his first portrait CD,insomniac, on Tzadik. He has also recorded for Albany,BMG/RCA, New World, Nonesuch and OrangeMountain amongst others.

Mats Bergströmelectric guitar

Guitarist Mats Bergström, born in Gävle in 1961,grew up in Stockholm in a family of musicians. After graduating from the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and spending a year in London where he made his debut at the Wigmore Hall, he mainlyworked as a session musician on the electric as wellas the acoustic guitar during the 1980s. Two yearsas a post-graduate student at the Juilliard School in New York at the beginning of the 1990s werefollowed by a conscious effort to concentrate on chamber music. Today, he is often heardaccompanying one of our greatest singers or as a boundless soloist and ensemble musician. InAugust 2011 he made his BBC Proms debutperforming Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint at the Royal Albert Hall.

By collaborating with composers and rearrangingsongs and instrumental works for the guitar, he renews and expands the repertoire for theinstrument. His discography is extensive. He hasbeen a member of the Royal Swedish Academy ofMusic since 2006 and in 2011 was awarded theLitteris et Artibusmedal.

Mats Bergström lives in the heart of Uppland with his wife and three children as well as a varying number of hens.

Photo: © Eric Camping

Photo: © Per-Erik Adamsson

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London Sinfonietta making new music

The London Sinfonietta is one of the world’s leading contemporary music ensembles with areputation built on the virtuosity of its performancesand ambitious programming. It is committed to placing new music at the heart of contemporaryculture and continually pushing boundaries, regularly undertaking projects with choreographers,video artists, film-makers, electronica artists, jazz and folk musicians. The ensemble is ResidentOrchestra at Southbank Centre with its headquarters at Kings Place.

Famed for its commitment to the creation of newmusic, the London Sinfonietta has commissionedover 250 works since its foundation in 1968, andpremiered many hundreds more. World and UKpremieres in 2012/13 include, among others, SteveReich’s Radio Rewrite (a London Sinfonietta co-commission), David Fennessy’s 13 Factories (UKpremiere), Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen’s Run(world-premiere) and a new work by Luke Bedford (London Sinfonietta commission).

The London Sinfonietta’s pioneering young artist programmes include Blue Touch Paper, ascheme which promotes the next generation ofpartnerships across a variety of artistic disciplines;the Writing the Future programme, which enablesyoung composers to work with London Sinfoniettamusicians as they make new music; and theLondon Sinfonietta Academy, which gives the UK’sfinest young musicians the opportunity to cometogether to further their performance experienceand training in an intensive week-long course.

The London Sinfonietta Label and releases on NMC Recordings and Signum Records present a recordings catalogue of the finest new musicperformed by the London Sinfonietta. The latestreleases include the New Music Show, ThomasAdès: In Seven Days, Jonathan Harvey: BirdConcerto with Pianosong and Louis Andriessen:Anaïs Nin/De Staat.

Sound Intermedia – alias Ian Dearden and DavidSheppard – is dedicated to realising visionary newart works through live performance and cutting-edge technology. Their trail-blazing initiatives andartistic collaborations continually push past theaccepted boundaries of composition, sound design,live sound, music technology and interactivemultimedia. Internationally respected both ascomposers and performers, they collaborate withmany of the world’s most influential artists and organisations.

Michael Cox*flutesupported by Michael and Patricia McLaren-Turner

Rebecca Larsenflute

Timothy Linesclarinet

Scott Lygateclarinet

Jonathan Morton*violin

Joan Atherton*violin

Paul Silverthorne* violasupported by Nick and Claire Prettejohn

Tim Gill*cellosupported by Sir Stephen Oliver

Adrian Bradburycello

Enno Senft*bass guitarsupported by Anthony Mackintosh

John Constable* pianosupported by Michael Conroy

Shelagh Sutherlandpiano

David Hockings*percussion

Oliver Lowepercussion

Huw Davieselectric guitar

Steve Smithelectric guitar

*London Sinfonietta Principal Players

Tonight’s Players

Sound Intermediasound projection

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The London Sinfonietta Academy is central to the LondonSinfonietta’s commitment to working with young musicians. A week-long summer course enables 30 students and threeconductors from across the UK to learn skills specific toperforming new music from the ensemble’s Principal Players.The London Sinfonietta Academy 2013 will be conducted byworld-renowned composer, conductor and performer GeorgeBenjamin, and culminate in a public performance on Saturday13 July. Keep an eye on our website and social media channelsto find out how to reserve tickets.

The Writing the Future scheme continues to pair composerswith London Sinfonietta Principal Players to develop newchamber compositions that will be performed throughout theseason. Projects for the composers also include creative cross-artform collaborations with students at the Central SaintMartins College of Arts and Design.

The ground-breaking Blue Touch Paper programmecontinues into another round of developing inventive cross-artform work. During the forthcoming year, composer EdwardJessen will be working with director Joseph Alford, composerLuke Carver Goss will be working with writer Jacob Polley, andcomposer Dan Stern will be working with set designer AurelianKoch. These works will receive their preview performance onTuesday 14 May at Village Underground, London.

