Ensemble 10/10 - 2010-2011

Ensemble 10/10 New Music from the Phil 2010/ 2011

Creative Campus, Liverpool Hope University Box Office 0151 709 3789 www.liverpoolphil.com

Ensemble 10/10 New Music from the Phil 2010/ 2011

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The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic’s award winning Ensemble 10/10 presents another season packed with variety and excitement, with music from some of the best composers around today. We’ll celebrate a whole range of commissions and premieres, and the start of our partnership with the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. As usual each concert features at least one piece from a composer associated with the Northwest and we are happy once again to find some amazing new talent.

and will confirm it as an indispensable part of Liverpool’s music scene, and one of the most important groups of its kind in the country. We look forward to seeing you at these very special concerts.

Clark Rundell leads the ensemble throughout the season in the dynamic spaces of either the Capstone or Cornerstone on Liverpool Hope University’s Creative Campus. The season will be another milestone in the ensemble’s history

Andrew Cornall Executive Director (Artistic Policy - Orchestra and Ensembles)

Ensemble 10/10

The Ensemble 10/10 was founded by two RLPO members, clarinettist Nicholas Cox and cellist Hilary Browning. Since its first concert on 22 November 1997 at 10.10pm, it has become established as a regular feature of Liverpool concert life. Clark Rundell was appointed Director of 10/10 in 2005.

Clark Rundell director

Cover: 10/10 in rehearsal Mark McNulty photographer

Phil Channel The Music 10/10’s concerts are an eclectic mixture of new commissions, world premieres and contemporary classics given in an informal atmosphere. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic has commissioned a huge range of UK composers for the Ensemble, as well as many from abroad. 10/10 explores the best new music from around the world, but equally it actively supports local composers – concerts always include music from the Northwest.

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Ensemble category.

‘Ensemble 10/10’s 2008 programme showed remarkable integrity and imagination and a pleasing element of surprise. The jury was impressed by the Ensemble’s clear sense of artistic ambition, allied to the quality of the connection with its audiences.

Ensemble 10/10 has become an integral part of the RLPO’s activity and the jury hopes it will go on to become a lasting part of the Liverpool scene.’

Venues This season all events will be based at Liverpool Hope University’s Creative Campus, either in the excellent acoustic of the Great Hall of The Cornerstone, or at the new purpose built Hope Theatre in The Capstone.

Awards Ensemble 10/10 is the winner of two awards at the 2009 RPS Music Awards, the Concert Series and Festivals category and, along with the

On the Road 10/10 made its debut outside Liverpool at the 2000 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and will be returning there in November 2010.

It has performed in York and at the Glastonbury Festival and performs regularly at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

10/10 made its Wigmore Hall debut in collaboration with the Al Farabi concerto series in March 2010.

Phil Channel Log on to www.liverpoolphil.com and check out our Phil Channel, where you can enjoy videos of some of the highlights from the RLPO, Ensemble 10/10 and more from your own home.

Currently, you can watch Ensemble 10/10’s world premiere of Gary Carpenter’s One Million Tiny Operas about Britain from the 2009/2010 season featuring the soloists Loré Lixenberg and Jennifer John, as well as a spotlight on the life and work of Mieczysław Weinberg, composer of last season’s premiere Lady Magnesia.

In May 2010 Ensemble 10/10 performed the world premiere of the new Clarinet concerto, Dove of Peace: Homage to Picasso by the acclaimed Spanish composer Benet Casablancas.

The Phil Channel now includes a short documentary about the work’s relevance and background, including interviews with the key representatives involved with the commission, and a film of the entire

performance by RLPO Principal Clarinet, Nicholas Cox, with Ensemble 10/10.

Recordings The Ensemble is featured on four CDs; ‘When Worlds Collide’, the music of Frank Zappa in a collaboration with The Muffin Men, 2003; the music of John Casken (Metier Records, 2005); Gary Carpenter (NMC, 2007) and Stephen Pratt (RLPO Live, 2007). To buy the Carpenter and Pratt CDs, or to listen to sound clips from them, see www.liverpoolphil.com/shop. A CD featuring Michael Torke’s Tahiti and Tropical is due for release in the near future. Ensemble 10/10 enjoys an ongoing relationship with BBC Radio 3, who have broadcast several concerts.

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You’re invited to a question and answer session following the concert.

Clark Rundell and special guests will discuss the compositional process and their musical influences. Complimentary light refreshments will be available.

