ARTISTS
The BBC Symphony Orchestra has played a central role at the heart of British musical life since its inception in 1930, and as the flagship orchestra of the BBC provides the backbone of the BBC Proms with at least a dozen concerts each year, including the First and Last Nights. Strongly committed to twentieth-century and contemporary music, it has given the premiere of more than 1,000 works by composers such as Bartók, Britten, Hindemith, Holst, Stravinsky and Shostakovich, and more recently has premiered BBC commissions by Simon Bainbridge, Jonathan Dove, Michael Nyman and Sir John Tavener among others. Its annual season of concerts as Associate Orchestra of the Barbican includes a weekend each January focusing upon a single composer from the twentieth or twenty-first century, most recently James MacMillan, Elliott Carter and Sofia Gubaidulina.
Jiří Bĕlohlávek took up the post of Chief Conductor in July 2006 and David Robertson was appointed Principal Guest Conductor in 2005. The BBC SO works frequently with Conductor Laureate Sir Andrew Davis and Artist-in-Association John Adams. All concerts are broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and a number are televised, giving the BBC Symphony Orchestra the highest broadcast profile of any orchestra in the UK. The BBC SO is committed to innovative education work, with ongoing projects including the BBC SO Family Orchestra and Music Intro, introducing families to concert-going.
The BBC SO has appeared on 34 of NMC’s CDs, including the best-selling recording of Elgar’s Third Symphony.
Born in Glasgow in 1952, Knussen grew up near London, where his father was principal double bass of the London Symphony Orchestra. It was with the LSO that he made his debut in April 1968, conducting his First Symphony in London and in Carnegie Hall, New York. In 1970 he was awarded the first of three fellowships to Tanglewood, where he studied with Gunther Schuller. During this time he completed several works which were subsequently widely performed on both sides of the Atlantic and established his early reputation. In 1975 Knussen returned permanently to the UK.
From 1983 till 1998, Knussen was an Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival, and also held posts at the Tanglewood Music Center and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In 1992, with Colin Matthews, he established the Contemporary Composition and Performance courses at the Britten-Pears School in Snape.
After many years of close collaboration with the London Sinfonietta, Oliver Knussen became Music Director in 1998, and in 2002 was made Conductor Laureate. In 2006 he was appointed Artist in Association with the BCMG. Among his many awards are Honorary Memberships of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Royal Philharmonic Society, an Honorary Doctorate from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and the 2004 Association of British Orchestras Award. In 2006 he was named the second recipient of the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize from Northwestern University, USA.
He has guest-conducted in many parts of the world, including in the USA, Canada, Europe and Japan. As a conductor he has recorded more than thirty CDs of contemporary music, several of which have won international awards - these include Robin Holloway's Concerto for Orchestra No.2, which won NMC's first Gramophone Award, and Maxwell Davies' opera Taverner.
He became a CBE in the 1994 Birthday Honours.
A regular guest with many of the leading orchestras worldwide, Stefan Asbury is renowned for his innovative programming and passionate advocacy of new music. Aside from his ongoing relationships with the Basel Sinfonietta, Ensemble Contrechamps and the Tapiola Sinfonietta (of which he has been Artist in Associaton since the 2007/08 season) recent seasons have seen him perform with, amongst others, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, and the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra. In the 2009/10 season guest engagements include the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the NDR Sinfonieorchester, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and the Munich Biennale.
In the opera world, Stefan conducted John Adams’ A Flowering Tree for the 2009 Perth International Arts Festival and other recent opera productions include Wolfgang Rihm’s Jakob Lenz for the 2008 Wiener Festwochen, a concert version of Britten’s Owen Wingrave with Tapiola Sinfonietta, the world premiere of Van Vlijmen's Thyeste at Théâtre Royal de La Monnaie and Staud's Berenice at Munich Biennale. He will conduct A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Karlsruhe in December 2010.
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COMPOSER:
DESCRIPTION
Holloway's Second Concerto for Orchestra displays the composer at his most thrilling and eclectic. Inspired by a visit to North Africa, the work pulsates with energy and excitement.
REVIEWS
GRAMOPHONE AWARD WINNER - BEST CONTEMPORARY RECORDING 1994
"A fascinating disc: the Concerto isn't quite like anything else I know, and in every aspect NMC have served it well. It deserves the widest possible hearing."
Gramophone 1994
FUNDING
RECORDING CREDITS
Recording date: 25 April 1993
Recording venue: Studio 1, BBC Maida Vale
Engineers: Tryggvi Trggvason, Andrew Hallifax
Producers: Oliver Knussen, Colin Matthews
Editing & mastering: Marian Freeman
Cover image: Francois Hall
(P) 1993 NMC Recordings Ltd
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