TOTAL IMMERSION

MISSY MAZZOLI
Sunday 25 February 2024
SAK ARI OR AMO CHIEF CONDUCTOR

The BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican

Be transported to a world where music tells powerful stories,
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CONCERTS MARCH – APRIL

FRIDAY 8 MARCH 7.30pm WEDNESDAY 20 MARCH 7.30pm FRIDAY 26 APRIL 7.30PM

EINOJUHANI RAUTAVAARA MICHAEL TIPPETT KATE ATKINSON AND

A Requiem in Our Time The Midsummer Marriage – THE BBC SO
AULIS SALLINEN Mauermusik Ritual Dances Author Kate Atkinson joins the
JOHANNES BRAHMS A German RAYMOND YIU Violin Concerto BBC SO for an evening of words
Requiem BBC commission: world premiere and music.

Sakari Oramo conductor LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Symphony No. 7 in A major
Anu Komsi soprano
Christian Senn baritone Sir Andrew Davis conductor
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FRIDAY 15 MARCH 7.30pm WEDNESDAY 27 MARCH 7.30pm

ARVO PÄRT Cantus in memoriam THE DEATH OF STALIN – FOLLOW US ON

Benjamin Britten IN CONCERT Facebook, Instagram
BENJAMIN BRITTEN Sinfonia da Screening of Armando Iannucci’s and X (formerly Twitter)
Requiem 2017 film satire with live
EINOJUHANI RAUTAVAARA Into accompaniment of Christopher
the Heart of Light (Canto V) Willis’s orchestral score, followed
by a Q&A with the film’s director,
SIR JAMES MACMILLAN Fiat lux producer and cast members,
UK premiere including Jason Isaacs and
Sir James MacMillan conductor Michael Palin.
Mary Bevan soprano
Roderick Williams baritone
BBC Symphony Chorus FRIDAY 19 APRIL 7.30pm

CAMILLE PÉPIN Les Eaux célestes

UK Premiere
FRANCIS POULENC Gloria
HECTOR BERLIOZ Symphonie
fantastique
Daniele Rustioni conductor
Sally Matthews soprano
BBC Symphony Chorus
 SAK ARI OR AMO CHIEF CONDUCTOR

TOTAL IMMERSION

Missy Mazzoli
SUNDAY 25 FEBRUARY 2024

Please ensure all mobile phones and watch-alarms are switched off.
TOTA L I M M E R S I O N : M IS SY MAZZO L I

11.00am 5.00pm
FOUNTAIN ROOM MILTON COURT CONCERT HALL

FREE EVENT CONCERT 2

Meet Missy Mazzoli – in person and on film Guildhall Musicians
A collection of short films introducing Missy
Mazzoli and her music, hosted by Sara Mohr- Missy Mazzoli Vespers for Violin 5’
Pietsch, with an introduction to the music to Jessie Montgomery Lunar Songs 7’
be played in the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s Missy Mazzoli Harp and Altar 10 ’
concert at 1.30pm. Free event. Limited Breaking the Waves – ‘His name is Jan’
availability but entry guaranteed to Day Pass UK premiere 5’
holders. Please note that two of the films will
A Thousand Tongues UK premiere 7’
also be shown in the 3.30pm event.
Breaking the Waves – ‘Goodness! What
1.30pm powers you possess’ UK premiere 3’
BARBICAN HALL Hildegard of Bingen O frondens virga
(arr. Mazzoli) UK premiere 4’
CONCERT 1
Worlds in Us Missy Mazzoli Ecstatic Science 10 ’

Missy Mazzoli Guildhall School Musicians

Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) 9’ Richard Benjafield conductor
Violin Concerto, ‘Procession’ 21’
There will be no interval
These Worlds in Us 9’
Orpheus Undone UK premiere 16’ For programme notes, see page 12

Elina Vähälä violin

BBC Symphony Orchestra 8.00pm
Dalia Stasevska conductor BARBICAN HALL
There will be no interval
CONCERT 3
For programme notes, see page 8 Song from the Uproar
Missy Mazzoli
3.30pm
Song from the Uproar: The Lives
FOUNTAIN ROOM
and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt
FREE EVENT UK premiere 75’
Meet Missy Mazzoli – in person and on film
A collection of short films introducing Missy Kitty Whately mezzo-soprano
Mazzoli and her music, hosted by Sara Mohr- Lucia Chocarro dancer
Pietsch, with an introduction to Mazzoli’s BBC Singers
opera Song from the Uproar. Free event. BBC Symphony Orchestra Ensemble
Marylene Mey

Limited availability but entry guaranteed to Sofi Jeannin conductor

Day Pass holders. Please note that two of Isabelle Kettle stage director
the films were also shown in the 11.00pm
event. Due to the nature of its content, this There will be no interval
afternoon’s film screening is advised as being
for an adult audience only. For programme notes, see page 21

2
It’s part of my job as a composer
who is alive in 2023 to make
things that are new, and make
things that don’t sound like
anything else. And I’m particularly
interested in making music that
is hard to categorise. I’m very
influenced by Baroque music and
traditional opera, but also indie
rock and noise rock. And the older
I get, and the more music I make,
the harder it is for me to nail
down exactly what the label of
my work is, or should be or could
be. I think that’s great. I think that
it’s a sign that I’m synthesising all
these things in my environment,
and making something that I hope
is truly new.
Missy Mazzoli in conversation with Emma Robertson for the online
interview magazine The Talks.

3
MISSY MAZZOLI – told me back then for a profile published
TA K I N G C H A R G E in The New York Times. ‘That was a really
moving, powerful, addictive thing for
Steve Smith introduces the music and me, and it was a turning point in the way
outlook of the American composer I thought about how I wanted to get my
music out there.’
‘I feel, in my life, like I’m writing one big
piece,’ Missy Mazzoli told me recently over Born in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, in 1980,
steaming bowls of ramen near her home in Mazzoli proclaimed herself a composer at
Brooklyn. ‘Every single piece comes out of the age of 10. She pursued her education
the piece before, and is hearkening back to at the Yale School of Music, the Royal
[my] first pieces. I can think of things that Conservatory of The Hague and Boston
I was experimenting with as a teenager – University. She studied with prominent
in terms of harmony and moods that composers representing a wide range of
I wanted to create, even before I had the stylistic practices and idioms, including
skills to do it – that I’m still working on.’ Louis Andriessen, Richard Ayres, David
Lang, Martin Bresnick, Aaron Jay Kernis
It’s an exciting time now for Mazzoli, and John Harbison.
a prominent, celebrated fixture in the
contemporary concert hall and opera That none of her teachers were women
house. In practical terms, she’s come a was a disappointment Mazzoli would
long way from the early days when you devise a way to tackle head-on years
were more likely to find her performing later, when in 2016 she co-founded Luna
her own music in an art gallery or a Composition Lab with fellow composer
nightclub that normally catered to Ellen Reid. The programme has given
indie rock bands. dozens of teenage female, non-binary
and gender non-conforming composers
She wasn’t slumming or trying to not only guidance and opportunities
‘cross over’. As she attested in the 2007 but also recognition, validation and a
documentary film The End of New Music, supportive community.
which followed her on a 2005 tour of what
might now be termed ‘alternative spaces’, ‘I didn’t meet another female composer
she was taking charge: not only over the until I was in my 20s, and I didn’t meet a
art she was making but also over the way professional female composer until I was
it reached a receptive public. in college,’ Mazzoli said in a 2023 NPR
interview. ‘I didn’t really have colleagues
‘I finally felt like I had control over how in my early career who were other women.
my music was reaching an audience, for That sort of support network is essential
maybe the first time in my life,’ Mazzoli as an artist – having people around