Get closer to the London Sinfonietta andcontemporary classical music with activities that give you the opportunity to create, curate andperform with a world-class ensemble. As part of the Steve Reich: Radio Rewrite tour in March 2013,the London Sinfonietta presented a RepeatingPatterns Schools Concert, produced by, and for,young people. With nearly 2000 pupils at the RoyalFestival Hall, Steve Reich and the KX Collectivepresented works including Electric Counterpoint,which features in the GCSE curriculum.

In February we led a Clapping Music Workshopinspired by our ongoing exploration of

minimalism. Principal Percussionist David Hockingsled the workshop, where members of the public learnt Steve Reich’s famous piece Clapping Music anddiscovered first-hand what makes this composition so thrilling; not only to watch, but to perform.

The KX Collective, a dynamic group of young peoplefrom Kings Cross and surrounding areas, continue tocreate and perform new music, collaborate withprofessional musicians, produce events and find outabout music being made today.

For further details of future opportunities, pleasecontact [email protected]

Photo: © Briony Campbell

Photo: © Briony Campbell

Photo: © Briony Campbell

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The London Sinfonietta is a registered charity andrelies on the considerable generosity of many trusts,foundations and individuals to continue to create andperform outstanding new music.

London Sinfonietta Pioneers

Do you share our passion for new music? Join theLondon Sinfonietta Pioneers and you will play acrucial role in making new music happen.

Membership starts from just £35 per year (less than £3 per month) and will support all areas of the London Sinfonietta’s new music-making and help us to remain at the forefront of contemporaryclassical music.

You might like to direct your support to a major newcommission with an annual gift of £200 and aboveand gain an insight into the creative commissioningprocess. Recent Pioneer supported commissions have

included In Broken Images by Sir Harrison Birtwistleand Radio Rewrite by Steve Reich.

A gift of £1,000 and above per year will support one of our world-class Principal Players for a season and give you a close connection with theperforming ensemble.

Your support, at any level, is enormously valuable to the London Sinfonietta and all Pioneers enjoy an engaging relationship with the ensemble, with regular opportunities to meet our players and attend specific supporters’ events.

Help us continue to lead the way, sparking the greatest innovations in music andnurturing the best musical talent as we go.Become a Pioneer today and help us make new music happen.

Find out more by contacting our Developmentteam on 020 7329 9340, by emailing [email protected] or visiting londonsinfonietta.org.uk/pioneers

Photo: © Wonge Bergmann

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Andreas AffentrangerCarmen AlznerGraham AndersonRichard ArnoldEleanor AshtonLizzie AtanassovaIan BakerClaire BartonStephen and Maureen BartonAndrew Brixey-WilliamsHannah BujicAndrew BurkeG BuxtonJonathan CanePeter CarpenterHenrik CeliusTrevor CookAdrian CosgraveKatriona CoughlinElizabeth Davies

Dennis DavisMonica DuttaAlexander FitchJosh FordeAmy FretwellSarah GeeSusan Grollet (In memory of Mark Grollet)

Robin HaighWill HarrissKatherine HattersleyJohn Holland Deirdre HollingsworthJK HolmanCharles HumphriesJonathan JamesJV JohnstonPenny JonasClaire JordanMr and Mrs KaraszkiewiczAnn King-Musza

Hoi-Cheong LamMarianne LamponDominic LeitnerAnnabel MarslandMr and Mrs McDadeDamian McVeighPhilip MeadenAshil MistryStephen MorrisMr and Mrs MorrisEsther MulhollandYasushi OgasawaraNatalie OlivadotiR O’NealeMartin Patefield-SmithClaudia PayneEJ PicardKieran QuirkeEmma ReaKarl RichardMark Rickerby

Keith SalwayPedro SegundoJoan SheppardRoy StewartPete StolleryRoz SurteesAlan TederBarry TennisonRichard ThomasAgeno ToshimitsuGraham VernonThorsten ViethBS WayJohn WheatleyRonan WhitternAllan WilsonBarry WitherdenAJ Wittenberg

Steve Reich: Radio RewriteWe are hugely grateful to the London Sinfonietta Entrepreneurs, Pioneers and supporters from around theworld who have helped make this work happen:

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Honorary Patrons

John BirdSir Harrison BirtwistleAlfred Brendel KBESir George Christie cH

Lead Pioneers

Sir Richard ArnoldTrevor CookSusan Grollet in memoryof Mark GrolletLeo and Regina HepnerPenny JonasAnthony MackintoshBelinda MatthewsRobert & Nicola McFarlandMichael & PatriciaMcLaren-Turner

Sir Stephen Oliver QCNick & Claire PrettejohnRichard Thomas & Caroline CowiePaul & Sybella Zisman

Creative Pioneers

Ian BakerAndrew BurkeRobert ClarkJeremy & Yvonne ClarkeRachel ColdicuttSusan CostelloAnton CoxDennis DavisDeborah GoldenPatrick HallNicolas HodgsonAndrew HuntMaurice & Jean JacobsFrank & Linda Jeffs

