The final concert in The Art of News focuses on events and stories that have shaped the latter part of the 20th century and the present day.

During the 1960s Luciano Berio (1925-2003) produced a series of works that placed him in the vanguard of contemporary culture, that rare example of a composer whose works crossed genre boundaries. Very much of its time, O King pays tribute to the American civil rights leader Martin Luther King with a text by the composer. The version for voice and five instruments was written in 1967, and thus predates King’s death on 4 April 1968; Berio later incorporated a version for eight voice and orchestras into Sinfonia the following year.

Many cultural offerings have arisen in response to the riots at Attica Prison in New York State in 1971. Perhaps among the more intriguing is Frederic Rzewski’s composition Coming Together, a minimalist setting of a letter written (in 1970) by inmate Samuel Melville. In these words Melville, jailed for his part in a series of bomb attacks in New York protesting the Vietnam War, reflects on his state of mind and the direction of his life; he was killed when the riots were put down.

Dominic Muldowney’s latest London Sinfonietta commission, Songs of the Zeitgeist, has been created in collaboration with the poet Graham Roos. The initial prompt was the fact that the London Sinfonietta was to relocate to a building that was also to house a daily national newspaper, the Guardian. This brought about the idea for a piece that attempted the unusual in contemporary music by tackling very recent topical news issues, basing its texts on newspaper articles.

In the final Poetry Platform two of Britain’s leading comic poets, John Hegley and Simon Munnery, join Nathan Penlington, musical guest Gwyneth Herbert and musicians from the London Sinfonietta. Music includes David Lang’s lend/lease and other items to be announced.