Profile
*From the organisers (correct at the time of publishing), please see the organiser’s website for the latest details.
Date: Friday 7 June | 20:00
Genre: Classical Music, Jazz
Composers: Max Richter, Benjamin Burrell, Sergey Akhunov, Erkki Sven-Tüür, Dani Howard
Lead Violin/Director: Thomas Gould
Lead Viola: Claire Finnimore
Photography: David Yarrow
Venue: Theatre
Duration: 90 minutes
Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons is everywhere, from TV ads to muzak playlists. Post-minimalist composer Max Richter restores its power and invites us to listen to it anew as he re-composes it, almost note by note. The result is an intensely moving and mesmerising mixture of Vivaldi and his own soundworld, which seems to take the listener into the cosmos to get a new perspective. The album skyrocketed to the top of the classical charts in 22 countries on its release, and Britten Sinfonia has an especially close association with the piece, having given the concert premiere in 2012 and the first performance at the BBC Proms — to a rapturous reception — in 2023. Exclusively for Nevill Holt Festival, the concert will be accompanied by stunning photographs of the natural world by leading photographer and conservationist David Yarrow.
In a unique programme, Nevill Holt Festival and Britten Sinfonia will also perform several vibrant works from living composers, including the premiere of Solitude by Benjamin Kwasi Burrell and Passacaglia by Sergey Akhunov, a serene 21st-century take on an eighteenth-century composition for violin, viola and strings.
“It’s wonderful for Britten Sinfonia to be returning to Nevill Holt in 2024. To be a creative partner in this new artistic venture – which falls within our East of England “patch” – is something we look forward to enormously.” Meurig Bowen, CEO and Artistic Director of Britten Sinfonia
Thomas Gould enjoys a twofold career as a soloist and as a leader and director of chamber orchestras. His forays into the diverse worlds of jazz improvisation, historical performance and electric violin have made him a highly sought-after collaborator working in a wide array of roles and genres. Recent engagements have included a tour of Australia performing Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with Omega Ensemble and performances of Thomas Adès’s Violin Concerto with the Wayne McGregor Dance Company. In the field of jazz he has performed with Burt Bacharach, Jacob Collier, Hiromi, Brad Mehldau and Marius Neset, and enjoys ongoing collaborations with saxophonist Tim Garland and pianist Gwilym Simcock.
Max Richter is one of the most prodigious figures in contemporary music. From synthesizers and computers to symphony orchestras, Richter’s innovative work encompasses solo albums, ballets, concert hall performances, film and television series, video art installations and theatre works. SLEEP, his eightand-a-half-hour concert work, has been broadcast and performed worldwide, including at the Sydney Opera House, Berlin’s Kraftwerk, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Philharmonie de Paris and at the Barbican. In 2012 Richter “recomposed” Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, winning him the prestigious ECHO Classic Award. Richter has written prolifically for film and television, including for Hostiles, Black Mirror, Taboo, HBO series The Leftovers and My Brilliant Friend. Richter’s most recent commissions are from the city of Bonn to mark Beethoven’s 250th anniversary, and a further collaboration with Margaret Attwood and Wayne McGregor.
Sergey Akhunov graduated from Kyiv State Conservatory as an oboe player, working in symphony orchestras and chamber ensembles. In 1992 he moved to St. Petersburg and joined a rock band. In 2005 he independently studied composition via Harvard University’s Loeb Music Library. In the same year he wrote his first chamber work – the string quartet Floridae. Since then he has written music for orchestras, chamber ensembles and solo instruments, including Four Seasons for strings and cycles of preludes for piano, in a collection called Book of Numbers. In 2010 he wrote music for the film The Elephant. In the same year he met cellist Rustam Komachkov, violinist Julia Igonina and pianist Natalia Ardasheva and subsequently wrote two piano trios: Big Elegy to John Cage and Trio in Memory of Irina Kovaleva. As a composer, Sergey uses the Principle of Cyclic Progressions, a tradition going back to Pythagorean – Boetsyan understanding of music and number communication.
Benjamin Kwasi Burrell is a London-born composer, orchestrator, arranger and musical director. He studied saxophone, piano, and jazz at Trinity College of Music and holds a Masters in Scoring for Film, Television & Video Games from Berklee College of Music. In theatre, Benjamin has worked as a composer and musical director for various productions, including The Motive and The Cue, Best of Enemies and Blues for an Alabama Sky. He also worked on the National Theatre’s production of A Taste of Honey and was the composer and musical director for Small Island. Benjamin received the Musical Director Recognition Award at the Black British Theatre Awards in 2019. Since 2019, Benjamin has served as the Musical Director of The House and Garage Orchestra. In 2020, he collaborated Chineke! Juniors for their performances on Britain’s Got Talent and was commissioned to write for the Brixton Chamber Orchestra in 2023.
Britten Sinfonia is a different kind of orchestra. It is defined not by the traditional figurehead of a principal conductor, but by the dynamic and democratic meeting of its outstanding individual players and the broad range of their collaborators. Rooted in the East of England, where it is the only professional orchestra working throughout the region, Britten Sinfonia has a national and international reputation. It is renowned for its adventurous programming and stunningly high-quality performances, and equally for its record of commissioning new music, nurturing new talent, and inspiring communities across the East of England. Britten Sinfonia is an Associate Ensemble at London’s Barbican, Resident Orchestra at Saffron Hall and is resident in Norwich. It also performs regularly at London’s Wigmore Hall.
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