Dutch Treat Wednesday 17 November 2010 7.30pm The Capstone

Graham Fitkin new piece World Premiere jointly commissioned by Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival

Martijn Padding White Eagle UK Premiere Gary Carpenter Closing Time Jennifer Watson Reflections World Premiere in new version for ensemble

Martijn Padding Three Summer Pieces UK Premiere Clark Rundell conductor Heleen Hulst violin Tom Raskin tenor Rob Buckland saxophone A concert with a strong Dutch influence. Martijn Padding currently resides in Amsterdam while Graham Fitkin studied with the iconic Dutch composer Louis Andriessen.

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Padding’s work absorbs popular culture, jazz, and historical references as well as theatrical elements.

Violinist Heleen Hulst, who has performed a number of his works, takes the virtuosic lead role in this performance of White Eagle.

Graham Fitkin is no stranger to Liverpool as former Composer in Association at the Phil. His is music of strong rhythmical shapes, driving riffs and poignant melody set in contrasting imaginative sound tapestries. These are qualities which have secured him an international reputation.

Gary Carpenter lived in Holland writing for the Netherlands Dance Theatre and his wide-ranging compositional career has also seen many successful pieces composed for his ‘home’ group, Ensemble 10/10.

Closing Time was a 2008 Liverpool European Capital of Culture commission. The six songs are written

to poems of Eva Salzman that are marked by a directness of expression, a subtlety of feeling and a pervasive sensuality, aptly matched by Carpenter’s score. Ensemble 10/10 welcomes back Tom Raskin, who first performed with us last season in the world premiere of Weinberg’s one-act opera, Lady Magnesia, to sing the solo part.

Jennifer Watson, one of the recent shooting stars to come out of the Royal Northern College of Music, is as accomplished a saxophone player as she is gifted as a composer.

Technically assured and a personal synthesis of a wide range of inspirations, her piece is ‘an honest and emotional response to my influences to date.’ Rob Buckland, one of Jenni’s teachers takes the solo role in tonight’s performance.

Tickets £9 Graham Fitkin

Long Night of the Biennial: Sound Relay Thursday 18 November 2010 7pm – 10pm

New Music Plus Scheme

Philharmonic Hall, Tate Liverpool and various locations across Liverpool City Centre (Ensemble 10/10’s performance at Tate Liverpool is due to commence at 8.30pm)

Join the magnetic relay of sound as musicians including Ensemble 10/10 and the a.P.A.t.T. Orchestra take you on a cumulative journey of musical happenings from Hope Street to the Albert Dock.

Inspired by the Tate Liverpool Touched exhibition as part of the Liverpool Biennial, and taking composer Jennifer Watson’s Reflections as its focus, musicians test the limits of their own practice to create a series of surprising, experimental and reflexive happenings. Follow the Long Night trail as the procession gathers pace, picking up new musical material along the way.

Starting at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic foyer at 7pm, the relay gathers momentum with performances at Rapid, FACT and the Bluecoat before making its final journey to Tate Liverpool with music in the galleries, including in and around the stunning installation of

Magdalena Abakanowicz’s Embryology (1978-1980). A complete performance of Jennifer Watson’s piece will be given in the Wolfson Room at Tate Liverpool as the climax of the relay.

This is an un-ticketed, free event Supported by PRS for Music Foundation’s New Music Plus… an initiative developed in association with the hub, with funding from by Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Arts Council England and Sound and Music.

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society is part of New Music Plus… developed by the PRS for Music Foundation in association with the hub, supported by Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Arts Council England and Sound and Music.

The scheme partners music producers with ensembles around the Northwest to cultivate innovative approaches to programming new music. Ensemble 10/10 is working with producer Jonathan Hering throughout 2010.

Hering has been an impetus for the a.P.A.t.T. orchestra’s concert series, constructing performances of modern music that consider the unique architectural space of each venue. His 30 person orchestra of players from across the Liverpool music scene gave a celebrated performance of Terry Riley’s In C at the Bluecoat in December 2009, as well as a performance of John Cage’s Variations I at the Walker Art Gallery shortly thereafter. Hering is also a composer, and his works have been performed by members of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

L to R: Jonathan Hering, 10/10 Music Director Clark Rundell, Benet Casablancas and the Phil’s Principal Clarinet, Nicholas Cox

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Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival Sunday 21 November 2010 5.00pm (Pre-concert talk 4pm, CAM G/01) St Paul’s Hall, The University of Huddersfield

Graham Fitkin new piece Jointly commissioned by Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival

Martijn Padding White Eagle Gary Carpenter Closing Time Martijn Padding Three Summer Pieces Clark Rundell conductor Heleen Hulst violin Tom Raskin tenor

UK’s most prestigious award for live classical music, hcmf// was recognized by the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards judges as ‘a shining example of global ambition’.

The programme includes concerts, installations, multi-media presentations, exhibitions, workshops, talks and films. This year the Festival welcomes Rebecca Saunders as Composer in Residence.

In 2010 the Festival runs from 19 – 28 November. Highlight events are now on sale – for full details please visit www.hcmf.co.uk.

Ensemble 10/10 has been invited to Produced by hcmf// supported by British return to the Huddersfield Festival in Council; also supported by Music Center November 2010, where they made their the Netherlands and NFPK+. debut outside Liverpool ten years ago.

Tickets £15 (£13 concession; £10 online) The UK’s largest festival of new and Contact details: experimental music brings an Box office 01484 430 528 international mix of composers, Festival Office 01484 472 900 performers and partners to E-mail hcmfinfo@hud.ac.uk Huddersfield. Recent winner of the

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Top: Martijn Padding Gerrit Schreurs photographer / Anna Meredith www.annameredith.com Bottom: Mark Simpson Sussie Ahlberg photographer / Jennifer Watson

You’re invited to a question and answer session following the concert.

Complimentary light refreshments will be available.

Electro-Acoustic Night Wednesday 9 February 2011 7.30pm The Cornerstone

Larry Goves / Mira Calix new work World Premiere commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

Anna Meredith Flak Matthew Fairclough new work World Premiere Manuella Blackburn Cajón!

Edgard Varèse Deserts Clark Rundell conductor Larry Goves, Mira Calix electronics Up to the minute cutting-edge electroacoustic compositions sit beside the work that many consider to be the founding of the genre. Edgard Varèse completed his Deserts in Paris in the early 1950’s. Written for 20-mostly wind-instrumentalists and tape, there are three hard-edged tape interpolations (created from factory sounds and percussion instruments)

which come between the four monumental sounding instrumental episodes. The work became a classic and consolidated his reputation as a pioneer of electronic music.

‘the disco from hell’ and it draws on her love of dance music and electronica, where the electronics turn the instrumentalists ‘into raucous, super charged versions of themselves’.

Larry Goves is at the end of a year-long collaboration with Warp Records composer/vocalist/DJ Mira Calix.

Sharing working methodologies and aesthetic ideas, they combine their wildly different approaches to instrumental composition and live electronic performance. Tonight hears new arrangements of their exciting work and new music especially written for the occasion which they’ll perform alongside the musicians of 10/10.

Manuella Blackburn is an electroacoustic composer and lecturer at Liverpool Hope University. She is particularly interested in the juxtaposition of language and shapes with the creation of her electronic works. Cajón! makes use of sound recordings of the percussion instrument of the same title. Due to the top edges of the front panel being unfixed this boxlike percussion instrument produces a rich variety of sounds.

Anna Meredith is presently the PRS/RPS Composer in the House with Sinfonia ViVA. With a string of important commissions under her belt for the BBC Proms, Ensemble Modern, Smith Quartet and the London Sinfonietta, she is one of the fastest rising young composers on the scene today. Flak was described as ‘a rich, deeply funky piece’,

Liverpool University based Matthew Fairclough is a composer and sound designer specialising in live electronics and multimedia performances. His acoustic piece for 10/10 last season was well received, but in this new piece he returns to his electro-acoustic roots.

Mira Calix

Tickets £9 Ensemble 10/10

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Continental Drift Wednesday 16 March 2011 7.30pm The Cornerstone

Detlev Glanert Mahler/Skizze Daniel Kidane 3 Stück Anthony Gilbert Encantos World Premiere Adam Gorb Dancing in the Ghetto Robin Hartwell The Dancers World Premiere Hans Werner Henze Dance and Salon Music Clark Rundell conductor Marie Vassiliou soprano Doyen of European composers, Hans Werner Henze extracted some of the most evocative music from his 1952 ballet pantomime The Idiot, to create his Dance and Salon Music. Typical of his early ‘exploratory phase’, the language is reminiscent of neoclassical Stravinsky.

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Detlev Glanert studied with Henze and shows a similar fascination for lyricism and romanticism but filtered through a modern perspective. His Mahler/Skizze is a short admiration of that composer.

Anthony Gilbert’s song-cycle is set to the Spanish symbolist love poetry of Magdalena Mismareza and other anonymous texts. Gilbert’s long and distinguished career has taken him on several distinct musical journeys whilst always maintaining a highly individual and expressive voice. The cycle was written for soloist Marie Vassiliou who gives its world premiere tonight.

Head of Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music, Adam Gorb often draws on his Jewish heritage for musical inspiration, though always in creative and subtle ways. Gorb is no stranger to Ensemble 10/10 with works regularly performed, his most recent being Wedding Breakfast in the 2009/2010 season.

Robin Hartwell, lecturer in music at Liverpool’s Hope University, has reworked a striking early piece for ensemble so that we can celebrate his 60th birthday year. The Dancers is finely crafted and stylishly scored and reflects the composer's compositional and research interests in European modernism.

Residing in the Northwest and mentored by composer Gary Carpenter, Daniel Kidane was selected for a prestigious young composer’s project at the National Gallery in 2009.

His three miniatures show energy and elegance in abundance.

Tickets £9

Daniel Kidane

American Dream Wednesday 6 April 2011 7.30pm The Capstone

John Adams Son of Chamber Symphony Mark Simpson new work World Premiere commissioned by Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

Michael Daugherty Snap!

Miguel del Águila A Conga Line in Hell Nico Muhly

By All Means Clark Rundell conductor John Adams, perhaps the most frequently performed living American composer, harnesses the rhythmic energy of Minimalism to the harmonies and orchestral colours of late-Romanticism. The success of his barnstorming Chamber Symphony has delivered another virtuosic vehicle, naturally called ‘Son of...’. The Los Angeles Times called the last

movement ‘one of those Adams bucking-bronco blastoffs’.

Michael Daugherty is also one of today’s most played and commissioned American composers.

His eclectic, ironic and witty music has found a ready international audience.

Snap! was the piece that defined his style in the late 1980’s. It is a jazz tribute to the golden age of Hollywood and the panache of James Cagney's tap dancing performances!

Infused with a different sort of dance flavour, A Conga Line in Hell comes out of a dream of ‘an endless line of dead people dancing through the fire of hell’. Miguel del Águila’s music is coloured by Latin American and world music idioms which enhance a highly dramatic musical style, and as this piece takes on its wildly differing emotional twists, the conga rhythm becomes terrifyingly unrelenting.

Based in New York, Nico Muhly studied extensively with Philip Glass and has become a highly regarded film composer. His work By All Means is partially inspired by Webern’s Concerto for Nine Instruments Op.24, and combines the pungent chromatic variation of Webern with lush postWagnerian harmonies.

Liverpool born Mark Simpson is one of 10/10’s ‘own’ composers. The Ensemble has championed and commissioned his music from his teenage years and now the world has woken up to his talent. His 2008 Capital of Culture commission Nur Musik was widely admired by critics and this will be another remarkable part of a continuing journey.

Tickets £9

Michael Daugherty Grant Leighton photographer

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European Composers’ Professional Development Programme Ensemble 10/10 in conjunction with Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (hcmf//) takes part in a professional development programme aiming to supply talented composers from the UK, Italy and the Netherlands with training and development opportunities to become successful musicians.

The European Composers' Professional Development Programme has been built by representatives from key contemporary music organisations, including; hcmf//, Nieuw Ensemble from The Netherlands, Icarus Ensemble from Italy and Ensemble 10/10 from the UK. It will present new opportunities for emerging composers to work alongside leading new music practitioners, promote themselves internationally and experience music in other countries.

The original project, launched in 2008, saw hcmf// and the Nieuw Ensemble offer four composers studying at Yorkshire universities the chance to work with the Nieuw Ensemble on four compositions to be premiered during hcmf//.

Success from the original programme has led to funding from the European Union Culture Programme. With this and new links with Ensemble 10/10

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and Icarus Ensemble the programme has been extended to composers from Italy and The Netherlands allowing a total of 12 composers to take part per year.

As part of the programme composers will spend two weekends with their respective ensembles developing ideas and pieces for premiere at hcmf//. They will also take part in business development seminars, receiving advice on marketing and promotion, publishing, networking and legal matters. Participants will take advantage of continued support throughout the year from mentors and be brought together through hcmf// on an online forum. Mentors on the 2011 programme include Gary Carpenter, David Horne, Emily Howard and Stephen Pratt.

Completed pieces will be performed for the first time at the following year’s hcmf// as well as receiving a guaranteed second performance.

The programme will run again in 2012 on the same basis but with twelve new composers.

A century in music at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic It’s not just Ensemble 10/10 that performs new music and great classics of the 20th and 21st centuries. Here’s a selection of works, composed mainly since 1940, which are being performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and by visiting recitalists and chamber ensembles over the 2010/11 season.

Pick up a brochure for full details of all events.

Friday 17 September 2010 1.05pm Gordon Jacob Sonatina Michael Head 3 Pieces for Oboe and Piano Edmund Rubbra Oboe Sonata in C

Sunday 21 November 2010 2.30pm Stravinsky 8 Instrumental Miniatures

Saturday 25 September 2010 7.30pm Shchedrin Oboe Concerto

Tuesday 14 December 2010 7.30pm St. George’s Hall Concert Room ~ ~ Piazzolla Otono Porteno

UK Premiere, jointly commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

Shostakovich Symphony No.15 Saturday 2 October 2010 7.30pm Ian Stephens Oxbow for Daiubu and Orchestra Thursday 21 October 2010 7.30pm Orff Carmina Burana Wednesday 10 November 2010 7.30pm St. George’s Hall Concert Room Bartók Romanian Folk Dances Thursday 11 November 2010 1.05pm Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time Thursday 18 November 2010 7.30pm Wigglesworth A First Book of Inventions

Thursday 2 December 2010 7.30pm Glanert Drei Gesänge ohne Worte

Saturday 19 March 2011 7.30pm St. George’s Hall Concert Room Glass String Quartet No. 2 ‘Company’ Sunday 3 April 2011 2.30pm Vaughan Williams Wasps Overture Thursday 14 April 2011 1.05pm Arnold Three Shanties

Wednesday 2 & Thursday 3 February 2011 7.30pm Stravinsky Circus Polka Finzi Eclogue for piano and strings Delius On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring Stravinsky Firebird Suite (1945)

Wednesday 20 April 2011 7.30pm James MacMillan St. John Passion

Thursday 17 February 2011 7.30pm Walton Scapino: A Comedy Overture John Ireland Piano Concerto Holst The Planets

Chaplin The Pilgrim

Sunday 20 February 2011 2.30pm Walton Scapino: A Comedy Overture Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending Ireland Mai Dun - Symphonic Rhapsody for Orchestra Holst The Planets

Saturday 30 April 2011 7.30pm Carl Davis Ballade for Cello and Orchestra

Sunday 15 May 2011 2.30pm Piazzolla Bandoneón Concerto ‘Aconcagua’ Milhaud Le Boeuf sur le Toit Piazzolla Tangos Ginastera Suite from Estancia Tuesday 14 June 2011 7.30pm St. George’s Hall Concert Room Dutilleux Ainsi la Nuit All events take place in Liverpool Philharmonic Hall unless otherwise specified.

World Premiere, commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

Thursday 12 May 2011 7:30pm Villa Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras No. 9 Piazzolla Bandoneón Concerto ‘Aconcagua’ Villa Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras No.8 Ginastera Suite from Estancia

World Premiere

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Booking Information When to book

Public Transport

By post or in person in advance.

Box Office, Philharmonic Hall, Hope Street, Liverpool, L1 9BP.

By Telephone 0151 709 3789 Online www.liverpoolphil.com

Bus numbers 14, 17 and 19 from Queens Square Bus Station, in central Liverpool, stop at Brunswick Road (close to the campus) regularly.

Please note that booking fees may apply

Directions from the M62

Group Discounts If you would like to bring a group to an Ensemble 10/10 concert please call Dawn Williams, Group Sales Coordinator, on 0151 210 2918 or email dawn.williams@liverpoolphil.com

Alternatively you may wish to park at the 24-hour Q-Park on Epworth Street, off Erskine Street. Pick up a voucher at the campus for a discounted rate of ÂŁ1.90 for up to 5 hours.

Continue along the motorway until its end; keep going along Edge Lane towards the city centre. Turn right on to Hall Lane. Go straight over the crossroads. Follow the road round to the left onto Erskine Street, and then turn right at the lights into Shaw Street.

Principal Funders

Thanks to the City of Liverpool for its financial support

Principal Partner

Higher Education Partner

Please note that booking fees may apply.

Where to park your car How to find Liverpool Hope’s Creative Campus The entrance to Liverpool Hope University's Creative Campus, which comprises the Capstone Building and the Cornerstone Building, is from Shaw Street opposite the Collegiate.

There is limited parking available on the campus from 45 minutes prior to evening performances. Car park spaces are available on a first come first served basis and a small fee will be charged.

Car park times/prices were correct at the time of going to print. Please check opening and closing times and prices of these car parks before parking.

Media Partner

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