London Sinfonietta's Digital Christmas Countdown!
A Daily Dose of New Music to See You Through to Christmas
Christmas: traditionally the time to gather in the chilly evening air and sing carols, hum along to a bit of classic Morecambe and Wise, or battle through the shops to the sugary tones of Wham and Wizzard.
Not so this year.
London Sinfonietta brings you its own special countdown to Christmas: a dose of new music every day from 1 Dec right up to Christmas Eve. Check this page every day between now and Christmas for all the latest news, films, sounds, and even the odd special offer from your favourite contemporary music makers.
What better way to get in the mood for the holiday season than a healthy dollop of the music you love to accompany all those mince pies ...
1 December
We kick off our Christmas countdown with the first of two special YouTube picks from Principal pianist John Constable. John says:
"I am looking forward to playing Beat Furrer's extraordinary piece "Presto" with Michael Cox on 18 January 2011. Here is another very interesting Furrer piece conducted by Claudio Abbado."
Click here to listen to John's choice.
2 December
Tina here in the LS office saw this short animated film at a Short & Sweet film night back in September.
An interesting visualisation of an improvised avant-garde jazz session with Paul Plimley (piano) and Barry Guy (bass), Michel Gagné's animation is also suitably wintry to match this fine weather we're having ...
Make a hot chocolate and curl up before clicking here to watch Gagné's Sensology.
3 December
Lots of fantastic applications for the London Sinfonietta Academy in already, but with one week to go until the application deadline, we really want as many people as possible to know about it! Please retweet our Twitter post, Like our Facebook post, or email the link below to your friends, copying in info@londonsinfonietta.org.uk to help spread the word.
London Sinfonietta Academy – Training the Musicians of Tomorrow
If you do before 12 midday on Monday 6 December, we’ll enter you into a prize draw to win a pair of tickets for our first Southbank Centre event of 2011! Can’t say fairer than that …
4 December
Naomi Pinnock has developed her new piece words whilst taking part in the London Sinfonietta’s Blue Touch Paper project, and we premiere it on 18 Jan as part of our In Portrait: Beat Furrer event.
Find out more about her and her music with this quick Q & A with the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, where she’s just premiered her recent piece Oscillare.
*Look out* for our forthcoming mini-film about words, featuring an interview with Naomi and some of the team who are helping to bring her new work to life…
5 December
Dai Fujikura is one of the composers who has graduated from London Sinfonietta’s Blue Touch Paper project, and has now written several pieces for us, including a full scale double bass concerto which we will premiere in 2011/12. He says:
“I was sent this by my friend - I don't know this composer, or anything about his music, but it’s really interesting. Definitely a striking thing to find as a YouTube clip!”
Click here to find out what he’s talking about …
6 December
The perfect stocking filler for Stockhausen fans? A disc-full of the finest contemporary music, of course!
Day 6 of the countdown, and we’re offering you an exclusive Buy One Get One Free deal on all LS Label CDs. OK, so there’s no Stockhausen in there yet, but the catalogue includes Takemitsu’s Arc and Green and the Jerwood series of CDs which showcase work by the finest British composers writing today.
This deal gets you two CDs brimming with new music for just £10. Order yours directly by emailing info@londonsinfonietta.org.uk. The offer closes on 15th December, so get your orders in quickly!
Click here to browse the full catalogue, and listen to music clips...
7 December
You might have heard Ollie Coates play cello with London Sinfonietta before, most recently as part of the ensemble at the Roundhouse’s Zappa Fest, where he was accompanied on stage by a rubber chicken.
On Day 7 of our Christmas Countdown, Ollie offers you “a video, a beautiful heart warming video, which shows an appropriately expressive use of technology - cross David Lynch with passionate Japanese young musicians with Final Fantasy XII and you get this …"
Tell us what you think via Twitter or Facebook!
8 December
On the 8th day of Christmas London Sinfonietta gives to you…a video of the Zappa! Festival at the Roundhouse that we were part of back in November.
Produced by Sky Arts check this out for a flavour of the kind of music we love to play and to have a break from all the Christmas music you’ve been hearing from November in every single shop!
Click here to give it a watch...
9 December
We’re very excited about working with Thomas Adès again in the New Year, where he’ll be conducting the London Sinfonietta in his piano concerto and video ballet In Seven Days, as well as Reich’s Tehillim and the world premiere of Gerald Barry’s Feldman’s Sixpenny Editions.
Find out more about In Seven Days with this short video, chosen by Mark in the LS office...
Like what you hear? Anyone who books tickets for In Portrait: Beat Furrer before 20 Dec can receive £5 off tickets to either OR both of our Adés concerts at Southbank Centre in Spring 2011. Simply quote “Sounds 2011” when you book by calling 0844 847 9940!
(Offer not available retrospectively or in conjunction with any other discount. Booking fees apply)
10 December
London Sinfonietta’s NEWLY LAUNCHED Music Streams are the only place to listen to LS’s landmark performances of complete works for FREE.
We will concede, however, that the selection of Beat Furrer’s music available on Last FM is also quite impressive...
11 December
This time last year London Sinfonietta launched its Steve Reich commission, a very exciting new addition to Reich’s Counterpoint series which we will premiere in our 2012/13 season. While he was in the office Steve signed a small pile of CDs and today we’re giving you the chance to win a copy of Reich’s Daniel Variations signed by the minimalist master himself!
To win simply tell us your favourite piece of Reich, by midday on Wed 15 Dec. Send your entries to us via Twitter, Facebook or by emailing info@londonsinfonietta.org.uk with the subject line ‘Reich’.*
* This competition is not open to London Sinfonietta employees and their families.
