LPO pre-concert performance programme: 13 Apr 2022 - LPO Junior Artists

LPO Showcase free performance Wednesday 13 April 2022 | 6.00pm Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall

Ensemble of LPO Junior Artists, Foyle Future Firsts & LPO musicians Gabriella Teychenné conductor Bizet (arr Kerényi) Carmen Suite No. 1 Delius On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring Geoffrey King Chamber Symphony (world premiere) Bartók Romanian Folk Dances

LPO Junior Artists LPO Junior Artists is the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s annual orchestral experience programme for eight talented young musicians from backgrounds currently underrepresented in professional UK orchestras. The programme offers support, advice and professional insight to exceptional players of orchestral instruments aged 15–19 and at a minimum Grade 8 playing standard. Junior Artists become part of the London Philharmonic Orchestra family for a year, getting to know our musicians, staff and artists, as well as members of our New Talent schemes and former LPO Junior Artists.

This concert showcases the talent and achievement of current and past LPO Junior Artists, performing alongside LPO musicians and members of our Foyle Future Firsts development programme.

Programme notes Georges Bizet (1838–75) Carmen Suite No. 1 (1885) arr. Gábor Kerényi 1 2 3 4 5 6

Prélude Entr’acte: Aragonaise Entr’acte: Intermezzo Seguedille Entr’acte: Les Dragons d’Alcala Prélude: Les Toréadors

I really like the Bizet! It’s really bassoon-y and it’s a lot of fun to play.

Connor (bassoon)

One of the greatest operas of the 19th century, Carmen was French composer Georges Bizet’s 17th and last opera, for which he took inspiration from the popular novella by Prosper Mérimée, which had enticed French readers with exotic tales of Spain. Its heady combination of passion, sensuality and violence initially proved too much for the stage and the opera was a critical failure on its premiere in 1875. Bizet died shortly after, and never learned of the spectacular success Carmen would achieve.

The two orchestral Suites were drawn from the opera’s music and compiled posthumously by Bizet’s friend Ernest Guiraud, who also wrote the recitatives for Carmen. The short ‘Prélude’ presents the threatening fate motif that occurs frequently throughout the opera, most significantly at the end. The ‘Aragonaise’ describes the lively street scenes in Seville before the start of the bullfight. The ‘Intermezzo’ is the central point of the opera. Coming before the opening to Act 3, it expresses Don José’s deep love for Carmen in a short moment of calm, and contains one of the most beautiful melodies ever written for the flute. The ‘Seguedille’ is a Spanish song and dance that Carmen uses to seduce Don José into releasing her from prison. ‘Les Dragons d’Alcala’ is march in a ‘toy’ military style that opens the second act. The final movement describes the brilliant parade of the Toreadors on their way to the bull ring in Seville.

Frederick Delius (1862–1934) On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring (1912)

On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring is a tone-poem composed in 1912 by English composer Frederick Delius; it was first performed in Leipzig, Germany, on 23 October 1913 under conductor Arthur Nikisch.

Listen out for the cuckoo in this piece, and which instruments are playing it!

It is the first of Two Pieces for Small Orchestra, the second piece being Summer Night on the River, although these have for many years existed separately on recordings and in the concert hall. The piece opens with a slow three-bar sequence; its first theme is an exchange of cuckoo calls, first for oboe, then for divided strings. The second theme is scored for first violins, and is taken from a Norwegian folksong, ‘In Ola Valley’, which was brought to Delius’s attention by the Australian composer and folksong arranger Percy Grainger. The clarinet returns with the cuckoo calls before the piece ends in pastoral fashion.

Amalia (clarinet)

Programme notes Geoffrey King (born 1992) LPO Young Composer 2020/21 Chamber Symphony (world premiere) Commissioned for the LPO Junior Artists 1 2 3 4

Incantation Mesmer Berceuse Lullaby

I’ve loved playing Geoff’s piece because it’s really made me have to think – subdivisions, specifically, and lots of changing time signatures. It’s really required a lot of focus which is a good brain workout.

Sophie (percussion)

Titles are funny things. Those two words alongside this note – ‘Chamber Symphony’ – they cover a lot of ground. They stake out a position for me in the grand tradition of self-important men writing self-important music. They evoke the aristocratic past of European music patronage, to a kind of music which was inherently exclusive: so exclusive, in fact, that to hear it you would have needed a large enough music room in your house to accommodate it (or be friends with someone who did).

Is it a contradiction in terms to hear a chamber symphony to which the public is welcome? Surely this room doesn’t count as a chamber?

Most strangely, chamber symphonies, like their monolexical bigger siblings, often pretend to be about nothing but the music itself, as though it’s possible to separate the music from the context. The kind of music often described as transcendent, or universal, or timeless becomes incredibly not that as soon as we use those words.