4
you who can share that aspect of your Mazzoli resides on a global stage
experience is really key.’ now, with operas and orchestral works
mounted worldwide – not least under the
Even so, the disparate lessons and auspices of the BBC, which has presented
viewpoints Mazzoli gleaned from her several major works prior to today’s
training gave her skills and tools suited Total Immersion. Having such a broad
to any setting. Working with other span of her works presented together
independent artists and performers, she reinforces Mazzoli’s own perception that
established herself as an inspired writer the ideas now motivating her art are the
of dramatic vocal works with the early same impulses that sparked her creative
chamber opera Song from the Uproar: drive initially.
The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt,
which was premiered in New York in 2012 For example, she views Harp and Altar,
(and receives its UK premiere tonight her debut string quartet from 2009, as a
at 8.00pm). kind of prototype for Orpheus Undone, an
orchestral work she composed in 2020,
Major institutions soon came calling. during her three-season residency with
Mazzoli won global acclaim in 2016 for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. ‘I finally
her second opera, Breaking the Waves, had the skills to explore things on a bigger
based on the controversial Lars von Trier palette when I was writing Orpheus and
film – a work nurtured jointly by Opera had an orchestra to work with, but it’s
Philadelphia and Beth Morrison Projects. the same sort of rhythmic driving idea,’
Proving Up, a haunting chamber opera Mazzoli said.
jointly commissioned by the Washington
National Opera, Opera Omaha and ‘Those kinds of connections are
Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, happening all the time as I’m looking at
arrived in 2018. this programme – I kind of wish I could
invite people into my brain to see all this,’
That year, the Metropolitan Opera she added, laughing.
awarded Mazzoli one of the company’s
first two commissions ever extended to ‘But you can come into it knowing
a woman composer, for a work based on none of that, not even knowing who
George Saunders’s novel Lincoln in the I am, I think, and still have a valid, deep,
Bardo. With that work still on her desk, in rich experience.’
2022 Mazzoli oversaw the premiere by the
Norwegian National Opera of another new Steve Smith is a journalist, critic and editor based
in New York City. He has written about music for
opera, The Listeners, commissioned jointly The New York Times and The New Yorker and served
with Opera Philadelphia and Lyric Opera as an editor for the Boston Globe, Time Out New
of Chicago. York and National Public Radio.

5
MISSY MAZZOLI: 2012
TIMELINE Her first opera, Song from the Uproar,
is premiered at The Kitchen in New York.
1980 A further dramatic work, the ‘cello opera’
Born on 27 October in Lansdale, SALT, is premiered by Maya Beiser and
Pennsylvania. vocalist Helga Davis at Chapel Hill, North
Carolina. She is appointed Composer-
2006 in-Residence with Opera Philadelphia
Having studied at Boston University’s
(2012–15).
College of Fine Arts, she receives a
master’s degree from the Yale School 2014
of Music. These Worlds in Us is premiered Premiere of Vespers for a New Dark Age
by the Yale Philharmonia and given its at Carnegie Hall, New York. John Adams
professional premiere by the Minnesota conducts the premiere of Sinfonia (for
Orchestra under Osmo Vänskä. Orbiting Spheres) at the Los Angeles
Philharmonic Orchestra’s ‘Minimalist
2007 Jukebox’ festival.
Becomes Artistic Director of the MATA
Festival in New York City, an organisation 2015
dedicated to promoting the work of young Vespers for a New Dark Age issued on CD
composers (2007–10). in a performance by percussionist Glenn
Kotche, electronic producer Lorna Dune
2008 and Victoire.
Founds the ensemble Victoire to perform
her own compositions. 2016
Premiere by Opera Philadelphia of her
2010 opera Breaking the Waves, which goes on
Her first portrait CD, Cathedral City with
to win Best New Opera at the Music Critics
Victoire, is released.
Association of North America Awards.
2011–12 Co-founds Luna Composition Lab with
Becomes Composer/Educator in residence fellow composer Ellen Reid, a mentorship
with the Albany Symphony. programme and support network for
teenage female, non-binary and gender
non-conforming composers.

6
2017 2023
Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) receives A flurry of recordings includes Dark with
its UK premiere at the BBC Proms in Excessive Bright, a portrait CD including
a performance by the BBC Symphony performances by violinist Peter Herresthal
Orchestra under Karina Canellakis. and the Bergen Philharmonic and Arctic
Philharmonic orchestras; Sinfonia (for
2018 Orbiting Spheres), performed by the
Becomes one of the first two women Iceland Symphony Orchestra under Daníel
(the other is Jeanine Tesori) to receive a Bjarnason; and Third Coast Percussion’s
commission from the Metropolitan Opera, performance of Millennium Canticles.
New York, and is appointed the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra’s Mead Composer- 2025
in-Residence (2018–21). Mazzoli’s opera Lincoln in the Bardo, based
on the novel by George Saunders and
2019 commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera,
Breaking the Waves receives its European New York, scheduled to be premiered in
premiere at the Edinburgh International London by English National Opera.
Festival. Vespers for Violin, recorded
by Olivia De Prato, is nominated for a
Grammy Award in the Best Contemporary
Composition category.

2020
Profiled in Gramophone magazine.

2022
Her most recent opera, The Listeners, is
premiered in September in Oslo, and she
is named Composer of the Year by Musical
America. The Violin Concerto, ‘Procession’,
a BBC co-commission, is premiered by
Jennifer Koh and the National Symphony
Orchestra of Washington DC and is given
its European premiere at the Proms by Koh
and the Philharmonia Orchestra under
Santtu-Matias Rouvali. Riccardo Muti and
the Chicago Symphony Orchestra give the
world premiere of Orpheus Undone. Joins
the faculty of Bard College, New York.

7
CONCERT 1 M I S S Y M A Z Z O L I (born 1980)
1.30pm BARBICAN HALL
Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres)
Worlds in Us
(2013, rev. 2016)

MISSY MAZZOLI Commissioned by the Los Angeles

Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) 9’ Philharmonic Orchestra for its innovative
Violin Concerto, ‘Procession’ 21’ Green Umbrella new music series –
These Worlds in Us 9’ and specifically for a marathon concert
Orpheus Undone UK premiere 16’ presented during the orchestra’s
‘Minimalist Jukebox’ festival in 2014 –
Elina Vähälä violin Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) confirms
BBC Symphony Orchestra
in a way the Minimalist lineage that
Dalia Stasevska conductor
informs Missy Mazzoli’s musical style.
The nine-minute work, composed initially
There will be no interval
for chamber orchestra and subsequently
expanded into a version for full symphony
orchestra, is almost wholly consonant
and punctuated regularly with steadily
pattering rhythms.

At the same time, the Sinfonia also

proves just how far afield of Minimalist
convention Mazzoli’s work actually is. The
piece adheres to no key, drifting from one
tonal region to another like the celestial
motion evoked in the title. Distensions and
distortions regularly sunder consonance.
She embeds within the ensemble multiple
harmonicas, both to simulate the archaic
wheeze of the medieval hurdy-gurdy (an
early term for which was ‘sinfonia’) and
to destabilise still more any sense of
constant intonation.

Rhythmically, too, it deviates considerably

This concert is being recorded by BBC Radio 3 from the hypnotic constancy presumed in
for broadcast in Radio 3 in Concert on Wednesday formal Minimalism. Steady-beat patterns
28 February at 7.30pm. The programme will be
available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds,
arrive in bursts and depart in short order.
where you can also find podcasts and music mixes. The real motion of the piece comes in long

8
loops spinning at disparate speeds, meant composers do. It follows that as a
to evoke the celestial mechanics of orbs in composer’s international profile
common yet unequal motion. grows, so too do opportunities to write
for an ever‑broader range of artists
When you remember that the hurdy- and ensembles.
gurdy’s signature sound is produced by
strings stimulated with the circular motion Some creative partnerships, though,
of a hand crank, you begin to discern are built to last. For Mazzoli, that’s true
a formal logic within Mazzoli’s cosmic of the bond she’s formed with Jennifer
plan: wheels within wheels; music at Koh, a skilful violinist, steadfast advocate
once approachable and elusive; a friction for contemporary music and adamant
that disfigures flawless beauty, yet in champion for artists of colour and female
so doing produces a more idiosyncratic composers. The two artists initially
experience. It all adheres to a signature connected when Koh introduced Mazzoli’s
methodology consistent with the larger unaccompanied violin work Dissolve,
body of Mazzoli’s work, in whatever form O my Heart of 2010, and continued with a
it assumes. string of intimate pieces featured on Koh’s
albums Limitless (2019) and Alone Together
Programme note © Steve Smith (2021). The two continue to perform
Steve Smith is a journalist, critic and editor based together regularly as a duo.
in New York City. He has written about music for
The New York Times and The New Yorker and served
as an editor for the Boston Globe, Time Out New Naturally, it was for Koh that Mazzoli wrote
York and National Public Radio. her Violin Concerto in 2021, commissioned
by the National Symphony Orchestra
of Washington DC and the Cincinnati
Violin Concerto, ‘Procession’ (2021) Symphony and BBC Symphony orchestras.
She created the work during a pandemic-
1 Procession in a Spiral – era retreat to a Swedish island where the
2 St Vitus – film director Ingmar Bergman once lived.
3 O My Soul –
4 Bone to Bone, Blood to Blood – The web publication DC Theater Arts
5 Procession Ascending recorded what Mazzoli told the audience
that assembled for the work’s premiere:
Elina Vähälä violin ‘I was thinking a lot about music as a
healing ritual, and how we use music
At the start of her career, Missy Mazzoli to heal – for obvious reasons, given
wrote works meant chiefly for the everything that we’ve gone through
friends and colleagues who comprised and we continue to go through with the
her immediate circle, as indeed most pandemic. I became very interested in