12 December
We’re now almost half-way through our Digital Countdown so, on the 12th day or our celebration, here’s a reminder of some of the music you could hear at our events.
One of the highlights from the beginning of our 2010/11 season has been our collaboration with Matthew Herbert. If you like what you heard on 20 November, or just want to find out what all the fuss is about, click here to hear tracks from his new album One One for free c/o Accidental Records.
13 December
Apologies to all our countdown followers – a technical hitch meant we are posting Day 13 a little late. To make up for the wait, we’re offering you an Andriessen double –whammy!
Cristina Zavalloni performs the UK premiere of Louis Andriessen’s Anaïs Nin in April 2011. Click here to see just how awesome her performances of Andriessen’s work can be.
Follow that with Andriessen’s own description of how his music tracks "the irony, despair and passion of this many-sided and brilliant woman", the original Anaïs Nin. Click here to find out more.
14 December
Day 14, and we’re very excited to have set up an LS Audio Boo! Bear with us, it’s early days, but it will be another way of bringing you the sound of London Sinfonietta whenever we possibly can …
Click here for our first Boo: a snippet of a previously unheard interview with one of our Blue Touch Paper project alumni, Dai Fujikura. This should explain why the marketing department is quite keen to put together a London Sinfonietta recipe book! Perhaps this warming plateful would be the perfect accompaniment to Dai’s Secret Forest, for example …
15 December
Back on Day 4, we promised you a video.
Naomi Pinnock met with the ensemble at Hampstead’s cosy Craxton Studios at the end of November to develop her new work words ready for its premiere on 18 Jan 2011 as part of our In Portrait: Beat Furrer event. She worked with the LS players, vocalist Omah Ibrahim and conductor Leo Hussain to bring her unique sound to life.
Click here to watch, and find out why we’re all so excited about this particular premiere …
16 December
Every Thursday, down the road from our Kings Place headquarters, St Pancras International holds the Station Sessions: “a unique platform for music discovery”. Tonight’s Session is all about great new jazz and blues pianists, which has inspired us to show off a few of London Sinfonietta’s own favourite piano people! Here’s a YouTube playlist for piano fans – sit back and enjoy, perhaps with a glass of mulled wine …
Firstly, click here to hear Rolf Hind playing Xenakis’s Evryali with a quite beautiful video accompaniment (it does kick in eventually, I promise!) …
And then: Rolf performs Beat Furrer’s Nuun for two pianos and orchestra alongside a former student, Zubin Kanga, on 18 January 2011. Click here for a film of Zubin playing Andriessen with Ensemble Offspring – Australia’s foremost new music ensemble.
And lastly, this festive chorus sing alongside our Principal Piano John Constable, in a rare clip from 1980.
17 December
Jordan Hunt is part of the London Sinfonietta Collective, a group of young artists from across London who come together to curate, produce and perform events with the ensemble. You may have seen him perform at our Collective Night Shadoworks on 3 June, or as one of The Irrepressibles, but you can hear excerpts of his compositions on his MySpace page.
Our current favourite is an excerpt of Opera (For Theo), “a musical extravaganza – a rhapsody of power, pain and passion” which includes excerpts of Berio, Ligeti, Puccini ... and Whitney Houston. Click here to hear it...
18 December
There’s a suitably wintry feel to the start of this animation, which accompanies Steve Reich’s Variations for wind, Strings and Keyboard. Click here if you need a reminder that snow can be magical ...
19 December
A warning: this little clip will not expand your mind. It is a little bit silly. But it amused us on a cold Friday afternoon in the London Sinfonietta office ...
20 December
Right now, the London Sinfonietta is looking forward to 2011. As well as our showcases of Beat Furrer and Tom Adès, we are off to the big apple with the OAE in 2011 to perform Heiner Goebbel’s Songs of Wars I Have Seen. For Hannah and Roz in the LS office, this means one thing: sorting out visas!
Rather than putting you through the rigourous visa paperwork, however, we’ll allow you to sit back and watch this clip of Klang Ensemble’s recent performance of Goebbels’ Walden. Much more restful …
21 December
BBC 6Music is currently running a series called Paperback Writers, exploring the musical influences of some of the UK’s most successful novelists. Ian Rankin likes Mogwai, and I’ve heard Mark Haddon is a big Reich fan. But what about composers who’ve been influenced by great literature? George Benjamin’s A Mind of Winter is based on a Wallace Stevens poem, but do you know who Naomi Pinnock’s literary influences are?
Email guestlist@londonsinfonietta.org.uk with the name of one of the writers to have influenced Pinnock’s new piece words in the subject line, and we’ll enter you into a prize draw to win a pair of tickets to the premiere on 18 January. Your deadline for entries is 6pm today.
*HINT*You might want to check out Day 15 of our countdown for a helping hand ...
22 December
Ever wanted to get a musician’s eyeview? Click on this link to see a performance of Steve Reich’s Tehillim shot from a conductor cam.
P.S And if you like the music don’t forget our performance on 18 February
23 December
“I was interested in writing fast music ... and in a repetition which [...] you don't hear as repetition”. For those pianists among you here’s a clip on You Tube of Beat Furrer’s Nuun for two pianos – have a listen and then come and see the real thing on 18 January
24 December
For the final musical window of the London Sinfonietta’s Digital Christmas Countdown we’ve another special YouTube pick from Principal pianist John Constable. John says: Here is my favourite Dudley Moore video, his marvellous version of Peter Pears singing a Britten folk-song arrangement followed by a superb Kurt Weill song. I shall certainly be watching this again over Christmas”
Happy Festive Season from all at the London Sinfonietta!