So, have I written a chamber symphony? I’m not really sure, but I hope this music can help us examine, think about, and laugh at the pretensions of the past. I owe a huge debt of thanks to the participants of the LPO Junior Artists scheme, without whose joyful, energetic playing this piece could not exist, and to the LPO more generally for the myriad ways in which they support new music.

Geoffrey King

Béla Bartók (1881–1945) Romanian Folk Dances (1915, orch. 1917) 1 2 3 4 5 6

Stick Dance Sash Dance In One Spot Dance from Bucsum Romanian Polka Fast Dance

The Romanian Dances are my favourite work on tonight’s programme – I really like the vigour of the last two movements.

Vivek (violin)

Béla Bartók composed his Romanian Folk Dances as a suite of six short piano pieces in 1915, orchestrating it for small ensemble in 1917. It is based on Romanian tunes from Transylvania, which would have originally been played on fiddle or shepherd’s flute. Bartók collected these melodies during his travels in Transylvania between 1910 and 1912, where he recorded them on phonograph cylinders: state-of-the-art recording technology at the time.

The first movement, ‘Stick Dance’, was inspired by a melody Bartók heard played by two gypsy violinists in a Transylvanian village. It was a solo dance for a young man, which includes kicking the ceiling. This is followed by ‘Sash Dance’, a traditional spinning dance that uses sashes around the dancers’ waists. The third dance, ‘In One Spot’, is slow and haunting, evoking a Middle Eastern flute over an open fifth drone, and is followed by ‘Dance from Bucsum’ – a slow, genteel Romanian folk dance – and ‘Romanian Polka’, a quick rhythmic dance with changing metres. The finale, ‘Fast Dance’, combines two distinct melodies played as one movement, evoking the tiny, fast steps performed by couples as a courting dance.

Being on the Junior Artists programme has been thrilling. We’ve got to meet a lot of new people, got to work on this new composition, got to join the actual Orchestra, but my personal favourite is the mentor sessions, because you get to really work in depth on a piece with one of the orchestral members and get some really interesting insight into it for the future.

Oliver (cello), pictured with his Junior Artist mentor, LPO Co-Principal Cello Pei-Jee Ng

On stage tonight First Violins Lasma Taimina*

LPO chair supported by Irina Gofman & Mr Rodrik V. G. Cave

Vivek Dinesh Ramanan# Claudia Tarrant-Matthews‡ Second Violins Emma Oldfield* Inês Delgado‡ Nilufar Alimaksumova Violas Julia Doukakis° Danya Rushton§ Daniel Cornford Cellos Oliver Simpson# Iain Ward

Flutes Emily Burton# Elise Furber#

Horns Joel Roberts¶ Gareth Mollinson*

Piccolo Elise Furber#

Trumpet Nick Walker‡

Oboe Eleanor Sullivan°

Trombone Merin Rhyd‡

Clarinets Amalia Beeko# Thomas Watmough*

Timpani Luke Taylor‡

LPO chair supported by Roger Greenwood

Bassoons Connor Huss# Jonathan Davies*

LPO chair supported by Sir Simon Robey

Double Bass Brooke Simpson#

Percussion Sophie Warner# Laura Bradford¶ * # § ‡ ° ¶

LPO member LPO Junior Artist 2021/22 LPO Junior Artist alumni Foyle Future First 2021/22 Foyle Future First Associate 2021/22 Foyle Future First alumni

With thanks to LPO Junior Artist Mentors 2021/22: Tania Mazzetti violin, Pei-Jee Ng cello, Laura Murphy double bass, Stewart McIlwham flute, Thomas Watmough clarinet, Jonathan Davies bassoon, Andrew Barclay percussion.

Additional thanks to Mark Austin.

It doesn’t matter what direction you want to go with music – if you want to go into arts management, if you want to do playing, if you want to do conducting, composition, whatever – the scheme is able to cater to that and grow you massively as a musician.

Connor (bassoon)

LPO Junior Artists 2022/23: applications now open Applications are now open for LPO Junior Artists 2022/23. Applicants should be aged 15–18, Grade 8+ and from a background currently under-represented in professional UK orchestras. Come and find us at Door A, Level 3 Blue Side after this performance with any questions. The closing date is Friday 22 April 2022.

Find out more at lpo.org.uk/juniorartists

LPO Junior Artists: Overture LPO Junior Artists: Overture is our programme for younger musicians (aged 11–14) who play an orchestral instrument at Grade 4–8 standard. It offers the opportunity to become part of the London Philharmonic Orchestra for a day; meeting LPO musicians and LPO Junior Artists, playing as an ensemble, getting tips on your playing and finding out how to take your next steps as a musician. To join our mailing list and find out about upcoming Overture events, please contact us at juniorartists@lpo.org.uk The LPO Junior Artists Programme is generously funded by The Victoria Wood Foundation, The Radcliffe Trust and The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust.