Luke Bedford - Looking for Paradise

Posted on 17 June 2011

Looking for Paradise in BirminghamLuke Bedford is in Birmingham for tonight’s world première of his new opera Seven Angels, based on Milton’s Paradise Lost. The libretto is by Glyn Maxwell. Read his article in the Guardian about the work.

Andrew Clements chose Seven Angels as one of his picks of live music this week, also in the Guardian.

Director John Fulljames and Luke Bedford spoke to the BBC’s In Tune programme yesterday. Listen again here (about 1:06 in).

Seven Angels is an Opera Group and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group production, co-produced with ROH2 and Tramway. Nicholas Collon conducts.

Listen to Rihm’s Dionysos from Amsterdam

Posted on 17 June 2011 (comments: 2)

Dionysos

Wolfgang Rihm’s opera Dionysos was broadcast live from the Holland Festival in Amsterdam yesterday. The recording is online for a short period at the Dutch Radio4 website (the opera begins about 35 minutes in).

The full vocal score is online here.

Staud world première in Paris

Posted on 17 June 2011

Johannes Maria StaudJohannes Maria Staud’s new work for the ensemble intercontemporain, Par ici! is given its world première tonight in Paris. Susanna Mälkki conducts.

The performance is part of the Festival Agora.

A selection of performances this week

Posted on 15 June 2011

Carolin WidmannCarolin Widmann performs Wolfgang Rihm’s Über die Linie VII, Morton Feldman’s For Aaron Copland and Luciano Berio’s Sequenza VIII at the Konzerthaus in Vienna tonight.

Vykintas Baltakas’ (co)ro(na) is performed in Düsseldorf by the notabu.ensemble (15 June)

Ernst Krenek’s Das Geheime Königreich opens in Athens at the Greek National Opera.

The world première of Luke Bedford’s opera Seven Angels is on Friday 17 June.

The world première of Johannes Maria Staud’s Par ici is given by Ensemble intercontemporain, also on Friday.

Richard Rodney Bennett’s All the King’s Men can be heard in a new production in Cambridge on Saturday.

The list goes on … see all forthcoming concerts in our online performance calendar.

The Cunning Little Vixen in New York

Posted on 07 June 2011

Watch director and designer Doug Fitch talk about Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen, which opens at the New York Philharmonic on 22 June.

Watch on YouTube

It seems also that a certain little vixen has taken over the NYPhil’s Twitter account.

A week of world premières

Posted on 03 June 2011

Georg Friedrich HaasOur week of world premières continues, following yesterday’s new work by Vykintas Baltakas.

On Saturday, Georg Friedrich Haas’ new work for chamber orchestra, chants oubliés, is part of a portrait concert given by the Munich Chamber Orchestra, which is joined by Teodoro Anzelotti and Kelvin Hawthorne.

Johannes Maria Staud’s new monodrama for narrator and ensemble, Der Riß durch den Tag, is given its world première in Dresden by Bruno Ganz and the Staatskapelle Dresden.

In other news, the Dutch Radio’s famous ZaterdagMatinee series presents the Dutch première of Wolfgang Rihm’s QUID EST DEUS? The concert is broadcast live on Dutch Radio (14:15, Sat 4 June CEST).

Baltakas World Première

Posted on 02 June 2011

Vilnius FestivalVykintas Baltakas’ new work for cello and piano, Commentum, premières at the Vilnius Festival tonight. The soloists are David Geringas (cello) and Ian Fountain (piano).

Read our news item.

View the full score of Commentum here:

View on Issuu.com

Morton Feldman in Philadelphia

Posted on 01 June 2011

Morton FeldmanAlex Ross comments on American Sublime, the festival of Morton Feldman’s late work which starts at Bowerbird in Philadelphia this weekend.

There’s a pretty busy week ahead of us here at UE. Stay tuned for updates, and follow us on Twitter.

New Berio documents online

Posted on 30 May 2011 (comments: 1)

Berio E si fussi pisciEight years after Luciano Berio’s death, the Centro Studi Luciano Berio has published new photographs and four unpublished manuscripts related to his favourite Sicilian folksong, E si fussi pisci.

You can even listening to a unique recording of Berio singing the song.

Buy the choral version of E si fussi pisci in our online shop.

The Centro also pays tribute to Edoardo Sanguineti, who died last year, with previously unpublished photographs and manuscripts.

Wolfgang Rihm on Schönberg’s Op. 31

Posted on 27 May 2011

Schönberg in the garden

We’re still celebrating Schönberg’s estate being included in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register, so here’s another chance to hear Wolfgang Rihm talking (in German) about Schönberg’s Variations Op. 31.

Here are translated excerpts.

By the way, the photo above is available as a mousepad (would you believe it!), as is this one.

Schönberg recognised by UNESCO

Posted on 26 May 2011

Arnold SchönbergWe’ve just heard the incredible news that Schönberg’s documentation, archived at the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna, has been included in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.

Congratulations Schönberg!

Read our news item here.

Musikblätter - the new UE Newsletter

Posted on 25 May 2011

Musikblätter Issue 1If music be the food of love, read on ...

Our new newsletter, the Musikblätter, has just been released. The first issue has interviews with Pierre Boulez on his own music, Ingo Metzmacher talking about Schreker, Pablo Heras-Casado talking about Weill, Rihm on Schönberg, and a wealth of information about our composers, their works and their forthcoming projects and performances.

Read below with the snazzy online viewer (click for fullscreen), or download a PDF file.

Seven Angels Video

Posted on 24 May 2011

Watch composer Luke Bedford, writer Glyn Maxwell and director John Fulljames talk about Bedford’s new opera Seven Angels at rehearsals in London.

Watch on the Opera Group website

Video Streams from the Leipzig Mahler Festival

Posted on 24 May 2011

Leipzig Mahler FestivalArte Live Web’s video streams from the Leipzig Mahler Festival are online for some time still.

Watch full concert recordings of the London Symphony Orchestra, The Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic, among others.

30,000 views and counting

Posted on 19 May 2011 (comments: 2)

The first Mahler interview to appear on our Gustav Mahler Blog was with Daniel Barenboim, back in June 2009. Since then, we’re proud to say that all 27 videos have now been viewed more than 30,000 times. It’s heart-warming to see how much interest there has been in the series.

Here they are in all their glory:


Herbert Blomstedt

Simon Rattle

Norman Lebrecht

Andris Nelsons

Josep Pons

Gustavo Dudamel

Riccardo Chailly

Valery Gergiev

Manfred Honeck

Sakari Oramo

Antonio Pappano

Lorin Maazel

Mariss Jansons

Michael Gielen

David Zinman

Zubin Mehta

Esa-Pekka Salonen

Ingo Metzmacher

Kent Nagano

Wolfgang Fink

Michael Tilson Thomas

Christoph Eschenbach

Jonathan Nott

Franz Welser-Möst

Daniele Gatti

Pierre Boulez

Daniel Barenboim