9
medieval rituals of healing, especially These Worlds in Us (2006)
around outbreaks of the plague.’
The title These Worlds in Us comes from
The concerto, which bears the title James Tate’s poem The Lost Pilot, a
‘Procession’, consists of five sections meditation on his father’s death in the
played continuously, during which the Second World War.
soloist acts, in Mazzoli’s words, ‘as a
soothsayer, sorcerer, healer and pied This piece is dedicated to my father, who
piper-type character, leading the orchestra was a soldier during the Vietnam War. In
through five interconnected healing talking to him it occurred to me that, as
spells’. The first, ‘Procession in a Spiral’, is we grow older, we accumulate worlds of
meant to evoke medieval penitents. The intense memory within us, and that grief
second, ‘St Vitus’, honours the Sicilian is often not far from joy. I like the idea
martyr whose dancing was said to possess that music can reflect painful and blissful
healing powers. sentiments in a single note or gesture,
and sought to create a sound palette
The third section, ‘O My Soul’, is a that I hope is at once completely new
distorted version of the hymn of the same and strangely familiar to the listener.
name, suffused with gracefully descending
woodwind figures and incorporating a The theme of this work, a mournful line
pensive extended cadenza for the soloist. first played by the violins, collapses into
‘Bone to Bone, Blood to Blood’, the brittle, glissandos almost immediately after it
agitated fourth section, references the appears, giving the impression that the
Merseburg charms, a pair of 9th-century piece has been submerged underwater
German pagan incantations intended to or played on a turntable that is grinding
mend broken bones. to a halt. The melodicas (mouth organs)
played by the percussionists in the opening
The finale, ‘Procession Ascending’, opens and final gestures mimic the wheeze of
with suspenseful, murky uncertainty. a broken accordion, lending a particular
A plaintive bassoon soliloquy prefaces the vulnerability to the bookends of the work.
entry of the soloist, who gradually attains The rhythmic structures and cyclical nature
sufficient velocity to defy gravity, arcing of the piece are inspired by the unique
skywards in the concerto’s final bars. tension and logic of Balinese music, and the
march-like figures in the percussion bring
Programme note © Steve Smith to mind the militaristic inspiration for the
work as well as the relentless energy of
electronica drum beats.

Programme note © Missy Mazzoli

10
Orpheus Undone (2020) Eurydice has died and has gone to the
UK premiere Underworld, and has left Orpheus,’ she
explains in the CSO video, ‘and it’s just
1 Behold the Machine, O Death – that very small moment, stretched out
2 We of Violence, We Endure into 20 minutes.’

‘The Orpheus story has been told a Perhaps, but that’s not the entire story.
million times, in opera, in music, in What Mazzoli seeks to illustrate with
dance,’ Missy Mazzoli said in a 2022 Orpheus Undone is how, in times of trauma,
video interview shared by the Chicago time comes unstuck: sped up to a frenetic
Symphony Orchestra, where she had pace and slowed to near stasis seemingly
recently completed a three-year tenure at once. The tick-tock beat of a woodblock
as composer-in-residence. ‘The first opera is the first sound heard in the work’s
ever was a telling of the Orpheus story, opening section, ‘Behold the Machine,
and I think the second opera ever written O Death’, its steady pace implacable as
was also a telling of the Orpheus story.’ other sections of the orchestra tremble
and ooze across the pulse. The music is
That story, from Greek antiquity, centres agitated, ponderous and mysterious by
on the tragedy of a musician, poet and turns, a resourceful evocation of an
heroic adventurer who stormed the gates inexplicable state, rendered vividly with
of the Underworld in an ultimately futile unorthodox tones and techniques. Even
attempt to save his lost wife, Eurydice. the woodblock eventually becomes an
The story, with its exaltation of music unreliable timekeeper. The second section,
and themes of determination, love and half as long, is titled ‘We of Violence, We
loss, has naturally appealed to artists Endure’. (Both section titles come from
across the ages. Understandably, Mazzoli Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus.) The music is
wanted to do something unique. Her own brittle and becalmed, the effect more
Orphic journey began with writing the aftermath than resolution.
music for Orpheus Alive, an hour-long
ballet she created with choreographer Programme note © Steve Smith

Robert Binet and playwright Rosamund

Small, commissioned by the National Orpheus Undone is a massive
Ballet of Canada. orchestral piece, but I am
treating the materials in a
For Orpheus Undone, Mazzoli transformed new way – strings producing a
material from the ballet into a 16-minute scratchy tone, percussion used
stand-alone piece for orchestra. ‘This in vibrant expressive ways. Plus,
piece focuses on a very specific, small I’m experimenting with form.
moment of the Orpheus story, right when Missy Mazzoli talking to Nancy Maltz for the Chicago SO

11
CONCERT 2 M I S S Y M A Z Z O L I (born 1980)
5.00pm MILTON COURT CONCERT HALL
Vespers for Violin (2014)
Guildhall Musicians

Kryštof Kohout violin

MISSY MAZZOLI
Vespers for Violin 5’ Like several of the works in this evening’s
concert, Vespers for Violin is an example
of the ways in which Missy Mazzoli has
JESSIE MONTGOMERY
extended works conceived for a particular
Lunar Songs 7’
performer or ensemble by reconfiguring
material, sometimes radically, for
MISSY MAZZOLI another format.
Harp and Altar 10’
Breaking the Waves – ‘His name is Jan’ Here, tasked with creating a piece for
UK premiere 5’ the duo of violinist Monica Germino
A Thousand Tongues UK premiere 7’ and sound designer Frank van der Weij,
Mazzoli sampled keyboards, voices and
Breaking the Waves – ‘ Goodness! What
strings from a recording of another
powers you possess’ UK premiere 3’
recent composition, Vespers for a New
Dark Age, which she had written for
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN her electroacoustic band Victoire, plus
O frondens virga (arr. Mazzoli) percussionist Glenn Kotche and members
UK premiere 4’ of the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth.

MISSY MAZZOLI The result, expansive in effect yet

Ecstatic Science 10’ eminently portable, has become one
of Mazzoli’s signature works. Widely
Guildhall School Musicians
performed and twice recorded – by former
Richard Benjafield conductor Victoire violinist Olivia De Prato and more
recently by Peter Herresthal – Vespers for
Violin is now part of the repertoire Mazzoli
There will be no interval
herself plays in her duo with violinist
Jennifer Koh.

This concert is being recorded by BBC Radio 3

for broadcast in Radio 3 in Concert on Wednesday
28 February at 7.30pm. The programme will be
available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds,
where you can also find podcasts and music mixes.

12
JESSIE MONTGOMERY Lunar Songs was commissioned by the
(born 1981)
US performing-rights organisation ASCAP
Lunar Songs (2019) for the Leonard Bernstein Centennial in
2019. ‘The text by poet and writer J. Mae
1 Lunar Songs Barizo pays tribute to Bernstein’s iconic
2 Oh, Lenny persona, his love for New York City and his
3 Oceanic desire for human progress,’ Montgomery
stated in a composer’s note. ‘The music is
Hannah McKay soprano inspired by German art song, polyrhythmic
Elmore Quartet overlays and tone painting.’
Gabriel Maclel Rodrigues double bass

For text, see page 18

MISSY MAZZOLI
Like Mazzoli before her, Jessie
Harp and Altar (2009)
Montgomery has risen from initial
recognition as a gifted composing violinist Elmore Quartet
of enormous promise to her current perch
as one of the most in-demand creative ‘I think that Brooklyn has maybe become
artists in the United States. Born on New the music capital of the world,’ violinist
York City’s Lower East Side in 1981, she David Harrington said from the stage
grew up surrounded by art makers: her of the Prospect Park Bandshell on a
father a musician, her mother a theatre Thursday night in 2009. Harrington,
artist and storyteller, and both community founder and first violinist of the Kronos
organisers and activists. Quartet, went on to claim that you would
have to look to Vienna in the late 1700s
Montgomery initially came to notice as a to find a similar concentration of artistic
violinist, playing with the Sphinx Virtuosi, vitality. (As the critic on assignment for
the Catalyst Quartet and PUBLIQuartet, The New York Times that night, I dutifully
the last of which she co-founded. She transcribed his words.)
continues to play regularly and works
in a string duo, Big Dog Little Dog, with Whether accurate or hyperbolic,
bassist Eleonore Oppenheim, a former Harrington’s viewpoint was substantiated
member of Mazzoli’s group Victoire. As in that moment through evidence
a composer, Montgomery has had works provided by the music on the
performed by many leading US ensembles. programme – not least Harp and Altar,
In 2021 she succeeded Mazzoli as the Missy Mazzoli’s first composition for string
Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Mead quartet. According to the composer, the
Composer-in-Residence. piece is meant to honour and celebrate

