Charles pushes the new music envelope

Prince Charles has commissioned a piano concerto in memory of the Queen Mother. It is a great time to commission new music in the UK with Mark-Anthony Turnage, Thomas Adès, Judith Weir, the Queen's own Master of the Music Peter Maxwell Davies and many other contemporary composers just waiting for the royal command. So who did our future king choose? Well .... Nigel Hess actually.

Here, from his publisher's website, is an extract from Hess' resumé: He has worked extensively as a composer and conductor in television, theatre and film. His numerous credits include A Woman of Substance, Vanity Fair, Campion, Testament (Ivor Novello Award for Best TV Theme), Summer’s Lease (Television & Radio Industries Club Award for Best TV Theme), Maigret, Classic Adventure (‘Music from the Movies’ Award for Best BBC Theme), Dangerfield, Just William, Stick With Me Kid for Disney, Wycliffe for HTV (Royal Television Society Nomination for Best TV Theme and ‘Music from the Movies’ Award for Best ITV Theme), and the BBC’s Hetty Wainthropp Investigates starring Patricia Routledge (Ivor Novello Award for Best TV Theme and Royal Television Society Nomination for Best TV Theme).

If my friends from Sequenza21 want to book their transatlantic flights for the royal premiere it is in July with Lang Lang at the well-prepared piano. Quite appropriately Lang Lang was inspired to become a pianist by seeing a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

Now read how Charles said Alban Berg - you can't call that music
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That's Harrison Birtwistle - quick, let's hide

The Prince of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall are in Philadelphia on Saturday as part of their current American tour, and it's great to see the royal couple taking in a cutting edge contemporary music concert at the city's famed Academy of Music.

Here's the programme - The Philadelphia Orchestra, Christoph Eschenbach, conductor
Tom Brokaw, host, Deborah Voigt, soprano, Ben Heppner, tenor, Dongwon Shin, tenor, John Lithgow, vocalist
The Philadelphia Singers Chorale, David Hayes, music director, Peter Nero, piano
Special Guest Appearance by Rod Stewart, A Selection of Popular Songs

Ravel "General Dance," from Daphnis and Chloé
Puccini "Vissi d'arte," from Tosca
Giordano "Un dì all'azzurro spazio," from Andrea Chénier
Verdi "Di quella pira," from Il trovatore
Verdi "Libiamo ne' lieti calici," from La traviata
Bach/Stokowski, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, & Dukas Fantasia Suite

Now take an Overgrown Path to some more progressive reflections on the Philadelphia Orchestra
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk