Scotland's intoxicating musical export


Seen above is BIS' recording of James MacMillan's trumpet and clarinet concertos. This week the composer's new oboe concerto is being premiered by Nicholas Daniel and the Britten Sinfonia. At a pre-concert event at the Norwich performance on Wednesday Oct 20 I will be talking to James MacMillan and Nick Daniel about the new concerto, and I will also be asking them if classical music should be amplified.

The concert is one of those gems of Britten Sinfonia programming. James MacMillan is conducting, and his new oboe concerto is preceded by Rudolf Barshai's chamber orchestra arrangement of Shostakovich's Eighth Quartet. In the second half a masterpiece in the form of Beethoven's Second Symphony is quite rightly moved from its usual position of concert opener to concert finale.

If you cannot get to Norwich or the other concerts, a recording of the London performance is being broadcast by BBC Radio 3 on Thursday evening (Oct 21). My pre-concert talk should be recorded and available later as a podcast on the Britten Sinfonia website. Other interesting talks already available include one with Latvian composer Eriks Esenvalds, more on Erik here.

* More on the concert here.

Also on Facebook and Twitter. I have received two complimentary tickets for this concert from the Britten Sinfonia. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

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