13
the Brooklyn Bridge as a grand, majestic film – the opera propelled its composer
symbol for the vastness and complexity to global attention and renown. Opera
of the borough itself. News pronounced it ‘among the best 21st-
century American operas yet’.
She derived the work’s title from a Hart
Crane poem, The Bridge, which describes Commissioned by Opera Philadelphia
the landmark span as ‘harp and altar, of and the intrepid independent production
the fury fused’. The piece opens with a company Beth Morrison Projects, Breaking
sweetly soaring violin line, attended by the Waves introduced a grand new scale
fidgety accompaniment. Midway through, for Mazzoli, who until then had been
the recorded voice of singer, songwriter, associated with small groups and hybrid
pianist and composer Gabriel Kahane ensembles. Even her debut opera, Song
enters, at first juddering rhythmically, from the Uproar, had involved just one
then delivering words from Crane’s poem character, accompanied by a handful of
in an ethereal yet penetrating falsetto: vocalists and a small electroacoustic band.
‘Through the bound cable strands, the Breaking the Waves, on the other hand,
arching path upward, veering with light, requires nine principal singers, men’s
the flight of strings, taut miles of shuttling chorus and chamber orchestra.
moonlight syncopate the whispered rush,
telepathy of wires.’ As in the original film, the opera is centred
on Bess McNeill, a religious young
woman whose oil rig worker husband,
Jan, is paralysed in an offshore accident.
Breaking the Waves (2016) – Attempting to keep their amorous life
alive, Jan urges Bess to seek other lovers
‘His name is Jan’
and then report her trysts to him – with
UK premiere of this version ultimately tragic results.

Holly Brown soprano A rousing success and a world-class calling

card for Mazzoli, Breaking the Waves has
For text, see page 19 been produced around the world. Detroit
Opera will mount the work this April, with
‘Savage, heartbreaking and thoroughly performances to follow at Opera Australia
original,’ proclaimed the Wall Street Journal and Houston Grand Opera. So far, however,
critic Heidi Waleson, an operatic authority, the work remains unrecorded, which means
of Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves. Just that, apart from complete productions,
Mazzoli’s second opera – and her first to performances of selected arias are the
embrace a conventional dramatic scenario, principal means by which this drama has
adapted from Lars von Trier’s controversial reached audiences outside the opera house.

14
Of the two selections featured here, Breaking the Waves – ‘Goodness!
the first, ‘His name is Jan’, evokes the What powers you possess’
intensity of Bess’s rapturous love for her
UK premiere of this version
husband, subtly underscored with threads
of ambiguity. Steven van der Linden tenor

For text, see page 19

A Thousand Tongues (2011) In the second of the two arias from

Breaking the Waves, ‘Goodness, what
UK premiere of this version
powers you possess’ – available in
Trio Casella versions for tenor with either piano or
small ensemble – Dr Richardson, Jan’s
‘Yes, I have a thousand tongues, and doctor, addresses Bess after her husband’s
nine and ninety‑nine lie.’ Thus begins accident. In soaring proclamations, the
a brief yet potent poem by Stephen physician attempts to assure Bess that
Crane, a 19th-century American poet Jan’s return is not the result of her fervent
and novelist. Mazzoli composed the prayer but instead the result of a terrible
piece expressly for Jody Redhage, a injury; Bess, to her later misfortune,
cellist who has commissioned more misconstrues the doctor’s intent.
than 30 original works for cello, voice
and electronics from leading composers
including Mazzoli, Anna Clyne and
Ted Hearne. HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
(1098–1179), arr. Missy Mazzoli
In its original format, A Thousand O frondens virga (arr. 2020)
Tongues shows off Mazzoli’s compelling
UK premiere of this arrangement
mastery in combining acoustic and
electronic musical sources. The Rachel Roper mezzo-soprano
work has also proved especially Kosta Popović cello
amenable to practical reworkings: there
are versions for viola and electronics; For text, see page 20
violin, piano and electronics; and
piano trio with electronics, each with Missy Mazzoli arranged this psalm
optional vocals. antiphon by the 12th-century German
abbess, mystic and composer Hildegard
of Bingen for Enargeia, a mesmerising
2021 album by Canadian mezzo-soprano
Emily D’Angelo. The album included

15
another Hildegard arrangement, prepared MISSY MAZZOLI
by fellow American composer Sarah Ecstatic Science (2016)
Kirkland Snider, plus arrangements of
original works by Mazzoli, Snider and
the celebrated Icelandic composer Alex Ho flute
Hildur Guðnadóttir. Sofia Mekhonoshina clarinet
Nina Tyrell trumpet
The source of the hymn is the Violetta Suvini violin
Dendermonde Codex, a manuscript Izzy Doncaster viola
containing Hildegard’s Symphonia Gabriel Francis-Dehqani cello
harmoniae caelestium revelationum Richard Benjafield conductor
(‘Symphony of the Harmony of Heavenly
Revelations’). According to scholar and
musician Dr Beverly R. Lomer, the hymn The quirky instrumentation required
‘recalls the elemental association of the by Ecstatic Science – flute, clarinet,
divine feminine with earthly fertility’, trumpet, violin, viola and cello – is that
referring to Mary as ‘O frondens virga’ of yMusic, the group that commissioned
(O blooming branch). the 10-minute piece, and applied its title
to the album on which it was released.
Mazzoli’s arrangement puts the singer ‘yMusic has a unique mission: to work
front and centre. Her vocal lines flow on both sides of the classical/popular
gently, with sensitive counterpoint music divide without sacrificing rigour,
from a cellist and subtle, atmospheric virtuosity, charisma or style,’ reads the
electronic effects. group’s mission statement. And indeed,
yMusic has collaborated fruitfully with
an extraordinarily wide range of artists
including Paul Simon, John Legend,
Andrew Norman and Caroline Shaw.

Mazzoli’s piece is ideally matched to

its players. The ‘ecstatic’ part of the
title is instantly evident in the music’s
bubbly tone, bright colours and playfully
insouciant rhythms. The work’s charms
are abundant. Yet, according to Mazzoli’s
own programme note, there’s plenty of
‘science’ too – or perhaps, more properly,
mathematics: ‘Chord progressions are
drawn out, multiplied, condensed and

16
layered,’ Mazzoli writes. ‘Melodies are
flipped upside down and fractured into the
smallest possible element. The horizontal
becomes vertical and the vertical
stretches systematically into a twisting
melody.’ Such rigour might seem daunting
FRIDAY 8 MARCH 7.30pm
on paper but Mazzoli and her interpreters
make it all sing. Oramo conducts
Brahms
Programme notes © Steve Smith
EINOJUHANI RAUTAVAARA
Steve Smith is a journalist, critic and editor based A Requiem in Our Time
in New York City. He has written about music for
AULIS SALLINEN Mauermusik
The New York Times and The New Yorker and served
as an editor for the Boston Globe, Time Out New JOHANNES BRAHMS A German Requiem
York and National Public Radio. Anu Komsi soprano
Christian Senn baritone
BBC Symphony Chorus
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sakari Oramo conductor
Still waters run deep: Sakari Oramo and the
BBC Symphony Chorus perform Brahms’s
German Requiem plus two emotionally
charged rediscoveries from post-war Finland.

BOOK NOW
bbc.co.uk/symphonyorchestra

17
JESSIE MONTGOMERY
Lunar Songs

1 Lunar Songs to Lincoln Square, the blue

stripes on your socks,
Through the evening’s oh Lenny and all of this
floating gold an opera almost paradox-
I am listening
ical. Oh lenny, we watch
There is a cold you in your sleep, the trees
clock ticking tonight, the sea which sleeps
in my mouth

The moon doesn’t care 3 Oceanic

Your light glows
from the inside Oceanic what was lost
Ice cannot hold back the sea
In the night
a mad waltz, in All empires end; we’re empire
the morning Now. New song: disturb the peace.
a cantata
To our children you will be
both past and future: a seed.
2 Oh, Lenny
J. Mae Barizo
Oh Lenny, the sea
folds over me –
anti-nuclear, the trees
are infrared, oh Lenny

In dreams, symphonies
pour down the page, hear
the subway trains slice thru
the air, we are so near

18
MISSY MAZZOLI MISSY MAZZOLI
His name is Jan Goodness! What powers you possess

His name is Jan; you do not know him, Goodness! What powers you possess!
he’s from the rig What a deal you’ve struck with God.
His name is Jan Is he rewarding Bess for cleaning the church?
Funny name for a man; an outsider has Is Bess his wee pet?
wormed his way inside of me
Jan from the rig You pray with all your might,
He wants to marry me folded hands clenched so piously.
Holy matrimony: when two people are What powers you possess!
joined in God You pray to send Jan home,
I want to be his wife And God obliges,
Missus Jan from the rig By smiting him with a drill.
And God will be witness to our covenant; Is that what you think, Bess,
the whole community will know our love God is playing a game?
Jan’s love of me, my love of Jan Twisting the intention of your prayer
Jan is my shaggy-faced man To teach a lesson?
Jan is my strange, beautiful music; the
whole community will know his name I know you people believe a lot
His name sounds like church bells about yourselves,
God has given me a man, you do not But God wouldn’t punish you
know him For missing Jan.
A Norwegian man; a man that I’m to God wouldn’t punish Jan
love forever For your devotion.
With your permission I need to know you understand this, Bess.

Have fun! Go dancing.

Dodo says you love to dance.
Just do a little grieving for yourself.
It’s a lot to endure alone.

Goodness! What powers you possess!

What goodness, what goodness you possess.

Royce Vavrek, from his libretto for the opera

‘Breaking the Waves’

19
HILDEGARD VON BINGEN
O frondens virga

O frondens virga, O blooming branch,

In tua nobilitate stans you stand upright in your nobility,
Sicut aurora procedit: as breaks the dawn on high:
Nunc gaude et letare Rejoice now and be glad,
Et nos debiles dignare and deign to free us, frail and weakened,
A mala consuetudine liberare from the wicked habits of our age;
Atque manum tuam porrige stretch forth your hand
Ad erigendum nos. to lift us up aright.

Psalm antiphon for the Virgin English translation by Nathaniel M. Campbell

by Hildegard of Bingen

20
CONCERT 3
8.00pm BARBICAN HALL Isabelle Eberhardt (1877–1904) was
an explorer, nomad, journalist, novelist,
Song from the Uproar
passionate romantic and Sufi, and one of
the most unique and unusual women of
her era. At the age of 20, after the death
M I S S Y M A Z Z O L I (born 1980) of her mother, brother and father, she
Song from the Uproar: The Lives left her life in Switzerland for a nomadic
and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt and unfettered existence in the deserts
(2007–12) UK premiere of North Africa. She travelled extensively
(with English surtitles) 75’ through the desert on horseback,
often dressed as a man, relentlessly
Kitty Whately mezzo-soprano
BBC Singers documenting her travels through detailed
BBC Symphony Orchestra Ensemble journals. At the age of 27 Isabelle drowned
Sofi Jeannin conductor in a flash flood in the desert. Song from the
Isabelle Kettle stage director Uproar uses texts inspired by her writing
Ben Cook stage manager
to immerse the audience in the surreal
Damien Kennedy surtitles
Simon Hendry sound landscapes of Isabelle’s life; she describes
the death of her family, the thrill of her
arrival in Africa, her tentative joy at falling
There will be no interval
in love, the elation of self-discovery and
the mystery of death.

In 2004, within hours of picking up

a copy of her journals in a Boston
bookstore, I officially became obsessed
with Isabelle Eberhardt’s strange and
moving life story. Within two weeks I had
read everything she had ever written and
nearly everything written about her, but
despite my compulsive reading habits,
I still had more questions than answers.
I was struck by the universal themes of
her story – how much her struggles, her
questions, her passions mirrored those
of women throughout the 20th and 21st
This concert is being recorded by BBC Radio 3 for centuries. Isabelle made a great effort to
broadcast in The New Music Show on Saturday 2 March define herself as an independent woman
at 10.00pm. It will be available for 30 days after
broadcast via BBC Sounds, where you can also find
in extreme circumstances. She dressed as
podcasts and music mixes. a man, seeing this as the only way to move

21
freely and live the life of her choice. She The story of the 19th-century Swiss
let herself fall deeply in love but struggled adventurer Isabelle Eberhardt – leaving
to maintain her independent lifestyle. home following the deaths of her
parents for a nomadic life in North
I knew immediately that I wanted to Africa, learning Arabic and converting
create a large-scale work about Isabelle, to Islam before her death in a flash
and I knew that I wanted it to be more flood while saving her husband’s life –
of a personal response to her life than a is surely the stuff of a powerful dramatic
detailed retelling of her story. I needed opera. Missy Mazzoli’s world was rocked
to start answering my own questions, when she chanced upon a new edition
imagining how she felt, filling in the spaces of Eberhardt’s journals in a Boston
between journal entries and exploring the bookstore in 2004: ‘This book was a
universality that made her story so vibrant revelation,’ she exclaimed. ‘She was very
and relevant to me more than a century open about her poverty, her emotional
after her death. In 2007, three years after state, her sense of desperation. It
discovering Isabelle, I began work on the didn’t have the formality and the sort
libretto for Song from the Uproar: The Lives of posturing in a lot of journals of the
and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt, pulling late Victorian era; it’s shocking even
phrases and ideas from her journals and by today’s standards. For a woman to
creating singable texts that, over the just say what she felt at the time was
following year, I set to music. Working revolutionary – and actually still is.’
in response to my score, Stephen Taylor
started to create films using archival Rather than adapting Eberhardt’s journals
footage from the early 20th century, in a slavishly straightforward manner,
generating a collection of images that though, Mazzoli and librettist Royce
went beyond a mere depiction of Isabelle’s Vavrek fashioned a series of vignettes that
story to reflect the emotional themes evoke universal sensations – loss, yearning,
of each section. Early in 2009 Steve and passion – stitched together with electronic
I began our collaboration with director Gia interludes that crackle like shortwave
Forakis, who worked with us to stage the signals traversing great distances.
work and bring together all the elements
of the project. The original stage concept – grainy
photographs and videos by Stephen Taylor
I wrote this work for NOW Ensemble and and swirls of dervish motion designed
Abigail Fischer, musicians whose virtuosic by director Gia Forakis – was similarly
technique and adventurous spirit made open to interpretation. The production
them an ideal choice for what I envisioned. evoked foreign lands and vast plains of
memory economically. The score was
Introduction © Missy Mazzoli tailored to the talents of the performers

22
for whom Mazzoli was writing: Abigail
Fischer, a charismatic, alluring mezzo-
soprano, and NOW Ensemble, the house
band of New York City’s early-2000s
‘post‑classical’ revolution.

With its throbbing post-Minimalist

rhythms and growling electric guitar,
Song from the Uproar echoes its moment
of arrival. But the work also confidently
foreshadows a future in which Mazzoli
would blaze trails as a formidable operatic
creator keen to illuminate the triumphs
and challenges faced by formidable
women making their way in the world
without compromise.

Programme note © Steve Smith

23
DALIA STASEVSKA SOFI JEANNIN
CONDUCTOR CONDUCTOR

Principal Guest Conductor of the Sofi Jeannin studied conducting and

BBC Symphony Orchestra, Dalia singing at the Stockholm Royal College
Stasevska is also Chief Conductor of the of Music and the Nice Conservatoire,
Lahti Symphony Orchestra and Artistic and with Paul Spicer at the Royal
Director of the International Sibelius College of Music. She conducted her first
Festival. She made her BBC Proms debut BBC Radio 3 broadcast, the UK premiere
in 2019 and conducted the Last Night of of Helmut Lachenmann’s Consolation I,
the Proms in 2020 and the First Night in in 2006 and became Chief Conductor of
2021 and 2023. the BBC Singers in 2018. She is also Music
Director of the Maîtrise de Radio France.
Last season she undertook a six-
concert tour of Japan with the BBC SO. Highlights of her guest-conducting
Other recent engagements include career this season include Handel’s
performances with the New York and Messiah with Britten Sinfonia, Bach’s
Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras, St Matthew Passion with the Dunedin
Chicago, San Francisco and Toronto Consort, Poulenc’s Stabat mater with
Symphony orchestras, Philadelphia the BBC National Orchestra of Wales
and Minnesota orchestras, National and Unsuk Chin’s Alice in Wonderland
Symphony Orchestra (Washington DC) with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic
and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. In April she will take part in the
Orchestra. The current season includes choral music festival Tokyo Cantat. Sofi
concerts with the Cleveland Orchestra, Jeannin continues her relationship with
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the vocal ensemble Ars Nova Copenhagen
Danish National Symphony Orchestra, with three visits this season.
Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra,
Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Recent work with the BBC Singers
Berne, Cincinnati, Seattle and Sydney includes appearances at the BBC Proms
Symphony orchestras and West Australian with world premieres by Shiva Feshareki
Symphony Orchestra. and Nico Muhly in 2021, a collaboration
with the Academy of Ancient Music
This spring sees the release of Dalia and South Asian dance company
Stasevska’s debut recording, Dalia’s Akademi, Poulenc’s Figure humaine,
Mixtape with the BBC SO, featuring Fauré’s Requiem at Milton Court Concert
music by Anna Meredith, Caroline Shaw, Hall and a continuing collaboration
Andrea Tarrodi, Noriko Koide, Judith with South African cellist and vocalist
Weir and others. Abel Selaocoe.

24
RICHARD BENJAFIELD ISABELLE KETTLE
CONDUCTOR STAGE DIRECTOR

A professor at the Guildhall School Isabelle Kettle is an opera and theatre

of Music & Drama since 1995, Richard director specialising in 20th-century and
Benjafield was appointed Head of Wind, contemporary music. Staging classics
Brass and Percussion in 2009 and made and new work, she collaborates across
a Fellow in 2013. As a conductor he has many disciplines and has worked with,
directed BBC Total Immersion concerts of among others, designers Hyemi Shin and
music by Cage, Xenakis and Philip Glass. Lizzie Clachan, dramaturg Uzma Hameed
and choreographer Julia Cheng. A 2018
He is a founder member of Ensemble Bash, graduate of Columbia University’s MFA
the first established percussion quartet in Theatre Directing, led by Anne Bogart,
in the UK. As well as commissioning she is a member of the new Polyphonic
more than 40 new works, many now collective and was the 2019–21 Jette
established in the standard repertoire, Parker Young Artist Director of the Royal
since 1992 the quartet has travelled Opera, Covent Garden.
worldwide, including performances at the
BBC Proms and in Ghana and Hong Kong. Isabelle Kettle’s directing credits include
Additionally, it has worked with musicians The Turn of the Screw and Dido and Aeneas
from the Ghana Dance Ensemble and (Theatre Royal, Bath), The Seven Deadly Sins
Pan‑African Orchestra. and Mahagonny Songspiel (Royal Opera
main stage), Handel’s Susanna (Linbury
Richard Benjafield also performs Theatre), The Marriage of Figaro (Waterperry
with the Colin Currie Group and has Opera Festival), Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah
collaborated with composers including (UCOpera at the Bloomsbury Theatre),
Steve Reich, Harrison Birtwistle, Peter Dido and Aeneas (a site-specific promenade
McGarr and Dobrinka Tabakova. production at the Queille Festival,
Toulouse), Chabrier’s Une éducation
manquée (Grimeborn Festival for Pop-up
Opera at the Arcola Theatre) and Ariodante
(semi-staged for the Royal Opera).

Her theatre credits include Melis Aker’s

Manar and a workshop performance of
Colm Tóibín’s Pale Sister in New York,
Arden Creatures with Footfall Theatre and
Cockpit Theatre in London and Machinal at
the Lenfest Center for the Arts, New York.

25
HOLLY BROWN LUCIA CHOCARRO
SOPRANO DANCER

Holly Brown is a British-Pakistani Lucia Chocarro is a devising, collaborating

soprano from London. She completed her contemporary dance and physical theatre
undergraduate and master’s studies at the performer and facilitator. She trained at
Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where London Contemporary Dance School and
she is currently enrolled in the Opera has worked on a variety of projects across
School under the tutelage of John Evans the UK and internationally.
and Yvonne Kenny.
She has performed with Akram Khan
Previous operatic roles include the title- Company, Punchdrunk, Gecko Theatre,
role in Respighi’s Maria egiziaca for GSMD Agudo Dance Company, Dickson Mbi,
Opera, Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) with Jamaal Burkmar, Maxine Doyle and Sillis
Cumbria Opera Group and Orchestra Movement among others, and worked
Vox, The Queen of Shemakha (The Golden as a Special Action Artist for Wonder
Cockerel) with Orchestra Vox and Clorinda Woman and Justice League with Warner
(La Cenerentola) for British Youth Opera. Bros Productions. Lucia Chocarro is also
On the concert platform she has sung in a founding member of Feet off the Ground
various items for the London Symphony collective and a certified Yoga Alliance
Orchestra’s Discovery series, with Glasgow teacher and practitioner.
Orchestral Society in Beethoven’s Ninth
Symphony and at the Queen Charlotte’s
Ball for the London Season.

Forthcoming roles include Susana San

Juan (the world premiere of Stephen
McNeff’s A Star Next to the Moon) for
GSMD Opera and Thalie (Platée) and
Giulietta (Un giorno di regno, understudy)
for Garsington Opera.

Holly Brown is generously supported

in her studies at the Guildhall School
by the Behrens Foundation, the Walter
Hyde Memorial Prize and the Worshipful
Company of Wax Chandlers, and is a Help
Musicians Sybil Tutton Award holder.

26
KRYŠTOF KOHOUT HANNAH McKAY
VIOLIN SOPRANO

Czech violinist Kryštof Kohout studies Northern Irish soprano Hannah McKay
at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama studied Music at Durham University. She
with David Takeno. He has also worked now studies with Janice Chapman and
with Midori, Leonidas Kavakos, Anne- embarks on the Guildhall School of Music
Sophie Mutter, Pierre Amoyal and Josef & Drama’s Opera Course in September.
Špaček and attended international
courses including IMS Prussia Cove Recent concert work includes Handel’s
and Kronberg Violin Masterclasses. Messiah with St Ives Choral Society,
Haydn’s ‘Nelson’ Mass for Merchant
Having recently made his Carnegie Hall Taylors’ School and Vaughan Williams’s
debut, he regularly performs as a soloist A Sea Symphony at Durham Cathedral.
and chamber musician in Europe and the Last April she was invited to the Ludlow
USA at venues including Wigmore Hall, English Song Weekend to perform
Berlin Konzerthaus, Vienna Musikverein in the young artist masterclass with
and the Gstaad Menuhin, Plovdiv Rachel Nicholls and Iain Burnside;
International Chamber Music, Smetana previously, as a member of the Samling
Days, Schiermonnikoog and Northern Academy, she sang in masterclasses
Lights festivals. He made his debut at with Sir Thomas Allen.
the Barbican in 2022 playing Berg’s Violin
Concerto and has recently performed Recent operatic roles for GSMD Opera
Beethoven’s Concerto at the Liszt include Suzel (scenes from L’amico Fritz),
Academy, Budapest, with the Hungarian Ellen Orford (scenes from Peter Grimes)
Radio Symphony Orchestra. As a soloist and Vitellia (scenes from La clemenza di
he has also collaborated with the Pilsen Tito) and, as understudy, La Fata Azzura
Philharmonic Orchestra, Moravian (Respighi’s La bella addormentata nel
Chamber Soloists and London Classical bosco) and Signora Guidotti (Rota’s I due
Orchestra. His performances have been timidi). She is currently preparing to
broadcast on Czech Radio, Dutch Concert understudy the title-role in Suor Angelica
Radio and BBC Radio 3. for West Green House Opera in July.

Kryštof Kohout is a founding member Hannah McKay’s studies are supported

of the Fibonacci Quartet. He receives by a number of generous scholarships.
support through the Help Musicians She is the Behrens Foundation scholar
Parikian Award, Countess of Munster and Sidney Perry Foundation scholar,
Trust, Hattori Foundation, Harrison-Frank as well as being supported by a
Family Foundation and Velehrad London. private donor.

27
KOSTA POPOVIĆ RACHEL ROPER
CELLO MEZZO-SOPRANO

Montenegrin cellist Kosta Popović is Rachel Roper is currently a recipient of

currently pursuing his master’s degree in the Marianne Falk Award at the Guildhall
Music Performance with Louise Hopkins School of Music & Drama, studying on the
at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Opera Course with John Llewellyn Evans.

He studied at the International Chamber She is featured on Dave Bilbrough’s

Music Institute of the Reina Sofía School album Hidden Kingdom and sang the
of Music in Madrid with Günter Pichler and role of the Angel in the premiere of Bob
the Dutch String Quartet Academy with Chilcott’s A Christmas Oratorio (recorded
Marc Danel. Last summer he took part for BBC Radio 3). She performs around
in the Encuentro de Música y Academia the UK as a recitalist with her duo partner
de Santander with Jens Peter Maintz, Claire Habbershaw.
Stanislav Ioudenitch and Antoni Ros-
Marbà. He attended the International Rachel Roper’s operatic roles include
Summer Academy in Vienna where he Third Boy (The Magic Flute) for Bloomsbury
received mentorship from Louise Hopkins Opera, Mistress Ford (Sir John in Love)
and performed with Laura Aikin. for British Youth Opera and a chorus role
in La bohème for Nevill Holt Opera. For
For four years he was cellist of the GSMD Opera she has sung Ottavia (The
Fibonacci Quartet, which performed at Coronation of Poppaea), Jade Boucher
music festivals in the UK and abroad. The (Dead Man Walking), Berthe (Blond
quartet has broadcast on Radio 3’s In Tune Eckbert) and understudy roles in the
and Podium Witteman for Dutch television, GSMD’s New and Early Opera programme
and performed at the Schiermonnikoog at the Barbican. She recently created the
and Art Amanti Chamber Music festivals. roles of Jewish Child (Noah Max’s A Child
Recently the quartet won the 71st Royal in Striped Pyjamas) for Cockpit Opera and
Over-Seas League Music Competition. the Artist (Elif Nur Karlidag’s Reborns) at
the Barbican.
Kosta Popović is the 2023/24 London
Symphony Orchestra String Experience Concert engagements include Mozart’s
player and will make a number of ‘Coronation’ Mass and Mass in C minor,
appearances with the LSO in the coming Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, David
months. His postgraduate studies are Matthews’s Stars, Karl Jenkins’s The Armed
supported by the Ian Fleming Award and Man: A Mass for Peace, Rossini’s Petite
a Countess of Munster Musical Trust messe solennelle, Haydn’s ‘Nelson’ Mass,
Study Grant. Handel’s Messiah and Vivaldi’s Gloria.

28
ELINA VÄHÄLÄ STEVEN VAN DER LINDEN
VIOLIN TENOR

Born in the USA and raised in Finland, Steven van der Linden is a young tenor
Elina Vähälä made her orchestral debut from Utrecht, the Netherlands. He studied
with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra at with Scot Weir at the Hochschule für Musik
the age of 12 and was later chosen by ‘Hanns Eisler’ in Berlin, where he was a
Osmo Vänskä as the orchestra’s ‘Young member of Wolfram Rieger’s Liedklasse,
Master Soloist’. and with John Evans at the Guildhall
School of Music & Drama, where he is
She appears regularly with all the currently studying on the Opera Course. He
major Finnish orchestras and is a has also attended masterclasses with Nelly
guest of high-profile orchestras Miricioiu, Margreet Honig, Dame Emma
around the world, working with Kirkby, Tobias Truniger and Nicky Spence.
conductors such as Josep Caballé
Domenech, Thierry Fischer, Jakub Professional highlights include Varo
Hrůša, Carlos Kalmar, Okko Kamu, (Handel’s Arminio, understudy) for
Alexander Liebreich, Daniela Musca, the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, Lili
Michał Nesterowicz, Sakari Oramo, Boulanger’s Du fond de l’abîme at the
Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Jukka- Barbican, Aeneas (Dido and Aeneas)
Pekka Saraste, Leif Segerstam and on tour in the Netherlands and at the
Leonard Slatkin. Teatro Pérez Galdós in Gran Canaria,
Fenton (Falstaff ) for British Youth
Engagements this season include Opera, and Mozart’s Mass in C minor
concerts with the Columbus Symphony and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at
(Ohio) and Symphony Nova Scotia and in Flensburg and Eckernförde cathedrals.
Slovenia, Sweden and Finland. She also Last year he created the role of Norman
returns to the Wrocław and Tampere (Maarten Ornstein’s Papoea Opera)
Philharmonic orchestras, the Hamburg, at the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam.
Lahti and Norrköping Symphony He also presents recitals with pianist
orchestras, Lohja City Orchestra and Claire Habbershaw.
the Naantali and Seoul International
festivals. Last year she became Artistic Steven ven der Linden is supported
Director of the Naantali Festival, having by the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds,
previously been Artistic Co‑Director of VandenEnde Foundation, Countess of
the Oulu Festival. Munster Trust and Help Musicians Sybil
Tutton Opera Awards. He is a Josephine
Elina Vähälä plays a Giovanni Battista Baker trustee and a Samling Artist for
Guadagnini violin, made in 1780. the 2023–4 season.

29
KITTY WHATELY
MEZZO-SOPRANO

Kitty Whately trained at Chetham’s

School of Music in Manchester, the
Guildhall School of Music & Drama
and the Royal College of Music
International Opera School. She
was a BBC Radio 3 New Generation
Artist, 2013–15.

She has performed with all the BBC

orchestras and with many of the UK’s
leading orchestras and choruses,
and made her BBC Proms debut in
2014. Forthcoming engagements
include a recital with pianist Natalie
Burch at the Oxford Lieder Festival,
Fortune/Poppaea (The Coronation of
Poppaea) at The Grange Festival and
Marcellina (The Marriage of Figaro) at
the Verbier Festival.

Kitty Whately’s recordings include

the solo albums This Other Eden: A
Landscape of English Poetry and Song
with pianist Joseph Middleton and
Nights Not Spent Alone with Simon
Lepper, featuring Jonathan Dove’s
complete works for mezzo and piano,
including a song-cycle commissioned
by and dedicated to her. Her latest
album, Befreit: A Soul Surrendered with
Joseph Middleton, featuring songs
by Mahler, Strauss, Johanna Müller-
Hermann and Margarete Schweikert,
was released last year.

30
TRIO CASELLA ELMORE QUARTET

Violetta Suvini violin Xander Croft violin • Miles Ames violin

Gabriel Francis-Dehqani cello Inis Oírr Asano viola • Felix Hughes cello
Luke Lally-Maguire piano
Currently a Kirckman Concerts artist
Trio Casella won the Ivan Sutton Chamber and recipient of a Tunnell Trust award in
Music Competition and the St James’s 2021, the Elmore Quartet was founded
Chamber Music Competition in London last in 2017 at the Royal Northern College of
year. The trio has broadcast on BBC Radio Music. The quartet has been guided by
3 and performs regularly throughout prominent chamber musicians including
London, appearing at venues such as Donald Grant (Elias Quartet), Petr
St John’s Smith Square, Milton Court Prause (Talich Quartet), Henk Guittart
Concert Hall and Princess Alexandra Hall. (Schoenberg Quartet), David Waterman
(Endellion Quartet) and Marc Danel
(Quatuor Danel).

The group accepted the position of Studio

Quartet at the RNCM in 2020 and the
players were appointed Junior Fellows in
Chamber Music at the college from 2021
to 2023. Over the past two years the
quartet has recorded for BBC Radio 3 and
performed at venues throughout the UK
including Wigmore Hall, Conway Hall, the
Pitville Pump Room in Bath and Holywell
Music Room in Oxford.

In 2020 the quartet launched the Elmore

Chamber Music Festival, held annually
in Elmore, Gloucestershire, every
August. Currently Chamber Fellows at
the Guildhall School of Music & Drama,
the quartet has performed across the
UK and Europe over the past year.
Notable collaborations have included
performances with the Jerusalem
Quartet, the Elias Quartet and pianists
Keigo Mukawa and Victor Lim.

31
BBC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

For over 90 years the BBC Symphony In addition to its Barbican concerts,
Orchestra has been a driving force in the BBC SO makes appearances across
the British musical landscape, championing the UK and beyond and gives regular
contemporary music in its performances free concerts at its Maida Vale studios.
of newly commissioned works and giving
voice to rarely performed and neglected You can hear the vast majority of the
composers. It plays a central role in BBC SO’s performances on BBC Radio 3
the BBC Proms, performing regularly and BBC Sounds, with all concerts
throughout each season, including the available on BBC Sounds for 30 days
First and Last Nights. The BBC SO is after broadcast and several concerts
Associate Orchestra at the Barbican, including the First and Last Night of the
where it performs a distinctive annual BBC Proms currently available to watch
season of concerts. on BBC iPlayer.

Chief Conductor Sakari Oramo opened this The BBC Symphony Orchestra and
season, which features themes of voyaging Chorus – alongside the BBC Concert
and storytelling, including Stravinsky’s Orchestra, BBC Singers and BBC Proms –
The Firebird and Ravel’s Shéhérazade offer innovative education and community
and an evening of words and music with activities and take a lead role in the
author Kate Atkinson. There are world BBC Ten Pieces and BBC Young Composer
and UK premieres from Detlev Glanert, programmes, including work with schools,
Tebogo Monnakgotla, Outi Tarkiainen young people and families in East London
and Lotta Wennäkoski, and the BBC SO ahead of the BBC SO’s move in 2025 to its
takes a deep dive into the musical world new home at London’s East Bank cultural
of ‘Italian Radicals’ Luciano Berio, Luigi quarter in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic
Dallapiccola and Luigi Nono in a further Park, Stratford.
Total Immersion day in May. Performances
with the BBC Symphony Chorus include
José Maurício Nunes Garcia’s Missa di
Santa Cecília (1826).