Alana Lowe-PetraskeJane McAuslandStephen MorrisJulie NichollsSimon OsbornePatricia O’SullivanGeoff PeaceRuth RattenburyDennis StevensonIain StewartAnne StoddartSally TaylorBarry TennisonDavid and Jenni Wake WalkerEstela WelldonJohn WheatleyJane WilliamsStephen WilliamsonMichelle Wright

Plus those generous Pioneers whoprefer to remain anonymous

Arts Council EnglandThe Aaron Copland Fund for MusicThe Angus Allnatt Charitable TrustThe Boltini TrustThe British CouncilThe Britten Pears FoundationThe Derek Butler TrustThe City of London Corporation’s City Bridge TrustColumbia Foundation Fund of the London Community Foundation

The D’Oyly Carte Charitable TrustFidelio Charitable TrustThe Goldsmith’s Company CharityThe John Ellerman Foundation

Esmée Fairbairn FoundationFenton Arts TrustThe Holst FoundationJerwood Charitable FoundationThe Stanley Thomas Johnson FoundationThe Leche TrustThe Leverhulme TrustThe Marple Charitable TrustMusicians Benevolent FundPRS for Music FoundationRVW TrustThe Harold Hyam Wingate FoundationYouth Music

London Sinfonietta Patrons and Pioneers

London Sinfonietta is immensely grateful to the following trusts

and foundations for their support:

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Board of Directors

Paul ZismanChairman

Andrew BurkeRachel ColdicuttIan DeardenDavid HockingsPenny JonasAlana Lowe-PetraskeBelinda MatthewsPhilip MeadenSir Stephen Oliver QCMatthew PikePaul SilverthorneSally Taylor

Administration

Andrew Burke Chief Executive

Sarah TennantHead of Concert Production

Natalie Marchant Concerts & Touring Administrator

Tina SpeedParticipation and LearningManager

Claire BartonDevelopment Manager

Amy ForshawSenior Marketing Officer

Claire LamponMarketing & DevelopmentAssistant

Elizabeth Davies Head of Administration and Finance

Viktoria Mark Finance Assistant

Sarah TuppenProjects Intern (Surrey University ProfessionalTraining Placement)

Freelance andConsultant Staff

Hal Hutchinson Concerts Manager

Lesley Wynne Orchestra Personnel Manager

Julie NichollsConsultant Accountant

Michelle Wright for Cause4Fundraising Consultant

soundukPublic Relations

London Sinfonietta is grateful to its accountants: Martin GreeneRavden LLP and its auditors MGR Audit Limited for theirongoing support.

London Sinfonietta

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In Portrait: Luke Bedford

Wednesday 22 May, 7:45pm Purcell Room at Royal Festival Hall

Luke Bedford has fast become one ofthe most important composers of hisgeneration, in part on the evidence ofpast work for the London Sinfonietta.This new ensemble composition is amajor 25-minute work, which will beperformed for a second time after theinterval to give the rare instantsecond chance for an audience to getto know this brand-new composition.The programme also includes anensemble arrangement of the 2011double-soloist and string ensemblecomposition Wonderful No-HeadedNightingale, and music by GérardGrisey, whose music holds afascination for Bedford.

Luke Bedford’s new work iscommisioned by the LondonSinfonietta with the generoussupport of Michael and Patricia McLaren-Turner.

£15(£6.50 U26, £4.50 students)

0844 847 9910southbankcentre.co.uk

Mauricio Kagel: The Pieces of the Compass Rose

Saturday 1 June, 7:30pmQueen Elizabeth Hall

“e sound references are neverused anecdotally; every one ofthem is integrated by Kagel’sextraordinary harmonicimagination into a world in which nothing is what it seems,and in which every new vistacontains a genuine surprise.”The Guardian

Discover Mauricio Kagel’s The Piecesof the Compass Rose, a musicaltravelogue taking you from the northeast of Brazil, to the Gulf of Finlandand the South American Andes usinginstruments from piano andharmonium to a full range ofpercussion. An Argentinian composerwhose cultural and musical outlookembraced a life lived crossingcontinents, The Pieces of the CompassRose is Kagel’s response to the diversesoundworlds evoked by geography,language and ethics.

£9, £15, £22(£6.50 U26, £4.50 students)

0844 847 9910southbankcentre.co.uk

Darkness and Light: Georg Friedrich Haas’ in vain

Friday 6 December, 8pmQueen Elizabeth Hall

Georg Friedrich Haas’ in vain,writtenin 2000, is an exploration of a musicalsound outside the standard tonalsystem of composition, and anadventure for the listener. As well asthe microtonal harmonic sound-world that pervades the work, thenormal concert experience is alteredfor the audience and the performers,as parts of the performance are givenin pitch-black, according to a series ofcarefully planned lighting changesthat alter and heighten the listener’ssenses. This extraordinary work hasbeen performed many times inEurope and now has its much awaited premiere in London.

Presented by the London Sinfoniettaas part of Southbank Centre’s The Rest is Noise, inspired by Alex Ross’ book The Rest is Noise.

£10, £20(£6.50 U26, £4.50 students)

0844 847 9910southbankcentre.co.uk

Upcoming London Sinfonietta concerts

at the Southbank Centre

Photo: © Briony Campbell

Photo: © Briony Campbell

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