Keep up to date with the BBC Symphony Orchestra

To find out more about upcoming events and broadcasts, and for the latest BBC SO news,
visit bbc.co.uk/symphonyorchestra.
facebook.com/BBCSO X: @BBCSO Instagram: @bbcsymphonyorchestra

32
Chief Conductor Cello Percussion Chief Producer
Sakari Oramo Timothy Hugh David Hockings Ann McKay
Tamsy Kaner Joe Cooper
Principal Guest Assistant Producer
Michael Atkinson Heledd Gwynant
Conductor Ben Warren
Jane Lindsay
Dalia Stasevska Harp
Sophie Gledhill Senior Stage Manager
Elizabeth Bass
Günter Wand Gilly McMullin Rupert Casey
Conducting Chair Chris Allen Piano
Stage Manager
Semyon Bychkov Danushka Edirisinghe Philip Moore
Michael Officer
Conductor Laureate Double Basses
Commercial, Rights
Sir Andrew Davis Nicholas Bayley 8.00pm Concert
and Business Affairs
Richard Alsop
Creative Artist Executive
Anita Langridge
in Association Double Bass Geraint Heap
Michael Clarke
Jules Buckley Enno Senft
Beverley Jones Business Accountant
Elen Pan Flute/Piccolo Nimisha Ladwa
1.30pm Concert Daniel Pailthorpe
Flutes
BBC London Orchestras
Michael Cox Clarinet/Bass Clarinet
Marketing and Learning
First Violins Tomoka Mukai Meline le Calvez
Igor Yuzefovich Leader Head of Marketing,
Piccolo Piano
Cellerina Park Publications and
Diomedes Demetriades Elizabeth Burley
Philip Brett Learning
Jenny King Oboes Electric Guitar Kate Finch
Celia Waterhouse Tom Blomfield James Woodrow
Communications
Colin Huber
Clarinets Manager
Ni Do
Peter Sparks The lists of players Jo Hawkins
James Wicks
Jonathan Parkin were correct at the
Stuart McDonald Publicist
Lulu Fuller Bass Clarinet time of going to press Freya Edgeworth
William Hillman Katie Lockhart
Marketing Manager
Cindy Foster
Bassoon Director Sarah Hirons
Kirsty Macleod
Julie Price Bill Chandler
Clare Hoffman Marketing Executives
Contrabassoon Planning Manager Jenny Barrett
Second Violins
Ruth Rosales Tom Philpott Alice White
Dawn Beazley
Rose Hinton Horns Orchestra Manager Senior Learning Project
Alice Hall Nicholas Korth Susanna Simmons Managers (job share)
Vanessa Hughes Mark Wood Lauren Creed
Danny Fajardo Jack Pilcher-May Orchestra Personnel Ellara Wakely
Rachel Samuel Paul Cott Manager
Murray Richmond Learning Project
Tammy Se Phillippa Koushk-Jalali
Managers
Victoria Hodgson Orchestras and
Trumpets Melanie Fryer
Lucica Trita Tours Assistant
Philip Cobb Laura Mitchell
Nihat Agdach Indira Sills-Toomey
Joseph Atkins Chloe Shrimpton
Dania Alzapiedi
Martin Hurrell Concerts Manager
Shelley Van Loen Assistant Learning
Trombones Marelle McCallum Project Managers
Violas
Becky Smith Tours Manager Siân Bateman
Richard Waters
Dan Jenkins Kathryn Aldersea Deborah Fether
Joshua Hayward
Nikos Zarb Bass Trombone Music Libraries Learning Trainees
Natalie Taylor Robert O’Neill Manager Dylan Barrett-Chambers
Carolyn Scott Mark Millidge
Tuba
May Dolan
Sam Elliott Orchestral Librarian
Mabon Rhyd
Anna Barsegjana Julia Simpson
Victoria Bernath Chorus Manager
Emily Frith Wesley John

33
BBC SINGERS Chief Conductor Acting Co-Director
Sofi Jeannin and Choral Manager
Rob Johnston
The BBC Singers has held a unique place Principal Guest
Conductors Acting Co-Director
at the heart of the UK’s choral scene for Bob Chilcott and Producer
almost 100 years and has collaborated with Owain Park Jonathan Manners
many of the world’s leading composers, Associate Conductor, Assistant Choral
conductors and soloists. Based at the Learning Manager
Nicholas Chalmers Eve Machin
BBC’s Maida Vale Studios, the choir records
Associate Composer Assistant Producer
music for broadcast on BBC Radio 3
Roderick Williams Jo Harris
alongside work for other network radio,
Artists in Association Tours Manager
television and commercial use. It presents Anna Lapwood Kathryn Aldersea
an annual series of concerts at Milton Abel Selaocoe
Librarian
Court Concert Hall, gives free concerts in Naomi Anderson
London and appears at major festivals. Sopranos
Eleanor Bray
Rebecca Lea
The BBC Singers champions composers Clare Lloyd-Griffiths
from all backgrounds. Recent concerts Olivia Robinson
Emma Tring
and recordings include music by Soumik
Altos
Datta, Reena Esmail, Joanna Marsh, Eleanor Minney
Cecilia McDowall, Sun Keting and Roderick Margaret Cameron
Williams, and recent collaborations have Katherine Nicholson
Ciara Hendrick
featured Laura Mvula, Clare Teal, South
Tenors
Asian dance company Akademi and world Peter Davoren
music fusion band Kabantu. Stephen Jeffes
Jonathan Maxwell‑Hyde
Tom Raskin
The BBC Singers appears annually at
Basses
the BBC Proms. The 2023 season saw
Timothy Dickinson
the group perform at the First and Charles Gibbs
Last Nights, as well as in a concert Jamie W. Hall
Edward Price
with Sir Simon Rattle, an evening with Andrew Rupp
Jon Hopkins and the BBC Symphony
Orchestra, and a concert with Chief The list of singers was
correct at the time of
Conductor Sofi Jeannin. going to press

At the heart of the BBC Singers’ work is

a wide-ranging programme of learning
activities with children and adults in
schools, music colleges, universities and
community groups.

34
GUILDHALL SCHOOL
OF MUSIC & DRAMA

Guildhall School of Music & Drama is

a vibrant international community of
musicians, actors and production artists
in the heart of the City of London.

Ranked as one of the top 10 performing

arts institutions in the world in the QS
World University Rankings 2023, as well as
the No. 1 institution in both The Guardian
University Guide music league table
and the Complete University Guide arts,
drama and music league table, the School
delivers world-class professional training
in partnership with distinguished artists,
companies and ensembles.

A global leader in creative and

professional practice, GSMD promotes
innovation, experiment and research,
receiving Gold in the Teaching Excellence
Framework in both Student Experience
and Student Outcomes. It is also one
of the UK’s leading providers of lifelong
learning in the performing arts, offering
inspiring training for children, young
people, adult learners, and creative and
business professionals.

35
CONCERTS
2023/24

Enjoy an exciting season of

concerts with the BBC Singers
and special guests at Milton
Court Concert Hall.

Clive Myrie joins us to narrate a illuminating the stories of great

modern day re-telling of the passion women who have changed the
story with music spanning nearly course of history.
1000 years in March; and Sandi
Toksvig guides us on a journey To find out more and book tickets:
through time and music in May, bbc.co.uk/singers
 LIVE IN CONCERT
Sat 25 - Sun 26 May 2024
with the LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
original score by JOHN WILLIAMS

MOTION PICTURE & ARTWORK © 1981 LUCASFILM LTD. CONCERT PERFORMED UNDER LICENSE FROM DISNEY CONCERTS. DISNEY CONCERTS UNDER LICENSE FROM LUCASFILM LTD AND PARAMOUNT PICTURES.
 S W A N T H E A T R E
S T R A T F O R D - U P O N - AV O N
21 FEBRUARY – 6 APRIL 2024

ILL
NH
VE
RA
RK
MA

We must make MUSIC.

Especially in the DARKNESS.

BOOK NOW
rsc.org.uk
New Work at the RSC is generously supported by The Drue and H.J. Heinz II Charitable Trust
Presented in association with Michael Grandage Company